Sentinels' Walk

Sentinels' Walk

Chapter Five: Lily of the Valley

* * *

Hogsmeade was empty. Despite the beautiful late spring weather, all of the shop doors were firmly closed, and as Harry walked along the main road going through the center of the small wizarding town, he saw no signs of light or activity in any of the buildings. The large front windows of the Three Broomsticks were boarded over, as if in preparation for a storm, and when he tried the doorknob he found it was locked tight. As he turned away from the tavern, he thought he glimpsed a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye, but a closer examination revealed it was only a sign swaying gently in the cool breeze.

The breeze began to pick up, becoming a chilly wind that blew strands of his hair across his face, obscuring his eyesight and tricking his mind into seeing imagined movement all around him. As the wind continued to gain strength, now tearing at his clothes, he looked around for an alley or overhang that would shelter him from the coming storm--for the clear blue sky had clouded over when the winds came, becoming an iron grey that threatened heavy rain or worse.

There! Along a cross street, he saw a small shop, its door blown open by the wind. Running towards it, he ducked inside the building just as he felt the first spatters of frigid rain on his skin, and with no small effort he managed to force the door closed against the pressure of the howling wind. The shop was dark inside, the only light coming through small windows placed high on the walls, and Harry wished he had his wand with him for illumination.

As he walked around the room, trying to find anything that he might be able to use as a light source, he felt his feet slip on a puddle of dark-colored liquid. Bending down, he touched a finger to it, then recoiled in horror as he realized the liquid carried the sickly-sweet metallic stench of drying blood.

Light! Harry thought frantically. I need to see! As if in response to his thoughts, even the dim light filtering through the slit-like windows faded and disappeared, leaving him in pitch darkness. Shuddering violently, he backed away from where he thought the puddle of blood lay on the floor until his back hit a corner. Despite the total absence of light, he had a feeling the room was shrinking around him, and soon he felt his outstretched hands brush against a wall that was slowly closing in on him.

The smell of blood returned, stronger than before, and he fought a wave of nausea as viscous liquid began to pool around his suddenly bare feet. Dimly, some part of him knew he should be terrified, but he felt his mind distance itself from his body as though viewing the events through a thick glass window. The sticky fluid crept up to the level of his ankles and then his calves, but in his detachment, he simply allowed himself to feel the physical sensations without thinking about them.

Discipline. So you do have some modicum of it after all.

Gasping, Harry sat up in his bed and wiped a sheen of sweat from his face. Slowly, the details of the room around him replaced the all too vivid memory of the dream he had been having, and he blinked in surprise. Wherever he was, it certainly wasn't his bedroom at Privet Drive, nor was it the room he had shared with Ron at Grimmauld Place last summer. It was night out, so the details of the room were shrouded in shadow, but he could tell its size was somewhere between the two, with a large window dominating one wall and various items of furniture scattered around the room--including a plush armchair right next to his bed, on which was slumped a half-asleep Professor Lupin.

"Harry?" Lupin muttered sleepily, rubbing his eyes with the back of one hand. "Are you awake? Pointless question, I know. Blame it on the fact that it's nearly midnight."

Despite the disturbing dream from which he had awoken, Harry laughed at his old professor's words. "I'm awake, Professor Lupin," he said. "Where are we, though? I don't recognize this place."

"We're at the new Order headquarters," Lupin answered as he sat up straighter in his chair. "We just finished warding it the day before yesterday, so it wasn't any trouble to collect your belongings from your relatives' house and bring you here after what happened at the Ministry."

The memory of fainting right in the middle of the Department of Heraldic Registries came back to Harry, and he winced. As if it wasn't bad enough that people thought I went around crying myself to sleep my fourth year, now I start fainting in public. Just wonderful.

"Professor Dumbledore had to go back to Hogwarts," Lupin said, cutting into Harry's thoughts, "but he wanted to assure you that your reaction this afternoon was perfectly understandable. I remember when your father woke up after receiving his Legacy, he said it felt like being run over by a dragon, so don't worry if you feel a little off-color for a while."

Harry smiled tiredly. "I still don't feel too great, Professor," he confessed, "but I had a really weird dream and I don't feel much like sleeping right now."

"A scar dream?" Lupin asked, his posture stiffening as though he had been struck by lightning. "I can contact Dumbledore right now if it was; I'm sure he would want to be informed immediately."

"No--at least, I don't think it was," Harry said. "My scar doesn't hurt at all, and it just...felt different, I guess. Visions from Voldemort feel wrong, like they don't belong in my head, but this was just a normal creepy dream." He considered mentioning the voice he thought he had heard right before waking up, but it hadn't sounded anything like Voldemort's at all, and it was probably nothing anyways.

"All right, Harry," Lupin replied, after closing his eyes for a moment. "I've been told your skill in Occlumency is more than sufficient to be able to distinguish a false dream from a normal one, even if you can't yet block them. I just wish we didn't even have to consider the possibility."

Nodding, Harry sighed. While he was grateful to Mr. Chang for teaching him Occlumency, and usually he enjoyed the time he spent in the other wizard's company, he would be much happier if he didn't have to do it at all. It's pointless to think about stuff like that, though, he told himself. Normal is for other people.

"I'll be heading off to get some sleep myself, I think," Lupin said a little while later, breaking Harry's concentration. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't wake up alone in a strange place and get worried."

Harry smiled and thanked the older wizard, who stood up and walked over to the door, stretching a little to work out the kinks in his back from sitting still for so long. Realizing he was still more than a little tired, he turned over in his bed and pulled the covers up around him as Lupin softly opened the door and stepped out, pausing to say something Harry couldn't quite hear.

* * *

Fire. Everything around him was burning, and the odor of wood smoke mingled with the acrid tang of hot metal, irritating Harry's sinuses and searing his lungs as he drew shallow breaths. He began to cough uncontrollably, stopping only when he felt a slick, wet substance coating his lips and teeth. Pulling his hand away from his mouth, he saw his palm was flecked with tiny droplets of blood, and for a moment he stared at them as though they held the key to some great mystery.

Choose.

It was the voice that had spoken during his earlier dream, and he looked around to see who was speaking. As far as his eyes could see, though, the only things visible were blazing rubble and fires that seemed to grow taller and hotter with every passing moment. The pain in his chest flared with each breath he took.

Choose now, or the choice will be made for you.

Choose what? he wondered, stumbling forward a little as flames sprouted up where he had been standing. The flames seemed to follow him, marking a trail of fire behind him as he wove an erratic path through the burning wasteland. A wisp of smoke drifting too near him brought on a fresh wave of wracking coughs, but he ignored the metallic taste of blood in his mouth and continued forward, unsure even of what he was searching for.

Resolve. Remember that the only way out is through.

For the second time that night, Harry woke up in a cold sweat. The dreams had felt more real than any he had ever had before, even the visions that came from his connection to Voldemort.

"Another dream?"

Somehow, despite what Professor Lupin had said earlier, Harry was unsurprised to see Dumbledore's form outlined against the dim light leaking through the closed curtains. For all of his flaws, the headmaster seemed determined to make up for his lack of attention towards Harry the year before. In a way, though, the calmness in Dumbledore's voice unnerved him more than it reassured him. His dreams that night had frightened him every bit as much as visions from Voldemort did, with the only saving grace being that he knew they were only dreams and not things happening in the real world.

"It was about fire," he said after a moment, somehow reluctant to give too many details. "I heard a voice, too. Do you think it has something to do with the Potter Legacy?"

"It is said that certain types of very old magic sometimes take on lives of their own," Dumbledore mused as he rubbed his beard, "becoming more than their creators ever intended, and it would not surprise me at all to learn that such is the case with your family's Legacy. This is not something with which I can help you, I am afraid. The Dumbledore line is far younger than your own, and receiving our Legacy was a swift and uneventful process--though I have had ample reason to be thankful for the knowledge passed down within it."

Harry nodded, staring down at his lap. The headmaster's explanation made sense, and it explained the voice in his dreams, but he found himself a bit frightened by the thought that a fifteen hundred year old spell had apparently taken up residence in his head. He also had a growing suspicion that the Potter Legacy contained more than a little bit of dark magic, based on his dreams so far; blood was the common element between them, and thinking of blood and magic always made him remember the night of the Third Task.

But Mum's protection...that was blood magic too, some part of his mind reminded him. The imagery in his dreams didn't have much to do with love, though, so that didn't seem like a very good comparison. He wished there was someone he could talk with about it all--at least so he could know if all Legacies were passed down by blood, like the Potters' was--but he remembered how Mr. White at the Ministry had stressed that Legacies were such private matters. Unfortunately, this looked like something he was going to have to deal with on his own.

"Harry," Dumbledore said quietly, "before I let you get back to sleep, there is one other thing I wanted to say to you. I think you should consider telling Professor Lupin the prophecy we spoke of last June. It would be good for you to be able to discuss it with someone other than me, and it would be safe to tell him. Werewolves, like most magical creatures, have an innate resistance to Legilimency and other mind-affecting spells."

And he deserves to know what Sirius died for, Harry thought, lack of sleep dulling his mind enough that the familiar stab of pain at that thought did not come. Weakly, he nodded once, then lay back to try to sleep again--hopefully without dreams this time.

* * *

A soft voice whispered insistently to Harry, seeming to come from every direction. Groaning, he turned over and tried to pull his pillow over his head, but it was dragged out of his clutching hand, forcing him to look up at the fuzzy face of someone leaning over his bed. "Dunwannawakeup," he slurred out, hoping his expression conveyed a proper sense of indignation.

Amused feminine laughter greeted the attempt. "Good morning...afternoon, whatever, to you too, Harry," the voice said. "You've been asleep for almost a whole day, though, and Mum and Professor Dumbledore both said you need to eat something."

Ginny. He would have to remember to do something unpleasant to her to express his gratitude for waking him up. Mumbling under his breath, Harry sat up in his bed and fumbled for his glasses, which she pressed into his hands after she realized what he was looking for. Just then, his stomach growled, and he realized he really was rather hungry.

"Thanks, Ginny," he said, smiling a little. "Tell your mum I'll get cleaned up and come down in a little bit."

Ginny nodded and walked out of Harry's room, shutting the door behind her. After a quick shower--fortunately, there was a bathroom attached to his room, because he didn't have the faintest clue about how this house was laid out--he dressed and, after looking around for a little bit, found the stairs. Mrs. Weasley and Ginny were waiting for him in the kitchen, along with Professor Lupin, who was looking more than a bit peaky.

"I'm sorry I slept so late," he said after greeting them. "Thanks for coming up and getting me--and thank you for staying with me last night, Professor Lupin."

Lupin laughed softly. "Don't worry about it, Harry," he said. "I find it difficult to sleep on the nights before the full moon, so it wasn't an imposition at all. Now, I believe these ladies are rather insistent on ensuring you eat, but after that, Dumbledore said you wanted to talk to me about something?"

Not trusting his voice at first, Harry simply nodded. "Yes," he said after a moment, "but in private. It's about..." Trailing off, he looked at Ginny and Mrs. Weasley, noting the matching sympathetic expressions on their faces. For a moment, he felt bad about playing on their concern for him, but it wasn't really a lie. The prophecy did have something to do with Sirius's death, and he didn't want to risk either of them--especially Ginny, who seemed to share the twins' enthusiasm for discovering other people's secrets--finding out about it.

"All right, Harry," Lupin replied, a sad smile appearing briefly on his face. "Eat up, and then we can go talk for as long as you want."

The late lunch Mrs. Weasley had prepared for him was simple, but filling. As he munched on half of a sandwich, he chatted idly with Ginny about how Ron was doing while Lupin and Mrs. Weasley talked together in low voices on the other side of the room.

"So anyways, he says the dreams have pretty much stopped, but he still wants to strap water buffalos to his feet and try out that Muggle skiing sport," Ginny said, to which Harry simply nodded and muttered something that might or might not have been an affirmative.

He had been worried initially about his best friend's condition, but a few minutes of listening to Ginny had reassured him that Ron was doing fine, and now he was trying to listen in on the adults' conversation as inconspicuously as he could manage. And you were saying something about Ginny being nosy? some amused portion of his brain pointed out.

"Wait...water buffalos...skiing?" he asked a second later, as he belatedly processed Ginny's words. Gulping at her expression, he laughed nervously. "Err...I was listening, really!"

"Of course you were," Ginny retorted, though the grin on her face detracted somewhat from her indignant tone. "Now that you're paying attention to me again, though, Ron wanted me to ask if you wanted to come visit him. He should be going home in a week or so, but the healers finally said he could have non-family visitors too."

Visiting Ron in the hospital, there because of something Harry had done--no, he most definitely did not want to do that. If all he had to go on were Ginny's words, it was easy to focus on the good part, that Ron was doing fine and would be home soon, but actually going to St. Mungo's and seeing him lying in a bed there would be a reminder he couldn't push away. Which is why I need to do it, he decided.

"Sure," he told her, "as long as Professor Dumbledore says it's okay, at least. I don't know if it's safe for me to leave here or not."

Ginny frowned, but didn't disagree with him. "I'll tell him you want to come, next time we go see him," she said, shrugging. "It's not your fault if Dumbledore won't let you go, after all."

"Thank you for the sandwiches, Mrs. Weasley. They were great!" Harry called out, when it seemed that Ginny was about to say something else. It was going to be hard enough to tell Professor Lupin about the prophecy, and he knew that if he gave himself the chance, he would much rather spend the rest of the day talking or playing games with the youngest Weasley. Ginny gave him a dirty look, but went to help her mother clean up as Lupin led Harry out of the kitchen and to a room with two comfortable couches and a solid wooden door that he locked behind them.

"Now, what did you really want to tell me? And I believe last night I asked you to call me Remus, though I'll forgive your backsliding this time," Lupin said, his eyes twinkling with mischievous humor, after he cast a quick Silencing Charm on the door and sat down.

"It really is about Sirius...well, sort of, at least," Harry added, as he settled himself on the couch across from Lupin--no, Remus, now, though he couldn't remember the older man asking Harry to call him that. Perhaps it had been after he started falling asleep again. "It's about the reason he went to the Ministry, at least."

Remus looked at him intently. "Harry, the reason Sirius went to the Ministry is sitting here in this room with me," he said. "And that isn't meant as an accusation in any way. You went because you thought he was in trouble, and he went because you were in trouble. Any other concerns were secondary, I assure you."

Not wanting to get into an argument with the older wizard, Harry frowned unhappily but didn't press the point. "I guess," he said a moment later. "This is about the reason the Order was there, then."

"The prophecy." It wasn't a question.

Harry nodded. "S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D., it said on the label. Sibyll Trelawney to Albus Dumbledore. He told me what it said--showed me in his Pensieve, actually, the night Sirius...died. I don't think I'll ever forget what it said."

"Forgive me, Harry, but is this really the sort of thing you should be telling me?" Remus asked. He looked intensely curious, but also wary, and Harry couldn't blame him.

"Professor Dumbledore suggested it, actually," he answered. "He said it would be safe to tell you. If you don't want me to tell you, I won't, but I really would like to be able to talk about it with someone. Professor Dumbledore has been really helpful this summer, but he's so busy, and--"

He was cut off by Remus's soft laughter. "Calm down, Harry," the other wizard said. "I just wanted to make sure that you had considered all the possibilities before asking. I must admit, I would very much like to hear this prophecy."

See if you think that after you've heard it, Harry thought with no small amount of bitterness. Coughing slightly to disguise his uneasiness, he began to speak. He noticed Remus looked first puzzled, then worried as he continued to listen, and the part about the "power the Dark Lord knows not" caused the older man to frown in concentration.

" '...And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives,' " Harry finished, trying not to think about the words as he said them and unable to watch Remus's reaction to them. Despite his best efforts, he had found himself pondering them far too often over the past month and a half, and the whole thing could be summed up in three words anyways: kill or die.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, Harry looked up from the table to find Remus staring out the window, a pensive look on his face. "Remus?" he asked, hating how worried his voice sounded. "Please...say something?"

"Two things, actually," Remus answered him, as his eyes focused on Harry's. "First, I have to admit I'm not entirely surprised. Lord Voldemort has tried to harm you a number of times, yet you have always managed to escape him. It doesn't take a prophecy to make one suspect that there is a deeper significance to all of that."

Harry nodded, accepting his former professor's logic. That wasn't the part that bothered him, though. "But...it says I have to kill him. I don't want to kill anyone, not even him. I--I'm afraid I might like killing him too much," he finished in a hurried whisper, unable to believe he had just spoken aloud his greatest fear since hearing the prophecy.

Ready for the inevitable expression of shock and disgust, Harry couldn't believe his ears when he heard Remus's next words, spoken in an impossibly kind voice. "Harry, Voldemort killed your father and mother. He has personally tried to kill you four times, and I can't even begin to imagine the kinds of things you must feel because of your scar's connection to his mind. Nobody would think worse of you for desiring his death, I promise.

"As for enjoying it too much, the mere fact that it worries you is a good indication that you have little to worry about, but I don't know the words to help you with this. Merlin, I wish your parents were here to talk to you. It just isn't something I have any experience with."

My parents? Harry wondered briefly, before another thought came to him. "But what about being a--"

"A werewolf?" Remus asked, his gentle smile turning bitter and sad. "It isn't the same, Harry. The wolf is a part of me, but it has its own mind, its own instincts. While the thought of harming someone during the full moon terrifies me, I know--at least on an intellectual level--that the thing that wants to kill, to tear and bite, isn't me. Maybe it would be different if it ever actually happened, but..."

"What was the second thing?" Harry asked as Remus trailed off, hoping to distract him. He didn't like the look on the other wizard's face, and he realized then that no matter how hard Remus tried to hide it, Sirius's death had deeply affected his old friend. Padfoot would never be able to run with Moony ever again, and Harry wished he had never brought up the topic, especially this close to the full moon.

Remus looked confused for a moment. "The second--oh, right," he said, some of his earlier cheer returning to his voice, though it still had a somber undertone. "Your parents left a parcel with me, just before they were placed under the Fidelius charm. The note on it said to give it to you if anything were to happen to them, but not until you 'knew the truth'. I had almost forgotten about it until now, because the note was so cryptic."

"And you think they meant the prophecy?" Harry asked. It made sense, he supposed, but there was something odd about the thought of his parents preparing for something fifteen years in advance.

"After hearing it, I can't think of anything else they might have meant," Remus said. "The parcel is in my vault at Gringotts right now, but I'll stop by Diagon Alley tomorrow to pick it up.

"And no," he added, apparently noticing the curiosity Harry knew must show on his face, "I don't have any idea what is in it. Neither of them told me, and I certainly wasn't going to open it. Whatever it is, though, I'd be willing to bet it was James's idea, so you might want to watch out when you open it."

"Why?" Harry asked, giving Remus a quizzical look. "I thought my mum was the one who was good about planning things, from what everyone has always said about her."

Remus laughed and shook his head, clearly finding a great deal of humor in Harry's words. "Oh, no," he managed, after calming down. "Lily was wonderful at doing things, but sometimes she didn't seem to have the slightest bit of sense about whether or not it was a good idea to do them in the first place. She and Sirius were quite alike in that regard, though I'm sure neither of them ever would have admitted it."

"Really?" Harry wondered aloud. "Could--do you think you could tell me about her, and my father too? I don't know why I never asked before, but..."

"Well, we haven't ever really had the chance before now," Remus said. "After your third year, I found myself wishing I had talked with you about them when I had the chance, but I couldn't ever think of a good way to broach the subject. Since we do have the time now, though, what would you like to know?"

Harry thought. There were so many things he wanted to know about his parents--everything from how they finally got together to what their favorite foods had been--but at the same time he was a little scared to ask. When he had still lived with the Dursleys in the cupboard under the stairs, sometimes he had made up involved stories about what his parents had been like, and parts of those stories had managed to stick with him even after he learned some of the truth about them. The memory in Snape's Pensieve had hurt so much because of that, he supposed, and some piece of him didn't want to lose the few childhood illusions about them that he still had.

"Can you tell me what they did?" he finally asked, after deciding that was probably a safe enough subject. "Professor Flitwick said Mum was great with Charms, and Dad must've been really good at Transfiguration because of the whole Animagus thing, but what did they do after they left Hogwarts?"

Remus's smile faltered for a moment before coming back almost as brightly as before. "I wouldn't be surprised if whatever is in the package they left has something to do with that," he said, "and it's also the reason I said I wished they could be here to talk with you about that prophecy."

I guess it's not a safe subject, Harry thought. Some of his sudden dismay must have shown on his face, because Remus held up his hands as if telling him to stop.

"Don't misunderstand," he said quietly. "They were two of my dearest friends, and after they graduated from Hogwarts they went on to excellent careers and one of the happiest marriages I've ever seen. Some of it just makes me a bit uncomfortable to talk about, even now--especially some of the things about your mother, I suppose."

My...mother? That certainly wasn't what Harry had expected to hear. How my father was really an international organized crime kingpin, maybe, or did hazardous spell testing on baby kittens or something, but why my mother?

"Your father and Sirius were both accepted as Auror candidates," Remus said, apparently ignoring Harry's confusion, "but it became obvious early on in their training that James's strength lay in strategy and planning rather than in magical combat--something that didn't surprise any of us who had known him at Hogwarts. He was always the mastermind behind our plans as Marauders, while Sirius and I were the ones who carried them out. As a result, after his training he was moved into a slightly different branch of Magical Law Enforcement, responsible for analyzing Death Eater activity and planning missions for the field Aurors.

"It wasn't an easy job, as I am sure you can imagine, and I know he had to make some hard choices at times. I tell you this because I want you to know that he would have understood the pressure you're under, Harry, and more importantly would have understood that you can't make perfect decisions every time. Don't ever think he wouldn't have been proud of you."

Harry nodded, unsure of what to say. Whatever his father had been at Hogwarts, it certainly sounded like he had grown up afterwards. It made him wonder, though, if he could really live up to the legacy of such a man. "What about my mother?" he asked, wanting to distract himself from thoughts like that.

Remus smiled for a moment, then looked sad. "Lily was a brilliant magical duelist," he said. "Better than brilliant, maybe; back then, we still had a Dueling Club at Hogwarts, and she took the top spot from fourth through seventh years. Flitwick even gave her private instruction during her last two years, and she started on the professional circuit after we graduated. She was the youngest witch ever to win the Irish championship title, but just before the English nationals, her parents were killed by Death Eaters.

"After that, she changed. She dropped off the dueling circuit and entered Hit Wizard training. For months, the only person she would talk to was your father, and he was often busy with his own training at the time. By the time she graduated from training, she wasn't the same Lily we had known at Hogwarts."

Harry felt like he had swallowed a lead weight. "What do you mean?" he almost whispered, having a distinct feeling he didn't want to know the answer to his question. He remembered how he had felt just after Sirius died, and it scared him to think how he might have acted if he had been of age and free to do magic.

Remus sighed and ran a hand over his face. "To answer your question, you need to understand a little about the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," he said. Harry could tell the older wizard was trying to put off saying something, but didn't comment on it.

"The largest branch of MLE, and the one people are most familiar with, is the Regulatory Commission. They handle things like enforcement of apparition laws and underage wizardry restrictions--minor crimes, in other words. The next is the Auror division, which is responsible for the investigation of violent crimes, as well as security for important locations or people such as the Minister of Magic. Criminal Analysis, where James worked, is nominally a part of the Aurors but operates mostly independently.

"Finally, the smallest division is the one responsible for tracking down rogue wizards--officially, at least. It has a ridiculously long and cumbersome name, so the people working there are usually just referred to as Hit Wizards. Unlike Aurors, they are not trained in investigative or judicial procedures, as they are only supposed to be called upon in cases where the subject's guilt has already been determined. Instead, they train in tracking, surveillance, ward-breaking, and doubtless any number of other quasi-legal techniques that Lily never mentioned."

Harry didn't know much of anything about the legal system in the wizarding world, but he could tell there was a lot Remus wasn't saying about the Hit Wizards. The weight in his stomach seemed to be growing heavier all the time. "There was a lot of 'officially' and 'supposedly' in that explanation, Remus," he commented, hoping he wouldn't get the answer he feared he would hear.

Instead, Remus winced. "You're right," he answered, his expression downcast. "Before the war with Voldemort, what I said would have been more or less true, but perhaps you've heard the expression 'inter arma silent leges.' It roughly means 'During war, the law is silent,' and it was certainly true then. The role of the Hit Wizards changed from dark wizard hunters to Ministry-sanctioned assassins during the first war against Voldemort, though the general public was of course unaware..."

Remus continued speaking, but Harry didn't hear any of it. Now he knew why nobody ever talked about his mother--she had been a murderer. He guessed it was supposed to be okay because she did it for the government, but it didn't change the fact that she deliberately went out and killed people. He thought of the smiling, laughing woman in the photos he had of his parents' wedding, of how everyone who had known her at Hogwarts said she had been so wonderful, and it made him want to throw up. Was that the example Dumbledore expected him to follow?

"So my father was a bullying git at Hogwarts but supposedly grew up to be a good man, and my mother was a model student who grew up to be a killer," Harry said bitterly, interrupting whatever Remus had been saying. "With parents like that, it's no wonder people believe the trash the Daily Prophet prints about me. And now I'm supposed to carry on dear old Mum's legacy, thanks to the prophecy. I wonder what--"

Harry rocked back in his chair as a stinging pain erupted from his left cheek. Stunned, he could only stare up at Remus, who was standing over him with an expression of anger on his face that Harry had only seen once before, when the usually mild-mannered professor had learned the truth about Pettigrew.

"Harry Potter, you may say whatever you like about your father's school days," Remus bit out, his mannerisms suddenly a frightening reminder of his werewolf nature. "Most of it is both true and deserved, despite how he later changed. Do not ever insult Lily in front of me again, though. You haven't the faintest idea what she went through or how it affected her, and I will not stand by and listen to her son slander her memory. Is that clear?"

Harry nodded sullenly, if only to get Remus away from him. Standing up, he slouched over to the door and flung it open, ignoring whatever the older wizard was still trying to say to him. The best thing about this new house, he decided after he found his way back upstairs and into his room, was that all the doors locked. He didn't want to see anyone at the moment, especially not any of the three people he knew were in the house with him; Remus was undoubtedly still angry with him, and both Ginny and Mrs. Weasley would try to cheer him up, something he really didn't want just then.

Part of him knew he had behaved awfully towards Remus by saying what he had and then storming off without even waiting for an explanation, but the larger part of him just wanted to sit in his room and sulk for the rest of the evening. Really, how had the other wizard thought Harry would react to finding out his mother had been an assassin? Just when he had almost come to terms with the various perspectives on the kind of person his father had been, now he found out something even worse about the one person he had never heard anyone--even Snape--say anything bad about.

As he was starting to get comfortable on his bed, he happened to glance over at the clock sitting on the end table next to him. It read 6:59, and he started to curse as he dug through his pockets to find the mini-Snitch Portkey and toss it away before it activated. While he normally enjoyed the time he spent talking with Cho during their practices together, today he had no desire at all to sit and watch her deliberately fail to do as well as he knew she could. It was a waste of time despite the pleasant company, and at the moment he didn't want anyone's company but his own. Right when his fingertips brushed against the Snitch's cool metal, though, the clock ticked over to 7:00 and he felt the Portkey activate.

* * *

More than half an hour had already passed, and Harry could almost feel his temper getting hotter with each passing minute. Cho's desultory attempts at breaking through his Occlumency shields were exactly the same as always--totally useless, and by the lack of frustration showing on her face, she had no intention of trying any harder today than she had any other time. Normally, he would have chatted with her in an attempt to cover his annoyance, but he had no desire at all to talk with her tonight.

Finally, after her sixth useless probe in a row, Harry decided he had had enough. If he had to waste his time here rather than sit in his room as he wanted to do, he could at least make sure his partner was as miserable as he himself was feeling. Ignoring the little voice in the back of his head that asked if he was sure he really wanted to do this, he sneered at Cho and asked her, "Why are you even here if you're going to be so useless?

"I need to learn Occlumency so I can fight Voldemort, and I thought you wanted to help me, or at least figure out how to use your own gifts. If all Legilimencers are as pathetic as you are, though, I don't know why I'm even bothering, since it's been almost two weeks and you haven't managed to get through my shields even once. Is Legilimency really that weak, or is it just you? Then again, I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else from you."

As he ran out of breath, he continued to glare at her, expecting her to burst into tears or run away. To his surprise, though, he saw her glare right back at him.

"You think I'm weak, Potter?" she hissed, something in her voice managing to break through Harry's anger and make him wonder if he hadn't just made a significant mistake. "I was trying not to hurt either of us, but if that isn't what you want, I would be more than happy to accommodate you."

Without any further warning, Harry felt a white-hot spike of pain effortlessly tear through his shields and gouge deep into his thoughts. Dimly, he could feel his back arching off the chair as a wave of agony swept through him, and a blizzard of memories spun through his mind's eye almost faster than he could identify them.

Dudley and his friends, standing in a circle around him as they taunted him...Uncle Vernon screaming "Freak!" at him...Marge Dursley comparing his parents to defective dogs that shouldn't have been allowed to breed...all the students cowering in the halls as he walked by, afraid of the one they believed to be the Heir of Slytherin...the Hufflepuffs, furious at him for stealing the glory of having the Hogwarts champion be one of their own...Bellatrix Lestrange, taunting him for not even being able to torture someone properly...

No! With all the strength he possessed, he fought through the blinding pain and reached out with his magic even as the memories threatened to overwhelm him. The kaleidoscopic flow began to slow, then halted altogether, and with one convulsive push he expelled Cho's probe from his mind.

Except he went too far. His magic burned through the probe, making it his own, and he gasped audibly as he felt it sink into Cho's own mind.

Dazedly stumbling out of the graveyard after Cedric's funeral, she nearly ran into a middle-aged woman--Cedric's mother, she realized belatedly. In a tear-choked whisper, she tried to offer her condolences, to say how sorry she was that he was gone, but then she made eye contact with Mrs. Diggory. 'Filthy half-blood!' Loathing so strong she could almost physically feel it. 'Worthless tainted foreign whore!' Overwhelming contempt, directed solely at her. Trying to hold back both her tears and the sudden taste of bile in the back of her throat, she turned away and nearly fled from the woman, wondering what had just happened...

She sat numbly on the wooden bench as her friends spoke among themselves. They were talking about their summers, about the vacations they had taken or the guys they had drooled over. At first, they had tried to include her, but she hadn't done anything exciting that summer--only watched Cedric be buried, and none of them wanted to be reminded of him. So, she stared down at her plate and let them talk around her, not wanting to lift her head for fear of getting another flash of pity, or concern, or annoyance that she somehow knew she hadn't been the one to feel. Perhaps the stress of Cedric's death had driven her slightly mad...

Lying on her bed in her dorm, she could feel the tears tracing wet streaks down her face as she stared out the enchanted window set into the far wall. She had been so excited barely an hour earlier, but then she had made the mistake of looking into Harry's too-green eyes as she leaned forward to kiss him. Whatever her curse, whether madness or magic, she had never hated it as much as she did then, because somehow she knew it never lied to her. Confusion. 'Beautiful...' Realization. Shadow of Cedric's ghost, standing between them. Pity. 'Why is she crying?' And nothing of love...

Sighing as she stepped past the guardian statue and into the Ravenclaw common room, she allowed herself to think about the boy she had just talked with in the library. Michael seemed nice enough, and she hadn't ever heard anything bad about him through the Hogwarts gossip chain. He hadn't struck her as being all that exciting, but after the rather messy end of her semi-relationship with Harry, she wasn't really interested in anyone exciting at the moment. And perhaps, if she kept her eyes closed, she could pretend he actually cared about her...

Some part of Harry that wasn't consumed with Cho's memories, with the feelings that coursed through him as though he had lived those moments himself, wondered why she hadn't expelled him from her mind by that point. The memories he had seen were deeply personal, and he was sure she would never have wanted anyone else to see them. The art of defending one's mind was Occlumency, though, and not Legilimency; perhaps, for all her potential strength in the latter, she was unable to push him away. With a thought, he withdrew his magic from the stolen probe and felt it dissolve, leaving him once more sitting across from her at a wooden table.

"I--Cho, I'm..." Harry trailed off as he saw the expression on Cho's face. It didn't reflect anger any more, or any of the hurt he knew she must be feeling based on the memories he had seen. Rather, her face was blank, revealing nothing, and her usually expressive eyes were cold. He struggled to find something to say to her, but after a moment, she silently shook her head, stood up, and walked out of the room, leaving him sitting alone.

What do I do now? he wondered. After their first session together, he hadn't understood what Cho meant when she had said she now knew exactly how he felt when Sirius died, but tonight had shown him. He could still feel the lingering traces of her emotions, ones that had been as strong and real as if he himself had been the one to live out those remembered moments of her life.

Should he go after her and try to apologize? Harry had only done to her what she had done to him, but at the same time, she had only done what he had been wanting her to do, in a way. He could have done without the pain, but he had felt worse before, if not by much--and he had, after all, practically dared Cho to do whatever she could to him. Despite the consequences, he felt a brief sense of satisfaction at having been proven right about how she had been holding back all this time.

And, speaking of consequences... Harry winced when he saw Mrs. Chang step into the room and sit down in the chair Cho had recently vacated. Whatever she had to say to him, it would no doubt be rather less than kind; even he, who didn't know Cho all that well, had been able to tell she was extremely upset, so he hated to think what her mother must have picked up on.

"I believe we have a problem, Harry," Mrs. Chang began unceremoniously. "Wouldn't you agree?" Her expression wasn't unfriendly, exactly, but neither was it the welcoming, slightly amused one she typically wore around him.

Harry nodded. "I...yes," he said, trying to think of how to explain to her what had happened. "I didn't mean to, but she got me so mad, and then I made her mad, and it just kind of...I don't know. And I kind of started it on purpose, too, so I'm sorry, but I'm not, if that makes any sense at all."

The older woman briefly smiled at what he figured must have sounded like incoherent babble, then said, "I don't think I am really the one you need to try to explain this to. My daughter refused to say anything to me, but I think she was more upset about what happened than angry. She's out in the courtyard now, if you wish to speak with her."

Despite how she phrased it, Harry could tell that Mrs. Chang wasn't really giving him a choice about whether or not to go talk to Cho. Besides, he had been the one to start the whole mess, so he supposed he should at least try to fix it. He nodded and stood up, then hesitated at the door when he realized he didn't actually know how to get to the courtyard. The only parts of the house he had seen so far were the entryway, this study, and the halls and rooms along the way from one to the other.

"Turn right, then take the third door on your left, Harry. It's just around the next corner," Mrs. Chang said, anticipating his question. "I would wish you luck, but I doubt you'll need it. Just talk to her."

Not knowing what to say, Harry ducked out of the study and followed her directions, soon finding himself standing outside. He was in the middle of the hollow square formed by the house, an area paved in close-fitted white flagstones that shone silver under the full moon. In the very center, he saw a slender, shadowed figure leaning up against what appeared to be a well. She was facing away from him, looking down into the well, and he coughed lightly to alert her to his presence as he walked over to her.

"Come to gloat about how you were right after all?" Cho asked, so quietly he could barely hear her. "Or did you realize you missed a few memories? I can't exactly stop you from taking them, so if that's what you're here for, just hurry up and do it."

Harry winced. If she had been angry, they could have just yelled at each other and gotten over it quickly enough, but this was uncomfortably like how she had been acting all last year--and he now knew just how bad that was. She didn't even sound upset with him any more, just apathetic about the entire situation.

"Even if I wanted to do that, I couldn't," he finally said, after choosing and discarding a number of possible responses. "You would have to start it, and I don't even know how I did what I did. That's only the second time I've ever done that, and I didn't know you couldn't stop me. I'm...sorry about that."

Cho turned to look at him, the moonlight shadowing her face and making it difficult for Harry to read her expression. "I guess I can't blame you for something you didn't know about," she said, still in that same lifeless tone of voice. "It was my fault, anyways. Father always warns me about how important it is to stay in control, and I was about as far from in control as it's possible to get."

"Err...well, that's kind of what I was hoping to do," Harry confessed. "I could tell you haven't been doing everything you could, and I wanted to see if you would try harder if I made you mad." It wasn't exactly a lie; he had thought about doing just that, even if tonight's events were due more to his leftover anger at Remus than to any plan.

That actually drew a short laugh out of her. "Given how much we've been talking over the past week, why didn't you just say something to me about it?" she asked, now sounding as though she couldn't decide whether to be amused or annoyed. "I'm not very good at fine control over my probes yet, but I would have tried varying them a little if you had asked."

Harry felt his face flush. "Oh," he replied, now feeling more than a little embarrassed at his assumptions and actions. "But how did you do it the first time, then, with the one that felt like a razor blade instead of a hammer?"

"I didn't say I couldn't do it," Cho said, then shrugged, looking unhappy. "It's hard for me to shift a probe, especially when I try to do it on purpose, but it's easier when I don't think about it. I guess I should work on that, but it's just..."

He forced himself to wait patiently as she trailed off, somehow having a feeling that she was trying to find the right words to say something important to her.

"Last year, it seemed like the only times I saw anything, it was something bad. Like the memories you saw tonight, but there were so many times," she said, her voice becoming unsteady. "Except for Marietta, my friends all thought I was 'unstable,' and then there were the other things people called me.

" 'Crying Chang,' 'the human hosepipe'--from that memory of your second year, I know you know what it's like to have everyone talking about you, but can you imagine what it's like to feel how they feel about you? For a while, I wasn't sure whether I was afraid I was going crazy, or wishing I would so I wouldn't have to think about it any more. And then Father told me why it was happening to me, so can you see why I might not want to use this so-called gift? It doesn't exactly have very happy associations for me."

"Boy-Who-Lived, remember?" Harry said, feeling the sudden urge to comfort her somehow. "People can't seem to make up their minds whether to love me or hate me, all because of something I can't even remember doing. I'm famous because my parents died and I didn't, and every time I hear that title, I think of green light and my mother screaming."

After that, they were both quiet for a while, leaning side by side against the well. From the quick glances Harry stole at her, Cho seemed, if not cheerful again, at least no longer quite so desperately unhappy as she had earlier. He was a bit surprised he had said to her what he had; while it was nothing he hadn't mentioned to Ron or Hermione before, it also wasn't something he would ever have thought of saying to anyone else. Then again, with the memories they had shared and what she had said, he supposed he couldn't think of Cho as just another casual friend any more.

"Harry?" she said, glancing over at him. "I just...thank you, for saying that. I guess I got all caught up in how my life is so messed up, but it's really not so bad, comparatively."

Despite the situation, Harry couldn't help but snicker. "So I'm self-help material now?" he teased her. "Something like, no matter how bad your life is, just look at Harry and you'll know it could get a lot worse."

"That's not what I meant!" Cho protested indignantly, though the effect was somewhat ruined when she started to giggle. "Really, though, I'm serious. And I remember what you said earlier, too, about needing to learn Occlumency so you can fight You-Know-Who. Compared to that...well, if learning how to use this gift will help you against him, I guess I'm going to have to learn."

"You don't have to," Harry said, turning his head to look straight into her eyes for the first time since they had started talking and lowering his mental shield. After the memories he had seen, he wanted her to feel that he knew just how much her offer meant, both to her and to him.

She gave him a small but genuine smile and answered, "I know, but I want to, now."

Nothing more was said by either of them after that, but the ensuing silence as they stood under the pale light of the full moon was a comfortable one. While some part of Harry was still concerned about the dreams he had had and upset over what he had found out about his mother, for the moment he was content simply to enjoy his deepening friendship with one of the last people he would have expected to become close to after last year.