Getting Harry Back

Chapter 14: Harry's Shelter

"The wholeness of what I am calling a 'whole' is essentially different from the totalization of a 'totality'. A totality can be mastered, dominated, controlled; it can be grasped and possessed…; it is absolutely complete. A whole has its own completeness, but this completeness remains open, …open to further enrichment or development, [to] different completions."
David Michael Levin
The Opening of Vision

Lit, as always, only by well-spaced torches, the subterranean Great Hall was less filled with orange light than with trembling shadows. These shadows constantly moved, and they seemed more alive, more filled with presence and certainly much larger than the silent dark-robed figures they surrounded. This predatory darkness seemed as if it were threatening to consume them.

"You feel him, too."

Red eyes pinning him, probed by Legilimency, he hesitated only a heartbeat before answering, answering a statement, not a question:

"Yes, my Lord."

"Beginning when?"

"Two days ago, my Lord. Quite suddenly in the morning."

As the red eyes and the Legilimency intensified, Snape created his false openness. He created the illusion of wholeness within an incomplete, shallower Snape-self. He withdrew his deeper self into, literally within Voldemort's presence inside of him. In this Voldemort-inside-Snape, the imposed self of the Legilimens, in here Snape hid his true self. Thus Snape exposed only what was left outside, only those parts of Snape that he wanted Voldemort to see and know.

It was effective. For after one minute, then two, Snape saw the Dark Lord's head nod:

"Yesterday morning, and you mentioned nothing until I asked?"

"My Lord, I do not know who it is. When those feelings began, I thought, perhaps, it was you testing for your own reasons, reasons which are not my place to question. Never before have I felt anyone able to do such things except you, so of course I assumed…."

Snape let the thought dangle.

Again he felt those red eyes and that Legilimency, and, of course, the enormous dark power.

Snape knew that he must allow Voldemort unimpeded access to those feelings, feelings that he knew were Potter's. And he knew that, to some extent, he must allow Voldemort access to his own, Snape's feelings awakened by the Potter feelings. For it was through feelings that the Legilimens uncovers the thoughts and memories. But Snape, of course, could not risk giving Voldemort unimpeded access to the thoughts and memories behind those feelings. There lay the difficulties, the dangers. There, too, lay the need for his Higher Occlumency. Of which he, Snape, was the only master.

He felt, inside himself, the Dark Lord's searching power, its force, determination and direction. Snape, by joining wholeheartedly, found himself, by his own hidden design, deeply attached to the Dark Lord's purpose. There, unknown and inside that purpose, Snape began his subtle art.

First, he felt his way into Voldemort's craving to know, to minutely and absolutely control. This craving sought out Snape's fears to prey upon, and sought out Snape's own cravings to twist into a direction suiting the Dark Lord. Snape quickly brewed, in his shallower mind and heart, a serviceable selection of fears, and the memories those fears stirred up: to be possessed, to be used as an emotional dumping ground by someone unknown. Snape felt the Dark Lord's satisfaction at Snape's resulting shudder, and Snape knew that he'd passed the first hurdle.

Again in the cauldron of his lesser heart and mind, Snape resurrected the old, but still useful concoction of his former cravings for belonging and power through the Dark Lord. These he mixed with his continuing loathing of all things Muggle and all things poorly done. He felt the Dark Lord's satisfaction deepen. As Voldemort explored and fed on limited-Snape's inner self, Snape felt the Dark Lord's cravings ease.

"Now," thought Snape, "the most delicate task."

He edged deeper into Voldemort's presence within him, on into Voldemort's highly sensitive and well-hidden, well-defended vulnerabilities.

Were it not for the Dark Lord's denials, his refusal to deeply know himself, Snape knew that there would be no pathways into here. And Snape knew that just as he must satisfy Voldemort's craving to control, so, too, he must satisfy the Dark Lord's need to protect, this driven by Voldemort's vulnerabilities. "Or else," he thought, "my Occlumency would itself remain highly vulnerable."

Snape felt the Dark Lord's vulnerabilities searching out and testing not Snape's weaknesses, but his powers and his powers' limits. Was he, Snape, a threat? Cravings, in their rush to feed, could be glutted on any plausible fears and other cravings. Cravings needed only their brew of thoughts and feelings, and they were satisfied. Vulnerabilities, though, were of a different, more cautious and thorough sort.

Snape's wisest, most subtle and magical powers dispersed themselves lightly throughout Voldemort's presence within him, held together as Snape only by the finest and most deceptive gossamers. They concentrated themselves in Voldemort's own most-denied vulnerabilities. This was not only the last place the Dark Lord would look, it was the place the Dark Lord was least capable of looking. Were it safe, and had Snape any concentration to spare, he would have smiled. What was left of Snape, outside the Dark Lord's presence within Snape was now completely and safely open to the most careful scrutiny.

Eventually, Snape felt the defensive tension release, signaling the Dark Lord's further satisfaction and his readiness to complete the Legilimency.

The first step of Higher Occlumency – Voldemort's cravings to control –- Snape had always thought that rather vulgar and, except for the speed and cleverness in brewing a relevant mixture of his own fears and cravings, lacking in art. The second step, this was what Snape most prided himself on. To find the disowned pathways into the Dark Lord's vulnerabilities, and then to insinuate his higher self, with all those memories and thoughts, feelings and powers – with grace and speed, and without notice – this went beyond craft and cleverness, entering the realm of beauty.

The third and final step – linking what Snape had showed of his own purposes to the Dark Lord's designs – it was like the final movement of a great symphony, a triumphal majesty he shared with the Dark Lord. But for Snape, it was a different, a sweeter triumph -- one whose taste he always savored.

Snape felt the Dark Lord testing that pseudo-Snape, the final test, and he felt an exhilaration in himself which the Dark Lord understood as Snape's subservient joy from fully joining with him, but which Snape knew as much more. Now, only now, did Snape openly allow himself his own smile of satisfaction, confident that it would be correctly misinterpreted.

"My Lord," he murmured and bowed.

As the Dark Lord withdrew his eyes and Legilimency, turning to others, Snape came fully back into himself with one deeply felt thought:

"Damn that Potter."

He was also furious with himself.

"That I, Snape – master of Occlumency, able to deceive the Dark Lord himself – that I cannot block the emotions of that callow, arrogant brat…."

With that thought came fury, not the cold Slytherin fury so useful in revenge, but that mind-clouding hot fury. He knew he couldn't afford more than a moment of this, but it was hard to control. Potter's feelings stirred up so much in Snape that he wanted buried: his own vulnerabilities and, worse, the vulnus itself, his wound.

With the wound came shames. And with those shames aroused by Potter's feelings came all manner of memories, called forth in empathy. Oh, worse than shame – empathy!

"And for Potter!"

A small part of his mind noted, dispassionately, that this increased his danger. Yes, he nodded, allowing himself the vaguest of inner smiles. He rather liked that increased danger, taking from it strength and magic.

"It's an ill wind," he thought, though he noted with some relief that the Dark Lord took Bellatrix into his inner sanctum for a private discussion. If things were normal, and his sharpened instincts noted nothing out-of-the-ordinary, they would be in there a good hour. Snape suspected the Dark Lord of taking pleasure in keeping others waiting. A bully's pleasure, and so one Snape understood and appreciated. He could savor other's bullyings, if they were done well.

"Now," he thought, "I'll have more time to explore." He drew strengths from his nimbleness and cunning, and from the superiority of his position as a spy. Snape relished his superiority, though he was always careful never to let it descend into petty confidence, let alone contempt or carelessness. An appreciation of the danger only heightened the best of his Slytherin magic.

In the absence of the Dark Lord, the other Death Eaters put on their masks for privacy, a long agreed-upon practice. As Snape fitted his mask in place, he allowed himself to withdraw most, but not all his attention from the room and into himself.

Snape had long-since learned the limitations of Occlumency, both its higher and lower forms, though he didn't believe that anyone, other than Dumbledore, fathomed Higher Occlumency. Lower Occlumency….

"A crude, brutish thing. The club of Occlumency against the club of Legilimency, and whoever hits the hardest, the fastest, the longest…." He scowled. "Power against power, no subtleties, no depth, no art."

Snape turned his mind to those Potter feelings. If he could not block this new and unexpected Potter-link, perhaps he could use it as another pathway or at least advantage with the Dark Lord who, apparently and for mystifying reasons, shared it.

"I must learn it thoroughly."

He scowled.

"And warn Albus."

* * * * * * * * * *

Today was HandBonding with the Headmaster. Harry looked forward to it, but he was a little, well, intimidated. "After all," he thought, "this is Professor Dumbledore."

So as Harry and his family climbed upstairs to the room where the Headmaster was staying, he had a case of the jitters. Mum noticed, squeezed his arm, and smiled. Harry figured that Ron noticed, too, because Ron seemed to hover around him a bit closer than usual. While part of him wished Ron wouldn't, Harry had to admit that part of him liked it.

As the family got close to Dumbledore's room, they heard music, very complex, very beautiful, very powerful and magical. "A cello," Harry thought, wondering how he knew. Harry felt himself drawn into the music and embodying it.

"Ah, welcome." Dumbledore smiled as they looked into the room. "Please, all of you, do come in." He set aside his cello and bow, and stood up.1

Harry asked, "What were you playing, sir?"

"Did you like it, Harry?"

"Yes, sir, very much."

"Then you have another magic we must explore. That music, Harry, for cello alone, is by a Muggle composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. Though when I say Muggle, I mean only that he did not cast wand-spells. He is, indeed, one of the greatest and most profound musical wizards of all times."

"Perhaps," he added with a smile, "it is not so surprising that you have this magic. Your first mother and father were both fine musicians."

"Really?" Harry said.

"Yes, indeed. James played the violin and guitar, Lily played the piano and organ, and she sang." Dumbledore chuckled. "Like me, James had a voice like a rusty saw." Everyone laughed. "We came together often to play chamber music."

Harry felt an almost-remembered pleasure.

"I have many wizard recordings of them. If you wish, I will play some for you."

"Please, sir. I'd really like that."

Dumbledore smiled. "Of course, Harry. But we can speak more after HandBonding."

Filled with seriousness, Harry looked at the old wizard: "Sir? Can I ask you three questions? I'd like to ask now, if I may, before HandBonding. I think my family would like to know, too."

Harry got a great white-bearded smile. "Of course, Harry. I cannot promise to answer them, but I shall certainly try."

Harry took a deep breath and asked, "What was that inside me? That snake?"

Old eyes saddened. "Yes, I guessed you might want to know that. You should, you are old enough. And now that you have a family…."

Dumbledore sighed deeply.

"That snake, I fear, is part of what Voldemort left in you when he gave you your scar. I suspect it is some of his power within you. Including his power for hurt and hate."

Harry wasn't surprised. He'd pretty well figured that out, but he wanted to know for sure. He felt the silence around him. He didn't turn to see how his family had reacted; he thought he'd wait until he got the answer to his second question, the question that came this morning. This question wasn't scary; it was flat-out terrifying. But he needed to know, and he needed to know now.

"Sir, does that mean that Voldemort could come out at any time and maybe hurt people around me?" Harry looked into the old man's eyes. "Like my family?"

Harry's family and his home meant more to him than everything else. Though he'd only had them two days, he was absolutely ready to give them up to protect them. Nothing, and certainly not Harry was more important to him than protecting them.

"Harry, no!" Dad turned him around and held him to his chest. "We don't care who or what is inside you, or what that means. We're your family, and we'll do whatever we need to--"

"Dad," Harry could barely speak. "Please. I have to know. We can talk about what to do later. But I have to know." He paused. "Maybe we have to know."

His father looked at Harry, and for a long time blue eyes searched green. Then he nodded. "Perhaps you're right, Harry," he said. Then he turned so they both faced the Headmaster. Harry felt his dad's grip tighten. He felt Mum and Ron put their hands on him, the rest of his family surrounding them. Inside, he felt Ron's presence grow stronger, fiercely bonding to everything that was Harry.

"Dad, everyone, maybe you should let me loose, you know, if I'm not safe--"

"You're staying right here, young man," his father declared, "while we get this question answered."

Harry saw in his dad's face and felt in his dad's holding a power, a protectiveness equaling what he had sensed in his mum and in Ron and Hermione. Harry was loved, Harry belonged, and belonged here. End of discussion.

Harry swallowed, then looked at the Headmaster.

Dumbledore had complete attention. He smiled; Harry hoped.

"I have questioned Molly thoroughly about what happened. And," his eyes twinkled, "I have other sources of information which confirm my thinking and her report. I believe most strongly that not only are you no danger to your family, you are actually safer, to yourself and to others, when your family is around you."

Dumbledore's smile deepened. "The Ancient Magic of your bonds of love and being loved, and of belonging, these hold that power in check."

Harry was so relieved he hardly noticed the cheering. He was literally pulled out of his father's arms so his whole family could have at him more thoroughly. Harry was embraced in a constantly-shifting eighteen-armed holding, complete with nine-voiced laughing.

"Sir?" Harry asked as things settled. "You mentioned Ancient Magic before, at the FirstBonding. I'm sorry, but I've never heard of it. If I can ask an extra question: What's Ancient Magic?"

"Ancient Magic." Dumbledore looked thoughtful. "That, Harry, is certainly more complex than anyone can say."

Harry looked disappointed.

"But I shall, if you insist, give it a try."

Harry smiled. "Oh, yes, please."

"Magic, Harry, does not ultimately come from a wand. Something in our times, I'm afraid, we are too apt to forget."

"Sir?"

Dumbledore smiled. "Do you remember when you were growing up, that sometimes magical things just happened? Perhaps when you had a great need or a strong feeling?"

Harry nodded.

"Well, Harry? You had no wand; you knew no spells. You didn't even know that you were a wizard or that there was any magic at all. How, then, did that magic come about?"

Harry had never considered this. He echoed the Headmaster's question: "How?" Then he realized that his wound was glowing. Harry wanted to ask the Headmaster about it but decided not to interrupt. When Dumbledore was willing to explain, which wasn't often, it was best to let him go.

"You called it to you, Harry. We know that sometimes but not always, magic comes in response to needs or purposes or feelings. That is only one aspect of Ancient Magic. We not only call Ancient Magic, it is also freely given to us. You know that, too. For in the past week, your life has been transformed by a very powerful and wandless Ancient Magic: love, love in family, love in belonging."

Harry's mum gave him a one-armed hug. He turned and smiled at her.

"There is magic in all life, and more things are alive, Harry, than we usually realize. Not only plants and animals, but mountains and rivers and the very air we breathe. Everything, Harry, everything. All things, you see, were created in magic, and in some fundamental ways, that magic permeates them: magic is part of their very fiber, indeed, their essence, their soul."

"There is also magic in Beauty, and in Good, and Courage, and in what are wrongly called the simpler or humbler virtues such as Helping Out, Loyalty, Laughter and Happiness. I must say I have often thought that, of all the houses at Hogwarts, the one most steeped Ancient Magic is not our house, Harry, not Gryffindor. Gryffindor balances the Ancient Magic of courage and daring with a strong predilection for wand-magic, or what might be called modern magic. And Ravenclaw and Slytherin, of course, are almost exclusively devoted to modern magic, each in their own distinct ways."

"In truth, Harry, Ancient Magic resides most deeply in Hufflepuff. I believe it is no accident that, traditionally, those from Hufflepuff have been best in those two bits of Ancient Magic that we still teach: Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology, though I prefer its older name, PlantLore. As best taught, they are not the control or use of living magic, nor even the learning from living magic. They are the care of, even the caring about living magic."

"How the witch or wizard approaches their subject – respectfully, caring for and about, and not simply using, let alone controlling or dominating – that is the deepest Ancient Magic. For Ancient Magic is best found neither within the wizard nor within world apart from the wizard, the object of the wizard's attention. It is always best found between the two, in how the wizard and the world relate. That, the magic of between, the magic of relating is the deepest Ancient Magic.

"These are lessons we need to learn and to apply."

Harry scrunched his forehead.

"Ancient Magic, too, was from a time when the distinction between Muggle and Wizard was not so clear. For many Muggles are as gifted in parts of Ancient Magic as any witch or wizard. That, of course, is one reason why it is so important that we remain connected to fresh blood from our Muggle brethren; they help reground us in Ancient Magic. That may be why, with some wizards, Ancient Magic is so ignored or even despised. It reminds us that we witches and wizards are not the controllers or the only partakers of magic. Ancient Magic is shared with everything."

"I have long thought we needed a course in Ancient Magic." The Headmaster turned inward. "Perhaps especially now…."

He looked back at Harry, examining him with great care, then he smiled. "We shall talk more later, Harry, if you wish. That should give you enough for now to be going on with."

So it did. The first thought that came was that his wound was Ancient Magic, and his wound glowed, "True".

"And now, Harry, your last question?"

Harry smiled with deviltry.

"May I touch your beard?"

* * * * * * * * * *

The shock was followed quickly by a chorus of "Me, too!", and everyone had their chance to touch the Headmaster's beard. Harry never remembered seeing him laugh so hard, nor his family, either.

Then, with his family surrounding them, all smiling and looking on, the BondRope joined the young wizard with the old.

Harry was stunned. Not because he felt Dumbledore so powerful, so deep inside, as deep as his mum. Harry had more-or-less expected that. What he didn't expect was its utter familiarity. Dumbledore had been inside him before. Many, many times.

Harry stared at the Headmaster. "You. It was you I felt inside, protecting me, loving me, telling me that I'd be all right, that it wasn't my fault. And taking away all those memories. You're my shelter."

He paused and frowned, feeling Dumbledore within him, and again feeling his shelter. "No, that's not quite it. You were there, yes, you're a part of that…. Guiding it? Something like that…. But…."

Harry took Dumbledore's presence within him, that powerful love, and felt even deeper into his shelter.

"Harry." He heard the Headmaster's voice. "Please go slowly and gently. I understand that you want to know this. I even understand that you need to. But you've only just recovered from--"

Suddenly Harry knew, he knew. He looked into the old man's loving and concerned face, and he whispered:

"Hagrid."

Dumbledore smiled. "Yes, Harry, it is Hagrid."

Harry went inside, back to his shelter. It felt like going to Church, to some sacred place. He stopped, feeling Dumbledore's presence beside him as well as in front of him in his shelter. But mostly Harry felt the vast power of Hagrid's love, a power as rich, as seemingly infinite as Dumbledore's. Just different, so very different.

Harry was engulfed by awe and gratitude, and by Hagrid. He let himself go into all this and felt what had kept him alive and sane during those long, dark years.

When Harry and Dumbledore returned to the room, Harry said, "You and Hagrid, you saved my life. Over and over. I don't know how to…. What I can ever…." Harry stopped, open-mouthed. His feelings had left all words far behind.

Dumbledore gently brought Harry into a hug. This, as much as anything, shocked Harry.

The old wizard spoke tenderly. "Harry, my dear, dear Harry. I know, I know; there aren't any words. And so no words are needed. All you need do, all we ever wanted was for you to come to where you are now, into safety and a family who loves you as much as we do."

Harry let himself feel, deeply and respectfully, this truth. They stayed together for a long time in a holding that was happening for the first time on the outside, but that had happened again and again on the inside, and when Harry had most needed it. While he absorbed this, Harry found himself different, as when he opened up with Ron and Hermione, as when he got his new mum and his new family. He was more whole, more complete and connected, stronger and more healed and come of age.

Slowly he let go.

Harry's mum and dad came up beside him, putting their arms around him. And he felt Ron move closer to him, inside and out. All of them sensed and were honoring his new-found self; all of them, too, were feeling, through Harry, the magic of Hagrid.

For a long time, no one spoke. Finally, Harry broke the silence:

"Sir?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"How? How did Hagrid….?"

"Hagrid, with his special blending of Giant and wizard, is more powerful in Ancient Magic than anyone I have ever known."

Dumbledore smiled. "That day he took you from the ruins of your parents' home, Hagrid bonded to you."

"Giants rarely, most often never bond, and, so, love, Harry. But when they do, that bond and their love is much stronger than almost anything we humans can experience. And different, more… elemental and all-encompassing. It is as if they bond not just as themselves, but as joined with all their ancient race. Even more, Giants are closer to, more connected with the earth. In some ways, it is as if they are not only born from their parents, but also, maybe even more from the land of their birth, each individual race of giants differing as much as their individual lands differ."

"When I said that Giants most often never bond and, therefore, love, in one important sense, I misspoke. They are always, deep in their bodies and spirits, bonded to the rocks and streams and lakes and earth from which they sprang. A most powerful Ancient Magic."

"And so when they bond with others, they always bond through their land. They leave, in the one they bond to, a piece of their earth, of themselves."

"Hagrid, being half-Giant, half-human, can bond and love in both ways, human and Giant. With you, Harry, he bonded as a Giant." The Headmaster paused, then added more softly, almost to himself, "As he bonded with me long ago."

"In a way, Harry, I would guide or organize our presence with you. But always that presence came through Hagrid's Giant-bond with us both, through the earth we now share. And always Hagrid's presence, his protectiveness, his immense power and love – Hagrid's Giant heart, as it were -- that more than anything joined with you, loomed and stood solid. And, I suspect, remained."

"Many times over those terrible years when you were lost to us," Dumbledore said, "he would come to me saying, 'Harry needs us, sir. We must go to him.' We would sit and Giant-bond, and then he would… even now, after much thought, I still do not know quite how to say this. He would 'take us' to you, as if through the earth. Even when Hagrid and I were not in the same place, when Hagrid sensed your need he would come to me, inside, and take me with him. He never goes alone, but he is the one called by you, and he is most of who comes and stays."

Dumbledore paused while Harry went inside and over his memories, finding this true. He looked back up at Dumbledore, who continued.

"Once there with you, we would try to reassure you, to love you, and as best we could to shelter and protect you. We knew only your feelings, not what caused them, not what happened to you."

The Headmaster looked as sad as when he'd apologized. "Hagrid, too, wanted to take you away from the Dursleys. Only his loyalty to me prevented it, and that just barely." He hung his head, unable to look at Harry. "I told myself that you were an unusually sensitive child... and so those feelings were... normal." Dumbledore said that last word with self-loathing.

In the silence that followed, Harry took the old wizard's hand, saying, "Please, sir?"

Dumbledore forced himself to look at him.

"I know you were wrong, very wrong. And I know how you feel about that."

"Oh, Harry, if only I could--"

"Please? Let me speak?"

The Headmaster swallowed and said, "Of course."

"How I feel?" Harry looked away. "I have many different feelings, many different thoughts. And I don't expect to sort them out any time soon. Maybe not ever." He looked back at Dumbledore. "But what I know now is as important as all that."

He smiled. "I know you cared. I wasn't just something you shelved, something you might need later on to fight Voldemort. You really cared about me. And you tried, too. You didn't just forget about me and leave me on my own."

"But Harry--"

"No! Let me finish! Hear me out!"

Dumbledore looked carefully at Harry, then nodded.

"Hear me. Please. All those years, I thought that no one cared, and that I wasn't worth caring about or bothering with. An now I know, even then, I was wrong." Harry's smile returned. "I was wrong. You did care, you and Hagrid. And you kept trying, again and again, the whole time. Yes, I know you should have done differently. And I know that doesn't make up for it. But don't you see?

"I am not sure, Harry. See what?"

"My shelter wasn't just some feeling I had. It was real because it was you, you and Hagrid. So I was worth it. Because I was worth it to you. To you and to Hagrid." He paused, then whispered, "And I can't begin to tell you all that means to me."

Harry stopped, overwhelmed. In saying it out loud, and to this man who had cared -- it became so much more clear, so much more real, and that reality, his reality, the truth of who he was.... "It's so... amazing!" he thought. Harry let himself become wonderfully swallowed up in the everything of that amazing. At first he could only feel. Then, slowly, he began to think. Finally he reached a decision and turned to his parents:

"Mum? Dad? …I know this first week is supposed to be only for us, but…." Harry had trouble continuing. Again he didn't want to hurt them or do anything they thought was wrong. But…. He could only finish his plea with his eyes.

Arthur Weasley looked at the Headmaster and said in a tone that brooked no argument, "We owe Hagrid for the life of our son. It's a debt we can never repay. He must be here, now at this time, with us. He belongs in our family."

Dumbledore smiled. "Then I shall send for him at once. I know he would like this. Very much." Dumbledore softened. "Very, very much. Indeed, more than anything."

"That," Harry's mum replied, "is the least thing we can do."

And so an hour later, when a very large figure suddenly Portkeyed into the yard of the Burrow, he found himself instantly set upon by a smallish, wordless-but-noisy figure who somehow managed to be all over him at once. He was also surrounded almost as quickly by a sea of red-hair and love, perhaps nearly as strong as Giant-love. The oldest, tallest and baldest patch of red-hair said, "We are honored and grateful beyond words. Welcome, Hagrid, to your home. And to your family."

Hagrid, being half-Giant, did everything largely. Including crying.

* * * * * * * * * *

"…we must not forget that we are… beholden to others; that, without them, we should not, in an important sense, be 'seeing'. It is consequently in the gaze of compassion, the gaze touched and moved by its sense of being with others, that vision shows and enacts its beholdeness."
David Michael Levin
The Opening of Vision

"Oh, the joy of air-bathing, the pure joy of it."

"Agreed. So skin-cleansing and eye-stretching. Clearly what the Mother Wind intended for all Her creatures. And best of all, magic-preening!"

Stoat's Hill smiled at them, and suddenly they were both awash and reveling in its magic. For several glorious minutes, the two friends twisted and turned, exposing everything down to their souls to the warmth and light and music and dance, to the celebration of All Magic and being magical.

The white friend mentally sighed. "I pity those poor, dull-sighted earth-clompers. Don't you, Fawkes?"

"Most surely, Hedwig, old girl," he mind-spoke back. "Never more so than when feeling the air and magic through my feathers. However do they manage?"

"That's why they're so attached to their tawdry substitutes," she mind-replied, "those sad wands and brooms."

"I suppose so," Fawkes answered, "I suppose so."

He went into a flat dive, followed by Hedwig. Both entered a thermal updraft and, with broad spiral gliding, climbed higher and higher. As they topped out of the invisible warm-air pillar, Fawkes noted, "Hedwig, before I met you, I didn't think owls knew thermal gliding."

"Normal owls don't, Fawkes," she smiled. "We magical owls need our extras. With deliveries, some at such long distances, if we didn't know how to ride thermals and airwaves, normal and magical, we'd never make it. We can see them, you know, just as well as you."

"Ah, perhaps not just as well," the red-and-gold bird chuckled.

"Now, now." Hedwig clicked her beak. "Don't be common, be civilized, be avian. Let's not get that started."

"So long as you're a lady," Fawkes return-laughed, recalling their endless debates on who was better magic-sighted. Fawkes insisted that with his 360 degree, full-circle vision, he had the ultimate, the grand overview. He saw what magic truly was, did and meant. Hedwig, equally firm, insisted that her keen depth perception, to Magic's innermost core saw Magic's true foundations. Both knew they'd never resolve it. And had they resolved it, they would have been disappointed.

"Shall we co-see?" he asked.

"Please. You first?" she offered.

Fawkes let his sight-magic be drawn into Hedwig, and suddenly he was seeing into the magical centers of trees, of flowers and insects, of grasses, stones and hills. He could see their colorful soul-jewels, their sparkling essences of who and what they most deeply were. Their beauty had a sparkling purity and freshness, heart-gladdening and magic-enriching, even magic-engendering.

"Harry needs to see this," Hedwig mind-shared, "to understand the deep inner workings of what he's facing, both inside himself and all around him. Without that, what chance does he have? He's only a boy, and his greatest strength is not even his. He needs to recognize what's there waiting for him, the good and the evil. He needs to know, too, the enormous effect he has and can have. It will strengthen him and give him hope."

"Above all," Fawkes said, "he needs to know what we know from the start, that joining creates magic, that is when joined heart-to-heart."

"Precisely," Hedwig agreed.

Fawkes went back to seeing through Hedwig. Each soul-jewel was surrounded by a colorful glow-haze. That glow-haze joined with other glow-hazes, both nearby and far away. Each soul-jewel responded joyfully to Fawkes's heart-joy, to his own soul-jewel. And with this joining, Fawkes saw all the good magics around him spring more-to-life.

A few soul-jewels, however, seemed to entrap his eyes, his magic. They pulled him in with an addictive snare. Their glows were different, more metallic, with a darker cast and a sharper edge. These glows didn't link, but either withdrew and hid, or blazed and overshadowed the magics around them. The overshadowed magics were then consumed and disappeared. Fawkes felt no joining from these darker jewels. He felt only a will to take and control, a passion to dominate that was searching, always searching, appraising strengths and vulnerabilities.

With these dark soul-jewels, Fawkes felt his magic, and Hedwig's, instinctively withdraw, becoming wary and sad. As always when this happened, the two friends sought out each other and their bonding, this to replenish their spirits and magics.

Hedwig shifted her vision, and now Fawkes could see further into the soul-jewels, down to atom-sparkles of life's magic. Within each soul-jewel, light or dark, there played out the same light and dark struggles -- togethering or controlling, freely joining or striving to dominate, creating or destroying.

As the two friends watched and cared, they entered these soul-atom struggles. Through their far-sightedness and through their love, they saw in each soul-atom its good potentials. By seeing this, they helped that soul-atom to change, to strengthen, to build a new life, which they knew was always possible. As the two friends bonded with what was good, they felt-saw bits of their own essences, of their own soul-atoms become part of those new soul-atom lives.

Then Hedwig shifted her sight again, upward to the heavens, and Fawkes saw the air filled with magical atom-stars, each one sparkling, dancing, flowing.

Fawkes pulled himself back. "Such a treat, Hedwig! You almost convince me –"

"Yes!"

"I said, 'almost,'" he mind-smiled.

Fawkes entered a higher and this time magic thermal. Hedwig following him, both gliding into the thinnest air. At the top, he offered, "You, now?"

Hedwig let her sight-magic be drawn into the phoenix, and she saw the world all around, all at once, to all horizons.

"Ah," she mind-sighed. "Breathtaking." She more than felt-saw. In awe, she felt-beheld the great flows and clusters of Magic.

She was triply beheld. First, she beheld the majesty of swirling, surging colors. Second, she felt herself beheld by these displays of Magic which surrounded her. She felt them holding her in their midst. Third, she beheld her own beholdenness to their power, which, she could feel, upheld her own living magic, giving it direction and meaning.

Hedwig now noticed another, Black Magic, an Anti-Magic with its own flows and clusters, stunning, even brazen in their colorlessness. Some of the Dark Magics opposed, strove to dominate those mighty swirls of light and color. Others were more subtle, deviously seeking to insinuate, to manipulate, to control.

As she envisioned these Magics, both the colorful and the dark, Hedwig felt her eyes drawn toward their sources on all horizons, each horizon implying depths and powers which were beyond what even Hedwig and Fawkes could see.

For a long time, Hedwig let herself go into this great drama surrounding her. With reluctance, she withdrew her eye-magic away from Fawkes and back to her own.

"He needs to see this, too," she said quietly.

"It's nearly time, you know," Fawkes mind-noted, "time for you, and, yes, perhaps time for us to sight-share with him."

"I've felt it's past time, as I've long told you," Hedwig grumped. "We should have started much earlier. And not just me. For that matter, not just the two of us."

"You do love him."

"He's so charming in his simple way. He actually thinks Hagrid chose me for him."

Fawkes mind-smiled. "Yes, Hedwig, they're almost all like that."

"And he sees so little of what he's facing and what he has all around him. Though he can feel it some."

"Yes," Fawkes mind-agreed again. "They're almost all like that, too."

"And you must feel the power of his hurt calling. Even now, he's still so dreadfully alone." Hedwig let her sadness escape into those passing colorful, magical flows. She watched as her sadness became absorbed into that larger magic, into its soul. "It's been so hard not to join with him."

"Ah, Hedwig, like all one-lived creatures, you're so impulsive, you so under-appreciate the importance, the necessity of proper timing."

"Another of our debates, Fawkes. I'm as long-lived as you. I just don't live all my lives here; I move on."

"Ah, but the memories—"

"Ah, but the excitement, the mysteries—"

"But my dear lady, you don't know—"

"And you, sir, don't know half of what you think you know."

They both laughed, and let themselves go into a dive to the Burrow. They felt the Burrow's heart leap and were, once again, preening in magic.

Settling onto their ground-perches, Hedwig rotated her head to face her companion.

"So much is converging here on the Burrow, and on Godric's Hollow."

"And on Hogwarts," Fawkes noted. "Even more on Hogwarts."

"Yes, I saw," Hedwig agreed. She swiveled her head forward.

The two quietly adjusted themselves for greater ease, and began the slow process of taking in all they had seen, thought and felt.

"Most of all," Hedwig mind-sent, "it's converging on him." She felt a rush of protectiveness and sadness. "And," she added, "within him."

"We must both keep a careful eye on him," Fawkes said.

Hedwig rotated her head again to Fawkes. "I think…." She stopped. Her feathers felt twitchy from the combination of skin-excitement and skin-uneasiness that her decision brought. "It's time to nest."

A long, thoughtful silence was woven between the friends.

"So I have also been thinking, Hedwig," Fawkes finally, reluctantly admitted.

The two shared and explored this vision.

"To behold is to be held by what one sees…. In beholding, we are beholden."
David Michael Levin
The Opening of Vision