Two to Obey

Chapter 14: Responsibility

The summons from Dumbledore came as a bit of a surprise to Severus - or at least the timing of it did. The group being sent to scout the possible location of Armageddon should have just left, by his estimation. Laying down the book he'd been reading, Severus opened the Potions cabinet and climbed up to the Headmaster's office. Dumbledore was not at his desk. Instead, he was studying the delicate instruments that sat on a small table in the corner, which were in a frenzy of activity. Frowning, he waved a hand over the instruments, but did not turn around.

"Have they gone?" Severus asked.

"Yes, just a moment ago." Finally turning, Dumbledore gestured to the chair in front of his desk. "Sit, please." The Headmaster made no move to do the same.

Severus complied, a thousand questions burning through his brain, none of which he felt comfortable asking. Frankly, he feared the possible answers he might get.

"Fox voiced her concerns to you, I gather?" Dumbledore asked, folding his hands together behind his back.

"Yes."

The Headmaster nodded, reaching up a hand to adjust his glasses. "I wish I could say that I did not imagine something like this happening. I had hoped that the other Guardians would see reason. I had hoped that they'd realize what they were doing before it was too late. And unfortunately, I let that hope cloud my judgment. I saw this coming, and I should have acted earlier. I apologize for that."

Severus blinked. "Why should you apologize to me, sir?"

Dumbledore smiled faintly. "I suppose I needn't, but I would like to. A great many people have faith in me, Severus, and I like to believe that their faith is justified. But yours was the hardest earned, which makes it all the more valuable to me. I regret having betrayed it. And I apologize."

It was unnerving for the Headmaster to speak to him in such a manner, and Severus felt the awakenings of dread. "How have you betrayed my faith?"

"By making you believe that I could stop this," Dumbledore said heavily. "At this point, I am not entirely certain that I can. But I will try, Severus. I assure you of that."

"Try to stop what?" The words were hardly a whisper. He hadn't breath left in his body for anything else.

"Try to stop The Guardians from immanentizing the eschaton," the Headmaster said, his gaze direct and unflinching. "I have given them the benefit of the doubt for far too long. If Fox and the others return with confirmation of my beliefs, I will have to take matters into my own hands. I will have to leave Hogwarts and face them."

Though his mind was whirling, Severus forced himself to maintain a calm façade. It was an old trick, and strangely comforting. The world could be falling to pieces around his ears, but at least he could appear as though he found the entire thing extremely boring.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked.

"Look after things," Dumbledore said simply. "Harry and the five children. You have access to all of them, and I would trust nobody else with this task. There are forces at work here..." he trailed off, shaking his head, suddenly appearing weary and worn, and old man tired of life. It was a decidedly unappealing image. Severus could stomach the idea of Fox having human traits, human faults. With Dumbledore, he simply couldn't. It was too disturbing. "I must be honest with you, Severus. I am at a loss. I have never been at such a loss. It was hard enough to stop Grindelwald, one Guardian standing alone. If we are truly split, I'm afraid that trying to stop them may cause nearly as much damage as letting them go through with their plans."

Feeling his hands clenching together in his lap, Severus forced them apart. They promptly latched onto his knees, his fingers digging into his skin.

"Sir, what is..." He took a deep breath and let it out. "What are we facing?"

"Exactly as they say," Dumbledore murmured, looking away, his expression distant. "The end of the world as we know it. And it may very well be inevitable."

*******

"Play nice?" Goyle asked, screwing up his face in thought. It wasn't a pretty picture. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Draco tossed around the idea of giving them a list of rules, then decided that it could all be summed up in a fairly simple manner. "Act like a Gryffindor."

This statement was meant with groans and protests from the Slytherins he'd gathered together for the purpose of preparing them for Potter's defense club meeting. It wasn't all of the Slytherins - they wouldn't all fit in his room, for one thing - but the main ringleaders. Belatedly, he realized that they were all the children of Death Eaters.

Bred from birth to claw their way to the top no matter what. And they had, like the good little brainwashed ass-kissers they were. Which made him King of the Mindless Toadies.

Draco sighed. "Listen, I don't like it any more than you all do, but it's the way things are going to have to work if we're going to infiltrate Potter's organization."

"Why do we have to, anyway?" Pansy asked, tossing her gleaming hair behind her shoulder and adjusting her crossed arms a bit to better display her impressive cleavage.

Draco quickly snapped his eyes away from it. Thank Merlin he had veela in-laws and was immune to such things. Generally.

"They managed to hold their own at the Department of Mysteries, and that was a year and a half ago," he said, managing to focus on the issue at hand. "And since then, they've been learning all kinds of things. Chances are that we'll have to face them again before this whole thing is over, and I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be bested by them again like we were in Umbridge's office. If Potter's dumb enough to let us in so we can learn what he knows, I say we take the opportunity and do it."

And by saying so, he meant: this is what we're all doing, so either shut the hell up and do as you're told or stand up and challenge my authority.

Though they all grumbled a bit, nobody did actually challenge his authority, and he wasn't terribly surprised. Slytherins weren't much for direct confrontation. They generally preferred to stab people in the back when they weren't paying attention.

He did have some qualms about educating future Death Eaters about the tactics of Potter's group, but if the kid was going to open his club up to anyone, they'd eventually figure them out anyway. And maybe a healthy dose of Gryffindorism would do them some good. Right down to Pansy's double-Ds, they were all dedicated to the Dark Lord, but it was largely for the same reason he had been once: the Dark Lord was the only option. Though Draco disliked thinking of his fellow Death Eater offspring as actual people, he fully understood the situation they were in, and...well, he'd been there. Was still there, really. He felt a bit responsible for them, he supposed. He prefer not to see them all end up in Azkaban. Maybe they'd figure a way out, learn to think for themselves. Fat chance, he thought, but it was the best they'd get. He wasn't their bleeding nanny, for Merlin's sake.

"Then we're agreed," he decided. "Get out."

They shuffled off, muttering amongst themselves. Pansy sent him an inviting look that he pointedly ignored. The door shut and he sank down on his bed, running an absentminded hand through his hair. He should really cut it, but he couldn't quite bring himself to. The Malfoy had always had long hair, and that's what he was now that Lucius was dead. The Malfoy. Still, it was strange to feel it curling against his collar, and the way it constantly fell into his eyes was annoying. If he grew it long enough, he'd be indistinguishable from his father.

Something that - until recently - he'd actively aspired to.

It was a very bad sign when mulling over his hair couldn't block out his other worries. Especially when the ones at the forefront were fairly stupid worries. It was not his job to look out for his underlings. He had his bloody hands full looking out for himself. But all the same, they were loyal to him - or as loyal as Slytherins got - and it was hard to discount that. He hadn't given them much thought last year. He'd just been trying to find a way out of the mess he was in. But now...well, he wasn't sure.

Death Eaters had very effective ways of punishing traitors, and even more effective ways of assuring loyalty. A year ago, Draco never would have dreamed of crossing his father, not just because he looked up to him, but because if he had and Lucius had found out, Merlin couldn't have even conceived the sort of things that would've happened to him.

Knowing that, and knowing that his fellow Slytherins faced the same situations, it was tough to put them into a situation where they might have to...

Draco sat up sharply, his mouth dropping open. Why the fuck did he care so much? Why the fuck did he care at all? He hadn't the faintest idea what a moral quandary felt like, but he had the nastiest suspicion that he was in the throes of one.

"I'm not speaking to another Gryffindor for at least a week," he vowed.

*******

"Do you see anything?" Balder asked.

Vivian finished scanning the area with her modified omnioculars. "No," she sighed, putting them down on the ground between them. Balder immediately picked them up and looked over the lush, green valley below them. It was uninhabited by Muggles and surrounded on both sides by gently rolling hills, one of which they were sitting atop. It was also the site of the Malaclyptic Nexus. "Do you think I missed something?" she asked, unable to keep herself from sounding piqued at the notion.

"It doesn't hurt to have both of us look," he answered, a bite in his tone.

"No, of course not," she answered.

He finished his survey and put the omnioculars down. "I didn't mean it as an insult."

Vivian snorted. Ever since they'd portkeyed from Dumbledore's office, he'd been an all-around pain in the ass, second-guessing every little thing she did or said.

"Oh, sweet Merlin," he moaned. "I wanted to make sure, okay? How can I be getting this much resistance from the girl who used to have at least three people proof-read every single homework assignment she turned in?"

"It's not what you're doing," she told him. "It's the way you're doing it."

"Mind if I have a look?" Mad-Eye's raspy voice asked from behind them. "Or will I get my remaining eye scratched out just for asking?"

Clenching his teeth, Balder handed the omnioculars back to him.

"Funny that you're the one getting angry," he said, "considering I'm the one who should be, by all rights."

"I work for the Order," Vivian said stoutly. "That's where my loyalty lies. It was hardly my decision not to tell you anything. It was Dumbledore's. I couldn't tell you anything."

"Right," he said, drawing out the syllable so long that it grated on her nerves. "Blind, dumb loyalty. That's what Ravenclaws are bred to value above all else."

"Yes, I'm the closed-minded one," she snarled at him. "You can't even imagine that dark creatures might actually be human beings."

"Oh, I think that's a bit rash," he said breezily. "If one shows up, I've half a mind to marry it like you did, just to shut you up. See anything, Moody? Sexy vampire?"

Vivian dug her fingernails into her palms to keep herself from clawing Balder Astragand's perfect, handsome face to shreds. Merlin, how on earth had she ever been attracted to him? How had she ever thought him a nice guy?

"Nope. There's nothing, as far as I can tell."

"Fox?" Vivian asked, tamping down her anger. "What have you all got?"

"Shitloads," Gautham said, looking up from the knob-ridden gadget around his neck to peer out over the apparently desolated valley. "There's activity in there. I know there is. I can feel it. It's messing up the sensors, though. They don't show anything."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Balder asked.

"Even in Muggle-inhabited areas, we'd find activity of some sort," Gautham said, fiddling with a few of the knobs. "But there's nothing. Dead silence. Emptier than an Englishman's head." Glancing back at Balder, he faked embarrassment. "Oh, sorry."

"Gandhi would be proud," Amina said sarcastically, then turned to them. "I don't even get any readings back, and that's never happened before. It's like they're absorbed."

Fox stepped into the circle, her face illuminated by the wandlight, falling into harsh lines. "Not absorbed," she said, throwing an accusatory glance at Balder. "Detected. I thought your shielding device would cover us and any magic we used."

"It should," Balder said, standing. "In any normal capacity, there's no way..."

"If we're sending signals out, and they're not coming back," Fox said, "then somebody's intercepting them." She gazed out over the empty valley, her face hardening. "They know we're here. The only question is: when are they going to show up?"

"And who are they?" Vivian added, joining Balder, her wand in her hand.

"How about : Why are we still standing here if we think they're going to attack us?" Gautham asked, glancing around nervously.

"Because I want to see what we're dealing with," Fox said.

Amina bit her lip. "I don't think Dumbledore wanted us to give ourselves away."

"If they're intercepting our signals," Vivian pointed out, "we already have given ourselves away."

Balder sighed. "Why do I have a feeling you're going to vote to stay?"

"I'm with Fox," she said firmly. "I want to know what's there."

"I'm sure you'll take a great deal of consolation in that as you're getting your throat ripped out," Balder said dryly. "Well, at least I know what's there."

"They won't touch us," Fox assured him.

He turned to her. "What are you going to do? Wave your hand and make them all disappear in a puff of smoke?"

"More like mass slaughter, and for your information, I only wave my hand for effect."

"We've gotten all the information we're going to get," he informed her. "Namely that whatever's down there is, in fact, a great magical void and that this thing," he said, gesturing towards the disk-shaped shielding device lying on the ground, "doesn't work."

Fox tensed like a cat, her head snapping towards the valley below them. "No, it doesn't."

Vivian's hand tightened on her wand. "How do you know?"

Fox's face curled up into a broad grin. "Because they're coming."

*******

There was silence around them. It was the deep, impenetrable, suffocating kind of silence that could only be experienced at the most desolate places. It was the sort of silence that Balder had always associated with the far North, where the snow swallowed up sound much like the valley below them swallowed up magic.

There was no warning. In the blink of a second, the dark creatures were practically on top of them. The attack - quite literally - came out of nowhere.

"Mother of Merlin," Vivian whispered, her face going hard and fierce.

They were all crouched under a sort of outcropping, Fox standing in front of them. Whether she was as astoundingly powerful as she claimed, or merely suicidal, Balder had no idea. They were all equipped with portkeys back to Hogwarts, ready to flee whenever necessary. They hadn't come to fight.

And thank Merlin they hadn't. Balder knew the numbers that the Order and the Aurors had been facing at the raid on Voldemort's dark creature compound: one hundred-fifty, give or take. Spread out below them were hundreds of thousands of the things that had seemingly materialized out of thin air. Dementors swept at the forefront, so many of them that they appeared to be a single, huge black smear across the landscape. Behind them charged legions upon legions of creatures born from childhood nightmares.

Voldemort hadn't just gotten them from Britain. He couldn't have. What Balder saw rushing towards him was a global representation of dark creatures: vampires and veelas, werewolves and wendigos, lethifolds and leprechauns, chimera and chupacabras, soul-eaters and Sasquatch, and he swore he saw a Boogeyman or two in the swarm.

He heard Moody swear. "He's got a bloody army."

"He's got about ten of them," Balder clarified.

"Shouldn't we leave?" Amina asked. "We came, we saw, now let's get the fuck out."

"Go," Fox said, unsheathing her sword and swinging it back and forth in front of her as if she'd been born with the thing in her hands. "I'm going to even our odds a bit."

"Fox, there's a time and a place to play Rambo," Gautham said. "This isn't it."

"Whoever's in charge of that thing down there already knows I'm here," she said without turning around, the tip of her sword dancing a little as she shifted from foot to foot. "They know who I am. I'd hate for them to think they can intimidate me this easily."

"If they're who you think it is," Amina said, "I don't think they'll be that impressed."

Balder's eyes went from her to Fox to Vivian, trying to figure out what was going on.

"They're fucking around on my territory," Fox said flatly. "If they want to whip their cosmological dicks out, I can't stop them. But they know they can't best me like this. Circumstances aside, I was created for this shit, and unless they have enough balls between them to come out and face me - which they don't - this'll be a piece of cake."

Balder shared a glance with Vivian, who rolled her eyes. Well, that was comforting.

"If you die, we have to train up a new partner, you know," Gautham said sulkily.

Fox smiled a bit, but didn't waver in her concentration. "We've worked together this long and you still honestly believe that these idiots can kill me?"

"Can we leave now?" Balder asked. The Dementors were less than a hundred yards away now, their cold seeping into his very skin. He felt Vivian grip his arm.

"Go back to Hogwarts," Fox said, tapping her sword against the ground, blatantly taunting the advancing dark creatures. "Tell Dumbledore I'll be there in a few minutes."

Grumbling a bit, they did. The Headmaster wasn't in his office, so they sat down to wait for him. "Would anybody like to explain to me what's up with that chick?" Balder asked.

The other three shared a look. Finally, Vivian blew out a breath. "She's a Guardian."

"Guardian of who?"

"No, she's one of The Guardians. And there may or may not have been more of them in that valley we just left."

Balder felt a smile cross his face. "Right."

"I'm serious."

"First of all, Guardians don't go running around in cargo pants and John Lennon t-shirts. Secondly, if there were a bunch of Guardians in that valley back there, why did they send a horde of dark creatures after us? Why didn't they just come out themselves and smite us, or whatever they do?"

Vivian threw her hands up. "How the hell should I know? Maybe they were busy. Maybe they don't like getting their hands dirty. Maybe the dark creatures needed some exercise. Ask Dumbledore. He's the bloody expert. Where is he, anyway?"

"Right here," his wizened voice spoke, moving into the room. "I apologize for my absence. There were several matters I needed to take care of. What did you find?"

"Shitloads of dark creatures," Balder supplied.

"Ah," Dumbledore said. "Well, that explains why Fox hasn't returned yet."

Vivian cleared her throat. "I can't say for sure whether it's a Malaclyptic Nexus or not, but our activities allowed them to sense our presence. The devices all went nuts."

Amina and Gautham promptly jumped in, explaining over top of each other exactly what had happened and why in highly technical jargon that Balder hadn't a chance in hell of comprehending.

"They detected you despite the cloaking device?" Dumbledore asked, cutting through the bullshit. The two nodded, and the Headmaster folded his hands together in front of him, staring down at them. "Well, I suppose that eliminates the possibility of a sneak attack."

"Or any attack at all," Moody grunted. "We'd be outnumbered a thousand to one."

"Nevertheless, we likely will have to attack. We may not have a choice."

"To what purpose?" Balder asked, crossing his arms. "We couldn't win."

"At this point - no, we couldn't," Dumbledore allowed. "But we have time to plan. I will be gone for a while, I'm afraid. There are matters pertaining to this that must be handled in person." He brightened a little. "It will be nice to take a trip, though. Travel is nourishment for the soul, I've always said."

"Yes, Headmaster, that's lovely," Balder said dismissively, "but if you wouldn't mind explaining what all this is about?"

"I wouldn't mind at all," Dumbledore said pleasantly. "Amina, Gautham, I believe there is an unfinished game of Scrabble with your names on it. Vivian, Alastor, if you wouldn't mind notifying the others of your findings?" Nodding, the other four left.

"Professor, I..." Balder began.

"Lemon drop?"

"No, thank you. I'd dearly like to know..."

"A time-honored Ravenclaw trait, that - the desire for knowledge."

"Stop treating me like one of your students," Balder bit out. "What's going on here?"

"It seems as if The Guardians are attempting to end the world. Are you sure you wouldn't care for a lemon drop?"

"No," he said firmly. He shut his eyes. "Voldemort isn't behind this."

"Voldemort alone isn't behind this. He is a part of it, however."

Balder let out a long breath. "I should never have taken this stupid job. I should have told my uncle to go sod himself and gone into consulting."

"A noble profession, indeed," the Headmaster said, smiling a little. "However, it would never have fully utilized your talents. Not the way your current job does."

"I can't utilize my talents in my current job," he said icily, channeling his anger into every word, "not when I have no idea what's going on until it's too late to stop it."

Dumbledore studied him. "I will tell you everything," he said levelly. "And then, if you choose to accept it, I have an assignment for you. One wholly suited to your talents and abilities. One that falls well within the responsibilities of your current job."

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the old man to shove it and leave, but he didn't. Balder knew very well that he was being manipulated, but he also knew that he couldn't perform his duties at this point, not without Dumbledore's help. "What is it?"

"If you'd care to sit, I'll explain the details. Tea?" Balder shook his head and remained silent as a steaming teapot appeared next to the Headmaster, who poured himself a cup with aggravating slowness. "You realize, I hope, that we are all on the same side in this," Dumbledore said conversationally. "Beyond Voldemort, we share a common goal."

"Yes, I know. I'd just prefer it if I didn't get the short end of the stick all the time."

The Professor chuckled. "You certainly aren't in this case, I assure you. I have recently received a rather intriguing offer..."

At that very moment, Fox arrived. Her sword was bloody, her shirt torn, her hair in utter disarray and her face and arms smeared with Merlin knows what sorts of substances. Underneath it all was a contented sort of smile and an unearthly stench. Feeling his eyes tearing up, Balder endeavored to breathe through his mouth.

"They'll think twice before pulling that shit again," she said, wiping her sword off on her pants and puffing her hair out of her face, sighing happily. "Merlin, I needed that."

"How many did you get?" Dumbledore asked, his eyes twinkling impishly.

"I lost count," she shrugged. "Fucking veela ripped my shirt, though." Sniffing a little, she made a face. "I take it that week-old corpse smell is coming from me?"

His hand over his nose and mouth, Balder nodded frantically.

"Vampires," she sighed, her eyes going between Balder and Dumbledore, sizing up the situation. She gave a short nod, eyeing the Headmaster narrowly. "I'll come back later."

With a swift turn and a last whiff of rotting flesh, she left the room. Dumbledore watched her leave, then tapped a finger against his chin. "Now where was I? Oh, yes..."

Definitely should have taken the consulting job, Balder thought bleakly.

*******

Thera knew that sleeping in her car wouldn't stop her father from coming after her if he really wanted to. After all, if he'd managed to get to her at Hogwarts through wards and protections and Albus Dumbledore, a few inches of metal weren't going to stand in his way. She knew that. And yet she'd discovered a bit of a problem lately: she couldn't seem to sleep anywhere else. It didn't matter how tired she was. It didn't matter how long it had been since she'd last slept. She couldn't sleep in Shirag Castle.

And she'd tried. Merlin, she'd tried. Her own bed, all of the guest beds, the dungeons, the breakfast table, every couch and easy chair in the place - none of them worked. She couldn't even drift off for a few moments. The minute she set herself down to sleep, she was suddenly wide-awake.

Before, she'd at least been able to pass out properly, provided she got herself drunk enough. But ever since she'd talked to Harry about the entailment, even that wasn't possible anymore. She was too jumpy, too nervous, too paranoid. She couldn't get drunk anymore. She couldn't drink at all. If she let down her guard, he'd get her.

Thera was convinced that her father was behind this shit. He was softening her up, trying to get in her head, waiting for her to make a mistake. Vaguely, she realized that she'd long ago lost any ability to judge the situation rationally and that most likely, the only thing standing between her and a good night's sleep was her own brain's inability to shut the fuck off for five whole seconds and let her really think this through. But in order for her to realize that in more than just the vaguest sense, her brain would first have to shut the fuck off for five whole seconds and let her really think it through. It was a vicious circle, and it was the reason she very nearly killed Severus Snape.

Very nearly. She only missed him by a few inches, and her first thought upon realizing that whoever had woken her up by banging on the door of the Carriage House was still out there. Her second thought had been that her next curse wouldn't miss.

Then she heard Snape's voice yelling through the door. "Have you lost your mind?! What in Merlin's name are you trying to do, you bleeding imbecile!"

Thera glanced around, trying to get her bearings. The windshield had been blasted out by the curse, leaving only a few jagged pieces remaining. Light filtered through the gap at the bottom of the doors to the Carriage House, as well as a hole the size of her fist that hadn't been there when she'd gone to sleep - another casualty of her Killing Curse.

Lowering her wand, she crawled out of the car. "Snape?" she asked, her voice hoarse.

"What on earth is wrong with you?!" he snarled.

"You surprised me," she said, scrubbing her fists against her eyes. "What time is it?"

"Nearly noon. Are you going to let me in, or would you prefer to murder me instead?"

"Well, you shouldn't go sneaking up on people like that," she grumbled, removing the charms on the door so he could enter. It was a rather amusing entrance, too. Instead of swooping in as he usually did, he peered around the door warily, then slowly moved into the room, his scowl incapable of hiding the fact that he was a good deal paler than usual.

"I did not sneak up on you," he informed her, crossing his arms and shaking his greasy hair out of his face. A second later, he was peering down his nose at her, back to his old self. "I called your name. When that failed to elicit a response, I knocked on the door. When you still didn't seem inclined to answer, I pounded on the door and shouted your name, at which point you attempted to kill me. Would you care to explain that?"

Thera thought about it for a moment. "No."

"I see," he said, raising an eyebrow. "Is this going to be your standard procedure for answering the door in the future? If it is, I'd like to be prepared."

Still a bit drowsy, Thera pushed her hair out of her face and leaned up against the car. "What did you need to talk to me about?"

"Dumbledore seems to believe that it is my job to check up on you periodically."

"Ah," she said. "Well, you have. I'm spectacular. Thanks for stopping by."

"Castelar, I hate to break it to you, but you haven't the luxury of cracking up."

Thera felt a flash of anger. "Snape, I suggest you fuck off before I try to kill you again."

He stared her down. "Do you honestly think I haven't been where you are right now?"

She stared right back. "No," she said, "I honestly don't think you have."

"I do believe that's the most adolescent thing I've ever heard you say."

"I wasn't indulging my teen angst. I was just rewording my request for you to fuck off."

Unsurprisingly, he didn't comply with that request. "If you keep this up with this ridiculous behavior, you'll get caught. An individual with dual loyalties..."

"Or triple, in your case," she interrupted. "I never would've pegged you as one of The Cardinal's men, Snape."

"I never would have pegged you as a Ministry informant," he retorted.

Thera blew out a breath. She didn't particularly care if the Order found out. There was nothing they could say about it at this point. Still, it was hardly reassuring to know that Balder Astragand's lips were quite this loose. "So I guess we're even, then."

"We are anything but," he snapped. "You don't seem to understand that your life is not your own. Every decision you make does not simply affect you. It affects me and Dumbledore and Potter and the Order and everybody who stands in the way of the Dark Lord completing the spell and immanentizing the eschaton."

"Good speech, Snape. How's the view from that high horse of yours?"

His nostrils flared in rage. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're out of touch. This isn't the last war, in case you haven't noticed. This is the current war, and suffice it to say that shit has changed."

"I see. I correct myself, then. That is the most adolescent thing..."

"Fuck off, once more. Were you dealing with this spell twenty years ago?"

Snape merely glared at her.

"So you refuse to own up to it?"

His face twisted. "No, we weren't dealing with the spell."

"How about the eschaton? Was that an issue of particular concern?"

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"When it comes to the first war? No, I don't. At least I admit that."

He stiffened, his eyes glittering. "You silly, clueless child. You haven't the faintest..."

Realizing that this was going nowhere, Thera tried to nudge her brain into action. "Neither do you, Snape. That's all I'm saying. And I'm not cracking up, alright?"

"Of course not," he drawled. "All kinds of sane individuals sleep in a Muggle automobile and attempt to kill anyone who knocks at the door."

Thera wasn't much for asking advice, but then she hadn't ever had anyone to go to for advice who could offer her more than drunken solipsism and a highly technical expertise with male genitalia. "How'd you get through it?" she asked him, far too fed up to bother with pride. "How do you still get through it?"

Snape scowled a bit. "I want to win the war. That requires my presence among the Death Eaters. My every action is dedicated to that goal. That is how."

Misdirection. If he honestly believed that would work, he must think she was a lot farther gone than she was. "You know that's not what I meant."

His eyes narrowed a bit. "I understood precisely what you meant," he said flatly. "And my answer remains the same."

"It's all excusable, then?" she asked. "So long as it's all for the cause?"

"I never said it was excusable."

Thera felt her head drop to her chest, everything pressing in on her, making it hard to breathe, to think. It was the same thing she couldn't seem to make Draco see. In the end, it didn't matter. Evil done in the service of good, evil done to maintain their cover so they could remain in the service of good...none of it mattered, really. Evil was evil, and evil done was evil done, and Thera felt the sudden giddy desire to laugh at it all. She had to hand it to her father; he was right. There was no way out.

Fucked either way. Her face curled up into a smile even though it wasn't funny. At all.

"Castelar, when it was implied that you would take Bellatrix's old position in the organization, it wasn't meant literally. You realize that, I hope?"

In the same vague corner of her brain that recognized her behavior as borderline barmy, Thera had a feeling that he had a point.

"I think my father's in the house."

Snape eyed her warily. "Your father's dead," he informed her in even tones.

"Yes, I know that," she said, exasperated. "But as insane as this must sound..." The whole story came tumbling out, because frankly, she didn't have anywhere else to turn. Maybe Snape would take her seriously and help her figure out a way to stop him.

At the very least, he had the grace not to laugh out loud at her tale.

"So what can I do?" she asked, staring down at her hands. "Can I even do anything?"

"I believe I've heard a Muggle legend about a young priest and an old priest..."

"Suddenly, I'm a lot sorrier that curse didn't hit you," Thera snapped. "Don't joke, seriously. You really, really suck at it."

"Apparently," he said, scratching his hawk-like nose absentmindedly. "You utilize humor quite often. I was merely trying to calm you down."

"Oh," she said. "Well, it wasn't a terrible joke, actually. It's just that it's a little disorienting to hear you make one, especially in this kind of situation."

"I assure you that I won't endeavor to do so ever again," he said, glowering.

Thera smiled a bit. "So do you know what this is? How I can stop it?"

"I'm not certain," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, and she felt a chain of tension loosen in her chest. He was taking her seriously. That was something. "A person can preserve some essence of themselves after death, but it's extremely difficult, and involves doing things that...well, your father likely wouldn't have batted an eyelash, but any normal person would. Severing a portion of your soul, housing it in something."

"A portion of his soul is in there somewhere?"

"Perhaps," Snape murmured thoughtfully, "though that doesn't explain the dreams."

It was a horrible thought, and voicing it would make it all that much more horrible, but Thera figured she didn't have much choice. "Could he have housed it in someone?"

Snape raised his eyebrows. "That's not outside the realm of possibility."

Thera found herself staring at the ground, her chest feeling cold and tight. "Well, there's a viable defense," she said, her voice sounding oddly distant. "I didn't do it, your honor; the portion of me that's made up of my father's evil undead soul did. Think it'll work?"

"I'll look into it."

"In all fairness, I'd rather have a good defense lawyer look into it."

"I meant that I'd..."

"Yes, Snape. I got it. You know, being able to recognize humor is half the battle."

He sent her a look, then turned with a dramatic sweep of his robes. "Try not to kill the next person who knocks on the door," he said as he left. "It's remarkably rude."

*******

Dear Harry,

Thank you for your letter. It was lovely to hear from you. I'm happy to learn you're doing well at school, though I miss you dearly. I've become accustomed to your grand epic stories that put the petty dealings in Little Whinging to shame.

(As for the "petty dealings," the Robinsons have separated. Mr. Robinson has been seen having dinner with his secretary several times in town, and Moira Samuels swears that she saw Mrs. Robinson tossing his clothes out of the window late at night. Scandal!)

I do hope you're all right. I pray for you every night and worry about you far more frequently than that, and I dislike having to do either of those.

The vegetable garden came out rather well. The carrots, broccoli, peppers, tomatoes and beets all came through spectacularly, but the cabbage, celery and cucumbers withered. And as I recall, those were all the vegetables you disliked the most. Of course I don't believe for a second that you were responsible for it. But thank you for sparing the beets.

Zdenka

Smiling a little to himself, Harry stretched the parchment out between his hands, preparing to read it again.

"Harry?"

He snapped his head up, automatically folding the letter and shoving it in his pocket.

Hermione poked her head in the door. "We should get going."

"Oh. Yeah, sure," he said, getting up and putting his robes on.

"Are you ready for this?" Hermione asked as they approached the Quidditch pitch. "I mean, are you ready to do what we talked about?"

"Yes," he said, a bit annoyed. His annoyance fled, however, when they reached the stands and he saw what appeared to be the entire school, patiently waiting his arrival on the pitch. "Bloody fuck. Okay, no." His heart started pounding furiously.

Hermione shot him a disapproving glance at his language. "What did you expect?"

"I don't know," he said honestly, climbing into the stands. Thank Merlin Hermione had prepared him for something like this. He should have believed her. Casting a sonorus charm on himself, he cleared his throat, a sound that echoed across the stadium. "Uh...hi," he said, hearing his own voice echo back to him and immediately feeling like the biggest git ever. That really bucked up their confidence in you, Potter.

Aside from a few scattered responses, the audience remained unmoved. Hermione hadn't prepared him all the way, apparently. Harry tried to pull himself together. "So welcome to the D.A. As you all know, there's a war going on out there, and it's important for all of us to know how to protect ourselves. A couple of years ago, some of us got together and started learning just that, and I'm glad that we could let more people join this year, and that so many of you showed up."

"Uh...anyway, we obviously can't get much done in one big group, so I thought the fairest thing to do would be to split everybody up according to skill level," he said. He spotted quite a few Slytherin robes in the audience, and felt a tiny wave of gratification. At least Malfoy had come through. Maybe this would work, after all.

As tactfully as she could, Hermione elbowed him in the side. "Like we planned."

He nodded slightly to acknowledge her. "Behind you are members of the D.A. They'll be shooting up purple sparks in a moment so you can find them. Just go the nearest one you see and we'll get started." Taking the sonorus charm off of himself, he heaved a sigh of relief as he saw sparks shoot up and watched the crowd turn away from him, beginning to form into sections. "Well, I guess that could've gone worse."

"Look," Hermione said. "Everybody's doing what you told them to do." And, indeed, they were. Harry couldn't help but feel a bit of pride as he watched Ginny and Neville quickly put each person through a series of short exercises to test their ability. Ron and Ernie were moving the slowest of the bunch, but as far as Harry could tell, everyone seemed to be carrying on in a fairly organized fashion. He'd like to believe that he'd had anything to do with that, but he hadn't. Hermione had taken care of most of it, helping him pair people up and deciding what to do with the new people.

"Thanks," he said once again. "I couldn't have done this without you."

"You don't need me to do this," she said. "You just think you do."

"Oh, please," he scoffed. "As a leader, I'm rubbish."

"No, you're not," she said almost vehemently as she turned to look at him. "Merlin, Harry, don't you see all the people down there? Why do you think they came?"

"Idle curiosity?" he guessed.

"They came to hear what you had to say," Hermione said meaningfully.

Harry thought about that for a moment. "I guess I should've said more, then."

She waved a hand. "It's not even that. You're the savior of the wizarding world. You could sneeze and people would be interested."

Harry began to feel the familiar creep of discomfort. "Well, they shouldn't be."

"True," Hermione agreed. "I've seen you sneeze, and it's fairly underwhelming."

He rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean."

"That's fame," she shrugged. "On one side, it's awards and recognition. On the other, it's people you've never met digging through your rubbish bin for souvenirs."

He glanced out over his sea of recruits for a moment. It was about all he could stand. "It's not even that, though that's creepy enough on its own. It's like there are now hundreds of new people that I'm responsible for. All of them down there."

"I knew you'd do this," she muttered.

"Do what?"

"You have to kill him, you know."

"Shit. Really?"

"Oh, stop it, Harry. I just mean that you can't forget that killing Voldemort is the main thing. That's the war, really. The rest of us - Ron and I, even - we're just secondary."

Harry stood. He didn't need this. Did she really believe he'd never thought about it? Worried about it? Agonized over it? "Shut up."

She stood, too, placing a hand on his arm. "I'm just saying..."

"That I'm producing an army of cannon fodder," he said, shrugging away from her, crossing his arms. "Well, that's not what I'm doing. I just want people to be able to protect themselves. Is that so fucking wrong? Am I handing them all a death warrant because of it? Because they're associating with me? Is that what you're saying?"

"I'm saying that it's likely some of us won't survive, no matter what you do. And I know it's hard for you to accept that, but it's the truth. I just don't want you to think that it's your fault, or that you can stop it, because you can't. Not until...the end, I guess."

"Do you really think," Harry asked, barely holding onto his temper, "that if it came down to you and Ron, or killing Voldemort, I'd choose to kill him?"

She snapped her head up, glaring at him in way that was almost frightening. "You should choose to kill him. Me, Ron, any of us...any of them, even," she said, indicating the gathered masses. "None of us matters in the long run, Harry."

He was already shaking his head, half in shock. "I can't believe you think I'd do that."

"You might have to," Hermione said with brutal honesty.

The D.A. members began organizing their respective groups into pairs, to test out their dueling skills. "Do we really have to talk about this now?" Harry asked.

"No, but you can't keep dodging it forever."

"I'm not," he said lamely, because he was. And who could blame him, really?

She sighed, looking away. "I know it's an awful decision. I know I'd hate to be the one who had to make it, too. But when it comes down to it, you have to do what you were meant to do, and you can't do that if you're worrying about us. Please, Harry. Just focus on Voldemort and let us worry about each other, okay?"

Harry knew for a fact that he couldn't do that. And maybe he shouldn't. Maybe that was the difference between him and Voldemort. Voldemort didn't care how many people got killed in his quest to do away with The Boy Who Lived. Harry cared a great deal about how many people got killed in his quest to do away with Voldemort. Still, he knew Hermione wouldn't buy that argument. "Okay," he agreed.

Hermione didn't even pretend to believe him, but she let the subject go for once. "There is one other thing," she said carefully.

"What?" Harry asked, trying not to sound as exasperated as he felt.

"It's just this whole thing with Malfoy. I really do think it's useful to learn about the kinds of dark curses the Death Eaters use. And it must be okay, or else Dumbledore would've put a stop to it, and I don't believe for a minute he doesn't know."

"Neither do I," he admitted.

"But just don't be surprised if you can't do any of them. That's all."

Harry sat back a little at that. "Why wouldn't I be able to do them?"

Hermione shrugged. "For all I know, you will be able to. But maybe you shouldn't."

"Oh, right. I might turn to the dark side. Is that it?"

"No," she said. "I just think that however you're not going to beat Voldemort at his own game. Every time you've gotten the better of him, it's been because he set the rules, and you figured out a way to play outside of them. You just being you is more of a threat to him than learning a bunch of dark curses."

Harry opened his mouth to respond, then shut it. What she said was true, which is to say that he never should have made it this far. His continued existence had little to do with his own abilities and a great deal to do with Voldemort making a mistake, missing a tiny crucial detail, or otherwise sewing the seeds of his own defeat.

And it made him think. Fox could've spent the past year training him in dark magic, training him to meet Voldemort head to head and be able to come out on top, but she hadn't. She'd trained him to tap into his power, to focus it and use it to protect himself. She hadn't trained him on how to use it against an enemy, necessarily.

Maybe she didn't need to. Maybe the battle between him and Voldemort wasn't about him at all. Or at least, maybe it wasn't even about him winning. Maybe, in the end, it was about Voldemort losing, tying his own noose and hanging himself with it.

His mind touched briefly on something he couldn't entirely comprehend, that somehow this was bigger than him and Voldemort and the prophecy, that there was more at stake than that. But the thought drifted away before he could really get a grasp on it. The entire idea...it was just incomprehensible.

"You're right," he said, wondering how long he'd been silent.

Hermione turned to him and smiled. Without saying anything, she took his hand, linking their fingers together as they both turned back to watch the goings-on below them. It was strangely awe-inspiring to look at the turnout - literally hundreds of students. And whether they'd come to learn how to protect themselves or to gawk at him or because they had nothing better to do didn't really matter. They were here, and maybe what he and the other D.A. members taught them could help them survive the war. And even if it couldn't, at least they'd tried. At least they'd done something.

And, Harry had to admit to himself, he'd much prefer this to sitting around in his dormitory waiting for Voldemort's next attempt on his life. Squeezing Hermione's hand a little tighter, he looked over the newly expanded D.A. Given a little time and a little practice, the Death Eaters would have their hands full with this bunch.

*******

"I really think Ron should be here for this," Hermione repeated for the millionth time.

"Ron?" Ginny asked breezily. "I don't know anybody named Ron."

They were waiting for Draco and Harry to arrive at the Room of Requirement so Ginny could take the Instant Recall Potion that Hermione had finished brewing that morning. They'd chosen to do it in the Room of Requirement because Hermione believed that if things got out of control, the Room might be able to provide some protection.

If - for instance - she took the potion and turned into Voldemort, Ginny supposed. Considering how much work Hermione had put into the potion, she was hardly in a position to argue over logistics.

Hermione let out a long sigh. "You shouldn't have put up that picture of him in the Great Hall," she said, shaking her head. "I've never seen Ron so furious."

Neither had Ginny, actually. She'd been given a week of detention for the stunt, but it had been worth it to see Ron's face when he walked into breakfast and encountered a ten-foot picture of himself as a baby discovering himself in the bathtub with 'Ronald Weasley: Once a Wanker, Always a Wanker' written underneath it in the furling gold letters Fred and George had taught her how to make.

And according to Bill's letter, the twins themselves had already gotten their dose of her revenge. Ron had tried to warn them, but his warning hadn't gotten there in time, and they'd opened her letter, only to find themselves covered in full-body incurable boils. The boil hex would wear off in a few days, but Ginny felt that ought to be enough time to get her point across. Especially when they tried to go to the bathroom.

The Howler she'd received from her mother about the stunt had been half-hearted at best; it hadn't even made the windows in the Great Hall rattle. Ginny had a feeling her Mum thought the twins more or less had it coming.

Ginny spread her hands out. "I warned Ron what would happen if he didn't mind his own business. He didn't believe me."

"Was it really necessary to humiliate him in front of the entire school?"

"Yes," she answered flatly.

"What on earth is all this?" Draco asked, picking his way over to them, followed closely by Harry. As the first person to enter, Hermione had imagined everything they might possibly need in case the potion went wrong, which had apparently required everything to be padded, though Ginny thought padding the floor was going a bit far.

"In the whole scheme of things, do we really have to be this worried about one of us stubbing a toe?" Harry asked, prodding a heavily cushioned chair with his foot.

"Let's get this over with," she said, sitting forward. Hermione uncorked the potion and handed it to her. Ginny made a face at the odor. "This is going to taste horrid, isn't it?"

"Probably," Hermione said.

Ginny sighed. "Ah, well. Bottoms up." She drank down the potion. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a strange wave of dizziness overtook her, coupled with an equally strange wave of utter clarity. Her head was flooded with pictures, images, memories. Her whole life. Overwhelmed, she touched a hand to her head. "Oh, my."

"Did it work?" Draco asked, his silver eyes wide, his expression slightly anxious.

She nodded vaguely. "Yeah, it..." Ginny trailed off as a sudden memory pushed its way to the forefront, forcing tears to well up in her eyes. Merlin, she'd forgotten...how could she have? Though she tried to stifle it, Ginny let out a sob and both Harry and Draco started over to her. Draco neatly shoved Harry aside and squatted down in front of her.

"What is it?" he asked, his voice impatient.

"Speckles," she choked out on another sob.

He blinked. "Speckles? What speckles?"

"He was a puppy. My puppy. A Dalmatian. I got him for my eighth birthday." It was horrible, really. As if it had happened that morning, she could remember her Dad carrying Speckles into the kitchen with a big red bow on his collar and going mad with delight. She could remember his warm, wet tongue linking her ear when she picked him up, the way her heart utterly melted at his liquid chocolate brown eyes, his tail wagging so frantically that his whole rump moved back and forth, his silky, floppy ears, his happy doggy smile. She could remember him sleeping curled up at the end of her bed keeping her feet warm, waking up sometimes to watch his little paws twitch as he had a puppy dream about chasing the garden gnomes - an activity he enjoyed quite a bit.

And an activity that led to his death, really. Her Dad had finally gotten wheels for the car he'd started rebuilding and had been eager to try them out. "I let him out in the morning the way I always did. Dad backed over him with that stupid car and I was so upset about it. I wouldn't stop crying and calling him a murderer, and..." Ginny pressed her hands against her eyes, trying to will out the picture now emblazoned - or re-emblazoned, really - on her mind. Her tiny, broken puppy lying under the car, his back legs giving out a few final weak twitches, the gnome he'd been chasing dashing off into the underbrush and diving into a hole. Her, screaming and howling, her mother holding her back, not letting her go to her puppy.

A puppy she hadn't recalled having until a minute ago.

"They memory-charmed me so I'd forget about it," she realized, feeling like a stranger within her own skin. What else had she forgotten? "I can't believe it. My own parents."

With a sort of wrench, she focused back on the present. Draco was kneeling in front of her, his expression softened a bit. "Do you remember anything else?"

Vague sketches of ideas were gathering in the back of her mind. "Yeah, I do," she heard herself say. "That's when I started wetting the bed and Mum said my brothers wouldn't ever hear about it but they did and they called me Betsy Wetsy and why on earth can't I stop talking?!" she cried, feeling her face grow hot to the point of boiling.

Draco's eyes were as round as saucers. "I don't know, but I sincerely wish you would."

"Do you remember anything about the Chamber of Secrets?" Harry prompted her.

An assault of images overtook her. The girl's bathroom, the alternate entrance, Tom; she heard her voice saying those things and couldn't seem to stop it.

"And Little Hangleton?" Draco pressed.

From the back of her mind, something horrible reared up, and for one split second, Ginny knew she'd figured it out, only to have the moment slip out of her fingers. It was important, though. She knew it was. Feeling the blackness rising up around her, she tried to force her mouth to say it, knowing it would be gone once the blackness overtook her. "The spell..." she heard herself say. Her voice sounded distant and vague. The blackness was swirling around her. Ginny made a last attempt to fight it off and lost.

********

Suddenly, Ginny slumped forward. Malfoy caught her, swearing under his breath as he pushed her back into the chair.

"What happened?" Harry asked, sounding angry. "What'd you do?"

"I didn't do anything," Malfoy snapped. "She fainted."

"But why?" Hermione asked, joining the two boys as they all crowded around Ginny.

"Memory charm," Malfoy said tightly. "A powerful one, too. Whatever happened, the Dark Lord bloody well has no intention of letting her remember it."

"Can we try to break it?" Harry asked, glancing at her.

Before she could answer, Malfoy did. "Sure. It'll reduce her brain to oatmeal, though."

"Trying to break a memory charm that powerful is really dangerous," Hermione explained to Harry. "Should we wake her up?" she asked Malfoy tentatively, wondering why she felt the need to defer to him regarding Ginny's wellbeing. Perhaps Ginny had been wise to not include Ron in this little experiment.

"Might as well," Malfoy said. He ennervated Ginny, who opened her eyes and then jumped a little, gasping. Hermione could see how waking up to find three people staring you in the face might be a tad jarring.

"What happened?" Ginny asked, eyeing them all worriedly.

"Do you remember what you were about to say?" Harry asked. "Before you passed out?"

Ginny gawked at him. "I passed out?"

"Yes," he said. "Do you remember..."

"Sod off, Potter," Malfoy hissed, elbowing him aside. "Do you want to make her do it again?" Hermione took Harry's arm and eased them back a little bit. There was no need to crowd the recently unconscious. Malfoy turned back to Ginny, his entire attitude changing in a way that Hermione found almost comical. "Are you okay?" he asked her.

"Bloody headache's back again," she mumbled, sitting up a little.

Malfoy tensed almost imperceptibly. Hermione tensed a lot more perceptibly. It was not a good sign for a person under a powerful memory charm to be experiencing a nagging headache. In fact, it was a very, very bad sign.

"How long have you had it?" he asked her, looking as if he already knew the answer.

"I don't know exactly. Since this summer, I suppose. Stress."

In other words, since Little Hangleton. "Did you tell Dumbledore?"

Ginny looked at him strangely. "Why would I tell Dumbledore I have a headache?"

He didn't answer her. "Do you want to go get some potion from Madame Pomfrey?"

"No," she said exasperatedly. "I'm fine, okay? It's a headache. It's not Dragon Pox."

Malfoy stood, his manner becoming brisk. "Potter, can you walk her back? Granger and I have some school stuff to talk about."

Harry looked surprised. "Uh...sure," he said, helping Ginny out of the chair. He sent Hermione a questioning glance as they left, but she waved him off.

"I imagine you know as well as I do what this means," Malfoy said grimly.

Hermione nodded. "Ron told me she's been having nightmares, too. I should've put it together before. I just wasn't thinking."

"Bloody fuck," he said viciously, running a hand through his hair. "What do we do?"

"We have to tell Dumbledore."

He snorted. "And what's he going to do?"

"I don't know," Hermione bit out, "but he'll certainly be able to do more than we can."

"He can't do anything," he sneered. "He tries to break the charm and she's reduced to a drooling vegetable. He doesn't try to break it and she's still a drooling vegetable."

"He's Dumbledore. Who knows what he's capable of? We can't give up yet."

Malfoy flinched a little at that, looking away. "We can't tell her," he said in a low voice.

Hermione stared at him. "Are you mad? We can't keep something like this from her."

"Let me repeat myself for the hard of hearing and the hopelessly stupid," he said, looking back at her, his voice sharp and biting and frigidly cold. "We're not going to tell her."

It was classic Malfoy, and yet it wasn't, somehow. Hermione got the feeling that he wasn't being a jerk just for the fun of it. He was doing it out of frustration and anger and worry, lashing out. She ought to recognize it for what it was. Harry did the same thing.

"Taking it out on me won't make it go away, you know," she said coolly.

He glared at her, but there wasn't much force behind it. He didn't apologize for his behavior, but he did stop insulting her, which is more than she would have expected from him a few weeks ago. "Let's just go talk to Dumbledore and see what he has to say," she said. "Then we'll figure out what to do about Ginny."

He hesitated briefly. "Fine." They collected their things and started up to the Headmaster's office. "Nice schoolbag," he said after a few minutes. "Is it new?"

Hermione glanced at him, because Malfoy was hardly in the habit of noticing her accessories, and he certainly wasn't in the habit of complimenting them. Then she looked down and realized that he had the exact same bag. Figures.

"Ron got it for me for my birthday," she said, expecting a snide remark in return, but Malfoy just nodded and let the matter drop. Dear Merlin, she really needed to get tips from Ginny on how to properly train a boy up. The girl knew what she was doing.

Remembering her birthday made Hermione wince inwardly. She'd been touched by the fact that Ron had spent so much money on her, and had gotten her such a thoughtful gift, which had only made her feel all the more guilty for making up yet another lame excuse not to have sex with him again. She knew she'd have to at some point, which was kind of the problem. Why did she have to, anyway? Where was it written that as soon as you did it once, you were expected to do it all the time? What about what she wanted to do? Of course, the problem may be that she didn't want to do it at all.

Hermione knew that she wasn't handling the situation very well, and that she really needed to just sit down with Ron and talk to him, but when it came down to it, she was just too bloody exhausted. Between classes, N.E.W.T. preparation, researching the entailment, working on the spell, and trying to souse out exactly what on earth those numbers meant for her entrance exam for the Department of Mysteries, she just couldn't dredge up the energy necessary for what would likely turn into a blazing row with Ron.

The Headmaster welcomed them warmly, foisting sweets on them as he always did. Both of them declined, and Hermione wondered if Malfoy carried the same suspicions she did about Dumbledore dosing his lemon drops with truth serum.

"I was hoping I'd get a chance to speak with you both. And now here you are. So what brings you to my office?" he asked, sitting down and folding his hands on his desk.

Hermione glanced at Malfoy, who nodded slightly, giving her the lead. "Well, sir," she sighed. "We're quite worried about Ginny." Brewing Instant Recall Potion wasn't against school rules, but in retrospect, they probably should have told the Headmaster about their plans. Of course, knowing Dumbledore, he'd probably known about their plans, anyway. Malfoy didn't say a word, and when she finished, Dumbledore merely nodded, looking thoughtful, his eyes traveling between the two of them.

"Did either of you suspect that Voldemort had placed Miss Weasley under a memory charm prior to giving her the potion?"

"Well...I did," Hermione admitted, at the same time Malfoy said, "No."

She looked over at him. Well, this was news. "At Little Hangleton, he'd have had to put the charm on her before the Order even showed up," Malfoy explained. "Why would he have done that? It was hardly to cover his tracks. And as for the Chamber of Secrets, I found it difficult to believe that a newly-corporeal sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle had the capacity or ability to cast a terribly strong memory charm with another person's wand." His face twisted into a bitter sort of smirk. "Obviously, I was wrong."

"You thought she was just blocking it all out," she realized.

"No, Granger, I purposely dosed my own girlfriend with a potion that could have very well earned her a lifelong stay at the Hopeless Ward at St. Mungo's."

"I sincerely doubt that your potion has caused Miss Weasley any harm," Dumbledore said mildly. With a disbelieving sound, Malfoy crossed his arms and looked away, causing the Headmaster to focus every ounce of his laser-like gaze on the Head Boy. "Mr. Malfoy, do you honestly believe that I have not tried similar measures in order to ascertain what truly happened at Little Hangleton? Or in the Chamber of Secrets?"

"So you're telling me that you brought this on her?" Malfoy snarled.

Dumbledore stared him down. "Mr. Malfoy, I am more than capable of working around a memory charm without causing undo damage to the individual in question."

Malfoy looked down at his lap. "Were able to find out what happened, sir?"

"No, I was not."

"So why the big speech about your abilities, then?" Malfoy asked. The "sir" was tacked on so belatedly and haphazardly that it sounded more like an insult. If he were Ron or Harry, she would have surreptitiously kicked him, or at least tried to cover for him. Since he wasn't, she just gulped and waited for the bomb to drop.

Dumbledore reacted by sitting back and giving him a penetrating look. "Mr. Malfoy, you are a brilliant individual. I have seen quite a few brilliant individuals pass through these doors during my many decades at Hogwarts. One of them is sitting right next to you."

Against her will, Hermione blushed at the compliment.

"Most of those who came before you have met with astounding success. Some, however, have wasted their brilliance, or let it decay in favor of indulging in their prejudices. They have - in effect - self-destructed, for true brilliance cannot inhabit the same space as ignorance. Think, Mr. Malfoy. Think without prejudice clouding your judgment."

Now things were getting interesting. The Slytherin showed no outward reaction to Dumbledore's speech, aside from his eyes narrowing at the end. There was a long moment of silence. "It's not a memory charm," he finally murmured.

Dumbledore didn't smile, but he looked oddly proud. "No, it isn't."

Nodding, Malfoy took a deep breath and let it out. "It's the spell, isn't it?"

"I believe so, yes."

"How, sir?" Hermione asked, feeling that it was permissible for her to speak again.

"She is a just as susceptible to him as the rest of the children," Dumbledore said, his eyes on her, his gaze unnerving. "You've seen this."

"Yes, sir," she admitted, remembering Little Hangleton. "But I still don't understand..."

"I am sure there is a 'how' to be found Miss Granger, Mr. Malfoy," the Headmaster said. "And if anyone is to find it, I am sure it would be you."

"So that's it?" Malfoy asked in a strangely defeated voice. "That's all we get?"

"For now, yes." Dumbledore closed his eyes for a bit longer than usual, until Hermione was half afraid he'd fallen asleep. Then they abruptly flew open. "As I said before, I wished to speak to you both. Matters regarding the eschaton have...taken a turn."

"For the worse, I gather," Malfoy said wearily.

"Is there every any good news?" Hermione sighed.

"Rarely," the Headmaster allowed. "Hence my unfortunate addiction to sweets."

*******

Feeling unaccountably put-upon and generally angry at the entire known universe, Draco was not in the mood to be accosted by an invisible Harry Potter. Again. This time, the Gryffindor dolt was standing right in front of the door to his room.

"Sod off, Potter," he growled. "Go spy on girls in the shower or something."

"That's hardly a Gryffindor thing to do," he answered. "What's going on with Ginny?"

"Ask Granger," Draco said, trying to find the kid so he could shove him aside.

"Can we please just talk for ten bloody seconds?" There was a note of stubbornness in his tone that gave Draco visions of Harry Potter hanging around outside his room all night, making a nuisance of himself. Well...more of a nuisance.

"Ten seconds," he bit out. "Exactly. And I'm not wasting any more good wine on you."

"Fair enough." He heard a rustling sound and assumed that the coast was clear. Opening up his door, he didn't bother to try to slam it in Potter's face again. He didn't have the energy. Slowly but surely, the Gryffindors were sucking the very life out of him.

Potter pulled off the cloak, leaving his hair standing up in all kinds of untidy ways. Wincing, Draco pointed to the bathroom. "Purple bottle on the left side of the top shelf. Use it to tame that animal carcass on your head, will you?"

"Draco Malfoy letting me use his own personal hair products," the Gryffindor said, eyes wide. "Will wonders never cease?"

"I can't talk to you with your hair like that," he snapped. "It's distracting." Rolling his eyes, Potter slumped off to the bathroom. "And don't touch anything else!" Draco yelled after him, imagining grimy fingerprints all over his mirror.

It had been a hell of a lot easier to be evil. And more dignified, in a lot of ways.

The Boy Who Lived emerged from the bathroom looking far from presentable, but at least he was now recognizable as a member of the human race. "Happy now?"

"Less unhappy," Draco said, sinking down on the bed. "Now what was so terribly urgent that you had to post yourself in front of my room in an invisibility cloak?"

Potter crossed his arms. "What's going on with Ginny? She might've bought that shove-off in the Room of Requirement, but I didn't. So what is it?"

"Nothing, as it turns out. It's not a memory charm. It's the spell. Dumbledore told us. Don't you feel like you wasted your time, now? Granger could've told you that much."

"The spell?" the other boy asked, furrowing his brow. "What does the spell have to do with Ginny forgetting everything that happened?"

"Search me," Draco said, running a hand down his face. "We're going to start looking into it tomorrow. Should be jolly good fun. Your ten seconds are up."

Unsurprisingly, Potter did not take the hint, instead crossing his arms, looking thoughtful. It seemed to take a lot of work. "What you said about the entailment - is that true?"

Draco glanced up at him. "I can't be certain, but I think it is."

"Did Thera say anything to you about it?"

"Even if she had, I certainly wouldn't tell you," he smirked.

"Funny, you seemed perfectly happy to blab on about her outside the Leaky Cauldron. I believe her exact words were 'Draco has a big fucking mouth.'"

"Yeah, well that was different."

Potter snorted. "Different how?"

Okay, enough was enough. Standing, Draco towered over the bloody savior of the bloody world by several inches. "Because somebody needed to kick your ass into doing something, Potter. Between posing for pictures and giving interviews and screwing around with your friends, you may have missed it, but there's a war going on. People are dying. And every day you spend poncing about this place instead of killing the fucking Dark Lord already is another day in which more of them die. And it's another day in which I could get found out, or Thera could. If you want to be a selfish dick, then be a selfish dick. I'm rather proud of the progress I've made in that area myself. But at least own up to it, instead of putting on this whole Saint Potter act."

Potter didn't answer, instead taking a step back, looking stricken. For some reason, this just egged Draco on even more. "You like putting on this entire pretense of giving a shit about Thera, but you don't. She's too fucked up to see through you, but I'm not. Because if you really gave a shit about her, you'd finally get around to doing what apparently only you are capable of doing. And instead, you're here. Studying and playing Quidditch. And people are lining up to kiss your ass for it."

He desperately wanted to punch the kid, but couldn't bring himself to do it for some reason. Beating up Potter couldn't give him any satisfaction anymore, not when his enmity wasn't returned in kind, as it should be. Spinning around, nearly frantic in his rage, Draco proceeded instead to kick the bejeesus out of his bed frame.

The legs holding it up collapsed, but he kept on kicking until the entire frame was wedged into the corner and his foot was throbbing with pain. Stopping abruptly, his breath coming in gasps, Draco suddenly understood why Thera had attacked her car. It was better than doing nothing.

And it worked. It was like lancing a boil. Draco stared down at his destroyed bed and felt empty, numb. Wrung out like a wet towel.

He'd forgotten that Potter was still there until he spoke. "Is that all?"

Draco looked down at the bed. "I suppose I could set it on fire, but...for now? Yeah."

"Do you really think..." Potter's voice trailed off for a moment. "Do you really think that I don't know all that? That I don't think that way, too? I want to...Merlin, I've wanted to kill him for years. Before I even knew about the prophecy, I wanted to kill him. I just...I can't. Not yet. That's what they tell me every time I want to go after him. And it's so fucking...if I could kill him right now, I would. I wouldn't even hesitate. But it's not just me, and I know that. I only have one more shot, and I have to be ready for it. I can't just waltz in there and do my best, because it's everything. The whole war, right there between him and me, and if I mess it up, that's it. Game over. I don't get another chance. So don't think I don't know what's going on. I do. Believe me."

Draco turned around, prepared to deliver a sneering response, only it never came. He didn't have one. He wiped his face clean of emotion, even though it was pointless. Potter wasn't looking at him. Potter had his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders hunched up, staring at the floor as if it had just called his mother a slut.

It was strange, really. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Draco had never really believed that Potter had trudged around for eleven years, letting a bunch of Muggles order him around like a house elf. It simply hadn't gelled with his entire perception of Harry Potter. Or at least it hadn't until then. Suddenly, it all sort of clicked into place. Potter was as much a pawn in this shit as he was.

Draco felt distinctly uncomfortable with the realization, and didn't like it one bit. Potter wasn't supposed to be like him. Not at all. Ever.

"I'll win," Potter said quietly. "If it's possible to win it, I will. I've survived him before. That has to mean something. As soon as I'm ready, his ass is mine."

"Well, that's a revolting thought," Draco said. "When will you be ready?"

Potter gave a bitter laugh, running a hand through his hair, messing it up. Draco had to physically restrain himself from fixing it. "When they say I am, I imagine."

"Well, that's comforting. If I get captured and tortured, the first thing I'm giving up is your propensity for teddy bear pants, you closet fairy."

"Asshole, I'm not a...hang on. Where on earth did you hear about that?"

Draco brushed his fringe out of his eyes. "Never trust a Weasley with your undergarments. They're a rather talkative bunch."

For his part, Potter looked absolutely horrified. "Ginny saw my underpants?"

"Now that you mention it," Draco said, frowning, "she never did explain how exactly she came upon that little nugget of information."

Potter's cheeks colored. "We didn't do anything, if that's what you're asking."

"I know you didn't. And I know you won't, because if you ever touch my girlfriend I will rearrange your face until you look like you just stepped out of Guernica."

"I'm sure if I had the faintest idea what you were talking about, I'd be scared."

"It's a Picasso painting, you utterly bourgeois simpleton."

"Ah," Potter said, nodding. "I'm not much of a fan myself."

"Well, you hardly have to be a fan to...oh, forget it. Why the hell are you still here?"

*******

Remus looked up from his book as he saw a flicker of movement in the doorway of the library. "Hello?" he called.

Harry poked his head inside. "Are you busy?"

"No, of course not," he said hastily, setting his book aside. "More questions?"

"Not really," Harry said, sinking into a chair. "Not about being a werewolf, that is."

"What about, then?"

Harry stared down at his hands, his brow furrowing in thought, and it suddenly struck Remus once more how much the boy looked like James. He didn't recognize it very often, largely because Harry didn't behave like James. He had none of the swagger, none of the cockiness of his old friend. Perhaps that was why he didn't recognize it very often. To look at Harry and see James denied the fact that as far as Remus could recall, he'd never seen James with that expression on his face, or with his shoulders set like that.

"I was wondering...well, it's a girl problem, actually. In a way."

"I see," Remus said, unable to hide his smile. "What's the problem?"

Harry screwed his face up. "She gave me a choice."

"That's always dangerous."

"Yeah, I'm beginning to figure that out."

"What's the choice?"

"Well...I can choose one thing and it would maybe help me out in the end, but it might also be...not such a good thing to choose. For me, at least. Maybe for her, too. I don't know. On the other hand, I could choose another thing, and everything would be fine. Only I think she wants me to choose the first thing. And I think I sort of want to, too. Does that make any sense?"

"Not really," Remus said, sitting back. "How would choosing the first thing help you?"

"It might help me defeat Voldemort," Harry said in a low voice. "Emphasis on might."

He shook his head a little. "Help you defeat Voldemort?" he asked. "That's fairly serious, Harry. I don't think we can deal in theoretical scenarios here."

The boy looked up at him, his face pained. "Do you promise not to tell anybody?"

Remus felt his body sag. "I can't do that, Harry. Not about something like this."

"Right," Harry said, standing. "Never mind, then. Sorry I bothered you."

"Wait." Before he even consciously thought about it, Remus was out of his chair.

"It's my fight, isn't it?" Harry asked, facing the door, his whole body rigid. "I know it seems like everybody and their mother gets to have a say in the matter, but it's still my fight, and I'm an adult now. I don't need Dumbledore to okay every decision I make."

"Harry, you're still..." Remus shut up, because calling Harry a child was not only untrue, but would likely only piss him off more. He understood that the boy was hardly a boy, that in all the ways that mattered, he was more of a man then most men could ever hope to become. But he was still seventeen, and Remus wished more than anything that he could make Harry understand how terribly young he seemed in the eyes of the Order.

"Yeah, I'm still a kid," Harry said wearily, turning to face him. "Maybe I am, in a way. I could use an adult to talk to. I could use some advice, preferably from someone I can trust. And by that, I mean someone who won't rat me out to Dumbledore."

Remus looked down, feeling lower than the battered wooden floor he was examining. "I'm sorry, Harry," he said. "You can trust me, okay? When I said that, I didn't mean that I'd rat you out. It's a matter of loyalty. I don't particularly like the idea of keeping things from Dumbledore, but if you don't want me to tell him anything, I won't."

Harry looked away, unconvinced. But he didn't leave.

"And you're not a kid just because you need advice. We all do sometimes. Believe me." He sat back down, gesturing for Harry to do the same. "What's the problem, exactly?"

It took a lot of fits and starts and leading and pressuring, but eventually, Remus got what he understood to be the closest thing to the full story that he was likely to get.

"So this girl's entailed?" he asked. It was a pureblood, then. It had to be.

"Yeah."

"To somebody else, I gather?"

"Yeah."

"And she doesn't want to give him the entailment?"

"No."

"She wants to give it to you, because she thinks it might help you defeat Voldemort."

Harry shrugged. "Something like that, yeah."

Remus had a great many follow-up questions about that detail, but he swallowed them for the time being. "What about her parents? What will they think?"

"They're dead," Harry said simply.

"Ah."

In a desperate sort of way, Remus found himself wishing for a father's wisdom. Not just because he needed it just then, but because he really didn't know Harry well enough to judge his responses the way a father would. The way his father would. He lacked that instinct, that ability to just look at your child and know whether he was lying or not.

Familiarity, he thought with a twinge of regret. They lacked that, and it showed.

"If you want my advice based upon what you've told me, I don't think you should do it. It doesn't seem worth the risk to me."

Harry nodded, looking down.

"But then I only know part of the story," Remus said, his voice sounding tentative.

"We were sort of together last year," Harry said dully. "Not together like going out or anything, but...together. It was nice while it lasted. Not just the...I mean, Ron and Hermione are great and all, but...I can't really even explain it."

"Mutual understanding?"

Harry thought that over. "I guess," he said. "Get it while you can. Things have never really been normal for either of us. So we kind of...pretended to be. For a while."

Remus felt his heart tighten at that, the way it always did in these situations. Harry's life shouldn't have been like this. A struggle to survive. Pretending to be normal.

"And then?"

"Things happened," Harry shrugged. "A lot of things. I don't know. Maybe we're even at this point. But she helped out a friend of mine. Maybe I still owe her for that."

"You can't possibly owe her this much," Remus pointed out.

"I'm not exactly doing her a favor," Harry said, reaching up under his glasses to rub his eyes. "She's offering me the entailment because it might help me. I'd hold all the power. That's how it works. But I can't imagine actually deciding to use it, even if I had to. I just...it's like something he would do, and...I don't know. I don't like the idea. She'd say that's a stupid reason for turning it down, but..."

"Harry, who is she?" Remus finally asked."

Harry seemed to be bracing himself. "Thera Castelar."

Remus stood up, hearing the chair he'd just vacated squeak sharply, making Harry jump.

"You still have the mirrors," he breathed, feeling immensely stupid for not realizing it before. Though - in his defense - he hadn't actually imagined they'd used them.

"Of course we do," Harry said, eyeing him.

Remus stared back at him, trying to formulate the right words, less hurtful words. Frankly, he couldn't find any. "You've told her things?"

"Yeah," Harry said carefully. "We've talked. She and I. All of us, really."

Swearing, Remus sat back down, clenching his fingers in his hair.

"What? I mean, I know she's trustworthy in that respect, at least. It's not like she's reporting everything I tell her to Voldemort."

"No," Remus said hoarsely, "she's reporting it to the Ministry."

*******

Harry wouldn't go so far as to say he was blind with rage. In fact, he could see quite clearly. Especially, he could see the students practically jumping out of his way as he stalked back to Gryffindor Tower after flooing to Dumbledore's office from Number Twelve. Hermione had been right, he realized. Which shouldn't surprise him. Hermione was always right. It was rather annoying, actually.

His dorm room was blessedly empty, and he waved his wand at the door, casting a nice, strong locking spell to keep it that way. Snatching the mirror out from its hiding place underneath his bed, he snarled Thera's name. There was no answer.

His fingers tightened on the thing, aching to throw it across the room, to see it shatter into a million pieces and be finished with Slytherins for the rest of his days, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He deserved an explanation, and he'd get one. Then he'd do it.

Thera's silence on the other end of the mirror only served to make him angrier. What on earth could she possibly be doing that was so bloody important, anyway? Another Gobstones tournament? How were these things useful if she was never fucking there when he wanted to talk to her?

It took a half an hour before she answered, during which time he'd descended into making threats the likes of which he'd never imagined coming out of his mouth.

"Thera, pick up the bloody fucking mirror right this second or I swear..."

Her face appeared suddenly, throwing him off-kilter. "What is it?" she asked breathlessly, looking panicked. "Nothing new could've happened, at least not with the Death Eaters. I know, because I just came from..."

"Shut up," he said flatly. "We need to talk."

She looked awful, he realized with a surge of perverse satisfaction. Greenish and ill and tired, with dark purple smudges under her eyes. "About what?"

Harry saw no reason to beat around the bush. "You selling me out to the Ministry."

Thera's face went slightly paler. "Oh, that," she said thickly. "Sorry."

He blinked at her. "That's it? Sorry?"

"I..." she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and grimaced. "I'll be right back."

Tossing the mirror away, Harry sank his hands into his hair, feeling like ripping it out in a fit of frustration. He dearly wanted to give her a piece of his mind and it antagonized him to no end that he wouldn't be able to. Something had happened with the Death Eaters and now she was puking her guts out, and aside from the fact that he wanted to know what the Death Eaters had been up to, he didn't like the thought of chewing her out when she was in this state. It felt a lot like kicking a person when they were down.

Which was an idiotic way to look at it, really. Thera knew what she'd done, and he had no doubt that she'd done it solely for her own benefit. And she deserved to hear what he had to say about it. But he'd rather say it to her when she was in full form. When it came down to it, one of them ought to have a shred of moral decency.

It was a long time before Thera came back, looking as if she'd just been drug to hell and back via an extremely rebellious stomach, which was probably an apt description of the situation. "What were we talking about again?" she asked, her eyes a little glassy.

"We...what happened? With the Death Eaters?" he asked, switching tactics.

Thera shrugged a little. "The usual."

"What happened?" he insisted.

"Had a potluck. Massacred some Muggles. It was Nott's birthday so he got to..." she trailed off, making an awful face before disappearing again.

Harry sighed, reaching up underneath his glasses to rub his eyes. This wasn't how he'd imagined this confrontation playing out.

Thera finally reappeared, looking positively deathly. "Sorry," she said, her voice sounding hoarse. "If you don't mind, I'd really prefer not to go into the details, Harry."

"Are you finished now?" he asked.

"Merlin, I hope so. Suffice it to say the details of that are even worse."

Harry nodded, trying to brace up his anger, which seemed to be trickling out of him. He deserved an explanation, at the very least. "Why did you go to the Ministry?" He winced inwardly at the sound of his own voice, sounding almost plaintive.

Thera squeezed her eyes shut. "I sort of lost it for a while after Dumbledore tossed me."

"Right," Harry said neutrally, thinking back. "You tried to drive your car off a cliff."

Her eyes flew open and she scowled. "I didn't..." She sighed. "Alright, fine. I did. Does it still count as a suicide attempt if you know it won't kill you and you chicken out at the last second?"

It really wasn't funny, but Harry found himself unwittingly biting back a smile. He was angry. Really. "I wouldn't know," he said, eyeing her. "Why'd you chicken out?"

"It didn't seem very nice," she said thoughtfully, "to drag an innocent bystander along."

"That's right," he murmured, thinking back. "Malfoy was there. I forgot."

"I meant the car. But Draco was there, too."

His mouth twitched again, but Harry quickly set his features. He was not going to fall for diversionary tactics. "So that's your excuse, then? Temporary insanity?"

"No," she said after a moment. "There isn't any excuse for it. I panicked, and it's sort of an instinct, I guess. I would've given the Ministry my first born child at that point."

"And since you didn't have one," Harry said scathingly, "you gave them me."

Thera dropped her head into her hand. "I guess I did. I didn't mean to. That is, I wasn't planning to. I was just going to do for them what I'd been doing for Dumbledore. I didn't realize that they didn't know about the spell, or the prophecy. I thought it was my last chance, and if I didn't have something to give them, I'd be fucked. I'm used to looking out for myself. I'm not used to taking other people into consideration while I'm doing it. I'm certainly not proud of what I did. And I am sorry, Harry. Truly."

Somewhere in the pit of his stomach, Harry felt a sinking sort of disappointment. His anger wanted to get out, and this was the perfect opportunity for it to do so, but it fizzled as soon as it reached the surface. As far as Thera went, it was a remarkably sincere and straightforward apology. It hardly erased what she'd done, and it certainly didn't guarantee that she wouldn't do the same exact thing in the future, given half a chance.

On the other hand, he knew her. And as much as he liked to ignore it, he knew this side of her. His anger sizzled underneath his skin, making him want to throw her apology back in her face. But reasonably, he could believe what she'd said. Despite her firm belief that he'd get his ass killed if he didn't learn to think before he acted, he'd seen Thera fall victim to the same flaw. When she was backed into a corner, she acted instinctively, automatically, without thought. It was hardly a glowing character endorsement that she hadn't given much thought to what she was doing at the time - selling him out, in other words - but he could at least understand why she'd done it.

Or perhaps Ron was right, and he just had a soft spot for women.

"I just don't see how I can trust you after this," he said slowly.

"Maybe you can't," she said, giving a little half-shrug and looking away. "Maybe you shouldn't, even. I'm not exactly great at this loyalty shit. I'll make it up to you, though."

There was a sort of trend with Slytherins, Harry was beginning to notice. They had a weird obsession with evening up the score. "How do you intend to do that?"

"I don't know," she said, scratching her jaw thoughtfully. "Blow jobs?"

"You're genetically incapable of being serious," he informed her.

"No blow jobs, then?" she asked, a perfect picture of innocence.

"Thera," he ground out exasperatedly.

"I've got a very limited range of talents, Harry."

"You can't earn back trust by making it up to a person, and even if you could, I wouldn't have you do it through sex."

Thera looked positively affronted. "Why not?"

"Because it's gross."

"Oh, here we go again," she said, rolling her eyes.

"I don't meant it like that. Sex isn't currency, for Merlin's sake."

Thera snorted a laugh, then quickly covered her mouth, her brows furrowing together in an expression of extreme seriousness. "Of course it isn't. You're completely right."

Harry glared at her. "Well, it shouldn't be."

"A lot of things shouldn't be. The Dark Lord shouldn't be skipping around Britain doing whatever he likes. Your parents shouldn't be dead. Would you like me to go on?"

"No, I wouldn't," he said, surprised that his tone didn't cause the mirror to frost over.

Thera passed a hand over her eyes. "I'm just saying that we're all trapped in this fucking quagmire, and you can't hold yourself to a bunch of 'shoulds' and fairy-tale bullshit and feel-good happy endings. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and sometimes no matter what choice you make, it sucks. That's just how it works, Harry."

"Is that little speech intended to make me forgive you?"

Thera's face hardened. "No, it isn't." Merlin, she did cold and angry a hell of a lot better than he did. "That little speech was entirely for your benefit."

"The world is unfair. War sucks. I know that already. I don't need you to tell me."

Within a millisecond, her face went completely blank. If he didn't know her, he'd have thought she was a different person. Talking to Thera was disconcerting at times.

"Maybe you do," she said. "The world's all black and white to you Gryffindors. Try applying that philosophy where I am right now and see how far it gets you."

"Well, I'll never have to do that," Harry hissed, "because I'll never be a Death Eater."

"It doesn't matter. You've never killed anybody, Harry. You have no idea what it's like and you have no idea what it takes, and if you think your final showdown with the Dark Lord isn't going to involve a few casualties, you're more deluded that I thought."

Why did everybody seem to think that he didn't know what was coming? His brain answered for him, in that awful sensible voice that always sounded like Hermione. Because even if you know what's coming, you still think you can save everybody, and you can't. It gave him a familiar feeling of panic. All those lives in his hands, relying on him to do something he wasn't entirely certain he could do. It was like trying to cup water in his hands. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop it from leaking out.

It gave him an odd sort of perspective. In her own way, Thera was right. As was Hermione, and Ron. Harry was beginning to think his life should be ruled by committee.

"Why'd you do it anyway?" he asked, the question coming out before he could stop it.

Thera eyed him warily. "Do what?"

"Panic. When Dumbledore backed out of the deal," he clarified when she stared at him in confusion. "You could've still passed on information through Malfoy. He knew what you were doing. So did Snape. Even if you didn't think Dumbledore would help you after the war, surely they would."

Thera's face fell into an expression of amused disbelief. "And why would they do that?"

"Why wouldn't they?"

"Why would they associate themselves with a well-known Death Eater who's performed countless illegal acts in front of countless witnesses? Why would Draco want to risk having the Ministry freeze his assets or even arrest him when he can just keep his mouth shut and his head down and get away scot free? Why would Snape stick his neck out for someone when the only thing standing between him and Azkaban is the fact that he passed on essential information that directly contributed to the Dark Lord's defeat?"

Harry felt his mouth drop open. "You really think they'd do that?"

"Of course they would," Thera said, giving him an odd look, as if this should be obvious. "They'd have nothing to gain by helping me, and everything to lose."

"Yeah, but that's...Merlin, Slytherins really are ruthless."

Thera shrugged. "In any case, that's why I went to the Ministry. Suffice it to say I'd rather like to avoid the family tradition of being indicted. When I get out of here, I want to get out for real. I don't want to spend the rest of my life checking to see if there's an Auror hiding in the closet. I honestly never meant to drag you into it, though."

"Not unless you had to," he said, growing steadily angrier as comprehension dawned. "After all, I'm a pretty risky back-up plan, aren't I? For all you know, I might do like Snape and Malfoy and let you hang. Dear Merlin, you really are mercenary."

She stared back at him, expressionless again. "I didn't fuck you to stay out of prison."

He gave a short, bitter laugh. "Do you really expect me to believe that?"

"I'd like to think you'd help me if you could," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "And I'd like to think you know that I'd help you if I could. I didn't fuck you to stay out of prison, and I didn't offer you the entailment just to butter you up. I fucked you because I wanted to, and I offered you the entailment because I want to help you win."

"And you only want me to win because it'll help you," he concluded for her.

"I can hardly blame you for thinking that, but it's not true."

"Then what the fuck is true!?" Harry yelled.

Thera leaned in close to the mirror, her eyes flashing. "A dozen more Muggles are dead, I can tell you that. They probably never did anything to anybody in their entire lives, and we all just spent a few hours torturing them to death in ways that would make Jack the Ripper sick to his stomach. So if you must know, that's why I want you to win."

Harry couldn't say anything. He couldn't even unclench his jaw to try.

"And I don't know about you, but I had a pretty damn good time with Troy and Cathy. Hell, I had a pretty damn good time with Thera and Harry, and believe me when I say that's the last good time I've had. And since you're obviously fishing for a compliment, I'll give you one. You were fantastic. And if we absolutely must get all slobbery about it, I didn't just enjoy the sex. I liked talking to you. Do you feel validated now?"

Harry looked at her for a moment, remembering back to what seemed to have happened in another lifetime. Sex on the bed, sex on her desk, sex in the shower, really great sex. He'd have to keep the locking charm on the door for a few minutes after they finished talking. And yes, okay. They had talked. Joked around. And not just about everyday stuff, but anything, really. He missed it a bit, actually: tossing around ideas on how to defeat Voldemort while lying on top of Thera naked, talking about life in Little Whinging while getting a back massage after Quidditch practice, hearing about Thera's experiences in all kinds of foreign, exotic places while he absentmindedly played with her breasts.

Merlin, he needed to get laid. "Er...speaking of the entailment..."

Thera gave him a strange look. "How on earth did you get there?"

"Uh," he said, realizing that hadn't taken the same mental voyage he just had.

"Horny thing," she said, smiling. "You're about to magically bind yourself to me for the near future for the sole purpose of getting some pussy. And you call me mercenary."

"That's not the only reason," Harry said, not quite as firmly as he intended to.

"Yes. Well try to name the other ones while you recall that time we did it on my desk."

And he did, in detail. "Evil," he said, squeezing his free hand into a fist and pressing it to his knee to keep it from straying any farther. "Evil. You're positively evil."

"You could have justifiably called me that about fifty times during the course of our conversation, and you choose to save it until now?"

Harry blinked at her, trying to think back. "Did I accept the entailment?"

"I don't know," she said, sitting back a little. "Did you?"

"I think I did," he said slowly.

"Oh," she said faintly. "Well, alright then."

Harry looked at her. "Did you not want me to?"

"Of course I do," she said. "We need to work out the details. Where and when."

"I can't believe I'm actually doing this," Harry said, thinking out loud.

Thera sent him a look. "If I still had the capacity to do so, I'd join you in your disbelief."

"Thanks," Harry said sarcastically. "I've been working out, you know."

"And I'm sure once I get the opportunity to see below your shoulders, I'll be impressed."

"Dear Merlin," Harry said, running a hand through his hair. "I'm actually doing this."

"Well, not presently," Thera deadpanned.

*******

It was the sort of situation that Thera would generally respond to by driving, but she needed to move around and work off some energy. Eschewing her car, she was left with few avenues of escape, such as they were.

Initially, she headed towards the creek, but soon found herself bearing north into the woods at the edge of the property. The propensity was in her to run, but she didn't. It was less an exercise in control than in caution. The woods were thick and without any clearly defined path. Running was - under the circumstances - impossible.

Thera hadn't any affection for the rugged woodsy outdoorsy life, but she was familiar enough with it not to get lost, at least. She trudged through the forest, branches smacking her in the face as she kept her gaze on the stars, trying to keep track of her direction.

It was only when a particularly heavy branch snuck through her hands and whacked her upper lip that Thera decided she'd gone far enough. Pressing her hand against her lip, which suddenly felt as puffy and swollen as a party balloon, she leaned against a tree.

Thera closed her eyes, listening to the unfamiliar quietness of the woods. There was no deep sound the way there was in the city, the underlying murmur of hundreds of thousands of people going about their lives. There was instead the mildly unsettling silence associated with the middle of nowhere: a deep, empty, lonely silence. And yet it wasn't a peaceful silence. Despite all evidence to the contrary and probably due to her current para-psychotic state, Thera found the silence more threatening than anything else.

A split second later, something rustled in the bushes to her right. Spinning around and diving behind the tree, Thera leveled her wand at the intruder.

The movement proved to be unnecessary. Pausing at the edge of her sight, glowing more purely white than the moon, stood a unicorn. Thera lowered her wand and gaped at it, awestruck. She'd never seen one before, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she'd found it difficult to believe that they really existed outside of storybooks.

And yet here one was, shimmering almost painfully bright in the moonlight, without fear, its horn glistening, its dark, wet eyes gazing at her with curiosity.

Having spent half her life theoretically incapable of approaching one, it suddenly struck Thera as funny that she could now. She was a virgin, no matter what the circumstances.

And unicorns couldn't get enough of virgins.

"Come on," she said softly, coming out from behind the tree and holding her hand out.

Slowly, the unicorn walked forward, brushing past the bushes it had been hiding behind, stopping right in front of her and lowering its head, so that her hand came in contact with its nose or nuzzle or whatever the thing was called.

The unicorn's fur was unlike anything she'd ever touched. It was softer than the softest of silks, light and crazily magical, making her want to slay dragons for the beast, disregarding the fact that there were no dragons around to slay anyway.

Her fingers moved up to its horn, which was rock solid, yet strangely smooth to the touch. Largely due to the unicorn's coaxing, Thera brushed her fingers over its ears, secretly reveling in the delight she felt radiating from the beast. It was a strange, unearthly sort of connection that she couldn't even begin to explain. It tingled in the tips of her fingers, a desire to please and an odd sixth sense as to what would achieve that. Thera shook her head in bemusement, feeling a smile play across her face.

The unicorn stepped forward, pressing its face against her shoulder, nudging her a little bit, inviting her to stroke its mane. Thera laughed, feeling strangely giddy.

She had no idea how long she stood there engaged in the ridiculous activity of petting a unicorn in the middle of the woods, but it could have lasted forever and she wouldn't have minded. There was something remarkably peaceful about the encounter, and she hadn't felt this peaceful in a long time. Well...ever, really. It was as if she'd been running around in circles her entire life, and had just now stopped to catch her breath.

The unicorn pulled back, tossing its head, and Thera immediately felt colder in its absence. She wanted to hold onto the warmth and calmness of it all, and couldn't. It simply drifted away. "Will you come back?" Thera asked the unicorn. It paused slightly, giving her half a glance over its shoulder before galloping away into the woods.

That would be a no, she supposed. Thera bowed her head, pressing her fingers into the base of her neck, trying to ease away the pressure there. Then she turned and headed back to the castle.