Two to Obey

Chapter 16: Gifts and Promises

Engrossed in both a roast beef sandwich and the Daily Prophet, Remus gave a little sigh of annoyance when the floo flared to life in the kitchen of Number Twelve. Vivian stepped out, shaking herself off. He sat back and wiped his mouth, a bit surprised. She usually stayed at Hogwarts during the week, especially with all the catching up she had to do for the time she'd spent with him when he'd been ill. Ah, guilt. Hello, there you are.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, rising to kiss her. "It's a weeknight."

She looked a little distracted, her mind likely still on her work. It was the Ravenclaw in her, he knew. When Vivian had a project going, unimportant things like eating and personal hygiene tended to be forgotten. Most people would look at her and judge her an utter scatterbrain, but she wasn't, really. It was just that when Vivian was working on a problem that required her to really think, that's all she could do. All lower brain functions were sacrificed to it. This was how he knew that despite all of her desires to become organized, she'd never actually achieve it. She just didn't work that way.

"I figured I'd stay over tonight," she said, smiling at him.

It was a smile he would have believed if it weren't two nights before the full moon, exactly when he'd collapsed the last time. She'd come to hover, then.

"I'm fine," he assured her. "I'm not nearly as weak as I was at this point last month."

"That's good to hear," she said stoutly. "But I'm still staying."

"Vivian..."

She stepped forward, her eyebrows drawing together, and he realized that her preoccupation had nothing to do with work. It had to do with him. "For better or for worse and in sickness and in health and all the rest of it...that's how it works, Remus. If you didn't want me here, you shouldn't have married me."

"That's being awfully dramatic, don't you think?"

"So you don't want me here, then?"

Remus winced a bit. There was simply no way to answer that question without getting in trouble. "Of course I want you here," he said quickly. "It's just that I'd rather not have this be a big...production," he said, waving his hands a bit.

"I'm not making it into one," she said. "But I'm still not leaving you alone. I can't."

"What about your classes?"

"Molly's agreed to stay during the day. She said she'd bring Charlotte, too."

At which point they both knew that she had him. "Okay, but I'm fine."

"So far," she shot back. But her harsh tone was softened by the fact that her face fell apart less than a second after the words came out of her mouth. Stepping forward, she wrapped her arms around him, hugging him to her tightly.

Remus returned the gesture, burying his face in her hair. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing," she grumbled into his chest. "It's not your fault."

"I know," he said heavily. "I like having you here and all, it's just that I'd rather have you here when you're not just doing it so you can play nursemaid." He raised his head. "Actually, that could be fun, now that I think about it. I am in need of a sponge bath."

Vivian slapped him on the arm. "No sex," she said sternly. "No tiring yourself out. You're going to rest. Period."

"This is all some plot to get me to help you grade essays, isn't it?"

"Only if you want to," she said innocently. He rolled his eyes and she laughed a little, looking down. "Aside from the rest of it, I want to spend time with you. I miss you."

"I miss you, too," he said, squeezing her shoulder. "It's just that - much as I hate to admit it - I'm worried enough on my own about all of this. And now you'll be here, and you'll be worried, so I'll just worry more, plus I'll be worried about you..."

"Do other people even have conversations like this?" Vivian asked, shaking her head.

"Likely not," he conceded.

She dropped her head, taking his hands in hers and squeezing them.

"You never told me what happened last month," he prompted her. Vivian shrugged a shoulder, but didn't say anything. "I have a general idea, but I'd prefer to actually know. I don't like..." he took a deep breath and let it out. "No matter how horrible it is, I'd rather know what I did than have it left to my imagination. Because what I imagine is...well, I certainly hope it's worse than what I actually did."

"What do you imagine?" she asked, looking up at him.

Remus glared at her. "You're stalling."

Her gaze shifted away. "You didn't do anything. I already told you that."

"No," he said, narrowing his eyes, recalling her words. "You said I didn't do anything to anybody but myself." She continued looking away, and realization dawned. "Oh," he said, more than a little uncomfortable at the fact that she'd seen what he was capable of doing to himself without Wolfsbane. "I imagine that wasn't a pretty picture, was it?"

Vivian's jaw tightened. "I've never seen anybody who looked like that who was still alive," she said tonelessly. "I thought you were dead. I really did. I walked into the attic and I saw you and I thought you were dead."

Remus sighed. "I'm sorry you saw that. It's...well...being a werewolf isn't all fun and games. You know that."

She slowly turned her head back to look at him, an odd, intent expression on her face. "So that was perfectly normal, then?" she asked, her voice slowly rising. "Before the Wolfsbane Potion came along, you regularly tried to chew your own hand off?!"

Actually, he could recall a few incidents in which he'd managed to succeed. It wasn't a pleasant thing to wake up to. Werewolves were meant to hunt prey during the full moon. They didn't exactly take nicely to the idea of not being able to do so. Thank Merlin for Skele-gro. And Skin-a-gro. And magical nerve renewal. "Vivian..."

She looked up at him in horror. "Merlin's shit, Remus," she said unsteadily.

He scowled a little. "What did you think it was like, Vivian? You are the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, aren't you?"

"Yes," she spat at him, "and I can tell you how to stop a werewolf from attacking you and how to defend yourself if it does, and how to kill it, but I'm not well-acquainted with their behavior in captivity during the full moon, Remus."

"Yeah, well," he said tiredly, running a hand down his face. "Now you are."

Vivian sank into a chair, still staring at him. "I never knew it was that bad," she said in a weak voice. "I really didn't. I had no idea. I'm so sorry."

Remus shrugged, looking away, feeling his face color in embarrassment. "Don't be sorry. I never meant for you to know. You didn't make me like this, Vivian."

"No," she said, looking up at him with painfully clear eyes, "but I'm still your wife. And aside from whatever crap we said to make it legal in front of a bunch of witnesses, I'm your partner for life. All of your life. And if that's part of it, you should've told me."

That hit hard. "I never thought it would be an issue," he confessed. "Honestly, I didn't. With the Wolfsbane Potion...I didn't think that would ever happen again."

She nodded a little. "But now we know it could. So what do we do?"

"Confining me is pretty much all we can do."

"If you think I'm letting you do that to yourself again, you're mad," she said, fixing him with a disapproving look. "I want to know how I can get you to take Wolfsbane if it happens again. I know with my mother, they stupefy her and then dump potions down her throat while she's out, but that didn't work with you. On the odd occasions that the stupefy actually worked, you'd just spit them right back out. What can we do, then?"

"There are Muggle ways of handling it," he admitted, "but I think I'd rather die, thanks."

"If you died," she said, narrowing her eyes, "the first thing I'd do in my endless grief is seek out Balder and beg him to..."

"I'll write down some notes," he said, holding up his hands. "But if I ever wake up and find that you've followed them, and that if I sneezed, I could possibly empty the contents of my stomach in the process, I will aim directly for you when I do it."

"Just so long as it works," she said with a thin smile. "Now, off to bed with you. I've still got a week's worth of essays to grade, if you require entertainment."

Groaning and knowing that there wasn't any escape, Remus allowed himself to be helped up the stairs and undressed and redressed in pajamas and tucked in as if he were a toddler. Not knowing any better than Vivian did what they were up against, he decided that if enduring this made her feel better, then it was worth it.

*******

Draco Malfoy did not believe in doing things halfway. His hatred of Harry Potter was a rather good example of that. At its height, it had been all-consuming. And now...he honestly didn't know. He still didn't like the kid, but it was just too tiring to have a nemesis who regularly kicked your arse every time you faced off against him.

After a few long days in the Hospital Wing and several more brooding in the Slytherin Common Room - he could have done it just as well in his own room, but Thera was right; he did brood better when he had an audience - he'd come to the conclusion that pretending like he had a snowball's chance in hell of besting Harry Potter in anything that mattered was just setting himself up for disaster. It was time to declare defeat.

The very thought made his hackles rise, because Malfoys never declared defeat. Or so his father had told him. Of course, one could make an argument that falling on one's knees in front of the Ministry and claiming to be under Imperius was declaring defeat.

Potter might very well win the war; if Draco wanted to be a good Malfoy of the sort that ensured there was another generation of Malfoys to be had, he was going to have to swallow his pride and do what he should have done years ago.

After several negotiations regarding schedules, it had been agreed upon that Draco would conduct his first training session with Red and the trio that evening. So he'd sent Potter a note at breakfast, asking him to show up a little early. And he'd arranged for one of the house elves to bring him the Malfoy family ceremonial dagger. It was all set.

Draco Malfoy did not believe in doing things halfway.

Potter was, surprisingly, on time to their meeting in the Room of Requirement. Draco had set the room up to look like his father's training room at Malfoy Manor, with rows of swords and epees along one wall, springy mats in the center of the room and a collection of practice dummies in the corner. It was an environment in which he felt comfortable declaring his surrender, considering how many times he'd declared it to his father after having his arse handed to him. Lucius had been one hell of a swordsman.

Potter gave the room a once-over. He didn't look nearly as impressed as he should. "What're those?" he asked, gesturing towards the dummies standing in the corner.

"The blonde girl's a Dueltrainer 550. The guy in the leotard is a Fencingmaster Deluxe and the other one is...well, let's just call it a modified Dueltrainer 700."

"Modified?" Potter asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Specifically for Dark Arts. Normal Dueltrainers aren't built for that kind of stuff."

Potter nodded, then glanced back at the dummy. "Um...why does it look like me?"

Draco cursed inwardly. He'd been hoping Potter wouldn't notice. He'd tried to change the dummy's appearance, but the Room of Requirement hadn't cooperated. The best he'd been able to do was remove the dummy's glasses and flatten its fringe over the scar. "Because the only other one I've ever seen is my father's, and that's what his looks like."

"How flattering," Potter said, looking like he was trying very hard not to laugh.

He sighed. "Listen, Potter. I asked you here to..." Funny, when it came down to the actual moment of truth, it was a lot harder to get the words out than he'd thought it would be. Yes, he had spent nearly his entire stay in the Hospital Wing planning for this moment. Yes, he knew he couldn't win, and there was no point in pretending like he could any longer. Yes, this was the smart thing to do. Yes to all of it.

Unfortunately, his concession speech didn't seem to want to come out of his mouth. Squeezing his eyes shut, Draco decided to just get it over with.

"You won," he spat out, some part of him coming apart painfully. He used to think getting mocked and punished for failure was the worst part of it. But with nobody around to do that anymore, Draco realized that it wasn't, actually. It was the horrible realization that once you've failed enough times, it was pretty hard not to finally clue in on the fact that you were really an unforgivable fuck-up. Someday, many years from now, when his great-great-grandchildren were forced to listen to the history of the Malfoy family, he'd likely be reduced to a sentence. Like all the other family failures, they'd call him a 'great statesman' and never speak of him again.

"The match, you mean?" Potter asked. "Yeah, I know."

"Not just the match," Draco said, opening his eyes. Perhaps it wasn't even that he'd failed, but that he'd failed due to the actions of a passel of idiots. Which made him an even bigger failure. Future generations of Malfoys probably wouldn't even give him the courtesy of calling him a great statesman. "All of it."

His enemy looked entirely lost. "All of what?"

Draco gritted his teeth and forced himself to raise his head and look his nemesis in the eye. If he was going to declare defeat, he was at least going to be attractively lit while doing so. "The whole rivalry. All of it. You won. I'm officially surrendering."

Potter still didn't look like he got it. "Okay."

Even if the kid didn't understand what he'd just accepted, he'd accepted it, and acceptance was step one of the ritual. Step two was the humiliating part. Pulling the dagger out of his pocket, Draco handed it to Potter, who took it warily.

"What's going on here, Malfoy? Why are you giving me a knife?"

"It's a dagger," Draco said as he got down on his knees, biting back the insult he'd usually tack onto the end. "And it's part of the ritual."

"Ritual?" Potter asked faintly, his eyes traveling fearfully from the dagger to Draco's face to the zipper of his own trousers. "Where is this ritual going, exactly?"

"Not there, I assure you," Draco said frigidly, closing his eyes and launching in. "As the Malfoy, I kneel in defeat before my enemy. Should he have cause for grievance, let him have it repaid in blood, as is his due."

Potter gave a cry of surprise as the dagger dragged him forward in answer to the ritual. Draco felt the edge of the blade against his throat and tried very hard not to swallow. "Do you have grievance?" he asked, his voice harsh and whispery. In retrospect, his faith in Potter's unending well of do-gooder Gryffindor-ness seemed a bit hasty.

"Malfoy, stop it. Stop this. Why the hell won't my hand come off this bloody thing?"

"Answer the question," Draco said, beginning to perspire and seconds away from outright whimpering. He did not like the sight of blood, especially his own. That would come in a few minutes regardless, but at least it wouldn't be gushing out of his neck. With a great deal of effort, he repressed a shudder.

"What happens if I say yes?" Potter asked, his voice a thready whisper.

"What do you think happens?" he answered in a hiss.

"Merlin..." The Gryffindor gulped audibly. "No. No, of course not."

The blade went away and Draco opened his eyes in relief, just in time to see Potter fall on his ass, so hard had he been trying to pry his hand off of the dagger. Any amusement he felt drained quickly, however, when he saw the look on the kid's face. Potter looked murderous. And not murderous in the way most people did. He looked murderous the way somebody with the power to kill the Dark Lord did.

"What the fuck are you playing at?!" he yelled, throwing the dagger aside and standing up. "What the fuck are you...." He sputtered for a few moments, as if he were honestly too angry for words. "What's wrong with you?!"

Now that he didn't have a razor-sharp blade pressed against his throat, Draco felt much calmer. "I told you," he said smoothly, standing up and straightening his robes. "I'm surrendering. It's a ritual. Ancient as the hills. I can't just say 'I surrender' and leave it at that. There's no meaning. This is strong magic, Potter. One would think you'd appreciate what I'm doing for you here."

Potter just stared at him, wide-eyed. "You're bloody fucking nuts, Malfoy."

Draco shot him a glare. "The ritual's not over yet."

"I don't even want to know what comes next," the kid muttered.

Ignoring him, Draco picked up the dagger. "My enemy has claimed no grievances against me and my debt to him is repaid in all save my oath." Thankfully, the dagger would do most of the work here, because he was far too squeamish to do it himself. Stretching out his right hand, keeping his eyes well away from it, he sliced it open with the dagger, wincing a little the entire time. Be a man for Merlin's sake, he scolded himself. Or - more precisely - Lucius' voice scolded him in his head.

Squeezing his hand shut, he pressed it to his chest. "On the honor of the Malfoy family and my own blood, I swear loyalty to him, mine enemy, now mine ally," he took a deep breath and forced himself not to sneer the name, "Harry Potter. My wand and my sword are his to command." And it was done.

Draco breathed a sigh of relief and dug his wand out of his pocket to heal up his hand.

"That's it, right?" Potter asked.

"That's it," he said, a little dully.

"If we're married or something now, I'm going to punch you right in the face."

"We're not married," Draco said through gritted teeth. "I just swore a blood oath to protect your ungrateful arse. I'm on your side now, Potter."

The kid watched him intently. "Won't that interfere with the spell?"

"No. The spell's more powerful. This is more...symbolic. Apparently too symbolic for you to wrap your mind around it. I just swore loyalty to you, Potter." Draco cut himself off before he said something along the lines of "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"I know," Potter said in a low voice. "I got that. It's just that I don't want it."

Draco blinked at him. He supposed that could be classified as a slap in the face, but it felt more like a kick in the stomach. He should've given Potter more credit. The kid really knew how to rip the balls off a guy.

"I see," he heard himself say, shrugging it off. "Right. Well, then." Turning around sharply, he stalked across the room, trying to refocus on why they were there. He had a training session to conduct. If Potter wanted to reject his oath...well, it didn't matter.

"Malfoy, I wasn't trying to insult you," Potter said.

"Forget it," Draco said casually. "I didn't want to be one of your minions anyway."

Potter's voice practically shook the room with anger. "I don't want any minions, don't you get that? I don't want loyalty oaths, either. Especially from you."

Draco spun around at that, seething. "Listen, Potter. Whether you want it or not, you have my loyalty oath. Take a great big shit on it if it pleases you, but you still have it. Forgive me for assuming that it might have sunk into that great stupid skull of yours that no member of my family has sworn blood loyalty to a member of the Good Side in our entire history. So if you don't want it, fuck you. I gave it, and that's what matters."

The Gryffindor threw up his hands. "You're just determined to misunderstand anything I say, aren't you? I called you a drama queen before. I didn't even know what I was talking about. This right here is you being a drama queen."

"Yes, Potter, insult me," he drawled. "That's just the thing to do in this situation. No wonder so many people are trying to kill you."

"Malfoy," the other boy sighed. "All of these people who believe that I can defeat Voldemort...I feel responsible for them, just like I feel responsible for all the kids in the D.A. But it's stupid, in the end. I can't protect them, not really. I can't protect you, either, but I always thought you were one of the people I'd never have to. You can look out for yourself, I'm sure. And I don't want to take an oath from you that I can't return."

"I didn't ask you to return it," Draco said evenly, absorbing that. Or at least the parts of it that were relevant to him.

Potter looked away. "I know you didn't, but I feel like I should."

"Thus negating the fact that I just surrendered to you."

"Yes, I suppose could've been a bit more tactful about that," the kid muttered. "Sorry."

Draco opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Red entering the room. She gazed around with her eyebrows raised, looking impressed - as well she should - then zeroed in on the two of them, standing at an uneasy distance, staring each other down.

"What have you two been up to in here?" she asked suspiciously.

"Malfoy just swore a blood oath of loyalty to me," Potter said, smirking slightly.

Red's eyes widened, going between the two of them as if expecting one of them to crack up and deny the entire thing. Finally, she just shook her head. "You boys get up to the weirdest things when you're left alone."

*******

Hermione glanced over again at Ron, who was embroiled in a chess game with Neville. They had to leave soon, or they'd be late for their training session - if it deserved the term - with Malfoy. She didn't want to disturb him, though. They'd been friendly since their breakup, which had come as a surprise. Hermione had expected civility. They'd done civility before. But Ron acting like they were just friends, like their entire relationship and breakup had never happened...it was bit disconcerting.

Sometimes she wondered if the entire thing had just taken place in her head.

She glanced over at Ron again, hesitant to get up and tell him they had to leave. She was well sick of being everybody's alarm clock and having people scowl at her, as if her sole purpose in life was to ruin their fun just to make sure they got to class on time.

Hermione would never understand how punctuality could be viewed as a character flaw.

Another minute ticked away and her skin began to crawl. She hated being late, but she also didn't want to play the harpy yet again. And she didn't want to disturb the pleasant, if tenuous, balance that she and Ron seemed to have struck. She cleared her throat.

Ron looked over at her, and Hermione made a small gesture with her head towards the portrait hole. Please, don't get all huffy about Malfoy right now, Ron.

Instead, he gave her a nearly imperceptible nod and turned back to Neville. "Want me to save you some time?" he asked jovially.

Neville looked up at him hopefully. "You're going to help me?"

"Uh...well, not really," Ron said. "But this is your last move. There's one you can make that'll keep you alive. Anything else, and I have you." His face spread into the nearly sharkish grin that only seemed to appear when he was playing chess, and that always reminded her of Fred and George. Hermione smiled a bit to herself, knowing what that smile was. Confidence. Chess was Ron's game, and he played it masterfully - she had to give him credit for that, considering she'd spent the summer after fifth year reading every book she could find on the subject and still only beat him a tenth of the time.

Neville studied the board for a moment, his brow lowered in concentration. Finally, he picked up the one bishop he had left and moved it three places to take out one of Ron's knights that was threatening his king. "Was that it?" he asked hopefully, looking up.

"Nope," Ron said smugly, moving his queen up. "Checkmate. Good game, though."

"What did I do wrong?" Neville asked, frowning at the board.

Ron stood up, grinning. "Well, it started when you asked me play chess with you."

Neville rolled his eyes and made a gesture Hermione couldn't interpret. Ron made a gesture back, because apparently the boys all had their own secret sign language. "Don't fall for the sacrifice," he shot back over his shoulder as he headed for the portrait hole. Hermione trailed after him, as if she hadn't been the one trying to get them to leave.

They walked a while in silence before Hermione finally broke it. "Since when does Neville play chess?"

"He doesn't, really. It's just for fun," Ron shrugged. He sent her a sidelong glance. "Yes, I know. We would've been better off doing our homework."

Having opened her mouth to give that exact observation, Hermione quickly shut it, annoyed that he'd stolen her thunder. "Are you going to be civil?" she asked.

"Dunno," he said thoughtfully. "Depends on how big an arse Malfoy is. Though I did promise Ginny I wouldn't beat him to a pulp. So I'd call it a maybe."

Considering Ron, she supposed, that was progress. They reached the Room of Requirement to find Harry, Ginny and Malfoy already there. Hermione walked inside, taking in the space. There were weapons on the wall that couldn't possibly be real, though if they were replicas, they were outstanding. In the center of the room was a standard dueling surface with... "Is that a Dueltrainer 550?" she asked, impressed in spite of herself. She'd tossed around the idea of buying one to help her hone her skills - until she'd found out that they ran about ten times the price of a Firebolt.

Malfoy glanced over at it lazily. "Yes, but we won't be using it today. We'll be using this one," he said, walking over to activate a different, dark-haired dummy.

"Why does it look like Harry?" Ron asked, his face flushing slightly.

The dummy came awake, moving forward and taking a position at one end of the dueling surface. "I'm Harry Potter," it said in a voice that sounded vaguely like Harry's, only more nasal and high-pitched and...chirpier. "I'm the Boy Who Lived. I believe in all that's right and good and pure. You can't stop me. I'm going to defeat the Dark Lord."

"Yes, well," Malfoy said, tugging at his hair a little bit, "about that..."

"Is this the Room of Requirement or isn't it?" Harry huffed a bit, stepping forward. "Give us something frightening, if you don't mind? A Death Eater, perhaps?"

The dummy went through more than a few grotesque transformations, including a moment in which it wore Harry's face and glasses, and Bellatrix LeStrange's body. It finally settled on a large, dark-haired man, who seemed to have the characteristics of too many individuals to have an actual personality. "Kill," it gurgled, drooling on itself.

"Not just now," Malfoy said breezily, stepping in front of it. "So. The Dark Arts," he began, with a flourish. "The bane of the Ministry's existence. And yet terribly useful to know when engaged in an all-out war against those who - like me - have been raised since birth to use them whenever and wherever possible. I could make a grand Snape-like speech on the subject, but since I doubt the audience would appreciate it, I'll just get down to business. All you need to know are spells the Death Eaters are likely to use against you in battle, how to use them yourselves, and how to defend against them."

"The first one is fairly standard. Like many dark curses, it's one used in everyday life: the cutting charm. But with the right motivation, it becomes the cutting hex. Using it to deal with a stray thread on the hem of your robes is one thing. Using it against a Death Eater who's trying to kill you is quite another. And it's all about intention." Malfoy dropped his head briefly, and Hermione had to admit that he cast quite a figure. She wouldn't put it past him to have gotten here early for the sole purpose of placing marks for himself where the lighting was most effective.

"If you don't intend to kill or maim your target, you'll never master this spell as an offensive weapon," he said simply. "And it's one bloody useful offensive weapon."

"Is it still Diffindo?" Ginny asked. "I mean, it's just the intention that's different, right?"

"Right," Malfoy said, giving her a little smile that made Hermione look over at Ron. He had his eyes fixed firmly on the far wall. "Potter," the Slytherin continued, "I'm sure you're familiar with the variation. The others could use an example. Right now, the Dueltrainer's set only to disarm. Do what you can to it. Ready?"

Harry didn't even spare him a glance when he nodded. "Attack," Malfoy said lazily, stepping back and crossing his arms to watch what happened.

What happened was that the dummy got out the first syllable of an Expelliarmus before Harry slashed his hand through the air. The dummy's head, neck and entire left arm separated from the rest of its body. Both pieces fell to the floor with a meaty thunk.

There was a long silence afterwards while they all stared at the thing in disgust.

"Right," Malfoy said slowly. "Potter has it, then. Who's next?"

*******

Death Eater, Ginny thought, blocking out all other thoughts. Death Eater. Evil.

"Diffindo!" she cried, slashing her wand across her body. For the first time that night, a wide gash opened up across the dummy's chest. Looking surprised, it stumbled back. "Diffindo!" she said again, with more fervor than force, slashing her wand again. It opened up another gash, and Ginny finally felt she understood the concept of Dark spells. Whenever she'd had trouble doing a spell before, her first instinct had always been to try to throw more of her power into it. That didn't work with the Dark Arts. Power mattered less than intention and desire did. If you really wanted to hurt somebody, you could.

You just had to be in the right frame of mind.

Draco called the meeting to a close after her last turn, which seemed like a natural ending point. All of them had managed to perform the spell except Hermione, who seemed to have a mental block against it. The most she could manage was a shallow cut, and Ginny felt a wave of sympathy for her, because she knew how much her friend would beat herself up about this. But all the same, she could see how Hermione had failed. It was obvious, really. Unlike the rest of them - even Harry - Hermione had never truly desired to hurt another person in her entire life. Sure, she lost her temper on occasion - she'd done it rather famously with Draco a few years ago - but that was a far cry from wanting someone to hurt, or wanting them dead, or wanting them to hurt a lot before they died.

"Potter," Draco said. "Stay a moment, will you?" Looking slightly surprised, Harry waved off Ron, who sent a glance at Ginny as he and Hermione left. She shook her head. His lips tightened, but he nodded and left. Draco looked particularly yummy at the moment, and she forced down her annoyance at Harry's continued presence.

"That was a good lesson," she complimented Draco, as the room changed into the one they usually used when they were together in here.

He smirked a little. "How much do you want to bet your brother got the curse so easily because he was imagining my face on the practice dummy?"

"He's been a lot better," she said defensively. "Even you have to admit that."

"He's been pretending I don't exist," Draco shrugged. "Which is an arrangement I'm highly in favor of."

"Malfoy," Harry spoke up impatiently. "I have a life, you know."

Draco raised his eyebrows. "You do?"

"What did you want to talk about? And so help me, if you whip out a dagger, I'll..."

"It occurred to me," Draco said, rolling his eyes at the ceiling, "that your utter ignorance of standard rituals is likely across the board. You and Thera are meeting up tomorrow to handle the matter of the entailment. Am I right?"

"Yes," Harry said warily. "But I'm not taking a dagger there, either."

"Let the dagger go, Potter. I know it's phallic and intriguing and all, but you're starting to worry me. I'm simply informing you that it's standard practice to give her a gift to mark the occasion. Also, her birthday's in a few days, and it's standard practice to give her a gift for that occasion, too. Just thought you ought to know."

Harry blew out a breath. "Well, I knew about birthdays, obviously. But I don't have the first clue what to get her. Besides scotch, that is."

With the air of a king bestowing an important royal missive on a page, Draco removed a sheet of parchment from the pocket of his robes and handed it to Harry. "Anything above the line will suffice. Anything below the line will show her you're not a cheap bastard."

Harry scowled, but he took the parchment, his face clearing as he looked it over. "Oh, that's a really good idea," he said to himself, scratching his head.

"Also, she has a Dark Mark now. I imagine she hasn't told you, but I'm sure that's the kind of thing you'd rather not have to find out about in the moment. Mood killer."

Harry's eyebrows drew together. "Since when?"

"I don't know. I didn't write it on my calendar. She's a touch upset about it, understandably. And suffice it to say the past few months haven't been terribly pleasant for her. And as she's currently parentless and guardianless and I'm the closest thing she has to either one, as I am - for all intents and purposes - her affianced, I suppose this falls to me. I know as well as anybody that Thera can look out for herself. I also know as well as anybody that she's a complete and utter disaster at the moment. I realize the loyalty oath makes it bad form to give you a good pounding if you do," he said with a cold smile, "but if you hurt her, I will make you hurt in kind."

Ginny stared at him wide-eyed for a moment. Then she put her hand over her mouth to cut off her laughter. Harry's eyes cut to her briefly, then refocused on Draco. "That's fair. And returned," he said pointedly. Then he left, ending the pissing contest.

"Don't tell anyone," Draco said in a conspiratorial whisper, "but I just did a good deed, giving him that list."

"Yes, you did," Ginny said, smiling at him. "Now if you can just manage to not be a jerk while you're doing it, who knows what you might be capable of?"

"The wanker didn't even thank me. Isn't that the whole point of doing good deeds? Gratitude?"

Ginny sighed. "Every time I think you're not hopeless, you remind me that you are."

"Oh, come on. A simple 'thank you' wouldn't have killed him."

He had a point, but still. "The purpose of doing good is just...to do good. You don't do it in order to receive anything in return. You just do it because it's the right thing to do."

"That goes against the entire Slytherin code," he sniffed.

"What exactly is the Slytherin code?"

"It's decoratively displayed on a lovely sampler in my room, if you'll recall."

Ginny thought for a second. "The one by the door, with a list of silly phrases?"

Draco looked offended. "Those silly phrases are the backbone of our existence."

" 'Never wear light colors after the Autumnal Equinox' is the backbone of your existence?"

"It is a rule to live by. Although if you'd ever bothered to read beyond the fashion dictates, you'd have found the meat of the matter. 'Trust no one; you're most likely to be murdered by somebody you know.' 'The ends justify the means.' 'The person who finishes second is just the first loser.' 'Nobody has yet managed to categorically prove that he who dies with the most doesn't win.' And the Silver Rule, of course: 'Do unto other as you'd expect them to do unto you if they thought they could get away with it.'"

Ginny had a feeling he wasn't kidding. For the sake of not spending the night arguing, she chose to pretend like he was. "Did you really swear a blood oath to Harry?"

"I surrendered to him in the proper way. He accepted. I swore an oath of loyalty."

There was more to it than that, but she was rather caught up on the fact that it had happened at all. "Where on earth did this come from?"

He glanced at her. "Might as well. I'm sick of the kid kicking my arse every time I go head to head with him. I'm not Harry Potter. I never will be. Beyond that..." He ran a distracted hand through his hair, messing it up a little. Without thinking, she reached out and smoothed it back down. "Malfoys have always sided with the Dark. And we're still here after a thousand years, so there is something to be said for that strategy. Having heard the entire family history more times than I can count, I never really thought much about it. But it's started occurring to me that though the family's survived and prospered, there are quite a few family members that we don't talk about very much, and there are even more that...well, suffice it to say they didn't expire in their sleep at the grand old age of two hundred. And I think I'd rather like to do that, if possible."

Ginny reached out and took his hand, watching him closely. "So?"

"So, my mother said I was smarter than my father, more Slytherin." His hand was like a dead fish in hers, and she squeezed it a little bit. He didn't seem to notice. "I think she didn't want me to fall into the same traps that he did with the Dark Lord. I think she didn't want me to take the whole family down with me because I wasn't willing to do what it would take to keep it alive. I think this is what she meant by that. So I did it."

"Er...that's noble of you, I guess," she said. "What does it mean?"

"It means that when this war is over - provided Potter wins and I'm not the Dark Lord's lackey for the rest of my days - the Malfoys are officially..." He trailed off, making a face. When he finally said the word, it sounded like he was choking on it. "...Good."

Ginny bit back a smile, feeling oddly tearful. This was the Draco she'd known was in there somewhere. He wasn't completed yet, certainly. He had a long way to go, and she accepted the fact now that that path wouldn't lead to where she'd hoped it would go. He'd never be a nice person, or a particularly decent one - at least under the definition of 'decent' she'd been raised to understand. But he was his own person, at least. He wasn't just the culmination of generations upon generations of honored, pureblooded Malfoys or Lucius' little clone. He was Draco, and whatever he became was under his own control, based upon his own choices.

Merlin, she loved him. "How's your pride holding up?" she asked.

He snorted. "What pride?"

"I'm proud of you," she said, squeezing his hand again. "So there's that much."

Draco looked down his hand in surprise, as if only just realizing she was holding it. "I've been thinking about us, too."

Animal Ginny stirred and sniffed at the air, then stretched sinuously and prepared herself to pounce on command. "In the Hospital Wing? How'd you get away with it?"

"Not like that," he said, giving her a look. "Please. Madame Pomfrey manages to kill anything sexual with her mere existence."

"Well, how then?" she asked shortly.

"This isn't going anywhere," he said, holding her gaze steadily. "You know that."

"We don't know where it's going," she hedged, not really wanting to have this discussion right now. Which is to say that Animal Ginny couldn't understand why they were still talking. "What does it matter right now?"

"Honestly, Red. What are we going to do next year, when you're in school and I'm helping the Dark Lord take over the world, or - in the absolute best case scenario - I've graduated and am simply not here? Meet for coffee in Diagon Alley when you're on holiday? Have wild sex via owl post? What?"

"I don't know! What's the purpose of talking about it now?" From the beginning, there had been a great bloody number of unknowns about their relationship, and it was true that she could never imagine herself as the next Lady Malfoy, doing nothing all day but making herself gorgeous and cozying up to purebloods who hated her, her family and everything she believed in. But the two of them were still in school, for Merlin's sake. The war could end in a lot of different horrible ways that might make worrying about this completely pointless. Ginny had no intention of spending the rest of her life with Draco, provided her life didn't end in the next few years.

"Why are we even talking about this?" she asked him.

"Well, considering I'm to be married in whatever non-legal and non-binding contract in the next few days for the sole purpose of appeasing the Dark Lord, it's rather been on my mind that someday, I'll have to enter into a legal, binding marriage with some brainless pureblood chit of impeccable bloodline in order to secure the future of the Malfoy name by grossing wealth and producing a properly magical, male Malfoy heir."

He said that all in one breath. Ginny was a bit impressed. "So?" she asked. "I mean, that seems fairly empty and pathetic to me, but if that's what you think you have to do, I'm hardly going to stand in your way. I know what you stand to lose if you don't do it. And I really don't care to be the honored bearer of the next Malfoy. No offense."

Draco looked a bit ill. "I'm going to end up spending the rest of my life with Pansy Parkinson, aren't I? Sure, she's not a troll anymore, but I still remember her looking like one in my head. And the greatest contribution she's ever given to a conversation is sycophantic laughter. As nice as that is, I think the novelty might wear off."

"Listen," she said, "I'm a Weasley. I've never had any money to lose. I can't pretend like I'm capable of understanding what you'd be giving up by going your own way, so to speak. But I've had a taste of what it's like to go against your family. I know how hard it is. Of course, I actually care about my family."

"I care about mine, too," he said, crossing his arms. "I won't see my mother thrown out on the street, or my grandmother disgraced. No self-respecting person would allow that."

"I don't mean that," she said, waving a hand. "I mean actually caring about what they think of you, whether or not you've let them down. Taking care of their expectations."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "I'm failing to see how the two are different."

Ginny gave up. He wouldn't see, or couldn't. Draco's family wasn't been like hers. He didn't love them, or at least hadn't shown any evidence he did. In some aspects, their choices might be the same, but their motivations were worlds apart.

She loved him in addition to her family. He loved her despite his.

It made her feel cold. Ginny wrapped her hands in his to warm them up. "At least we still have the sex," she whispered, leaning up to kiss him.

"There is that," he said amiably, kissing her back.

His hands splayed across her back, his hair falling softly against her forehead. "And I think we have at least one more time in us," she murmured against his lips, allowing them a few minutes of foreplay before releasing Animal Ginny from her cage.

*******

Harry was possessed of a nervous tension that he couldn't quite explain. Yes, it had been a long time since he'd had sex. His penis was regularly reminding him of exactly how long it had been. But he'd had sex with Thera before. It's not like it was a big deal.

Okay, so why was he pacing around the room, checking his hair every five seconds in the mirror? And conjuring up roses, then thinking they were too much and disappearing them, then changing his mind and conjuring up some new ones?

He didn't know, really. It just seemed to be the entire set-up. It made the whole thing into an event of some kind, and...should he have music playing?

"Stop it," he ordered himself, sitting down on the edge of the bed. His knee started bouncing up and down and Harry clamped his hand down on it to make it stop.

There was a knock at the door and Harry shot up. He paused to take a deep breath. If he opened the door panting, she'd think he was too worked up and...Dear Merlin, why wouldn't his brain shut up? Forcing himself to walk sedately, he opened the door.

Thera was wearing a rather nice red blouse and a black miniskirt with black tights, which was a new look. He'd never seen her in anything other than school robes and enormous t-shirts. And...well...nothing.

Damn penis.

"Hi," she said in a neutral tone.

He swallowed. "Hi. Er...come in." He stepped back so that she could, still absorbing this new Thera. She looked a little thinner than he remembered, and seemed pinched and worn, like someone who'd just gotten over a long illness. Or somebody who put away a bottle of scotch a day, which was the likely explanation. "You look nice."

"Draco bought it for me. I can't stay long," she said expressionlessly. "Let's just..." She waved a vague hand.

It was, Harry realized, going to be a bumpy night.

"Thera, listen," he began, but she cut him off with a look. It wasn't hatred, necessarily, but it wasn't all that far off. Then she brushed past him into the room. A little thrown by this whole...whatever it was, Harry took a moment before shutting the door.

By the time he turned around, she already had her skirt off and was unbuttoning her blouse. "Merlin, Thera," he said, a touch of exasperation leaking into his voice. "Would you just slow down for a minute?"

"I can't stay long," she said in that same tone, her long hair hiding her face as her fingers worked at the buttons. She was wearing a black tank top under the blouse, which was good, because if she weren't, he likely wouldn't have been able to focus.

Harry was aware of the fact that Thera wasn't exactly enthralled with the whole entailment thing, but this seemed to be taking it a bit far. Just because the circumstances weren't ideal didn't mean they couldn't enjoy themselves.

And it angered him a little bit, the way she was acting. She'd probably acted like this plenty of other times, with plenty of the idiots she'd slept with, but that didn't mean she could pull it with him.

"If you think I'm doing it this way," he told her, "you're wrong."

She didn't look up. "Well, this is the only way it's getting done."

Acting like complete strangers? Harry stared at her, completely lost. "Why?"

"Don't talk," she snapped, hooking her thumbs into the waistband of her tights.

"Just stop, would you?" Entirely fed up, he strode forward to pull her hands away. At the last instant, she jerked back, and Harry froze at the look on Thera's face. She looked like a cornered animal, ready to rip open his jugular if he made a threatening move. Slowly, he raised his hands, as if she were holding him at gunpoint.

"It's okay," he said, keeping his voice even and soothing. "Just calm down. I'm not going to do anything. You're upset, obviously. Do you want to talk about it?"

Slowly, bit by bit, Thera's face slipped back into its previous blank expression. "What I want," she said in a low, cold voice, "is for you to shut up and fuck me in a nice, timely manner, preferably before any of the Death Eaters even figures out I'm gone."

"I already said I'm not going to..."

"Shut up, Harry," she said, breaking a little bit, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing her fingertips to her temples. "Please, please shut up."

He did, crossing his arms and fixing her with a look.

After a moment, Thera sighed and dropped her hands. "I have something to show you."

Keeping with the shutting up, he merely raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, bloody hell," she muttered. "There's really no good way to do this. Here." She began rolling up her sleeve.

"I already know," he said. She paused, glancing up at him. "Malfoy," he explained.

"Ah," she said, shrugging her shoulders up and looking away. "I didn't ask for it."

"I know," he said, feeling once more the aggravating helplessness that went part and parcel with his 'saving people thing.' Despite what everyone seemed to think, he was well aware of the fact that he couldn't save everybody, but that didn't stop him from wanting to, especially the people he cared about. And it enraged him in a very deep and personal way that he couldn't. He had this power that he was supposed to use for the good of the wizarding world to defeat Voldemort and he couldn't use it to protect his friends, or to wipe that fucking mark off of Thera's arm. Or that look off of her face.

"Can I...um, can I see it?" he asked tentatively. Thera's eyes moved back to him and Harry figured she'd refuse, or whip out some sarcasm, but she didn't. Instead, she rolled up her sleeve, held out her arm and fixed her gaze stoically over his left shoulder.

Harry wasn't wholly influenced by morbid curiosity. He'd just honestly never seen one up close. Even at the Quidditch World Cup, he hadn't gotten a very good look at the thing. Pushing up her sleeve, he regarded the charred-looking mark on the inside of her arm, slightly disappointed to realize that as far as he could tell, there weren't any cleverly hidden details that might give away Voldemort's secret weakness. There was a skull. There was a snake coming out of its mouth. That was pretty much it.

"It looks kind of...was it burned on?" he asked, unable to keep a measure of disgust from his tone.

"No, Harry," she said, straight-faced, "it was licked on by kittens."

He ignored that, reaching up a finger to touch it. Immediately, his scar exploded with pain. Jumping back, he pressed both hands to his forehead as Thera hissed and cradled her arm against her body, glaring at him.

"Okay, yeah. I should have seen that coming," he admitted.

"Let's just keep our marks of evil away from each other, shall we?" she snapped.

"Fair enough," he said, furiously rubbing his palm against his burning scar.

"Yeah, well. Just in case..." Taking off her blouse, Thera wrapped it around her arm, using her wand to tie the sleeves together in a neat little bow. Then she pushed her hair out of her face and glanced at him. "The mood's pretty much ruined," she observed.

There hadn't been a mood in the first place, as far as Harry was concerned. "Can we just...I don't know. Can we start over?" Can you just act like your bloody self, please?

"As in I get dressed and go back outside?"

"I don't know," he said, running his hands through his hair in aggravation.

"How about I tattoo your name on my ass and we call it even?" she asked.

"Stop it, would you?" he hissed at her. This was not going well. This was really not going well, and he didn't know how to fix it. "Just...give me a minute."

"I can't stay long," she reminded him.

"Yes, I know," he said testily.

Thera cocked her head and regarded him for a moment, recalculating the situation. Then she stepped forward, undid his trousers with remarkable speed and thrust her hand inside.

He gasped at the contact. "What are you doing?"

"Plan B," Thera said grimly.

At which point, Harry decided that he'd had enough. Shoving her away from him, he backed up a step. "Why the fuck are you so intent on making sure that neither of us enjoys this one bit?" he asked her in a cold, hard voice that didn't even sound like it came from him. Thera looked back at him with an infinitely patient expression and crossed her arms, as if he were a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Grinding his teeth together, Harry curled his hands into fists to keep from shouting at her.

Thera glanced down at his hands, visibly amused. "Going to hit me, Harry?"

"Of course not," he bit out.

She smiled nastily. "Oh, come on. It'll make you feel better."

"No, it won't," he said, staring at her. What new insanity was this?

"What, afraid of tarnishing your sterling hero reputation?" she asked mockingly. "Is that it? Honestly, Harry. They'd probably give you a medal."

"Thera..." he whispered, numb with shock. Now he knew what it looked like when Thera went mental, and it wasn't pretty. He couldn't quite get past the fact that she honestly seemed to want him to do it. In some strange dark corner of his mind, he could understand why. The look she'd given him earlier...she didn't hate him, but she was on the lookout for a good excuse to do so. And clocking her would definitely provide that.

Which still left open the larger question of why she was pulling this shit in the first place.

Thera got right in his face, something he knew she couldn't do without standing on her tiptoes, which he found weirdly funny. He didn't dare show it, though. Laughing at Thera right now would not be a wise move. He might not live long enough to have kids, or ever even want to, but he would like to keep the possibility open.

"Come on, Harry," she sneered at him, abruptly reaching up and shoving him. "Stop hiding behind your fucking moral superiority."

Harry just watched her. He had a feeling he was better off letting her get this out than he was trying to talk to her right now. Or trying to stop her.

"You want to believe that you don't like it, but I know you do," she snarled, punctuating her statement with another shove. "You think you don't want control? Power? You think if you hate yourself enough for it, you'll stop liking it so much?" Another shove. "Well, take it from me. You won't." Another shove. "So grab me by the hair, throw me on the bed and fuck me the way you know you want to." Another shove. "Just stop pretending like you wouldn't, like you're better than that. Because I know you aren't."

Her last shove threw him off-balance and into the bedside table. Flailing a bit, Harry managed to knock the lamp to the floor. Tripping over his feet, he joined it shortly thereafter, sitting down hard, knocking his elbow on the table on the way down.

Ignoring the hot tingling that shot down his forearm, Harry remained still, his eyes on Thera, expecting her to attack him.

She didn't. Instead, her head dropped, and for a few seconds her heaving breaths the only sound in the room. Then she raised a hand, pressing it to her forehead.

"Fuck," she whispered. Spinning around, went over to the bar he'd set up in the corner of the room, poured herself a drink and downed it. "That was...fuck, Harry. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that." And down went Thera's second drink.

Harry picked himself up from the floor, watching her cautiously. He was pretty sure she was done with the crazy, but he wasn't about to push the matter. "It's okay."

"No, it's not," she sighed, her shoulders sagging a little bit. "Why do you do that, Harry? Why do you let people push you around all the time?"

"I don't do that," he said, a trifle offended that she'd even think so.

"Don't you?" she asked, turning around and leaning against the bar, studying him. "You didn't like me teaching your relatives a lesson this summer."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"What they did to you," Thera said slowly, as if instructing a very slow student, "was child abuse. You do realize that, don't you?"

Well, of course he did. Hermione gave him an annual speech about it. "Yeah," Harry said, not understanding where she was going with all of this. Sure, he'd let the Dursleys push him around, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that he hadn't exactly been in a position to stop them.

"And you didn't want to get even the tiniest bit of revenge on them for that?"

Harry blinked at her. "Thera, I don't recall asking you to avenge my crappy childhood."

"That's the thing," she said, as if this proved her point. "You wouldn't ask me - which is a shame, because I'd enjoy it. And you'd certainly never do it yourself."

He was beginning to get a headache. "Why would I want to? It's over."

"Because they treated you like shit," she said simply, "and they should pay for it."

"Okay, then," he returned, crossing his arms, quickly spotting the glaring logical fallacy in her argument. "What about you?"

Thera apparently hadn't spotted it. "What do you mean?"

"If your Mum were still around, would you want revenge on her for using Cruciatus on you? After all, what she did to you," he said slowly and seriously, "was child abuse. You realize that, don't you?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's not the same thing."

"No, it's not the same thing. It's worse."

Thera just looked amused. "You don't know you're talking about, Harry."

Well...no, not precisely, but he wouldn't have expected it to be funny. If she went barmy on him again, he was just going to take what remained of his pride and leave. "Uh...what are you talking about?" he tried.

She looked off to the side for a moment, as if collecting her thoughts. "How do you think the Dark Lord's organization functions?"

Okay, now he was utterly lost. "How did we get there?"

"You'll see," she said. "Indulge me, okay?"

Harry sighed. "Fear and intimidation."

She nodded. "And obedience. It's really very easy to be a Death Eater. Someone tells you to do something. You do it. If you do it well, you're praised. If you don't, you're punished. If you refuse to do it at all, you're a Man-Eating Scaraptula snack. The rules are all very clear. Now, why would somebody as rich and haughty and powerful as...say, Lucius Malfoy willingly join an organization like that?"

"Pureblood pride?" Harry guessed.

"Exactly. The purebloods aren't just up in arms about the Muggleborns because they think they're scum or they're worried about exposure to the Muggle world. They can't stand them because Muggleborns don't know how things work in the magical world. They don't know the traditions or the rules. They waltz in and try to change the way that we've been doing things for thousands of years, like your friend Granger with her hard-on for house elves. No pureblood is going to change their entire way of life because some uppity Mudblood thinks it's wrong. Who the hell is she to judge?"

It was as if somebody had turned on a light in his head. Suddenly, Harry looked around at the magical world and saw hundreds of things he'd never seen before. Sure, he'd known that the magical world was drastically different than the Muggle world, but he hadn't really thought about the magical world as a completely different culture, one that - at its very core - looked at and interpreted the world in a completely different way. "I never thought about it like that before," he admitted.

Thera shrugged. "Why would you have? But the fact of the matter is that the Dark Lord's organization works because it functions exactly like an ancient pureblooded family, and they're all very comfortable with that. And while even among Muggles, starving a child is considered heinous and wrong, within ancient pureblooded families, using Cruciatus on your offspring isn't torture, it's child rearing. Not everybody does it, but it's not frowned upon, either. And the fact that a bunch of bleeding heart Muggleborns made a case to the Wizarding Council to get it deemed Unforgivable doesn't change anything, I assure you."

Okay, just because he recognized the cultural differences didn't mean he had to agree with them. "That's sick," he informed her.

She gave him a look. "Quoth the half-blood raised by Muggles."

He goggled at her. "What, you agree with this?"

"No, I don't," she said firmly. "And it's not just because I have firsthand experience, or because I grew up around Muggles. It's because as a method of deterrence, it's either completely ineffective - I'm living proof of that," she said, smirking briefly, "- or else it creates people like the Death Eaters, who either follow the Dark Lord with slavish devotion or just do what they're told, but would stab him in the back in a heartbeat. The only reason the inner circle hasn't overthrown him is because they can't. He's too powerful, so they're trapped."

Harry couldn't hold back the smile and spread across his face. He shook his head at her. "You can never just say 'because it's wrong,' can you?"

She smiled and shook her head back. "Gryffindors. You have no respect for nuanced argument."

*******

Thera she mentally slapped herself. This was not the way this was supposed to play out. There shouldn't be smiling and joking and tongue-in-cheek crappy childhood comparisons. Hell, she should already be on her way back by now.

What she was thinking must not have shown on her face, because Harry's smile softened and he reached out and brushed a hand down her hair. "See, now this is more like it."

Thera squeezed her eyes shut and valiantly fought back the urge to find that very pleasant. This was not pleasant. This sucked. Backing up a step, she analyzed the situation objectively. He didn't seem very into her 'what was your name again?' approach. No matter what she did, he refused to get angry with her. The prospect of sex seemed to have suddenly imbued Harry with the patience of Job.

And...she didn't have any other ideas. Well, actually she had plenty of ideas, but they were tactics she'd never use on Harry. Perhaps that was the problem, in fact. There was no way she could come out of this free and clear, because she didn't have the stomach to do what that would require. Dear Merlin, all she'd done was yell and him a bit and shove him into a table and just thinking about that made her feel guilty.

"Uh...Thera?"

She shook her head a little bit. She had to work this out before they took this any further, and if she looked at him, she wouldn't be able to. Okay, she knew Harry wasn't going to do anything to make her detest him. And now she knew that she wasn't willing to go to the lengths necessary to make him detest her, so that she could detest him in return. So...

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

"I'm fine," she muttered. "I'm just thinking."

"About what?"

Thera put a hand to her head. "I can't do it when you're talking to me, Harry."

So were those really her only options? Was she really that incapable of separating out Harry from the entailment? Did it really have to be either/or? Well...no, it didn't really. She was a rational person. But there was fear there, too. And fear wasn't rational.

She wasn't afraid of Harry, or of having sex with him, or even of losing the entailment. She was afraid that this would tie her to him in some way that would make it impossible for her to go back to her day job as evil minion to the Dark Lord without losing her mind.

Not that she had much left to lose.

And she'd likely lose the rest of it anyway, whether she slept with Harry or not.

Well, that certainly put the issue in perspective.

"Oh, Merlin," he groaned. She opened her eyes to see him staring at the ceiling with a pained look on his face. "You've gone 'round the bend again, haven't you?"

Awareness swept through her brain like a sword, cutting off all of the complicated arguments and mental back-and-forths. "No, I haven't."

He ignored her. "I promised myself if you did it again, I'd leave, because I'm not..."

"Harry," she said sharply. If she was going to do this, Thera didn't want to leave it up to chance. She held out her hand. "Promise me you'll use it if you have to."

Harry's eyes dropped to her hand, then slid to the side, telling her quite plainly that he was going to be a big fat wuss about this. "I will, okay?" he said.

"Then shake my hand and seal the promise."

"That's not necessary, Thera."

"If I'm going to give you control over me, Harry," she said smoothly, "I'd like to have it put to some use. I'm not going to have you going soft on me when it comes down to the wire. So stop heroing about already and shake my fucking hand."

Looking slightly ill, he did. Then he drew his hand back and shoved it in his pocket. "I was going to..." he trailed off, clearing his throat. "If you wanted me to, I was going to promise to not use it at all, ever," he admitted.

"That would have been a pretty shitty way of honoring my sacrifice," she sniffed.

Harry jolted, looking horrified. "Is that what this is?"

Bad choice of words. "No, I didn't mean that. I meant that the entailment is a completely separate issue. That's just strategy. The rest of it isn't," she muttered, suddenly unable to look at him, feeling foolish and exposed and a humiliated, as if she'd just announced her feelings for a longtime crush in the middle of the Great Hall.

Which was a dumb analogy in more ways that one, even if it fit.

He shook his head slowly. "It took a hell of a lot out of you to say that, didn't it?"

There was no good answer to that question, in Thera's mind. "Oh, shut up," she growled.

"Did you think I was going to make fun of you for it? Throw it back in your face? I'd never do that, Thera," he said sincerely. "You know that."

Which she supposed she did, or she'd have kept her mouth shut. "I'm sorry for earlier," she said, forcing the words out. He deserved to hear them, after all. "It's just that I only really figured that out a few minutes ago. And up until then..."

"You wanted to hate me," Harry finished. Thera glanced up at him in surprise, and he shrugged. "You weren't being very subtle about it."

Thera winced a little. "No, I wasn't, was I? Sorry."

"It's okay," he said. "I'm sorry, too. I didn't really give a lot of thought to how you must be feeling about all of this. I was more focused on...well, the other part."

"Imagine that," she drawled.

He smiled a little at that. "Yeah, well. I still shouldn't have been. And I really don't want you and me having anything to do with the entailment." He held out his hand, his face suddenly solemn. "I already promised to use it if I have to, so I can't go back on that. But I can at least promise that I never will use it unless I absolutely have to."

Thera had expected Harry to get out of his undesired powers under the entailment by making some sort of gesture like this, but she'd expected it to be in the service of assuaging his conscience. And while this promise would still manage to do that, it was also something personal, really. She'd never have asked for it, so he was giving it to her, and that...she could honestly say it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.

"Accepted," she said, shaking his hand. "Thanks."

He smiled, a twinkle of excitement in his eyes. "I have presents for you."

Thera blinked at him. "You do?"

"Yeah," he said, going over to the bedside table and pulling out two neatly wrapped packages. "One is for your birthday, and Malfoy said it's traditional to...um...give one for...you know." He blushed a little bit. "But that seems kind of gross now that I think about it, so let's just say they're both for your birthday. Here. Open this one first," he said, handing it to her.

She hesitated. "But I didn't get you anything for your birthday."

"So?" he shrugged. "Open it."

Since he was obviously bursting at the seams for her to do so, she did. Inside the box was a gift certificate to Flourish and Blotts in an amount that made her eyes nearly pop out of her head. "You're fucking kidding me," she breathed.

"Sorry," he said, shuffling his feet. "I know it's not creative, but I know you get really bored, and you can use it for owl order, and you only have to write the number of the gift certificate on the order form, so it won't give away who you are or anything, so..."

Thera grabbed his shoulder. "I like it, Harry. It's perfect. Thank you."

He relaxed. "You're welcome," he said. Then he perked up. "Open the other one."

Chuckling a little, she did. This box was slightly larger, and contained a smooth, flat, opalescent stone that looked like it would fit in the palm of her hand. It glowed slightly. "Thanks," Thera said, not having the faintest idea what it was.

"It's a Sleeping Stone," Harry said, with an indulgent little smile. "You need it."

"To throw at unsuspecting Death Eaters while hiding in the bushes?"

He gave her a look. "To put under your pillow. It helps you go to sleep. It also keeps people from disturbing you."

Thera had a feeling it did not go so far as to keep evil dead fathers out of people's heads, but it was still a terribly thoughtful gift. They'd both been terribly thoughtful gifts, and it made her chest feel warm that he'd put...thought into them, and...

Reina's voice sounded in her head. "Rule Number One, Muffin: nothing's ever free, and the more they try to convince you it is, the more they want from you in return."

Thera shook herself a little bit. Shut up, Mum.

"So anyway," he said with a crooked smile. "Happy early birthday."

Damn it. Now her hands were tingling and her chest felt like it was about to explode and it was hard to breathe and before she said anything she'd regret and likely not even really mean, Thera grabbed him by the front of his jumper and kissed him.

*******

Now this is more like it, Harry thought, wrapping his arms around her, his entire body singing. He'd made her happy - or as close to happy as Thera probably ever got - and that made him happy. She'd even looked a little choked up there at the end.

They kissed and groped and undressed each other, getting reacquainted. He felt extremely gratified when Thera took off his shirt, took a step back, gave him a very appreciative once-over and said, "Merlin, Harry. You weren't joking."

He was even more gratified when she stepped forward and demonstrated her appreciation physically. "I am..." she whispered between kisses, "going to repay you...in ways...that will make...your head spin."

Annoyance sprang up in him and Harry pushed her back. "Thera," he said tightly, "I've told you a million times that you don't have to..." He trailed off when Thera made a growling noise at the back of her throat and thunked her forehead against his chest.

"Sex talk, Harry. It's called sex talk."

He frowned. "Sex talk is supposed to be arousing, isn't it? I don't see how..."

Thera reached up and clapped a hand over his mouth, obviously trying hard not to laugh. "Sorry," she said unsteadily. "Didn't mean to offend your sensibilities."

"Yes, I know," he said with a touch of exasperation when she took her hand away. "I'm a prude. We established that a long time ago."

"Prude?" she asked, giving him a long, lecherous look. "Oh, I know you're not a prude. Overly chivalrous, sometimes, but prudes don't stick their tongues..."

Bending over, Harry scooped her up into his arms. Not expecting this, Thera ended her speech with a surprised, high-pitched, girlish little "Eek!" that was so out of character he snickered. "Want me to do it again?" he asked her, raising a suggestive eyebrow.

Thera's eyes widened. "By all means."

He laid her down on the bed, climbed on top of her, leaned down to kiss her and took a detour at the last second to stick his tongue in her ear.

Thera made a strangled sound and batted him away. "Cute," she said, sending him a quelling look until he stopped laughing. "I meant a bit farther south."

"Ah," he said, kissing her gently on the lips. "You mean here?"

"Closer, but not quite."

Harry moved down to her breasts. They were smaller now, he was certain of it. He had very precise and accurate memories of how they'd looked and felt before. He really should have ordered a big steak from room service and made her eat it. Pushing the thought aside until later, he spent a few moments learning their new dimensions. "After a thorough search, I've discovered that there aren't any options in this general area," he informed her, waving a hand to indicate her breasts.

Thera snorted. "Keep going, Magellan."

Trailing his tongue slowly, making her squirm, Harry came to her belly button. "Huh. Maybe this is it."

"I was wrong," she said in a snappish voice that told him she was growing impatient. "You're not Magellan, you're Columbus. And that isn't India."

Harry couldn't fight back a smile. "Uh, Thera? Columbus never made it to India."

"Don't get cerebral during foreplay, Harry. It might get you killed."

He made it a few more inches down, then paused, looking up at her. "If I'm Columbus, does that make you Queen Isabella, or the earth?"

Thera responded with a wordless snarl. Harry supposed that made her both. She pulled her legs up and he kept going until he reached his final destination. "Is this it?" he asked.

She hummed a positive response.

"Funny, it doesn't look like India."

That comment earned him a very firm heel in the back.

Chuckling, Harry finally decided to stop torturing Thera and give her third birthday present. He'd been thinking about this for a long time. He'd picked up some pointers in the past few months, and he'd come up with quite a few new ideas he wanted to try out.

*******

Thera wasn't sure if she lost consciousness or not. Things had definitely gotten very hazy there in the last few moments. She thought that she might have knocked Harry's glasses off. She also had a vague sense that she might have knocked Harry completely off the bed shortly thereafter. And she currently had the motor skills of a newborn, she realized, as she reached up to touch her face - mostly to make sure it was still there - and promptly poked herself in the eye.

"Fuh," she said, her lips unresponsive.

Harry had...learned some things. Things about which she was familiar with in theory, but had never been able to make another person do to her correctly. Perhaps this was one of his new powers. If it was, she'd like to know where he'd gotten it, and it he had some extra to spread around for the good of womankind.

He climbed up on the bed, stretching out on his side next to her and leaning his head on his hand, looking ridiculously proud of himself. "Liked that, did you?"

"Hunh," she said, by which she meant, 'What would I have to do to convince you to do that to me every day for the rest of my life?'

"I'm guessing you did, considering how you were flailing about there at the end," he said, grinning. "It's a good thing a put a silencing charm on the room."

"I screamed?" Thera asked, her mouth beginning to work again. Dear Merlin, she'd never screamed during an orgasm in her life, unless it was for effect.

"Like a banshee," he said cheerfully. "Mostly wordless nonsense, aside from my name and Merlin's. I'm flattered by the comparison, by the way."

"You should be," she said. "That means you're almost as good as I am."

"Almost?!" he spluttered. "You've never done that to me during oral sex."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, that's because you always stop me. All you ever see is the first two acts of a five-act masterpiece that took me years to perfect. If you ever let me finish, you'd be sobbing for your Mummy."

He scratched his head. "I'm not sure I want to be. Frankly, I don't really need any help at this point to get interested, and it's...I mean, it's all well and good to finish things up that way if you're in a hurry or something, but I'd must rather finish things up...you know...the old-fashioned way."

"You mean by coming on my tits?"

Harry choked and she started laughing. He recovered and started whacking her with a pillow, which only made her laugh harder. Eventually, he tossed aside the pillow and pinned her down. "You are a perverted individual," he told her, trying not to smile.

"Yeah," she said, "and you're here with me, so what does that say about you?"

"You always have a comeback, don't you?"

Thera pressed her lips together and raised her eyebrows.

Harry snorted. "Merlin. Even when you don't say anything, you have a comeback."

In response, she lifted a foot, rubbing it up and down the back of his calf, gazing up at him imploringly. "Verbal repartee aside..."

His face changed slightly, going serious. "Last chance. Are you sure about this?"

Thera repressed the bubble of half-hysterical laughter that threatened to burst out of her throat. "Make a woman out of me, Harry Potter," she said gravely.

"Impossible," he muttered, closing his eyes briefly. Then he leaned down and kissed her, rearranging himself. Thera repressed every inclination she had to brace herself, since she had a feeling that wouldn't make anything any better. She'd been worried that Harry wouldn't have the stomach to just rip the bandage off - so to speak - but he did.

Then he swore under his breath. Then he apologized. Thera told him to shut up.

And which point she lost all feeling below the waist. Her eyes flew open. That...wasn't supposed to happen. Not unless they'd taken a wrong turn of monumental proportions. Harry had his eyes shut tight in concentration, probably trying to hold himself back. Thera twisted a little so she could look down at her left foot. She tried to wiggle her toes. Nothing happened.

"Um...Harry?"

"Please don't start another conversation with me right now," he whispered harshly.

She cleared her throat. "I'm not. It's just that I can't feel my legs."

He opened his eyes. "At all?"

Thera shook her head, deciding that she was not going to panic about this...yet.

Thankfully, she didn't have to, because at the exact moment, sensation returned. Things inside seemed to have improved in the meantime, and - as it used to on occasion when she was still a young slut-in-training - it occurred to her that, when stripped of its trappings, sex was kind of like reaching over and picking someone else's nose.

"Sorry about that," Harry said sheepishly.

Thera stared at him. "You did that?"

"Yeah," he said, giving her a sick little smile. "I was just trying to...ah, help things along, and I guess I went a little overboard. Sorry."

"I didn't know that was possible," she said faintly.

"It's just a numbing spell."

Which he'd done without a wand, or a hand movement, or even verbalization. Harry had performed a complex spell just by thinking it. For a moment, Thera could only gaze at him in awe. Then annoyance set it. "You could've warned me, you know."

"I'm sorry," he said through gritted teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. "You're right. Now do you need me to apologize again, or can I move?"

Thera thought about it for a moment. "Fine. But I'm still mad at you."

Harry buried his face in her hair, beginning to move slowly, in and out. Having already had her moment, Thera leaned back and enjoyed the show. "I didn't mean for it to do that," he said.

"I know," she sighed, running her fingers lightly up and down his back in time with his strokes. "Poor Harry. You just don't know your own strength."

He chuffed a laugh. "Is it okay now?"

Thera flexed her legs, then wrapped them around his waist. "Seems to be."

"No, I meant the other thing."

Okay, in some ways Harry was a prude. "My hoo-hoo is fine now, thanks. Not that I'm anxious to repeat the experience ever again, even if it would give me a hat trick."

"I've never met someone who talked so much during sex," he said breathlessly.

"You've only had sex with one other person, Harry."

"True," he grunted.

"I could change the subject, if you'd like."

"To what?"

Thera dug into her trove of dirty talk, staying away from anything that might offend him. She half expected Harry to blow out the windows when he came, but he had better control than she'd given him credit for. All he did was overturn the wastebasket.

*******

So far as Harry could tell, Thera had no idea what had happened when he'd gotten the entailment. In all fairness, she'd been a bit preoccupied at the time, but he didn't think she knew even after that, because she wouldn't have liked it one bit. And she certainly wouldn't have casually chatted him up, and she definitely wouldn't be sprawled out languidly on top of him with her fingers stroking idle little circles on his chest.

It was something she used to do a lot, and he liked it. It was comforting, and he needed it just then, because he was scared shitless. For one moment, just that first moment when he'd gotten the entailment, he'd seen Thera. Really seen her. Not anything specific about her - no memories or thoughts or anything like that - but just a sense of her consciousness, as if he were looking at the world through her eyes. That initial blast had been followed by - was still being followed by - what he could only define as some sort of empathy. He didn't feel what she was feeling like in traditional empathy, but he knew immediately what it was, the shape and size and color of it, if that made any sense.

Well, if any of it made any sense. Harry had no idea what to think. He didn't know what he'd been expecting with the entailment, but it hadn't been this. Thera couldn't have expected it either, or she'd never have offered the entailment to anyone, including him. Even without his newfound and decidedly unwanted ability to know what she was feeling all the time, Harry knew Thera well enough to know that she'd never want anyone else to know what she was feeling all the time. Hell, he wouldn't, either.

He should tell her. It would be unforgivable of him not to.

He wasn't going to.

After all, it might just be a short-term thing. Or it might just happen when they were near each other. And then he'd have told her something that would have driven her back in crazy mode - and possibly psychotic mode - for no reason at all.

When he really thought about it, there were a lot of justifications for not telling her.

"I should go soon," Thera said, crossing her arms on his chest and resting her chin on top of them.

"Okay." She was a calm lake in his mind: content, placid.

She leaned up to kiss him, then pushed herself up to sit. "There are some things we should take care of before I do, though."

"Like what?" he asked distractedly.

Thera gave him an odd look. "Like the entailment, and if it works or not."

"Oh. Right," he said, sitting up to join her, as if he wasn't already absolutely positive that it was working. "How to do we do that, exactly?"

This new development had him out of sorts. He didn't even see Thera's punch coming until just before it hit him. Or would have, at least. At the last moment, there was a sort of jolt. Thera let out a cry of surprise and the blow glanced off without making contact, as if there was an invisible force field a millimeter above his skin.

"Well, that works," she muttered, rubbing her hand.

Harry glanced down at it, unable to discern her mood. "Did it hurt you?"

She shook her head. "It tingles. Like when you shock yourself."

"Does it work against magical attacks, too?" he asked.

"No time like the present to find out," she said, leaning over to get her wand. She aimed a stinging hex at him. The hex didn't even come out. "Well, that's convenient, I guess. If it comes down to that, the Dark Lord won't know why I can't curse you. Let's see if you can boss me around and then call it night, shall we?"

Oh, yet. That part. "What about my promise?"

She shrugged. "It's absolutely necessary that we know if this works, isn't it?"

"I guess so," he said, his mouth dry. "Uh...how about you get me a drink?"

Thera stared at him. "That's not an order, Harry," she said flatly. "It's a request."

"Oh, right," he said sheepishly. "Get me a drink." He forcibly closed his mouth before he could tack on a 'please' at the end. Merlin, he really was bad at this.

Her eyes went dead instantly. She stood up, walked over to the bar and poured him a drink, all of her movements robotic. She walked back over and stood in front of him, holding the glass out to him. She looked exactly like she did when Voldemort was pulling the strings, and it made Harry feel like he'd just swallowed a handful of jagged stones. Horrified, he reached up to take the drink from her.

Thera's eyes refocused and widened a little bit. "Well, that works," she said weakly.

"Yeah," he said, downing his drink too quickly. He came up coughing. She sat down next to him, looking dazed, patting his back absentmindedly. He finished coughing, but she kept patting him, as if she didn't even know she was doing it. "Uh, Thera?"

Her hand fell, her head turning to look at him. He could feel it hitting her, a sense of numb shock covering everything else.

The stones in his gut stirred painfully. "We shouldn't have done this. I can't..."

"Shut up, Harry," she said distantly.

He hadn't thought this through, he realized. Or hadn't let himself think it through. Everything he'd said to her were complete bullshit, because this right here was the reality of it. Thera had known that, had tried to handle the situation on her own terms, but he'd put his foot down and pushed her into accepting his.

It would have been kinder to just let her hate him for it. He knew that now. He should have known that before. Inwardly, Harry cringed as he recalled the dressing down he'd given her for ratting him out to the Ministry. His words sounded ignorant and pious now. Thera had every right to serve those words back up to him with a proper dollop of caustic sarcasm. She'd betrayed him because she'd panicked, and in her panic, it hadn't occurred to her to give his interests or desires any weight when she'd made her decision. And he'd just done the exact same thing right back at her, only he hadn't done it out of panic, or any honest fear for his own well-being. He'd just been an insensitive prick.

She'd wanted to make it up to him. And she just had. And it made him feel ill.

Something fluttered on the edge of her numbness. "I should get back," she said.

She stood up, pulling on her clothes. So how was he supposed to make this up to her? He didn't know, honestly. He didn't even know where to start. He had been truthful earlier; he really did want to keep Thera and Harry separate from the entailment. He just didn't know how to go about it now.

A thread of warmth wove through her, and he looked up to find her watching him with a small smile on her face. "I gave you an entailment, Harry. Not herpes. Stop brooding."

The thread grew stronger and sank in, deep. It surprised him a little bit. On an intellectual level, he'd understood that just because Thera didn't advertise everything she felt didn't mean that she was incapable of feeling anything at all. But in the back of his mind, he hadn't really understood it...until now, at least.

It didn't humanize her, really - Thera was human enough to him, probably a lot more so than she knew - but it set off an odd, unconnected sort of response in him. One part was uncomfortable with the knowledge of her feelings, because it was knowledge Thera wouldn't want him to have. Another part was sort of in awe of the whole phenomenon. He had the ability to know what women thought, and that was a bit overwhelming. Yet another part warmed in response, because what she felt was nice, and it was for him.

And he liked that. His mind latched on to that thought, throwing its arms around it and holding tight. Standing up, he reached out and pulled her against him, kissing her. The warmth grew from him and from her, and he began to feel almost drunk with it.

A slash through her mind startled him, and Thera drew back. "Now I really have to go."

Stroking her hair away from her face, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, and felt the warmth leap up in response. "Take care of yourself," he said softly.

"That's my line," she said, backing up a little towards the door.

He smiled. "Say it back, then."

"Take care of yourself."

"I will."

With one last glance at him, she left, but the warmth he felt from her remained in his mind, fading slowly as she got farther and farther away, until he couldn't find it anymore no matter how hard he tried.

*******

At the age of twenty, in a rebellious 'fuck this shit' moment taken a bit too far - which pretty much summed up the late sixties in her opinion - Fox had moved out to California and become a hippie. Which is to say that she had protested against a war that she'd personally had a hand in starting, though she'd completely lost control of the thing after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. That had been one hell of a nasty surprise. Her purpose for existing had been usurped by some ass Muggle in a suit in Washington. The next few years had passed in a bit of a haze, and then suddenly she'd woken up one day, and Nixon was president and the shit was still going on. More than a little ashamed of herself, she'd decided to just put a stop to it and eat her losses.

Fox considered this her most humiliating memory. Or she had, until she found herself in a room at a painfully quaint bed-and-breakfast with her two colleagues, killing time while The Boy Who Lived got laid.

The fact that Amina and Gautham both found the situation absolutely hilarious didn't help matters. Neither did the fact that there was no television set in the room.

"I think next weekend, we should take Harry out shopping for some new clothes," Amina said breezily, turning to her. "What do you think, Fox?"

"I think I just might be bored enough to flush your head in the toilet."

"She doesn't have enough hair for it to be entertaining," Gautham pointed out.

Fox glared at him. "You do."

"So do you," he shot back. "Maybe I should go next door and piss off Harry so he'll..."

"Don't do that," Amina said, slapping him on the arm. "Harry's busy."

Gautham scratched his jaw. "He's been busy an awfully long time, hasn't he?"

Amina glanced at the clock. "Almost two hours now. Merlin. I think - just to be safe, of course - Harry should stay in my room tomorrow night."

"They can't have been having sex that entire time," Gautham scoffed. "It's impossible." Both Fox and Amina turned to stare at him. "What?" he asked, giving a nervous little laugh. "It is." They continued staring at him and he shifted, frowning. "It's not?"

Hs pain was mercifully ended when Harry came in. They all regarded him with knowing smiles that made him scowl. "Can we just go back now?" he asked testily.

Fox apparated them back, depositing them just outside the Gryffindor common room. "Goodnight, loverboy. I'm never making you another goddamned promise ever again." They turned to leave him to what was undoubtedly a well-deserved night's rest, but Harry called her back. Sighing, she let Amina and Gautham go on. "What?" she asked flatly, not feeling particularly well-inclined towards Harry right now.

He bit his lip, then cast a spell around them to keep them from being overheard. "Do you know anything about entailments giving you something like empathy?"

"It's not unheard of," she shrugged. "It's not really empathy, though. It just lets you know how your wife is doing, whether she's pissed off at you or not, stuff like that. Considering you two are pretty far apart at the moment, you shouldn't be able to use it now, though if she gets herself caught in a wheat thresher or something, you'll know immediately, no matter how far away you are." Crossing her arms, she grinned at him. "Realizing what you've gotten yourself into now?"

Swearing, Harry slumped against the wall. "Anything else I should know about?"

"You tested everything else out to make sure it works?" He nodded. "Then that's all I know. Every entailment's different."

He hung his head. "I shouldn't have done it. I mean, this is the sort of stuff that he does, and...I didn't think so awful about it."

"She offered it to you, Harry. Of her own free will. She's sold herself off a lot cheaper in the past, believe me. Don't beat yourself up about it."

He looked up at her searchingly. "You really don't like her."

"Gee, where'd you get that idea?"

"You think she's playing me," he murmured. She's not. Empathy, remember."

"If you tell me you think she's in love with you, I'll be forced to laugh my ass off."

"I didn't say that," he said, glaring at her. "But I know she feels something."

"Maybe she does," Fox said, suddenly feeling very tired and very old. "But I wouldn't trust it too much, Harry." It was possible his powers extended that far. It's not as if he'd never surprised her before. Knowing he'd likely explode if she proposed that little possibility, she decided to keep it to herself unless he tried to do something stupid.

Well...something else stupid.

"I don't," he said, smiling briefly, lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug. "It doesn't matter anyway, I guess."

"That's a good attitude to have," she said shortly. "Keep it."

*******

Halfway back to Shirag Castle and halfway through her sixth consecutive listening of 'Barracuda,' Thera pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway, turned off the car, and slumped forward until her forehead was resting on the steering wheel. Neither driving nor listening to music loud enough to rattle the windows seemed to be enough to keep her from thinking right now.

"Get a bloody grip, Thera," she ordered herself. It didn't work. Apparently only other people were allowed to order her around.

Sitting back, she took a deep breath and let it out. Then she took everything that had happened tonight, bundled it all together, threw it into a closet in her mind and shut and locked the door. Then, just to be safe, she stuffed a towel into the space under the door and banished the entire closet to a dank, dark corner in the basement of her mind. There, she thought, sighing in relief. Much better.

Thera Castelar was ready to face the world again.

Starting the car, she pressed the button to make the Ferrari invisible, cackling as both it and she disappeared. Unable to see the speedometer, she had no idea how fast she was going, but traffic was light and the engine was roaring, and going top speed in a Ferrari on the open road was an experience to be relished.

Her good mood lasted about another thirty minutes, up until she walked in the front doors of Shirag Castle and choked on the stench of rotting flesh. Waving her wand to at least clear up the air just in front of her, Thera proceeded inside cautiously. Snape stood in the entryway, a look of mild disgust on his face as he spoke to Rabastan LeStrange. Lying at their feet was a partially decomposed body. Had it not been wearing his stupid trademark top hat, she never would've been able to recognize it as Patrick O'Riordan.

"The rule is no corpses in the main house," she snapped at them, recovering.

"My apologies," Snape said calmly. "I just found him. He's been missing for weeks, so I took it upon myself to check his flat. Avada Kedavra, self-inflicted it seems. I figured we wouldn't want the Ministry getting involved, considering."

"You cleaned the place out?" Rabastan asked.

"Of course."

"Take him out back to the Scaraptula."

"As enjoyable as that would be," Snape said with a little sneer, "the Halloween feast will be ending soon. I must get back."

Grumbling under his breath, Rabastan magically lifted what remained of Patrick O'Riordan and disappeared down the hallway to the kitchens. Not even sparing her a glance, Snape breezed by her out the front doors. After clearing the entryway of its remaining odor, Thera followed. He wanted to talk to her, and he wasn't happy.

*******

Severus had been laboring under the assumption that Thera Castelar was not a complete and total moron, and it enraged him to find out she was. Or - more precisely - it enraged him to discover that he'd been duped by a complete and total moron.

"I can't believe you killed Patrick O'Riordan and didn't even let me watch," she said as she joined him in the garden area he'd created for potion ingredients.

"I didn't kill him. He killed himself."

"Imperius, then."

"Yes," Snape said flatly, ending the requisite dancing around each other that was necessary for the confrontation he had planned. "Were you under the impression that the Cardinal's people were the only ones who had tracking charms on Potter?"

"No," she said. "Why? Did he sneak off to Hogsmeade or something?"

"Just outside York, less than an hour from here. Been driving, have you?"

"Oh, Snape," she said, crossing her arms. "Don't insinuate. It's beneath you."

If one looked closely, there were elements of Bellatrix - the old Bellatrix from the first war, before she'd returned from Azkaban completely insane - in the Castelar girl. The way she stood when challenged, the way men's eyes slid to her whenever she entered a room. It was disconcerting in several ways. "I'm not insinuating," he said smoothly. "I'm merely curious as to what justification you might dig up for meeting the Dark Lord's greatest enemy right underneath his nose."

"Why on earth would I do that?" she asked, tilting her head and gazing at him curiously.

"That's exactly what I'd like to know," he hissed, stepping forward until he towered over her. "I'm well aware of the fact that Potter's idiocy is a disease more infectious than dragon pox, but I had actually assumed that you were immune to such ridiculous impulses. Apparently I was wrong."

The Castelar girl raised her eyebrows. "Did it ever occur to you that I had a reason?"

This ought to be good. "And what would that be?"

She proceeded to spin him a tale of strategy and an entailment and conference calls via magical mirror and arithmancy she likely couldn't comprehend and vague plans that may or may not aid Potter in defeating the Dark Lord, and suddenly it all made sense. "Why not give it to Malfoy? He's in a much better position to make use of it than Potter is."

"Because aside from the fact that Draco's entirely pussy-whipped, Harry's much more powerful. The entailment might trump the spell."

Severus ran a hand down his face, barely managing to restrain his temper. She didn't know; couldn't have known. He hadn't known until a few seconds ago. "I doubt it."

The look she gave him was cold, distant. Thera Castelar wasn't a complete and total moron, and she was preparing herself for the worst. "Why not?"

"From what I've researched and what I've managed to gather of the situation, I'm fairly certain that your father did manage to preserve some piece of himself in you." The girl flinched a little, but that was it. "The only information I lacked was how he managed to anchor it. There has to be a magical base aside from the actual person housing that portion of the soul, something to hold it in place. I thought initially that he might have managed to use the spell for that purpose, but it didn't make sense. He didn't cast the spell; it would have been terribly difficult for him to use that as his magical base."

"You think he used the entailment," she concluded, squeezing her eyes shut briefly. "What does it mean?"

He watched her carefully. "I don't know."

"Thanks, Snape," she said. "You're really fucking useful."

"Would you rather I fill your ears with a bunch of pretty lies?"

"No," she said, looking up at him, "but you must have some idea."

"I have theories," he said, which was a lie. What he had were a list of possible circumstances that he'd read about in dark arts book that could - at best - be viewed as fairly unreliable. Suffice it to say the texts hadn't been peer reviewed.

"Oh, Snape," she said softly, "don't go all squeamish on me now."

"Activating the entailment may very well have activated the portion of your father's soul residing in you. On the other hand, activating it the first time may have done that. It's impossible to tell, really."

"Well, if I suddenly start sucking the Dark Lord's dick, I think we'll have a fair idea who the conductor of the metaphorical train is."

Severus felt his lip curl. "You truly are your mother's daughter, Castelar."

"So I've heard," she said, smiling humorlessly. "I can't get him out, then?"

"Not unless the entailment ends, either by Potter releasing you from it, or by your death."

"Not his?" she asked, cocking her head. "The way it was with his predecessor?"

Severus raised an eyebrow. "His predecessor was a Muggle, I gather?" She nodded briefly. "That's the only reason you didn't continue to be entailed to him. At their core, entailments are property arrangements. Upon Potter's death, the property would pass to his heir, not to you. You would still be entailed to him regardless."

Castelar shook her head at that. "This is some serious Dark Ages bullshit, right here."

"Purebloods do tend to be rather serious about the future of their bloodlines."

"Yes, I'm beginning to respect that fact. Can he control me too, then?" she asked wearily. "My father, I mean."

"No. Not directly, at least. He's a passive element, and you're simply the vessel for it. The most he can do is what he's been doing, though I expect it will get worse now."

"Well, that's sweet," she said thickly. "A vessel. How perfectly fucking incestuous." Then she fell forward and vomited all over the ground.

Severus directed his eyes to the stars and waited until it was over, then cleaned up the mess. Which pretty much summed up his role in this war. He sat her up, ignoring her hands clenching the front of his robes. "Are you finished?"

She nodded, releasing him and twisting her hands together in her lap. "So it didn't even mean anything, then," she said in a dull voice. "Giving the entailment to Harry."

"I don't know," Severus said honestly. Despite his scorn for the spawn of James Potter, the boy had a knack for latching onto and sucking dry any available means of aid at his disposal. And his power was astounding now. Who knew what he was capable of? "It might help him," he said grudgingly, biting off any further comment.

"Well, that's something," she said in a small voice. "Better than you and I sneaking around for information or screwing..." Looking up at him, she paled and swore fervently. "I forgot to ask him to let me out of the chastity bond. Oh, fuck."

Chastity bond. The entailment. So that's why she'd wanted all of that impotence potion when the foreign visitors had been at Shirag Castle. "You've been creative enough in the past," he said sarcastically. "I'm sure you'll manage."

"That's not exactly a viable long-term strategy," she said through gritted teeth. Standing up, she kicked at the ground. "Shit!"

Severus sighed. "I need to get back to Hogwarts."

She turned to him, eyes blazing. "You want information, don't you? Well, how the fuck do you think I get information, Snape?"

This was, Severus decided, a problem best left to Dumbledore. Moral issues were Albus' forte, and he had enough on his conscience already. "I'll see what I can do."

*******

Vivian had never in her life seen Remus so smug. "Of course, you were completely right to be concerned," he said, downing his last dose of Wolfsbane. "Can I get out of bed now? I don't want to shed on the sheets."

"I was being cautious," she snapped. "And I was completely right."

He shook his head. "You know a person might think you prefer me as a raging beast. Speaking of which, there's about fifteen minutes until sundown if you want to..."

"Shove a honking great tube up your nose? The idea has merit." She'd spent the past three days so tense her shoulders were now frozen in a permanent shrug, and he thought she wanted to have sex right now? A stiff drink was more like it. Or several.

"Nobody's happier than I am that you didn't have to, believe me." He pulled her onto the bed with him, nuzzling her neck a little bit. Vivian was not swayed.

"Makes me glad I'm not a Muggle, that's for certain."

He snorted, sneaking a hand under her blouse. "You think that's bad? You should hear my Aunt Frieda tell the story of her colonoscopy. See, for that, they stick a camera up..."

"I know where the colon is, thanks," she said, making a face. "I certainly hope that job pays well. Because I think I'd want to be taken out to dinner first, at the very least."

"You know, all this talk about arseholes is really turning me on," he said, kissing his way up to her ear and nibbling on it.

"Okay, we are not doing that."

"So you'd be willing to do other things, then?"

"If you let me stay, I might."

He drew back, all big soulful gray eyes. "Vivian..."

"Sun's going down," she said, smiling at him. "How horny are you?"

He sighed. "You're not getting to let up on this, are you?"

"No."

"And eventually I'm going to cave anyway, aren't I?"

"Probably."

"I hate this," he said flatly.

"I know you do," she said, brushing her fingertips through his hair. "But I've already seen the worst of it. Or what I sincerely hope is the worst of it. I'm sick of pretending like you just go off on a trip once a month. This is you, too. I've known you're werewolf for twenty bloody years. I'm not going to run screaming or file for divorce."

"Well, if you change your mind on that, I won't stop you," he said, rubbing his eyes.

"Remus, I'm not going to stop loving you just because you go furry every full moon."

"I realize that. I do. I just...oh bugger. I am that horny. Take that awful blouse off."

Vivian glanced down at it, frowning. "I like this blouse."

"I have nothing personal against the blouse itself, aside from the fact that you're still wearing it," he said, helping her take it off by ripping it open and flinging it aside.

"I forget sometimes how much fun you are right before the full moon."

"I'm a rutting brute," he snarled, pouncing on her. "You're lucky I haven't jumped you when you weren't looking and just had my brutish way with you."

She wiggled out of her trousers. "That's a good way to get yourself hexed."

"Yes, well...there is a reason I didn't do it."

There were times when sex was meant to be nice and slow, leisurely and gentle. Just prior to the full moon, sex was meant to be quick and frantic and wholly animalistic.

And those times were fun, too.

The room steadily darkened as they caught their breath. "You're not staying for the change itself," Remus said. Vivian opened her mouth to argue, and he put his hand over it. "I never know if the Wolfsbane has worked properly until I'm a wolf already, at which point I won't be in any fit state to warn you if it hasn't. Out."

"Okay," she said, figuring that was reasonable. "Just let me get dressed."

"It's too late," he said, his voice a barely human growl. The change was already starting. Standing up, he shoved her out of the room and slammed the door shut. "Lock it."

She did - several times. Vivian was well aware of the fact that turning into a werewolf wasn't a pleasant experience, and based upon the mix of howls and grunts and fervent swearing that came from inside the room, what she'd heard wasn't the half of it.

The noises abated, which she took to be a sign that the coast was clear. If the potion hadn't worked, he'd be howling by now. Gulping and sort of wondering what she'd gotten herself into, Vivian took the locking spells down, opened the door and went inside.

The wolf was curled up in a corner with its head resting on its front paws. Its yellow eyes watched her warily, but it didn't raise its head. "Remus?" she asked tentatively.

He shut his eyes and huffed a bit. You wanted to see? Well, here you go.

Vivian had half expected there to be some aspect of Remus to the werewolf, some physical characteristic that tied it to the man she knew, but there wasn't. The werewolf she now shared a room with looked exactly like any other werewolf she'd ever seen. They were strange looking creatures, really. Their resemblance to standard wolves was a great deal more distant than their name would imply. Their forelegs were much longer and their hind legs much more muscular than a nonmagical wolf's were; they could walk upright in an ungainly fashion if the mood struck them. The claws put her off a bit.

"If you want to sleep, I have a book," she said. It was actually a remarkably stupid thing to say, considering they weren't going to be able to carry on a conversation anyway, but she got the distinct feeling that he was ignoring her.

Remus slowly opened an eye.

Vivian sat down on the floor cross-legged. "Come here," she said softly.

After a moment, he rose and stretched, then walked over and sat down in front of her. There was a flash of Remus in the look he gave her. It was...uncertain, she supposed, insofar as werewolves had intelligible facial expressions. He may have said that he knew she wouldn't run screaming, but she wondered how much he'd really believed it.

Her thoughts were suddenly sidetracked by the fact that the way he was sitting advertised some things rather prominently. "Is this a werewolf pickup line?"

Remus blinked, then dropped his head to inspect the object of her attention. Sitting up again, he gave a little movement of his shoulders and a head toss.

"You could have a very lucrative career in fetish films," she said, gesturing.

The werewolf narrowed its eyes at her.

"Well, if you don't want me to talk about it, don't wave it in my face like that."

Doing what she supposed was the werewolf equivalent of rolling his eyes, Remus backed up a little and laid down, crossing his front legs in a rather pointed fashion.

"You're not this touchy as a human," she grumbled, stretching out a hand for him to sniff. A moment later, his tongue darted out to lick her. Vivian took that as an indication that she could go ahead and stroked her fingers up the length of his nose. Closing his eyes and making a sort of sighing sound of approval, he scooted a little closer.

Shortly thereafter, he was pressed against her leg, grunting in the back of his throat in a pleased manner while she rubbed his belly. "This is a truly weird aspect of our relationship," she commented. "Not you being a werewolf, but this right here."

Making an uncaring noise, he closed his eyes in bliss and was silent and still until she tried to pull her hand back. Then he sounded a plaintive sort of half-howl and looked at her in a pleading, almost heartbreaking way. "Oh, for the love of Merlin," she muttered with a touch of exasperation. "I'm going to be doing this all night, aren't I?"

And once more, Vivian could say that she'd never seen Remus look so smug.

*******

Hermione tiptoed out of her room, shutting the door silently behind her. Making sure the coast was clear, she began sneaking down the hallway, her heart pounding. It was stupid to be so jumpy. She was Head Girl; she was allowed to be out of her room in the middle of the night. But she couldn't shake the sensation that she was breaking rules.

Merlin, she hated breaking rules. You're not breaking any, she reminded herself firmly. She had every right to be sneaking out to the lake with half of her life savings in her pockets. Taking a shaky breath, she let it out. This had better be worth it.

The man was standing exactly where he'd said he would be in the short note she'd received at breakfast. He was so nondescript she had a feeling he'd done quite a bit of magic to make himself that way. He was utterly forgettable - a plus in his line of work.

"Were you able to find anything?" she asked, shivering a little in the chilly night air.

"Not much," he said. "The guy's locked up pretty tight. But then, I'm pretty good." Reaching into his bag, he withdrew a file folder. It was not nearly as thick as Hermione would have hoped, but it was the best she was going to get. She knew that. "I still have some avenues I haven't been able to pursue yet, if you want me to keep looking."

Hermione bit her lip, mulling that over. On the one hand, it would likely mean parting with the other half of her life savings. On the other hand, time was running out, and she was beginning to get desperate. She would solve this.

"Keep looking," she sighed, handing over the money she'd brought with her.

He took it with a nod, and she headed back to the castle, hiding the folder in her robes until she was safely in her room. Then she took it out and spread the materials inside across her bed. And while Gryffindor Tower slept, Hermione Granger got to know Tyrone Flingleton a little better.