Two to Obey

Chapter 20: Gains and Losses

Thera was sound asleep on top of several books in Greek and several more Greek-English dictionaries when the Dark Lord's call came in. Peeling her eyes open, it took her a second to piece together what had awakened her. Then she shot up, swearing viciously, diving for the mirror.

"Harry!"

Nothing.

"Harry, for fuck's sake, answer the fucking mirror!"

More nothing.

Thera growled, the scratching across her left palm growing more urgent.

It was daylight. Merlin, how long had she been asleep? Harry must be in class. He could hear her, but probably not answer. Thera did not let her mind entertain any other possibilities for why Harry might not be picking up the mirror.

"Harry, he's calling me. Something's..."

That's as far as she got before her hand started to squeeze shut. Tossing the mirror aside, Thera catapulted across space, landing on a stone floor. Glancing around, she saw that she was in the amphitheater at Shirag Castle, the stands about half full. The Dark Lord stood in front of her. Dropping to her knees, she crawled forward, kissing his robes, a well-rehearsed litany of apologies and general statements regarding her unfitness for the honor of serving him coming out of her mouth while her heart pounded furiously.

Something was happening, and she didn't know what.

After a proper period of groveling, the Dark Lord allowed her to stand up. Thera waited, head bowed, mind racing. Then the Dark Lord tipped her chin up and stepped to the side, flourishing his other hand as he did so, revealing a family of bound, struggling Muggles - a mother and father, and two boys, roughly her age. Thera felt her face stretch into an expression of joyful gratitude. Well, at least she wasn't too rusty.

"Milord, you're too gracious," she demurred. "I don't deserve them."

"Nonsense, my dear," he said softly, his hand coming up to stroke her hair. Thera's smile grew as she reflected briefly on the fact that giving blow jobs to old fat guys was rather good training for being stuck in the presence of the Dark Lord when he was in a touchy-feely mood. "You have been greatly missed."

"Thank you, Milord. Your forgiveness humbles me."

She was stalling, rather pointlessly. The Dark Lord merely nudged her forward. Thera pulled her wand out of her pocket, the persona wrapping around her as naturally as if she'd never been exiled. She gathered audience her most affected Queen Elizabeth wave.

They laughed, brightening at the idea of a good spot of gory Muggle-killing.

Then the Dark Lord took over her mind, and conscious Thera retreated, watching her wand lift and remove the gags from the two boys. The Death Eaters much preferred to hear the screaming.

*******

"Mr. Potter!"

Harry barely heard McGonagall's voice as he tore out of Transfiguration, what with Thera screaming at him and all. The hallway was blessedly empty, and he dug through his bag as he ran up to Dumbledore's office. Thera's voice cut off and he swore, digging harder, nearly falling victim to a disappearing step in the process.

Finally he found the bloody thing, wedged underneath his Potions textbook. He doubted Thera would still be there, but he tried anyway, out of breath. She didn't answer.

"Fuck," Harry said fervently, holding his bag against his hip as he ran, screeching to a halt in front of the gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore's office. He spat out the password, dancing back and forth as the door slid open far too slowly.

Dashing up the steps, he spilled into the Headmaster's office without even knocking.

"Sir, something's..."

He trailed off when he saw somebody sitting in the other chair, facing Dumbledore. Before the person even twisted around, he knew who it was - the Minister of Magic.

He hadn't seen Amos Diggory since fourth year, in the Hospital Wing after he'd returned from the graveyard with the man's dead son. Oh, this is going to be uncomfortable.

"Erm," Harry panted. "Sorry. Minister. Sir."

"Mr. Potter," the Minister addressed him, a bit stiffly. Then he turned back around to face Dumbledore. "Do you allow all of your students to just burst into your office whenever they please?"

"I think we both know Harry's a special case, Amos," Dumbledore said, standing and moving around the desk with the alacrity of someone one-tenth his age. "Now, Harry," he said, laying a hand on his shoulder, his blue eyes intensely alight. "What's got you in such a rush?" His voice never changed intonation, but he shook his head slightly, a movement Amos Diggory couldn't see.

Harry wasn't a gifted liar by any stretch of the mind, and his mind was stretching pretty far at the moment. Luckily, he was out of breath, and that gave him a few seconds to think of something. "My...my tracking device. I've lost it, sir. I just realized, and you said to keep it on me all the time, and that I was to come to you immediately..."

Dumbledore chuckled, patting him on the back. "Ah, yes. So I did. And I see you followed my directions to the letter. Well, it's hardly the end of the world. Wonderful thing about tracking devices, after all. They're astonishingly easy to locate. You should be in Transfiguration right now, am I correct?" Harry nodded. "Important N.E.W.T. to have, if you want to be an Auror. Why don't I track down your lost device and we'll pick it up on your way back to class. I apologize for the interruption, Amos," he said smoothly, over his shoulder. "These days, we can hardly have Harry Potter walking around untracked. This will only take a moment. Help yourself to a lemon drop."

The Minister frowned and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Harry and Dumbledore were already on the stairwell, going down.

"Sorry," Harry muttered.

"It's perfectly fine," Dumbledore said pleasantly. "You've always been very good at thinking on your feet. I'm pleased to see you haven't lost that ability."

Harry wondered a little about what particular relationship Dumbledore shared with the Ministry now that Fudge was out, but other things were more pressing. "I heard from Thera," he said in a low voice once they'd reached the hallway and Dumbledore cast a charm around them to keep them from being overheard. "Through the mirror. She said Voldemort was calling her."

The Headmaster sighed. "Yes, Severus predicted that would likely happen soon. He informed me when he felt the mark burn, though I was unable to speak to him with the Minister present. I'm sure Miss Castelar will make contact again when she can."

"That's it?" Harry asked, not sure if Dumbledore was underplaying the situation or if he and Thera had merely overreacted. Well, they'd had to, really. Voldemort calling Thera up out of the blue after months of ignoring her? Dumbledore could hardly blame them for thinking something big was going down.

"As far as I know," Dumbledore said, "all of the important sites in Britain are being carefully monitored. If Voldemort had attacked one of them, we'd know. The same with all of the students, especially the Muggleborns."

Harry nearly flinched at the sudden fierce look that came over the Headmaster's face. He'd only seen that look once before, just after Dumbledore had burst into the false Professor Moody's office and stunned Barty Crouch, Junior. It was still impressive.

Reaching into his pocket, Dumbledore fished out his Order communications device, holding it up to his mouth. "Hestia Jones." Several seconds went by without an answer, and the Headmaster tried again. When Hestia remained silent, the look on Dumbledore's face turned positively feral.

"What's going on?" Harry whispered.

Dumbledore glanced at him. "Go back to class, Harry. Please tell Professor McGonagall to contact me as soon as it's finished. I must go now."

Harry nodded, and before he could take another breath to ask what had happened, Dumbledore disapparated. Harry gritted his teeth. Obviously the Headmaster suspected that something had happened to Hestia, and had been in too much of a hurry to explain, but he really hated not knowing what was going on.

And he really hoped that Hestia Jones was not the reason that Thera had been called by Voldemort. With a distinct sense of unease, he proceeded back to class.

McGonagall gave him a look as he entered. "Mr. Potter, if you desire to use the facilities, it's generally polite to notify your professor of your intentions before you follow through on them. Please see me after class."

Harry mumbled an apology, his face burning as his classmates tittered.

"What happened?" Hermione hissed as he sat down next to her. Or at least he assumed it was Hermione. They were working on appearance-altering transfigurations, and Hermione currently had long blonde hair, blue eyes, and appeared about ten years older. "Malfoy's tracking charm on Thera went off right after you left."

Harry shook his head to let her know he'd tell her later. Appearance-altering transfigurations were the hardest thing they'd studied so far, and his distraction didn't help at all. He managed to make his hair grow out and darken his eyes a little bit, but no matter what he did, he couldn't concentrate enough to make his nose any bigger. Which was probably a good thing, he supposed, or he would've looked just like Snape.

Luckily, appearance-altering transfigurations only lasted a few minutes, so he didn't have to go up and talk to McGonagall half-Snaped.

"Professor Dumbledore wanted to talk to you," Harry said as soon as the last person left the room. Hermione would be waiting for him outside, he knew. "Thera got called by Voldemort and Hestia Jones didn't answer her communications device." McGonagall went pale. "He went to find out what happened."

"Oh, dear," the professor breathed, digging her own device out of her pocket.

"Er...what did happen?" Harry asked as she called the Headmaster.

"Hopefully nothing," she said, not particularly sounding as if she believed it.

"Minerva," Dumbledore answered.

"I'm here with Potter. He's briefed me. Have you found Hestia?"

"Yes," he said heavily. "In the alleyway beside the hospital. She took Severus' potion."

Harry frowned, wondering what that meant. It certainly didn't sound good.

McGonagall closed her eyes and bowed her head, her voice shaking when she spoke again. "And the Creeveys?" Harry's eyes widened, dread building.

"No trace of them, I'm afraid," Dumbledore continued, his own voice not sounding terribly steady, though it might be the connection. "The boys took down two Death Eaters, though. The Aurors have taken them into custody. Harry should be very proud."

Harry did not feel proud at all, in fact. What he felt was ill. The Death Eaters had taken Dennis and Colin. They were going to torture and kill them.

Actually, he thought, swallowing a surge of bile, Thera's going to torture and kill them.

"We have to do something," Harry heard himself say, his voice coming out even and completely flat. "Maybe Snape can..."

McGonagall reached out, squeezing his shoulder. "Harry..." she said, not unkindly.

He jerked away, his breath coming hard as reality sank in. They weren't going to do anything. They couldn't do anything, couldn't risk exposing Snape over something as inconsequential as this. He clenched his fists against the howling rage inside of him.

Inconsequential.

He couldn't do this right now. Taking a page from Thera's emotional book, he squeezed his eyes shut and imagined a sword slicing through his mind, cutting off the rage so he could think. It didn't work as well as it probably did for her, but it was enough.

"Sorry," he said quietly, opening his eyes.

McGonagall was gripping the edge of the desk, her mouth trembling. "I should..."

"Why weren't they at Hogwarts?" Harry interrupted.

"Their grandmother took ill," the professor said, sighing. "They went to visit her in hospital with their parents. They weren't to tell anyone they were leaving the school."

"But they did," Harry gathered, his heart sinking. He knew why, too. "It's Thursday. Colin's D.A. group meets on Thursdays." Once the weather had turned cold, most of the groups had started meeting inside, and quite a few had switched meeting days to accommodate the schedules of their members.

McGonagall sent him an alarmed look. "Surely he didn't tell them all why he wouldn't be there, much less where he'd be."

"I don't know," Harry admitted, astonished at how quickly the discussion could turn into a mere collection of statements with no emotion attached to them at all. They could have been discussing his homework. "I just know he asked Neville to cover for him."

The professor raised an eyebrow. "I can't imagine Longbottom would betray their movements to the Death Eaters," she said. "I think it's far more likely they were after Hestia. She's...she was a well-known Order member."

Harry nodded, figuring that made sense. "Hermione's waiting for me," he mumbled, turning to leave.

"Potter," McGonagall said shakily. Harry paused. "They took down two Death Eaters. You taught them that. You gave them a chance. That does mean something."

It wasn't enough, though, was it? And it doesn't make them any less dead. Not trusting himself to speak, Harry left.

*******

Malfoy's face was rigid as he brushed by Hermione on the way out of class. "My room," he said under his breath. "Bring Potter."

Hermione nodded almost imperceptibly and leaned back against the wall to wait for Harry. Students cleared out of the classrooms, laughing and chattering, on their way to dinner, and she watched them with a tinge of jealousy. In moments like this, it seemed incomprehensible to her that quite often, she and Harry and Ron were like that.

Well...not so often these days.

Harry burst out of the Transfiguration classroom, his expression stormy. She pushed away from the wall, glancing around to make sure they were alone. "You have the cloak?" she asked. He nodded wordlessly. "Malfoy's room."

Pulling the cloak out of his bag, he threw it over both of them. It was a long, slow, silent, tense trek down to the dungeons, and Harry waited until Malfoy had shut the door and he'd folded his cloak back up and put it in his bag before saying anything.

"The Death Eaters got Dennis and Colin and their parents," he said shortly. "They left Hogwarts to visit their sick grandmother." His eyes found her. "Hestia's dead."

Hermione let out a breath. "The Death Eaters didn't take her?"

"No," Harry said. "McGonagall said she took Severus' potion, whatever that means."

"Instant Death Potion," she said, her fingers moving automatically to the chain hidden under her robes. "She knows a lot. Er...knew a lot, I guess. The movements of all of the Muggleborn students here. Our homes are all under Fidelius, but traveling..."

She cut herself off when Harry took two steps forward and pulled the chain out from under the neckline of her robes. Hermione flinched back at the expression on his face.

If a glare could cause a vial of Instant Death Potion to explode into a million tiny pieces, his most certainly could have. Might have, even, if Hermione hadn't snatched it back. Letting out a growl, Harry tried to yank the chain off of her.

Hermione yelped. A "Stupefy!" came from her left. It hit Harry, but had no effect. Luckily, the second stunner, combined with the one she managed to get off once she fumbled her wand out of her pocket, did. Harry slumped to the floor.

"Idiot," Malfoy spat, kicking Harry onto his back.

"He didn't know," she gasped, trying to slow down her heartbeat and stop her disturbingly short life from flashing in front of her eyes.

"Didn't know you had it, or didn't know that the potion would have administered itself if he'd have kept on trying to break that chain, which had better be unbreakable?"

"Both," she said, tucking the vial back underneath her robes. "And it is."

"Right," Malfoy muttered. "Well, considering the circumstances, I think it's best if we give Potter the Weasley treatment before we wake him up." Levitating Harry up from the ground, Malfoy none-too-gently settled him into the desk chair. Hermione glared at him. Ignoring her, he conjured up some ropes and tied Harry up.

He left off the gag. Deciding to be grateful for small favors, Hermione ennervated Harry.

He blinked, raising his head and taking in his situation. "What the..."

"If you'd kept trying to get it off of her, you'd have killed her," Malfoy said bluntly. "Are you planning to make another go at attempted murder, or can we set you free?"

Harry's features went slack, his gaze turning from Malfoy to her. Hermione fought the urge to squirm. "Take it off," he said, his voice soft and pleading, almost childlike.

It was hard to look at him, and even harder to say the words. "I can't."

His face slowly hardened. "Can't or won't?"

Hermione swallowed. "Won't."

"I don't want this," he said in a low voice. "You know I don't want this, so why the hell would you do it? And why the hell wouldn't you tell me about it?"

"You and your ego, Potter," Malfoy sighed. "All the Order members wear them."

Hermione looked at him. "How on earth do you know that?"

"Snape's worn a vial since fourth year," he shrugged. "I know he brewed a big batch of Instant Death Potion a few months ago. When the whole of Gryffindor House didn't suddenly expire at dinner, I put two and two together."

"All of the Order members don't wear them," Harry said through clenched teeth. "I ought to know, because I don't wear one."

Malfoy frowned at him. "Did we hex you too hard, or have you simply forgotten who the fuck you are, Potter?"

Harry scowled. "No, I just...why didn't anybody tell me?"

"Because we knew you'd overreact," Hermione said with a pointed look.

"Well, of course I'd..." Harry took a deep breath and dropped his head. "You can let me go now. I'm just...I'm not going to think about this right now. There's too much else to think about." He looked up, his face pained and weary in a way that made her heart hurt. "Voldemort called Thera. That's how I found out about...well, the rest of it."

"Wonderful," Malfoy said sourly, waving his wand and setting Harry free. "So she'll get back to the Manor in a few hours in a right state and probably vomit all over one of the heirloom rugs just to piss me off. Of course, her very existence pisses me off..."

"I thought you two made up," Harry said, wrapping his arms around himself and appearing subdued, aside from the dark glances he kept shooting at the neckline of her robes. "After all, she told you where she got the information, right?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "This really isn't the time..."

They both ignored her. "Yes, she did," Malfoy said mildly, "and she made me swear not to tell you, so don't think you can go squirreling it out of me."

Harry scowled. "I don't understand why it's such a big fucking deal."

"It's not, really. I think she just wants to tell you herself."

"She doesn't seem to be in a hurry about it. Is she angry at me or something?"

"No," Malfoy dismissed. "And anyway, Slytherins don't hold grudges like that."

Harry looked appalled. "Don't hold grudges? You hated me for six years because I wouldn't shake your bloody hand on the bloody train first year!"

"Stop it. This isn't helping anything," Hermione said. They continued ignoring her.

"No, Potter," Malfoy said patiently. "I hated you for a few weeks because you didn't shake my hand on the train. Then you went and made the House Quidditch team, and I hated you for that for a few weeks. Then you got me detention..."

Harry let out a disbelieving snort. "I got you detention?!"

"Shut up, both of you!" Hermione yelled. One dark and one light head turned to look at her, bearing identical expressions of innocent shock at her outburst. Never in her life had Hermione wished more for a camera to capture the moment. If the two of them could only see themselves...

Of course, the camera made her think of Colin, which made her choke up, which entirely ruined the scolding she'd been about to give them.

She'd helped Colin with his disarming spells and watched him send Ginny hundreds of yearning looks at Prefects Meetings. He'd taken an entire Saturday afternoon away from his O.W.L. studies last year to indulge her curiosity about Muggle versus Magical photography, explaining what he'd learned, the ways in which the two could be mixed, and the ways in which they couldn't. He'd wanted to be a photojournalist, and he'd kept a stash of National Geographic magazines in his trunk that he read over and over.

And Dennis...that was even worse. The youngest of the original D.A. members, he'd been like a little brother to all of them. They'd helped him out with his spells and his homework, and he'd soaked up their attention with unabashed awe. He was still Little Dennis in her mind, even if...well, she'd had a very stern talk with Justin about that whole situation, and the fact that Dennis was only just fifteen, and there were laws, and...

He wouldn't live to see sixteen. The blunt, terrible, indisputable truth of that realization sucked the breath out of her. All of her warnings were pointless, because Dennis' relationship with Justin would never reach that level. Dennis would never get any taller, and Colin would never become a photojournalist. Inopportune as the moment was, that's when the full brunt of the situation chose to hit her.

She was grieving when - in all likelihood - they weren't even dead yet, and probably wouldn't be for a good long while. It was no secret what the Death Eaters did to the people they captured, especially Muggleborns.

"Oh, damn it," she choked out, stomping her foot, digging her nails into the palms of her hands and biting her lip in a fruitless effort to stop herself from crying. Two Gryffindors were dead. She needed to get a handle on herself. She'd have to go back to the tower soon so she could be there when McGonagall broke the news to the rest of their House, so she could comfort those who needed it. That was her job.

That thought did absolutely nothing to stop the onslaught, and it was an ugly one. Hermione was not the sort of girl who cried; she was the sort that burst into loud, messy sobs and snotted all over herself. Harry was there, like he always was, hugging her and patting her back and shushing her and it made her feel all that much worse, because it should really be the other way around.

It wouldn't be, of course. Harry didn't get the luxury of falling apart like she did, or at least he didn't allow himself the luxury. No, he'd go off on his own or sink into himself and stew, or rage and yell, but he'd never do this. Righteous anger was a fitting response for the Savior of the Wizarding World. A big bout of girly crying wasn't, no matter how much she thought it might do him some good. Harry had always been rather stoical - a product of his upbringing, she assumed - and he'd only gotten more so during his time at Hogwarts, not just because of his trials and sufferings, but because of the ever-increasing weight of the expectations placed on him. The expectations themselves were certainly warranted, but they'd also done their damage. Harry took them seriously. He was willing to drive himself into the grave in order to live up to them. He had to; it was his job to save everybody. What other choice did he have?

But the expectations had also taken their toll. They'd fed into and strengthened every tendency Harry had to stand on his own, to play the strong silent hero, because that's what he was supposed to be. No matter how much power he got or how often he tripped over his own feet on the way to class or got lazy about his homework, in Hermione's mind, Harry would never be far away from the skinny, bespectacled eleven-year-old who'd announced with a pale, fearful face and rock solid determination they were going to have to go after the Sorcerer's Stone themselves, because nobody else was going to stop Voldemort from getting it, and Voldemort had to be stopped.

Hermione wasn't sure whether fretting over how Harry was dealing with his grief over Colin and Dennis was more useful than dealing with her own grief, but it was fairly inevitable. Worrying about Harry was her main duty in life, for better or worse. Wiping her face, she stepped back.

"Better now?" he asked tentatively.

"Yeah," she mumbled. "Sorry."

"If we're finished with the theatrics for the moment," Malfoy said, his words far less harsh than it could have been, "we might want to address the issue of why on earth the Death Eaters decided to go after the Creeveys."

"We don't think they did," Harry said tightly. "We think they were going after Hestia Jones, the Order member who was with them."

"Ah," Draco said, running a hand through his hair, looking unsettled. "Well, that just leaves one question then, doesn't it?"

His eyes met Hermione's, and she knew they were both thinking the same thing. "How did the Death Eaters know where to find them?" she finished up grimly.

Harry swore, but further discussion was cut off by a sharp knock at the door.

"Oi! McGonagall sent me down," Ron's voice sounded. "Prefect business."

*******

"So what's going on?" Weasley asked as soon as the door was shut, his eyes barely skimming over Draco before boring into Potter. "Ernie said you went running out of Transfiguration like your arse was on fire. I had to dig out the map to find you."

Potter began updating Weasley, and Draco pulled Granger to the side. "Who could've known the Creeveys were leaving Hogwarts today?" he asked grimly.

She thought for a moment. "He asked Neville to cover for his D.A. Club meeting tonight. I know that much. He didn't say anything about leaving school, though. I assumed he had a detention or something."

Draco waved away her words. "Who was in his section of the club?"

"I have a list of all the members," Granger said, reaching into her bag. Draco gritted his teeth and tried very hard not to fly off the handle. Somebody had gone over his head and informed the Death Eaters about the Creevey's movements, and whatever little shit it had been was going to pay.

Granger produced the list of students in Colin Creevey's section, and Draco skimmed it over, dismissing most of the names. He didn't even know who Mullikin was, the Fudges were all anti-Dark Lord and the Greengrasses were neutral. It certainly hadn't been a Bones, or that bimbo Hufflepuff who was dating Terry Boot, or Dorian Verity, or any of the people who were obviously Muggleborn.

A few names stood out, however. Effie Paxton's uncle had been one of the founding members of the Death Eaters, killed during the First War. Her parents and two older brothers were in the organization for the current go-round, and he thought Thera might have bagged one of the brothers, though he couldn't be sure. Endymion Travers' father was a Death Eater from the First War, though he'd never made it into the inner circle. Which is to say that like many of the Dark Lord's followers, he was a stumbling alcoholic who could barely hold a wand half the time. The Death Eaters didn't exactly have the highest membership standards. Paxton and Travers were both fifth years, and they could have easily given away information to a family member.

And then there was Pansy Parkinson. In spite of his dislike for her, he was hesitant to believe that she'd do something like this. Well...consciously, at least.

She was not, after all, the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Which made her, unfortunately, the most reasonable place to start. "Get out," he said.

All three Gryffindors looked at him, in various degrees of surprise and anger. So apparently they did have some notion of propriety. Go figure.

Draco cleared his throat, handing the list back to Granger. "Pansy was in Creevey's group. She may have known that he wasn't going to be in the school today. I'm going to question her about it. And while I realize she's rather dim, I seriously doubt even she is thick enough not to notice the three of you lounging about in here as if you own the place without getting suspicious. So get out."

"We should go up to Gryffindor Tower anyway," Granger added in subdued tones, putting the list away in her bag. "McGonagall should be delivering the news now."

Looking glum and resigned, the Gryffindors headed out. Feeling rather glum and resigned himself, Draco headed into the Common Room in search of Pansy.

*******

Harry had set up shop in Hermione's room while she dealt with the situation in the Common Room. Ron had gone off to bed, or to help out Hermione, or something. Harry hadn't paid much attention, especially after he'd seen a chain identical to Hermione's poking out of the neckline of his best friend's robes. But Harry wasn't thinking about that. He was strategizing, taking all of the emotions inside of him and focusing them into planning. There were ways he could get to Voldemort. Fox had told him the blood link should be able to get him into the Slytherin properties. The only question was: what the hell was he going to do once he got there?

He couldn't just go rushing in willy-nilly, like...well, like a Gryffindor. He had to have a plan. He just needed a plan. Any minute now, he was going to think of a plan.

Any minute now.

"Dammit!" he growled, kicking the bed frame, frustration joining all of his other emotions. Cedric and Sirius and Charlie Weasley and now Colin and Dennis, and there'd surely be others, more and more deaths and they could be his best friends' deaths and he was the only one who could stop it and he didn't fucking know how.

"Harry?" Thera's voice sounded from the mirror.

He snatched it out of his bag and snarled, "What?"

Thera looked slightly taken aback at his tone. "Is this a bad time?"

"No," he said in a calmer tone of voice that only barely masked the emotions bubbling under the surface of his skin, burning like acid. "I'm just angry."

"So I gathered," she said, eyeing him closely. "What about?"

She didn't even know. Harry just barely managed to cut off a spout of caustic laughter. She didn't even fucking know who she'd killed. His anger spiked at the thought, but he shoved it back down. It was hardly Thera's fault. "Nothing," he managed to say.

She obviously didn't believe him. He couldn't really blame her. He hadn't sounded very believable. "Listen, I'm sorry about earlier," she said carefully. "The call came as kind of a surprise, and I overreacted. It wasn't anything important."

The anger he'd just manage to stifle burst forth, along with everything else he'd been bottling up since he'd heard about Dennis and Colin. Only it didn't come out heated, but cold, ice cold. "No, of course not," he sneered. "Nothing important at all."

Thera rubbed a fist against her eyes. "So you're angry at me, then. I said I was sorry about earlier, Harry..."

"And what about the rest of it?" he interrupted, his tone sharp and almost alien to his ears. He hadn't realized he was capable of sounding so...hateful. And yet it felt good, too. Might as well be honest. She deserved to hear it. "Are you sorry for that, too?"

Thera's face went instantly and utterly blank. Harry knew that meant the strike had hit its intended target, done its intended damage. Vaguely, he realized that he was being a bit unreasonable. He found that he didn't particularly care. So he'd hurt her. He wanted to hurt her. She'd done far worse to the Creeveys.

"Would you believe me if I said I was?" she asked in a voice devoid of emotion.

"No," he snapped.

"Then I guess there isn't much point in saying it, then, is there?"

Harry tightened his hands on the mirror, barely able to breathe through his rage. No, she didn't get to do that. She didn't get to hide being that bloody implacable mask. He wasn't going to let her. He didn't care what it took.

"Say it all you want," he said, the words coming out easier than he'd thought they would. "It wouldn't be the first time you lied to me. Probably not the last, either."

A flicker of concern crossed her face. "Harry," she said slowly, "what happened?"

"What happened?" he laughed, an ugly sound. "I'll tell you what happened. Those two kids you just spent the past few hours torturing to death? I knew them."

Thera sagged a little, closing her eyes. "Oh, fuck. I'm s-"

"Don't you dare," he cut her off, his voice cracking like a whip, "say you're sorry."

That shut her up. Thera opened her eyes, fixing him with a flat stare, unmoving. Well, he'd make her move. He was determined to, and when Harry Potter was determined to do something, the world knew to watch the fuck out.

"You didn't even know them," he started in a low voice. "You went to school with them here, and you didn't even fucking recognize them, did you? You were too busy sucking dick, I'm sure. Mine being one of them. The most valuable one of all, because that's the one that's going to keep you out of Azkaban, right?"

Thera didn't answer, and he didn't particularly expect her to - not this early in the battle of wills. Of course, she couldn't win the battle. He was just getting warmed up.

"Those two kids," he said, twisting the knife, "they were original members of the D.A. I taught them how to fucking fight, and they did, too. Did Voldemort leave that part out? About how they took out two Death Eaters trying to protect themselves and their Muggle parents before they all got captured? Maybe more, even. Those two Death Eaters were just the ones that got left behind for the Ministry to pick up."

The flat stare continued.

"Colin was a prefect. He was also the original member of the Harry Potter Fucking Fan Club. He used to follow me around like a puppy dog, taking pictures all the time, practically jizzing all over himself whenever I said hello to him in the hallway. It used to annoy the living shit out of me." Out of the blue, tears threatened. Horrified, Harry gripped the mirror as hard as he could, focusing on the edges digging into his fingers, swallowing past the lump in his throat. He'd survived Voldemort, for Merlin's sake. He could certainly manage to not cry in front of Thera, not unless he made her cry first.

"He got Dennis into it when he came to Hogwarts," he said, his voice hoarse but passable. "The two of them probably only joined the D.A. in the first place so they could bask in my reflected fucking glory. But they were good at it, both of them. Colin finally managed a Patronus last year and the whole club cheered for him. It was a stallion and Ron joked that he was surprised it wasn't me, ten feet tall, wielding a sword."

Belatedly, Harry realized that the battle of wills had long ended, because his face was wet and he felt more humiliated and ashamed than he ever had in his entire life. Even without looking at Thera, he knew he'd lost, but he couldn't really bring himself to care. His chest was burning, and now he just wanted to get the rest of it out before it poisoned him.

"They fucking worshiped me, and I brushed them aside because it made me uncomfortable. I never even gave them any credit for it. Second year, the entire school thought I was the Heir of Slytherin, sneaking around the school attacking Muggleborns. Hell, even I believed it half the time, but Colin never did. Never. Not once."

Something halfway between a laugh and a sob came out of his mouth, and he had to stop talking. Thera didn't say anything. He wasn't looking at the mirror, so he didn't know for sure if she was even still there, but he felt that she was, and was thankful that she remained silent. Hermione would have said something, tried to make him feel better. He didn't want to feel better. He wanted to feel worse, and he wanted her there with him.

"They thought I'd save them," he finally managed in a harsh whisper, angrily wiping his face off on his robes. "Probably right up until the end, they were still expecting me to come bursting in and pull off some daring last minute rescue. But I didn't."

"There were two hundred Death Eaters there," Thera said, breaking her silence, "not counting the Dark Lord. It would've been impossible."

"I'm Harry Potter," he said bitterly. "I do the impossible every day. That's my job."

"It's not your job..."

"Of course it is!" he nearly shouted, cutting her off. "It's always been my job; I'm just fantastically shitty at it. You know the prophecy."

"The prophecy says you have the power to defeat him. It doesn't say you have the power to save all of his victims in the meantime. This wasn't your fault."

Harry bit his lip, fighting off the equal and contradictory desires to say that it was his fault, and to say that it wasn't his fault, because it was hers. His rage finally burnt itself out, forcing him to admit that at least the last part wasn't true. Guilt washed over the ashes left by the flare of anger, and he was disgusted with himself, with his own capability to hurt someone he supposedly cared about on purpose, to want it. To enjoy it, even. And he had hurt her. He knew that without having to look at her. Probably knew it better, even. She'd never show it; she wouldn't want him to know. But it came through in her voice - tentative and distant, wary.

He was suddenly and rather shamefully glad that he couldn't feel her emotions from here.

"For Merlin's sake, Harry. Look at me." The words were exasperated, but they came out sounding more like a plea.

He shook his head. It was childish and cowardly, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not just because he'd have to see the damage he'd done, but because he was afraid he'd only wreak more if he did. He'd never felt so out of control, and it scared him.

The fact that she was being nice to him was shitty enough. The fact that she was doing it after what he'd said to her was even shittier. The fact that she hadn't even defended herself, that she'd just taken everything he'd dished out to her...that was the shittiest part.

Because he knew why she'd done it, just like he'd known exactly what words to say in order to attack right where she was most vulnerable. As far as Thera was concerned, she deserved that, and a whole hell of a lot more on top of it. And every time he opened his mouth to tell her it wasn't true, he thought about Dennis and Colin, and he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. "I can't," he said finally.

He knew he should qualify the statement. I can't right now. I can't because I'm afraid of what else I'm going to say. I can't because I've suddenly lost my anti-cruelty filter and I really don't think I should talk to you until I find it again. He didn't say any of those things. Instead, he tossed the mirror aside and buried his head in his hands.

Thera, for her part, didn't argue with him. The mirror was silent.

*******

Thera spent a long time sitting on her bed with the silent mirror next to her, staring at nothing. Her mouth still tasted like vomit; she hadn't bothered to brush her teeth before calling Harry.

"I'm guessing we're not going to remain friends," she murmured. Then she cursed herself. She was going to be around other people now, and they were Death Eaters, to boot. That made it somewhat urgent for her to relearn the fine art of internal monologue.

So this is how things stood with Harry. This is how they'd stood all along, really. All the rest of it had just been...well, not a lie, precisely. A diversion. A detour. A pleasant little interlude during which both she and Harry had replaced Cathy Vixen and Troy Handsome with "Thera" and "Harry," who hadn't been any more grounded in reality, just easier to portray as such. They hadn't pretended as if the spell hadn't existed, or that the Dark Lord didn't exist. They'd just fooled themselves into believing that those things had no bearing on their relationship, that they were somehow outside of it all.

And now they'd both realized that those things did, and that they themselves weren't.

It never ceased to astonish Thera how eager most people were to deceive themselves. When faced with an ugly yet irrefutable truth, they could spend years, even decades convincing themselves that it wasn't true, creating an entirely separate personal universe in which it didn't even exist. Thera had previously believed that she was immune to this particular psychological disorder. She was not pleased to learn that she actually wasn't. She was even less pleased to find out that she had fallen victim to it solely because of a fucking man. Well yes, the man was Harry Potter, and not your average schlub, but still.

Reina had, it seemed, raised a fool after all.

Or...maybe not.

Thera had no intention of following through on her first instinct - which was, as always, to fall back on the dictates of The Gospel According to Reina - because she wanted to get through the rest of this on her own, with a clear head. She knew her own chances, and her own possible choices.

She was limited by the fact that sex was out of the question, not just because of that stupid fucking order she'd elicited from Harry, but because none of the Death Eaters were dumb enough to get frisky with the wife of a Malfoy.

It would be slightly awkward right now to address the matter of ending the entailment. She and Harry would have to do it face-to-face, and it was best if he cooled down first, or things could get nasty. Or - knowing Harry - go in the completely opposite direction. He did, after all, have one bitch of a conscience, and Thera had a feeling it wouldn't take very long before it nagged him into apologizing. She'd be vulnerable to him then. It was hard to resist Harry at his big green-eyed sorriest, and Thera figured they were both better off waiting until he got over that particular hurdle before addressing the entailment.

Figuring it was the most reasonable option, she hid the mirror in one of her mother's old shoeboxes, then soundproofed the hell out of it and shoved it at the back of the large walk-in closet and dressing room. Whereas before, she'd slept in a regular family bedroom in Shirag Castle, Thera was now housed in the master suite. The upside was a jacuzzi. The downside was the fact that she'd had to brick up the balcony off of which she'd once taken several nosedives as a toddler. Then she'd had to make the bricks invisible so as not to advertise the fact that she was a great huge pussy. It was not a perfect solution by any means. Just looking at the thing made her queasy.

Running a hand down her face, Thera focused on what else needed to be done. The Ferrari was still at Malfoy Manor, and as much as she hated to admit it, was probably safer there. The Death Eaters were all watching her now; she couldn't sneak away unnoticed like she'd been able to before. She'd also need to get Draco to play with the wards at Malfoy Manor so she could access the library. Her linguistic knowledge had yet to produce any useful leads, at least as far as the spell went. She had learned how to cook a perfect lamb shank, how to behead a person from a distance, and how to make an erection last up to eight hours.

The largest stumbling block to finding anything useful was that when Thera had admitting to having knowledge of Greek, she had meant that she could converse about such necessary Greek topics as the weather, how traffic was horrible, why Maria Callas was the greatest singer ever in the entire galaxy, how the neighborhood was going downhill and why the best course of action regarding Yanni was to ignore him until he went away. She was not as well-versed in the whole realm of translating ancient magical Greek. That required several dictionaries, a lot of guesswork and the patience of Job.

And now that she was no longer locked up in Malfoy Manor, Thera was definitely lacking in the whole patience part. She just wanted the whole bloody mess to be over already one way or the other, no matter what the aftermath brought with it.

Unfortunately, she still had a few loose ends to tie up. She still needed to tell Harry how she'd gotten all of the information she'd passed on to him, and who she'd gotten it from.

Which made Snape's arrival rather prescient.

"I've come to welcome you back to the fold," he said dryly, stepping inside, "and to deliver your potion." His hawkish nose wrinkled as he handed her a week's worth of Somnius Repiratus. "You stink of vomit."

"Obviously you missed the show, or else you'd know why," she said, trudging off to the bathroom to brush her teeth and splash some water on her face.

"I was apprised of the details when I arrived," Snape said, taking in her new living quarters. "Suffice it to say your return was extremely crowd-pleasing."

Thera squeezed her eyes shut against another wave of nausea as she recalled exactly why it had been. Death Eaters so loved a good disemboweling. Grabbing up a towel, she scrubbed her face dry. Merlin, she was out of practice. Or maybe she just hadn't puked enough. "The prodigal daughter has to return with a bang, doesn't she?"

"You realize what your return means, I hope." It wasn't a question.

She tossed the towel down and walked out of the bathroom. "I know it doesn't mean that our lord and master is overflowing with the milk of human kindness."

Snape gave her a look. "He wants you nearby, under his control. It's coming."

Thera sighed. "I don't suppose you know what it is?"

He shook his head slowly, dark eyes narrowed. "The never-ending jockeying for power in the inner circle continues. They're more secretive than ever right now."

"He's got to be getting ready for his big strike. How the fuck can we not know the first thing about his plans?" Frustration warred with an odd sense of relief. She was far better suited to intrigue and espionage than she was to research.

"Because there hasn't been the slightest indication in the outside world that he's even making any," Snape said sourly. "No evidence, no odd occurrences, nothing."

"Oh, I'm sure they're happening," Thera snorted. "We're just not noticing them."

Snape's eyes settled on her, a speculative look on his face. "Do you remember your former acquaintance from Hogwarts, Kim?"

"Little Asian kid," she said, opening up the bottle of dragon wine she'd filched from downstairs. "Wrote good Charms essays for me. Yeah, I remember him."

"His parents disappeared recently. He spoke to Malfoy about it, who subsequently reported it to me. I informed the Ministry and got in touch with his aunt and uncle."

Finally managing to get the cork out of the bottle, Thera good a nice, long swig. The dragon wine tasted awful since she'd just brushed her teeth, but it settled her stomach and sent a nice warm tingling through her veins. "So...what? I should send him a card?"

"The boy's parents dealt in magical artifacts, and were apparently in Hamburg seeing about Faustian knots for a client of theirs when they disappeared."

Thera stared at him. "What the hell are Faustian knots?"

"Junk for fools," Snape sneered dismissively. "That's not important. A few days later, I sat in on the Ministry's interview with Kim. During the interview, they inquired about his parents' clients. Unsurprisingly, the boy had little information to give them, but through various contacts, I was able to obtain a copy of the case file. Nothing stood out at first; then I looked again, and remembered something from Potter's foray into the Chamber of Secrets a few years ago. I found this."

He handed her a piece of parchment with his spidery scrawl on it:

VLADMIR TODOLOREM (Supplier)

TORVILLE O'MADDROM (Client)

And underneath: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

Thera looked at the names for a few seconds, putting it all together. She found it hard to believe that the Dark Lord was dumb enough to put his name right out there like that. She found it even harder to believe that he'd do it in the hopes of obtaining a bunch of fake-ass magical artifacts.

"So someone's having a bit of a laugh," she shrugged, taking another swig. "And he's trying to cover his tracks."

"I hardly believed it was the work of the Dark Lord," Snape bit out. "But if - as you said - things are happening and we're just not noticing them, I thought it worth mentioning."

"Ninety-nine false alarms for every actual emergency," Thera said. "I get it. I'll keep my ears peeled." She belched and Snape curled his lip in disgust. Merlin, she'd missed the old bat. "I have a favor to ask you."

He raised an eyebrow. "Beyond making costly potions for you free of charge?"

"And you're a saint for doing it," she said with a grin. "Actually, this one's for the cause. I need to borrow your Pensieve so I can show Harry the dream about his parents."

"I assume he remains unaware that they were the source of the information?"

"He does," Thera said, smirking. "And he's not speaking to me right now, so you'll get to be the one to break it to him. I'm sure you'll enjoy that."

Snape looked maliciously pleased. "Trouble in Teen Romance Paradise?"

Thera took a nice long swig before answering. "You know how people are. They get so touchy when you torture and murder their friends."

He hummed, considering her. "You realize the first person who will view that Pensieve is me, and directly after I show it to Potter, the entire Order will have the honor."

It occurred to Thera that she wasn't exactly familiar with the finer details of Pensieve use. "Fine with me, so long as I can control exactly what goes in there." So far as she was concerned, what happened between she and her father could stay that way.

"The memory goes in there, generally."

"Well, you see," she said, "right before it started, I was dreaming."

"Ah," Snape grimaced. "I won't inquire about the details."

"You were in the dream actually," she said, taking another swig. A drop of wine clung to the lip of the bottle. Thera licked it off. There was an art to licking inanimate objects as a come-on. Lick too slowly, and the move came off gross. Show too much tongue, and it was just slapstick. Dart your tongue out quickly and try to play off like it never happened, and it came off prudish. For the thing to work, you had to do it slow enough that it got noticed, you had to show just the right amount of tongue, and you had to keep eye contact the entire time.

Snape's eyes followed her movements with a mixture of trepidation and fascination. Snape or not, he still had a penis, and penises were born with a sixth sense that kicked in when they knew they were in the presence of a master. Mistress, more precisely. Dominatrix, even better. Suffice it to say, Snape was hanging on her every word.

She had him in the palm of her hand, and Thera waited for the surge of triumph, the flush of desire at knowing that right now, she could make him do whatever she wanted. She waited. And then she waited some more. It never came.

And it had nothing to do with the fact that - at the moment, at least - she was magically incapable of having sex with him. It was just that the whole thing seemed...dumb. What kinds of points was she trying to win anyway? In what fucking game?

Thera gave up, running a hand down her face, letting Snape off the hook. Talk about lying to yourself. She'd been determined not to turn into Reina. She wouldn't let herself devolve into merely a brain and a pussy, the brain being largely involved with managing the store selling the pussy. And yet Thera knew she'd already pretty much gotten there. Hell, she'd gotten there before she'd even come to fucking England. Well, there's an achievement. I managed to reach 'Disillusioned Slut' ten years younger than Mum did.

So what was beyond that, then? Hyper-Disillusioned Slut? The Death Eater filet?

"I had a thirteen-inch strap-on," Thera finished up flatly. "You bottomed for me."

Snape shook himself, then scowled at her. "You can control exactly what goes in."

She nodded, feeling sad and vaguely ashamed of herself. Being locked up in Malfoy Manor by herself had given her a hell of a lot of time to think, and she'd done plenty of it. Merlin forbid, she'd even taken up daydreaming, though she would never in her entire life admit that to anybody, nor would she ever admit what she'd daydreamed about. Especially since in retrospect, it was humiliatingly pathetic.

Well, not all of it. She could still imagine herself with a sunny little flat near a beach, hopefully with a garage spot for the Ferrari, but that part hadn't been important, really. What had been important was what it would mean. Not the details - changing her name, getting a job, maybe even getting a Labrador and playing frisbee with him on the beach - but the all-encompassing, comforting normality of it all. The problem was that no amount of frisbee-throwing with a slobbery retriever was capable of erasing everything that she'd done and seen. She could immerse herself in mundane Muggleness all she wanted, but it wouldn't change the fact that she was not a mere Muggle pawing through milk cartons, checking expiration dates. She was a witch a murderer pawing through milk cartons, checking expiration dates, and she had seen, faced and performed evils the people waiting in line with her at the register couldn't even begin to imagine. In the end, normality was just another act. And that was what made the daydream pathetic.

"Can you get the Pensieve now?" she asked. Snape nodded, his eyes watchful. It was only her momentary pause that aroused his suspicion, nothing else. Thera may have slipped a little during her enforced solitude, but she hadn't slipped that much. "Good. I want to get this shit over with."

Snape left, and Thera polished off the bottle of wine, sitting cross-legged on the bed in which she'd likely been conceived, putting herself back together, preparing herself for what was to come, what she'd have to do, reminding herself about what mattered and what didn't. Her eyes kept trying to stray towards the balcony. She didn't let them.

*******

"So do we, Draco? Please tell me we don't," Pansy said with an attractive pout, splayed out suggestively on the edge of his bed.

Draco looked at her wearily. If there was any information to be gotten out of Pansy, he had a feeling it was going to be a long, slow, tedious process. "Don't what?"

Her nose wrinkled adorably. "Don't have to keep up with all of this...ridiculousness, with Potter's club. Now that Creepy Creevey's dead, I mean." She looked up at him imploringly. "Please don't tell me I have to spend every Thursday night for the rest of the year getting bossed around by Bumblebutt, for Merlin's sake."

"Longbottom?" he asked sharply, peering at her. "What does he have to do with it?"

"He was supposed to cover our meeting tonight, but it got called off altogether."

"Who told you that?"

"Daphne," she said, frowning at her nails. "Can't I quit now, please?"

"Who told Daphne?"

Pansy flopped onto her back with an exasperated sigh. "How should I know?"

Gryffindor tactics, Draco reflected, did have their place. That place tended to be when one was forced to deal with a moron, but there you have it. "Pansy," he said patiently, "Death Eaters killed the Creeveys, right?"

"Yeah," she shrugged.

"I'm wondering how they knew where the Creeveys would be, when I didn't."

It took a moment for the gears to start turning, then Pansy raised her head to look at him, wide-eyes. "You didn't know?"

"No," Draco said coldly, affecting a properly Lucius-like pose at his desk. "I would very much like to find out who did know, however. I'd also like to know how much they're willing to grovel for my forgiveness so that I don't have to kill them for going over my head in reporting this information to the Death Eaters."

Pansy's face was pale, but her eyes were wide and liquid, almost mad. "Travers."

Draco felt his lips curl. "Was it?"

"It had to have been," she said breathlessly. "He was thick as anything with Creepy."

"Thick?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

She laughed shortly. "Not friends, certainly, though I imagine the Mudblood thought so. Blabbed on about this and that and anything to him. Travers thought it was hilarious."

Draco hummed, his mind spinning. He should have known all of this already, he realized, and it was his own fault that he hadn't. He'd neglected his leadership of the Slytherins. And in response, they'd done what any good group of Slytherins would when they thought they could get away with it: plotted and schemed behind his back.

He'd let his guard down, and seriously dropped the Quaffle. The Slytherins still feared him - of that he had no doubt - but his hands-off attitude had allowed them to think they could get away with shit like this. They assumed he wouldn't notice, or wouldn't care.

They were about to learn that was not the case.

*******

Ginny walked around like the living dead for a while after the double blow of learning that she was carting around a chunk of Voldemort's filthy soul for the second time in her life and the deaths of Colin and Dennis Creevey. Just thinking about Colin made her stomach hurt. It was bad enough to lose somebody you loved; she knew what that was like. It was worse in a way to lose somebody you didn't particularly care for, because it made you feel like a terrible human being for not caring for them very much when they were alive. At least with Charlie, there were happy memories, little moments, love. With Colin, there was just a dull sort of horror coupled with a guilty sense of unworthiness to mourn, because in life he'd basically just annoyed her.

Vendetta became clingy as all get out. Her mumra tended to be disconcerted when Ginny was upset and there wasn't anybody in the immediate vicinity to knock over with a trunk. He was constantly underfoot, trying to figure out who was at fault, who needed to be punished, and how to get at them to punish them. Ginny had no way to assuage the animal, aside from informing him that she was at least partly at fault. He'd just rolled his eyes at her and peed on Carrie's bunny slippers, mostly out of restlessness.

With all of this weighing on her mind, she'd only made two goals in the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match, and had let just about every easy maneuver go by her. The team had still won - narrowly - but her performance had pretty much frozen her out of Gryffindor House. Ginny found that she didn't particularly care. With a mild sense of amusement, she noted that it didn't even seem to make much difference. Most of the people currently freezing her out she'd never really talked to anyway. Draco had scolded her after the game and Ron had nearly had a conniption when she'd tried to quit the team. She'd argued with them both half-heartedly, then finally given in and told them both that they were right. It was less of a hassle than fighting with them, and it made them both shut up, thus granting Ginny what she wanted most of all: peace and quiet.

Those two things weren't exactly easy to find in Gryffindor House, which was likely why those who valued them - Hermione being a prime example - did well to avoid the Common Room. Just walking into it after a long day of classes and research made Ginny feel tired. The voices grated on her ears. The activity and exuberance seemed to siphon off what was left of her energy and grow more boisterous.

But hopefully, all that was about to change. She'd done enough research, and she'd put things off for far too long. It was time to have a little chat with Mary Scrimgeour...right after she had a chat with Draco. He was, after all, far more knowledgeable about rich pureblood gossip than she was, the Daily Prophet's society pages notwithstanding.

"What do you know about the Scrimgeours?" she asked, batting away Vendetta's attempts to nest in her hair. Undeterred and still purring, he crawled onto her stomach and began kneading, gray eyes full of love and affection.

Draco's gray eyes were a lot harder to read as he paused while buttoning up his shirt and turned his head to look at her. "Why would you want to know about the Scrimgeours?"

Ginny tossed around the idea of telling him about her odd conversations with Mary Scrimgeour, then dismissed it. Not to score some petty revenge on him for keeping things from her, but because for one, she wanted to see where Mary was going with all of this before she involved anyone else in it. Secondly, she felt there was a sort of tacit agreement between her and her dormmate to keep their conversations under wraps.

"Just curious," she shrugged. "I wonder where they stand on in the war."

"Probably where they've always stood," he said, his attention back on buttoning. "Firmly anti-evil, but with no allegiance to anyone but themselves."

"I know they're not with Dumbledore, but you don't think they're with the Ministry? I mean, Rufus Scrimgeour's the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

He snorted. "Rufus Scrimgeour is a Scrimgeour first, and a department head second. The whole family's like that. They're a bit like the Malfoys in that capacity."

Ginny couldn't hold back a little smile. "Recent allegiances to dark lords aside?"

"Yes, well," Draco dismissed. "In all actuality, we've betrayed nearly as many dark lords as we've served, with good reason. Dark lords tend to not be the most reliable of folk."

"I can't imagine why." She needed to get this back on track. "About the Scrimgeours, though. My dad said some things. I was wondering if they were true or not." This was a bald-faced lie, though a small one. She'd found the 'things' in a book on ancient pureblood families, but she had little desire to tell him that, especially since the book had also reported that Draco's great-great-great grandparents had been first cousins.

"What sorts of things?" he asked absentmindedly, reaching over for the comb on his bedside table so he could fix his hair. Ginny put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"Don't. It looks dashing this way."

In all honesty, it looked like it should just then - as if he'd just had a good, vigorous shag - but it was sticking up in the back in a way that would scandalize him. Still, she didn't want to talk to him through the bathroom door for the next forty-five minutes. And he would shut the door. He might love her, but he was not about to let her steal hair secrets.

Instead, he stretched out next to her on the bed and joined in stroking Vendetta, much to the mumra's enjoyment. "Then by all means, proceed with your thinly-veiled attempt to pump me for information on the Scrimgeours. I won't ask why."

Ginny gave in. "I know that they sided with the goblins in one of the early rebellions. One of their ancestors provided some sort of assistance to the leader of one of the rebelling tribes, and in return, the goblin leader taught him a whole host of goblin magic. Their home is said to be as impregnable as any Gringott's vault, and the legend is that they have secret passageways underneath it that reach to the very center of the earth."

"That would be the legend," he agreed.

"Yes, but is it true?"

Draco took a moment before answering. "I wouldn't know," he said, his attention focused on the purring mumra. "Historically, they've alternated between acting as mediators of a sort whenever there's a conflict, and throwing everything they have behind the good side, when they deem it worthy. Potter would do well to cozy up to them, if that's where you're going with this."

"Why?" Ginny asked warily.

"Unlike the Malfoys," he said with a bitter little half-smile, "they have yet to choose wrong. Every time they've mediated a conflict, it's been resolved. Every time they've chosen a side, it's won. You can imagine the kinds of rumors there are about them."

"That they can tell the future," she murmured, her mind spinning out possibilities. Mary Scrimgeour didn't even take Divination, though. Although, considering Trelawney, perhaps that was proof of actual, real talent.

His tone turned pensive, careful. "Among other things. In the past, it's been speculated that the passageways shown to them by the goblin king led them to the source of the Oracle at Delphi, and that they can hear and interpret the voice of the earth herself. Of course," he added, "it's also been speculated that they're all half-goblins, and that they bleed pure gold, so take that as you will."

Ginny had already read about both speculations, and had given them both roughly the same amount of credence. She nodded, picking up some of her hair and tickling Vendetta's nose with it. He opened one eye and gave it a half-hearted swat, not inclined to move from his current position. "I need to get up," she informed him.

He purred louder and gave her a pleading look. "Don't disturb the kitty," Draco admonished her. "He's just gotten comfortable."

"I can't lie here naked all night," she argued. "I have things to do."

Draco's lips grazed her temple, his breath tickling her ear. "Like what?"

Ginny shivered. "Homework?" she tried.

He sat up a little, looking down at her, his hair falling down in to his face, his expression inscrutable. "Potter isn't the only one who might find it advantageous to get in good with the Scrimgeours," he commented mildly.

The implicit agreement with her dormmate not to talk about things, Ginny reasoned, had never actually been made explicit. "They approached me. Well, Mary did, at least."

Draco frowned. "What did she say?"

"That it might serve us both to share information."

"Did you share any?"

"I'm not stupid. I got the impression that she was following orders from above, though."

He nodded slightly. "I wouldn't be surprised. Think they're trying to feel out Potter through you?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "Do you think it's worth pursuing?" She asked the question more to hear his analysis of the matter than to decide it. So far as she could tell, it was worth pursuing anyway.

"I can't see why not," he said, rolling away, sitting up once more on the edge of the bed.

"They haven't promised me anything yet," Ginny felt the need to say.

Draco ran a hand through his hair, distracted. "No, I can't imagine they have."

Ginny snatched the hand, pressing it between her own. "What is it?"

He glanced at her, then shrugged. "Just general Slytherin backstabbing. It's my own fault for neglecting them so long. If you want to rule by fear, you have to reinforce it."

"By doing what, exactly?" she asked, not certain she wanted to hear the answer.

"The usual. Make an example of somebody. Follow it up with a good purge."

Ginny stared at him. "Why do I get the unsettling feeling that you actually mean that?"

Vendetta stretched luxuriously as Draco scratched his belly. "You wouldn't understand, I gather." He looked up at her. "The Creeveys were found out because one of the little snotrags in my house told his daddy about their movements. In doing so, he has incurred my wrath, though I imagine he never intended for me to piece it together. But I did. And now he's going to pay. I can't let them believe I'll allow that sort of behavior pass."

"What are you going to do?" she asked worriedly.

"Teach him a lesson," Draco said simply. "Make sure nobody thinks to try what he did."

"That answer is curiously lacking in details," she pointed out.

He chuckled. "You don't want to hear them. Trust me."

Sometimes it worried her, this casual cruelty that seemed to have been knitted into the very fabric of Draco's being. He may not want to be like his father, but Ginny supposed a person could hardly just disregard an entire childhood spent as the scion of Lucius Malfoy. Given the right tools, Draco was capable of making the right choice, but more often than not, it tended to be his second choice.

"Just don't do anything I would do," she said lightly. Now was hardly the time for that particular discussion.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he deadpanned, crawling on top of her, being careful of Vendetta. "What do you plan to do about the Scrimgeours?"

"Talk to Mary," she said honestly.

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

"I'm not criticizing how you deal with your Slytherins," she said, annoyed at his tone. "Don't criticize how I deal with the Gryffindors."

He looked like he wanted to argue, then thought better of it. "Fair enough," he admitted grudgingly.

*******

From the moment he'd set foot on the Hogwarts Express and come face-to-face with the bespectacled arse apparently assigned to be a thorn in his side for all eternity, Severus Snape had hated James Potter. Though he had hardly advertised the fact at the time, he had been gleeful about how the First War had ended. His days as a spy were over, and he could finally sleep at night without living in paralyzing fear of being found out. The bane of his existence was dead, and the individual who had made his life a living hell for seven solid years was now trapped inside his own living hell.

Severus had not been raised to expect justice, and had been pleasantly surprised to actually receive it. And then Black had escaped and the Dark Lord had come back, and everything had gone straight to hell once more. Or - depending on how you looked at it and with what degree of cynicism - back to normal.

And now it seemed that even death couldn't stop James Potter from antagonizing Severus Snape. In some rational corner of his brain, Severus realized that this likely hadn't been Potter's intention. That didn't change the fact that it had ended up happening anyway, or that Potter wasn't currently laughing his dead ass off about it just then.

There were a great many sticky issues associated with the Castelar girl's apparent communication with James and Lily Potter, also. Questions raised, to say the least, and Severus had a sinking feeling he only knew one person he could possibly bring himself to ask, and he wasn't sure he wanted to hear what the answers were.

Still, he couldn't sit and obsess over this forever. He'd looked at Thera Castelar's memory in his Pensieve more times than was likely healthy. The time had long since passed for him to actually show it to Potter.

The very idea, however, made him cringe. Holding Harry Potter's hand while he came face-to-face with his dead parents was high up on Severus' 'Things I Sincerely Hope I Am Never Forced To Do' list, and that list included hundreds of horrific actions that all ended with 'to prove my loyalty to the Dark Lord.'

Potter wouldn't want him as a hand-holder for something like that anyway, Severus told himself. Lupin would be the ideal candidate, but he wasn't exactly available at the moment. Which left the next best option, and the opportunity for a bit of revenge.

Smirking to himself, Severus levitated the Pensieve and headed up to Vivian's office.

He'd deal with the easy stop first, and then the hard one.

*******

Vivian looked over at the silently working students in her office and felt a surge of professorly pride. True to his word, Harry had sent her help, in the form of trustworthy sixth and seventh year students from his Defense Club, all eager to do what they could. Any night of the week, a few of them were sure to be found here, mostly sixth years now that N.E.W.T.s were looming ever-nearer for the seventh year students.

Tonight, Padma Patil was making her way through a book she'd gotten from her parents on ancient Hindu blood rituals, occasionally muttering to herself or writing something down. Terry Boot was chewing his lip, one hand clenched in his hair, the other paging through an ancient Minoan text, looking for any reference to Ektyapos Roth Nagras. Luna Lovegood was alternating between reading the Sanguinitio, drawing careful arithmantic matrices, comparing them to the matrices from the spell and staring into space. And Hermione Granger was taking a break from researching to do a practice test for N.E.W.T. Transfiguration.

Vivian felt almost...motherly, with all of her little chicks in a row.

Severus knocked and entered, levitating a Pensieve in front of him. He glanced at the students, then fixed his eyes on her. "I need a moment with you. Alone."

This was hardly standard Severus behavior. "That's enough for tonight, kids." They began packing up their stuff, Terry and Padma chatting about their next Arithmancy quiz, Luna following after them, humming a bit to herself. Hermione held back, packing up slowly, her gaze questioning, wondering whether or not she should stay.

"Severus?" Vivian asked, motioning to the girl almost imperceptibly with her head.

He looked extremely put open. "Miss Granger, go find Potter and return. He'll want to see this." He set the Pensieve down on the newly-cleared table.

Hermione looked as if she very much wanted to ask what it was, then intelligently kept her mouth shut, nodded, and ducked out of the room.

Vivian motioned to the Pensieve. "Dare I ask?"

"Thera Castelar's memory of her dream about James and Lily Potter," he said shortly. "She wanted Potter to see it. Return the Pensieve when you're finished."

Severus made to leave. Vivian jumped out of her seat and grabbed onto his sleeve. He glared at her. "Hang on," she said, clinging to him. "You can't just leave like that."

"I see no purpose in staying," he said evenly, a glint of triumph in his eyes.

Vivian let go of his robes, gritting her teeth. She honestly had no idea how on earth she was supposed to handle this situation. Sure, Harry had seen his parents before, as wisps or ghosts or something in the graveyard when Voldemort had returned, but this was quite a bit fucking different. This was not a job for her. It was a job for Remus.

And Remus wasn't here. Shit. "Dumbledore should be here," she blurted.

Severus' curled lip said it all. The gauntlet had been thrown. "Then ask him down."

There were, she recognized distantly, far worse repercussions for getting on a Potions Master's bad side than a case of diarrhea, this being a prime example. Dumbledore already knew where the information had come from. Asking him down here would be an outright admission of ineptitude, as well as a betrayal of Remus.

He'd asked exactly one thing of her before he'd had to leave. And here she was, balking at the responsibility as soon as it involved something more difficult than making sure Harry ate enough and didn't die. "You really are a bastard," Vivian grumbled, accepting the challenge no matter how doubtful she was about her chances for success.

"Slytherin," Severus clarified with a smirk, ducking out of her office.

Vivian sank down in her chair. At least Hermione will be here, she thought dully. So it wouldn't just be her playing 'What Would Remus Do?' when Remus was just a replacement for Sirius, who was just a replacement for...actual, living parents.

This was not going to be pleasant.

Far too soon for her liking, there was a knock on her door. Vivian was relieved to see that Hermione had brought along Ron, also. Harry looked understandably apprehensive, considering what had happened to the Creeveys.

A pang shot through her, and she pinched the bridge of her nose to fight against the wave of grief and horror and frustration that welled up whenever she looked at the classes they'd been in, and didn't see them sitting there. They were just kids. They were fucking children. She gritted her teeth and got a hold of herself. Yes, and you're an adult, and right now you need to play at being parental to the best of your ability.

"Professor?" Hermione asked tentatively.

Vivian dropped her hand, looking at them. The Dream Team. The Golden Trio. The Triumvirate, all staring up at her curiously, and it was hard to drag her mind out of the past, to not see four Gryffindor pranksters all sitting politely in a professor's office, looking as innocent as you please, blithely unaware that the next few years would destroy them. She seemed to be getting awfully maudlin in her old age.

It would be a nice distraction to ruminate on that thought for a while. Unfortunately, she had a job to do. Taking a deep breath, she looked at Harry. Remus would do this gently, she supposed. Without a clue as to how to pull that off, she settled for just laying it out.

"We questioned Thera Castelar under Veritaserum about the information she'd passed on to you," Vivian said plainly. Harry had a harsh, defensive look on his face, but inclined his head slightly, this not being news to him...aside from the Veritaserum part. Vivian continued. "She said that she'd gotten it in a dream she'd had about your parents. She said that they gave her the information."

They all stared at her wide-eyed, and - in the case of Granger and Weasley - wide-mouthed, also. Harry looked stunned, and not a little bit disbelieving.

"Veritaserum?" Hermione asked faintly.

Vivian nodded, feeling her face fall into grim lines. This, she had a feeling, was where wrinkles came from. "She confirmed it. It's true. How and why remain a mystery, but she provided us with a memory of the dream itself," she said, indicating the Pensieve on the table. The children all turned their heads to look at it.

"I haven't actually looked at it yet," Vivian admitted.

"But doesn't that mean she could have just dreamed the whole thing?" Hermione asked carefully, her eyes darting to Harry's rock-hard visage for a moment. "She could have confirmed it, even under Veritaserum, because she would have believed it to be true. But that wouldn't mean it was actually true."

Vivian couldn't help but smile a little. Hermione Granger truly did have one hell of a mind. "That was my initial thought, but it was a strange interview," she said, frowning. "Certain things that were said make me believe it wasn't false testimony, not the least because Thera Castelar seemed as surprised at what she was saying as any of us were."

Hermione's eyebrows drew together. "But if she didn't believe it to be true..."

Vivian held up a hand. "I haven't seen what's in the Pensieve yet. I'd like to, before we continue on with this. It may shed some light on the situation."

"Let's look at it, then," Harry said, finally speaking, sounding resigned.

Ron and Hermione both shot Harry worried looks that he ignored. He stood. The rest of them followed, gathering around the table with the Pensieve. Then, on Harry's cue, they all stuck their heads in.

*******

They were silent for most of the way back to Gryffindor Tower. Harry could feel his friends' eyes on him, however, and felt himself growing increasingly annoyed with them. He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't even think he could just then. Everything inside of him was mixed up beyond explanation. Happiness detoured into sadness sharply and unexpectedly, and the addition of Thera into the mix wasn't helping matters.

"I'm fine," he growled finally.

"Harry..." Hermione tried.

"Get it all out, then," he said, stopping abruptly, crossing his arms. He knew he was being rude, and they were both only acting like this because they cared about him. He found it very hard to give a shit just then. He didn't know what to think, what to feel. It was all a blur when he thought back on it, a mixed up jumble of action and emotions. Thera talking to his parents, some crap about brain damage, feeling as if he'd been punched in the stomach when he'd seen big black dog come tearing across the yard. The house, all of those pictures of him, Sirius' pleading face, 'Tell Harry we're all okay...'

It was just too fucking much.

Hermione and Ron shared a look. It seemed to be a silent argument. Harry had no idea who won. "Listen," Ron said tentatively, "go do what you have to do right now. Be alone, ride your broom, punch the wall, whatever. If you need to talk, we're here, okay?"

Harry felt the wind leave his sails and sagged a little bit. He desperately wanted to be angry at someone, but it was hard to be angry at someone who was bending over backwards to be nice to you, especially when it was your best friend.

"Sorry," he mumbled, reaching up under his glasses to rub his eyes, feeling once more appalled at himself. Harry knew quite well that he was not a saint, but he did like to think that he was generally a nice and decent person. The Thera conversation had kind of thrown that back in his face, but that was...well, complicated, to say the least. This wasn't. This was Ron, and Hermione, and they cared about him and just wanted to help him. And in return, he was being a fantastic asshole.

"Sorry," he repeated, and Hermione stepped forward, pulling him into a tight hug.

"Stop apologizing," she said exasperatedly. "It's okay if you're angry. Just talk to us."

Harry felt like his chest was too full to hold what was inside of it. These were his friends, and no matter what else had come between them in the past few years, they'd still stood by him when it counted. He wished he could even begin to tell them how much it meant to him, and how badly he felt for shrinking away from it. He still didn't know how to deal with the whole Thera thing yet, but at least this was here, certain and solid in a way he felt guilty for not fully recognizing before.

"Thanks," he said, but it didn't feel like enough. "I do...I really appreciate this. And I know I'm kind of an arse sometimes but I do...seriously...I love you guys."

Hermione made a sort of half-laughing, half-sobbing sound and hugged him tighter. "We can't - we shouldn't - keep things from each other anymore. It just makes things worse."

It took a second for the words to sink in. Harry pulled back a little, a jolt going through him, a howling sense of betrayal. "You knew about this, didn't you?"

Ron and Hermione shared a guilty glance that pretty much summed it all up. "Nice," he said, stepping back further, the betrayal being overlaid with ice, the hurt breaking through, making him lash out. "So I do get the truth, eventually. When it has to be given up. When you can't hide it any longer. Yeah, I get it."

Hermione's eyes were grave. "Don't do this, Harry."

"Do what?" he laughed. "Tell the truth? Merlin knows that's been scarce around here lately." He took a step forward. "After all, I'm sure you had every intention of telling me about the fucking Instant Death Potions, and just never got the chance."

"Like you've been so bloody honest with us!" Ron scoffed, his face rapidly turning red.

"Shut it, Ron," Harry warned. He knew his limit, and he knew how dangerously close to it he was just then. Ron couldn't fucking understand this, and neither could Hermione. Not just seeing his parents, but standing behind Thera and looking at a wall of pictures, all of him for once, all marking occasions he couldn't even remember. And it's not as if they'd been fondly recounted for him by the Dursleys. He'd spent his formative years in a fucking cupboard, reminded daily that he should be grateful for having that much. So despite the fact that he knew his parents had loved him, and had died for him, and all of it...he hadn't been prepared for all of this, and he didn't really know what to do with it.

In the meantime, he couldn't help but feel a stab of resentment towards his friends. It was unfair, he knew, but it was there all the same.

Luckily, Hermione intervened, pushing Ron behind her. "We should have told you about it," she said. "You're right. We shouldn't have lied to you."

Harry was unprepared for either of them to be reasonable, especially since he wasn't even remotely capable of being reasonable himself at the moment.

I can't deal with this right now.

"Yeah, okay. Whatever."

The two of them shared another significant glance. Harry heroically restrained himself from bonking their heads together like a couple of pumpkins.

"Mate..." Ron attempted.

Harry brushed by him. "I'm tired," he mumbled, heading up to Gryffindor Tower. Neither of them questioned him any further.

*******

Considering they hadn't spoken in months, Fox found herself surprisingly not surprised to find Snape knocking at her door. "If you've come here to see whether or not I've figured out a way to wave my arms and magically dispel the ills of society, you're going to be disappointed," she informed him.

He gave her a sour look, but no more sour than usual, really. "I assure you that isn't my purpose in coming here. I merely have a question."

Fox let him in, crossing her arms. "Why don't you ever go to Dumbledore with this?"

"The Headmaster has for more important duties to attend to than assuaging my curiosity."

It was a big fat lie, but Fox let it slide. "So what's your question?"

He took a moment to answer, his expression abstracted. "How is it that Thera Castelar is capable of communicating with the extremely deceased James and Lily Potter, and how are they capable of communicating with her?"

"Well, that solves the mystery of where the information came from," she muttered, mostly to stall. Mortals were understandably touchy about their own mortality, and she wanted to be careful with her answer. Snape raised an eyebrow and pointed out that she hadn't provided one yet.

Fox sighed. "She touched the veil, that's why. It happens sometimes. Muggles call them near-death experiences. Mortals aren't meant to touch the veil and not go through it. If they touch it and come back here, they're marked, in a way."

"Marked?" he inquired, not sounding as if he liked the idea.

Fox couldn't really blame him. "Like a scar. With Muggles, wandering near the veil and not going through it is usually an accident. Even the universe fucks things up sometimes. But with witches and wizards, it's usually due to some sort of magic. It's rare, but it happens. And those it happens to..." She scratched her jaw and tried to think of the right words. "They know how to get to the edge of the veil, and once you know something like that, you can't forget it. It's easy to find your way back."

Snape's brow furrowed. "She said she was supposed to be a freed soul. Dead, I presume?" Fox nodded. "And the spell disallowed that from happening," he concluded. "She said that she couldn't talk about the other side of the veil with those still living."

"No, she wouldn't be able to."

"Then how is it I was able to view a Pensieve memory of the conversation?"

"Because it's a memory," Fox explained. "I'm sure it looked just like a memory of something that happened on earth. The whole not-talking-about it thing is...I don't know...more administrative."

Snape's lips twitched. "Cosmic gag order?"

She smirked a little. "Something like that. You can see the conversation between them, but not how or why it happened, or what the other side of the veil is really like?"

"Ah," he said, dark eyes piercing. "I presume that means you're incapable of talking about it, either? Even Guardians are subject to the gag order?"

"It's not that simple," she tried to explain. "It's not like all the dead people got together and passed a law. It's just that there's no way of explaining what's beyond the veil to mortals, and even if there were, there's no way for a mortal to understand it."

"I see," he said stiffly.

And there came the touchiness. "Contemplate nonexistence for a while, and we'll go from there," she snapped. "Is that good enough for you?"

But Snape was already shaking his head. "They spoke to her, beyond the veil or not."

"In some circumstances, freed souls can come to the edge of the veil," Fox said carefully. "The Castelar girl was there, and they could communicate with her, because nothing associated with the veil is unconnected, but what she remembered - it was just an illusion. It was a mortal mind trying to process something it was never meant to be able to comprehend." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Are you getting any of this?"

"More than you seem to give me credit for," he retorted. "But how were they able to get in contact with her? How were they able to get to the edge of the veil?"

"Because they're still just recently dead," Fox said dully, wondering why she didn't just kick his ass out of her room.

His chuckle was nearly dry enough to qualify as a wheeze. "They've been dead for sixteen years."

Fox opened her eyes. "First of all, Snape, in the scope of human existence, that's not very fucking long, and second of all, you know very well..." she trailed off, laughing a bit at herself. "Actually, you probably don't, do you? You would if you were Sioux."

"Alas, I'm not," he said sarcastically. "Therefore I don't, in fact, know."

"Shame," she said. "Unlike the pasty white folk, we did manage to guess right on this one. The recently dead aren't the same as the ancient dead," she clarified for him. "The recently dead still exist on earth, in a way. People here knew them, and remember them, and they're still usually hung-up about the goings-on here. If they try hard enough, they're capable of skimming along the edge of the veil. That's what I meant."

Snape looked disconcerted by this. "And the ancient dead?"

Fox shot him a look. "Gag order."

"Of course," he sneered halfheartedly. "My poor mortal mind can't comprehend it."

Damned inconvenient stab of conscience. "If any poor mortal mind could, I imagine it would be yours," she said, feeling the need to throw him a bone. "I don't think you'd like it, though."

It was a long minute before he spoke again, and it sounded like it was very much against his will. "Is it so horrible, then? What happens to us all in the end?"

"Not horrible," Fox said, unable to look at him. "Just inevitable."

"Inevitable," he whispered, as if to himself. "None of this matters, really. Does it?"

Fox felt a surge of anger. She didn't make the goddamned rules, and she didn't hold all the answers, and she hadn't been put on the planet to hold mortals' hands while they boo-hooed over the pointlessness of their fucking existence. And then something broke inside of her, and she suddenly didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

How pointless is your fucking existence, sweetheart?

The next time she saw The Cardinal, she was going to strangle him for giving her this assignment. It was bad enough to give a little for The Boy Who Lived, to allow him some leeway. It was unforgivable that she was standing here justifying the rules of the universe to Snape.

And why, really? He wasn't special. He was just another, bitter, unpleasant man, no different from any other that had come before him, or would come after him. And right now, he was coming to terms with the fact that suffering wasn't payment for his misdeeds, that there was no great scorekeeper in the sky who would inform him someday that he'd fulfilled his obligations, no power capable of wiping the slate clean for him.

Snape was not unique in his misery, except for the fact that she actually gave a shit about his misery.

She shouldn't. Before they could walk, Guardians developed the capacity to block things like that out. It was a skill born of necessity. They had their job to do on the planet, and it often involved causing massive amounts of misery. It just came with the territory. Change wasn't painless, and the pain was what made it worthwhile. Nothing good ever came about easily. Adorable little toddlers didn't just manifest out of thin air; somebody had to labor and scream and push and bleed to bring them into the world.

Misery happened. It was as much a part of mortal life as breathing. Fox certainly didn't have the power to change it. Misery happened, and was necessary, and that was that.

Well, that was supposed to be that. Fucking Snape.

"It matters," she told him shortly.

He snorted. "To whom, exactly?"

Fox opened her mouth, then shut it. What had come to him in the past was unchangeable, and what would come to him in the future wasn't up to her. "You," she said, not expecting him to believe her. From what she gathered before their faces mashed together, he didn't.

The sex was frantic, almost desperate, both of them half-dressed and rutting on the floor. Snape's hands tore at her hair, pulling it out of its ponytail, and it promptly got in the way. Growling, Fox turned them over so he was on top, her fingers pressing into the sharp column of his spine as he pounded into her, rough and hard and just about right.

His chest was thin and covered with sparse, dark hair. Fox grabbed onto it and Snape grunted, leaning down until their foreheads were touching. His lank hair brushed her cheeks and he stank of potions, and Fox wondered vaguely what the hell she was doing.

And then they shifted and she remembered.

Sex was such an enjoyable recreational activity. They came separately, and a bit awkwardly, pointedly not looking at each other in a half-embarrassed way, like two guys peeing next to each other at the urinals.

Snape pulled back almost instantly, kneeling with his head bowed, catching his breath.

"So here we are again," he said with a dry, short laugh.

Fox glanced at him before returning her gaze to the ceiling. "Unfortunately."

********

The room was known to all those who resided in the underground caverns, but was studiously avoided. They had all been ordered not to enter the place, and they had all followed those orders - except for David Lynes, that is.

Aside from Voldemort, he alone knew what was inside the room that lay beneath the ga'hshak. He alone knew what was coming. And among all of the dark creatures, he alone knew who their true master was.

David had always known that he was destined for great things. He had never, in his wildest dreams, imagined just how great those things could be.

Now, he understood. He was a good servant, and his master would reward him greatly. When the world was theirs, he would stand at his master's right hand, finally capable of claiming what was rightfully his.

The door slid shut behind him, and David breathed in the familiar ozone-like scent of his master, the smell of power. He touched his hand to the wall beside him to activate the

communication spell, brimming over with his triumphant news.

"It's all ready, milord. Now, it's just a matter of time."

He was unable to see his master, but heard him shift. When the being spoke, his words resonated through David's head, intoned at a sonic level that caused most mortals in the vicinity to draw up sharply and complain of a headache.

"Good," his master answered. "This is all very good."

"Truly, Milord?" David asked, unaccountably pleased with himself.

"Truly. You know what to do from here on out."

David nodded. "I do, Milord."