Harry Potter and the Watcher's Council

Chapter 6: Seeing Red

"No, it doesn't stop! It never stops! Do you think I chose to be like this? Do you have any idea how lonely it is, how dangerous? I would love to be upstairs watching TV or gossiping about boys or... God, even studying! But I have to save the world... again." Buffy, Becoming, Part II

Hermione gave him a long lecture the next morning at breakfast about the importance of Occlumency and his need to tell Dumbledore about his dream. "If you don't, I will!" she told him wildly. "I don't care if you never talk to me again, Harry! This is simply too important for you to go about being all stoic and stiff upper-lipped!"

Harry shook his head tiredly and nibbled half-heartedly at his toast. Before he had a chance to answer, a host of grey school owls swooped down in front of them, dropping three identical notes on the table. Exchanging confused glances with his friends, Harry opened the note addressed to him and immediately groaned when he saw the signature.

Mr. Potter, it read in a decidedly nasty scrawl, Your detention will be served tonight at seven o'clock sharp in the lowest unused dungeon. Do not be late. Tardiness will result in an additional detention. Professor S. Snape

"I see you've each got a note as well," Ginny grumbled, plopping down into the seat next to Harry's. "Sodding git. Thought he'd forgotten about it. It wasn't fair, giving us detentions for making threats when the Slytherins are so provoking. It would be doing a disservice to all of Hogwarts to restrain myself from cursing Malfoy."

"Don't be silly, Ginny," Hermione said primly. "Of course he wouldn't forget. And now that I've had a few weeks to think about it, I've realized that he was quite right to give us detention." She frowned and heaved a great sigh. "I'm afraid I've been ignoring my duties as prefect, and this punishment will do nicely to remind me."

"Well I'm a bloody prefect as well," Ron complained, "but there's absolutely no way I'll ever thank that greasy haired git for giving me detention."

Hermione shrugged and unrolled her copy of the Daily Prophet, which had been delivered while Harry had been reading his note from Snape. As of late, Hermione had taken to reading the paper through, scanning for clues as to what was happening with the war against Voldemort. Thus far everything had been relatively quiet. Harry was relieved, but at the same time filled with apprehension. He shook his head and gestured toward the paper. "It's not that I want anyone to get killed," he told them. "I simply don't understand why nothing's happened yet. It's been ages since the Ministry finally admitted--"

"Oh oh oh!" Hermione exclaimed, her brown eyes wide. She dropped the paper as if it had scorched her and her hands flew to cover her mouth. She stared at the Prophet in utter horror, and Harry felt his stomach drop sickeningly. It had happened, then. The war had begun.

"What is it, woman? Have you gone mad?" Ron asked fearfully. He snatched up the paper and scanned the headlines. "Bloody hell!" he exclaimed. His eyes connected with Harry's, their brown depths filled with anger and helpless frustration. "They've escaped."

Harry took the paper from him and Ginny leaned in closer to read the headlines with him. Three Escape From Azkaban, Several Aurors Dead, the headline read. "Harry," Hermione said, her voice a trembling whisper. "Read it aloud, would you? I didn't get a chance...."

Harry cleared his throat. "Last night at precisely midnight, an unknown number of dementors attacked Azkaban prison directed by masked persons believed to be connected to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, killing two Aurors and injuring several others. Azkaban has long been believed invulnerable to penetration. Following the escape of convicted murderer and known madman Sirius Black in 1993 and that of six top security prisoners just last year, the Ministry of Magic redoubled security to prevent such breaches from reoccurring. Aurors were enlisted to provide security upon the defection of the dementors only a few months ago." Harry paused here, taking a deep breath. They'd mentioned Sirius in the article. No one knew that he had died defending the very world that condemned him, that still believed him to be a crazed murdered.

Ginny touched him lightly on the shoulder. "Do you want me to finish, Harry?" she asked gently.

Harry gritted his teeth against her sympathetic tone and shook his head. He didn't need to be coddled. He wanted to yell at her, at all of them to stop feeling so damn sorry for him. He wished they would start thinking about what being close to him meant. It meant you would end up in danger at least once a year, or worse, he thought grimly.

Harry sighed and continued. "Dementors attacked four Aurors at the highest security level of the Prison. The dementors were aided by several unidentified wizards assumed to be followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The Aurors' attempts to prevent the escape of the three prisoners were thwarted and the guards were overwhelmed. Aurors Emmeline Vance and Orion Bently were Kissed and are currently in St. Mungo's Hospital, awaiting spell reversal.

"The prisoners in question, Lucius Malfoy, Rodolphus Lestrange, and Anthony Dolohov, all known Death Eaters, escaped as a result of the attack. 'The Minister is doing everything he can to find those responsible and bring them to justice,' said Percy Weatherby, assistant to Cornelius Fudge. The Minister has been quoted as saying that the incident was 'tragic' and the families of the victims will be 'duly compensated.' Their families will be presented with the Order of Merlin, Second Class, on their behalf, in a ceremony to be held at the Ministry at a later date."

Harry let the paper fall from his fingers as his voice went silent. Several Gryffindors had stopped eating and chatting to listen as Harry read from the paper, and now they were all glancing around at each other in shock, not knowing quite what to make of the article. Harry knew what they were thinking--how could the Ministry let them down like this, fail to protect them and its Aurors from the likes of three crazed Death Eaters and a load of dementors? Harry's mind was elsewhere, however. His eyes stared straight ahead of him, past the sea of faces at the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables, to lock onto the pale, pointed face of Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy was reading the Prophet intently, biting his lip in concentration. When he finally set down his paper, a smile of triumph lit his face. He looked calm and cool and wholly unlike someone whose father had just murdered two Aurors and escaped from prison. In fact, he looked delighted and annoyingly as if he'd just proven an exceptionally difficult point. His silver eyes locked with Harry's when he noticed Harry's stare. He simply raised his pale eyebrows questioningly as if to say, "What? I told you it would happen."

Harry looked away from Malfoy and stared instead at the faces of his friends around him. They were all shocked and horrified. Ron muttered under his breath something about "Malfoy" and "slimy git," while Hermione simply looked dazed. Ginny's mouth was set in a thin line, her cheeks pale. She looked ready to battle--fierce and determined. Neville clutched at the Prophet, reading the article over again, his face chalky white, his eyes glinting with anger. One of the Death Eaters who had attacked his parents had escaped. Neville was probably plotting his revenge, Harry thought.

"We knew her," Hermione said in a slow voice devoid of emotion. "Emmeline Vance. She was.... Harry, you remember her?"

Harry nodded and clutched his fingers tight together. He did not want to remember her. She had been among the witches and wizards who had volunteered to collect him from the Dursleys' the year before. He remembered her calm, cool air of efficiency, the way she had nodded reassuringly at him from her broom as they flew high over the English countryside. "It could have been any of them," he said finally. "Tonks or Kingsley or any of them. Without the dementors guarding Azkaban, the Aurors have to pick up the slack. There aren't enough of them to go round. That's what Tonks told me, anyhow." Harry looked around at his friend's faces, each one displaying varying degrees of shock and outrage. He knew from looking at them, from seeing the way the news had immobilized them, that he would have to be the one to take charge. It was always him, he thought tiredly as he stood from the table. There was no escaping destiny, he supposed.

"Come on, then," Harry said. "We've got Transfiguration in ten minutes. McGonagall's doing animation today."

Ron stood, but didn't follow. "Harry, how can you just go off to class as if nothing's--"

"Shut up, Ron," Hermione interrupted. Harry looked at her gratefully. "Just because this has happened, and Malfoy's escaped, doesn't mean the world has suddenly stopped and there aren't any classes to go to. If we aren't able to live our normal lives, or at least semi-normal lives, then we aren't really living at all, and He's won. We can't fall apart every time something terrible happens, or we'll never be able to put ourselves back together. What happened was horrible, yes, but we've still got to carry on."

Ron stared at Hermione, dumbfounded. Harry watched him impatiently, waiting for him to realize that Hermione was right. They couldn't go about depressed and upset all the time, not when Voldemort was out there needing to be defeated. Suddenly Ron's gaping mouth snapped shut and he grinned. "You just want to learn that Animating spell."

***********

"We'd better get going," Ginny said ruefully, standing up from the Gryffindor table. Dinner had only just started, but they were due in the dungeons in fifteen minutes for their detention. Harry sighed and stared morosely into his pudding, wishing for once he could just skive off and damn the consequences. There were so many more important things he could be doing with the next four hours, like researching Slayers, or devising strategies for the upcoming match against Slytherin. Even studying would be preferable to spending several hours in a dank dungeon with his least favorite professor.

"Budge up, Harry," Ron said, grabbing him by the elbow. "It could be worse. We could be serving detention with Malfoy."

"Don't jinx it, Ron!" Ginny admonished.

Harry stood up and allowed Ron to lead him, following Ginny and Hermione out of the Great Hall. Anger, an emotion that always seemed close to the surface for him these days, was bubbling heatedly inside him, ready to explode. Why did they have to serve detention, when more important things such as, oh, saving the world from unspeakable evil needed doing? Harry grew more and more frustrated the closer they got to Snape's dungeon. It simply didn't seem right that he had to be doing something so pointlessly mundane as scrubbing out cauldrons for Snape's amusement when he had a destiny to fulfill. Why did he have to go about pretending everything was normal, that he was normal, serving detentions and attending lessons and playing Quidditch, as if he had any real future to look forward to?

By the time they reached Snape's dungeon, Harry had worked himself into a blinding fury. He pulled away from Ron and took two long strides past the girls to slam open the heavy wood door of the dungeon. The door crashed open, slamming against the stone wall of the room with the sound of splintering wood and scraping metal. Harry stood in the doorway seething, not caring if Snape gave him a hundred more detentions for his show of rage. He was beyond caring. After the Prophet article this morning, Harry just wanted to do something.

"I'm sure whatever the door did to piss you off, it's sorry," an amused voice said from Snape's desk at the front of the room.

Harry's startled gaze flew to the speaker, and all the anger seemed to drain out of him suddenly, leaving him feeling a little weak and breathless. Buffy grinned at him from on top of the desk, where she perched nonchalantly, drumming her booted heels against the front of it.

"Er, sorry about that," Harry mumbled.

"Buffy!" Ginny exclaimed from behind him. She pushed her way past Harry, giving him a frustrated glance. "Oh please!" she said, upon seeing the door. "What did it ever do to you?"

Buffy just smiled and gestured that they should all take seats. "We're still waiting for one more," she told them. "I told Professor Uber Grease, um, I mean Snape, that since I already had to oversee a detention, you guys could hang with me. He didn't seem too happy about giving up detention duty. He's a little weird, isn't he? Gives me the wiggins."

"The what-ins?" Ron asked.

"I might have known," a cold voice interrupted from the doorway. Harry turned to see Draco Malfoy leaning nonchalantly in the now slightly off-kilter jamb. It always surprised him how arrogant and self-possessed Malfoy managed to look, no matter what the situation. His silvery hair was always perfectly in place, his eyes cool and detached, as if he couldn't really concern himself with what went on outside his immediate vicinity. For a moment, Harry felt a brief stab of envy for that kind of indifference--not to care what happened in the world, to be able to think only of himself, only of the present. It was a luxury Harry had never enjoyed.

Malfoy stalked into the room, surveying the group of them with a disgusted glance. "As if having to do something as plebeian as serve detention weren't bad enough, I'm stuck with a bunch of sniveling Gryffindors," he complained, making the word "Gryffindor" sound like the worst insult imaginable.

Buffy cleared her throat. "Excuse me, Mister It-Is-Beneath-My-Dignity-to-Engage-in- Activities-Which-Make-Me-Sweat! You're here for detention, not to trade insults."

"I'm just going by Draco now, thanks," Malfoy said.

Ginny giggled at Buffy's words. Harry found it hard to keep his own laughter inside as well. Had Malfoy actually been given detention for refusing to fight during Defense class? Somehow the idea didn't exactly surprise him--engaging in physical battle would be something Malfoy would see as terribly Muggle and thus, to be reviled. Harry imagined Malfoy was probably fairly awful to Buffy during class as well. If the way he treated Hagrid was any way to judge, Malfoy held no respect for people who weren't fully qualified witches or wizards, even if they were powerful in other ways.

"So, I thought we'd use this time to whittle some stakes and bottle holy water and stuff," Buffy said brightly, glancing around at their despondent faces. "Oh, c'mon! It'll be fun. We used to hang out in the library at school all the time, researching the monster of the week, carving stakes and gorging on pizza. It's like a party! With weapons. It's a weapons party!"

"Some social life you've led," Draco said with obvious disdain, studying his fingernails in a carefully indifferent pose. "The blokes must have been lining up to get in on that kind of fun."

Buffy frowned and slammed a piece of wood down on the desk in front of him. "Malfoy, your mouth is open, and sound is coming from it. This is never good. Now shut up, and start whittling."

Harry began whittling at his own lump of wood, feeling immensely satisfied that Buffy had so effectively shut Malfoy up. The blond boy seated next to him was seething in anger, wielding his knife with reckless abandon--his cold indifference was long gone. Red splotches marred his pale skin, making him look feverish. The glazed look in his silvery eyes only added to the effect. Harry found himself smirking just a little. It wasn't everyday he saw Malfoy this shaken and angry.

After a few minutes of silent whittling, Harry glanced at Malfoy out of the corner of his eye. The Slytherin had regained his composure and was leaning back nonchalantly in his chair, carving his piece of wood leisurely. He looked deceptively casual and decidedly up to something. Harry frowned and turned his eyes back to his own stake. What was Malfoy planning?

"God, could this be anymore boring?" Buffy complained suddenly. "How long do these things usually last, anyway?"

Malfoy raised one perfectly shaped blond eyebrow at their professor's outburst. Harry wondered briefly if the other boy actually plucked his own eyebrows, or had a house-elf do it for him. "We could pass the time with a story, perhaps?" His voice was smooth and silky, a tone he usually reserved for pureblood girls and professors he was trying to coax into getting him out of punishment. Now Harry knew he was up to no good. "I hear you've got a few interesting tales."

Buffy looked at the blond boy, surprised. Ron, Ginny, and Hermione also wore looks of shock on their faces--Harry didn't think any of them had actually ever seen Malfoy turn on the charm. He hadn't known Malfoy could wipe the sneer of his face long enough to seem sincerely interested in something. Harry exchanged a look with Ginny, who was seated next to him. "What's he playing at?" she mouthed at him. Harry shrugged.

"Who told you that?" Buffy asked, retrieving a dagger from the holster at her ankle. For a brief but joyous moment Harry imagined her threatening Malfoy with the wickedly curved blade, but instead she began sharpening its edges with a bit of stone from her pocket.

"They," Malfoy evaded with a flirtatious flutter of his eyelashes. Harry cringed and felt a little sick. It went against everything he knew for Draco Malfoy to be flirting with a Professor who also happened to be the one thing he hated more than Muggle-borns--Muggles themselves.

"They talk a lot, don't they?" Buffy smiled. Two seats down from him, Ron was clutching his block of wood so tightly Harry feared for its continuing wholeness. Hermione just looked dazed, as if she couldn't quite comprehend this turn of events. Harry's only thought was that Malfoy seemed to be doing some of the work of finding out about Buffy for him. Abandoning all pretense of trying to appear as if he didn't care, Harry set down his tools and stared intently from Buffy to Malfoy.

"And what do they say?" Buffy asked.

"They say you killed a Master vampire. Stopped the world from being swallowed into hell by a millennia old demon. Destroyed a demon no weapon forged could kill."

"The no weapon forged thing was just a misnomer. That was before the invention of missile launchers," Buffy said, deadpan.

"They say you died," Malfoy said, his voice cool and shrewd.

"Twice, actually. But who's counting?" Buffy replied.

"You died?!" Hermione gasped. "But then, how are you...? And wouldn't there be...?"

"Another Slayer?" Buffy asked. "Yeah. But she pretty much went AWOL a few years back. For a while it was kinda nice, having another Slayer around to fight off the baddies. I mean, I was still in total Destiny Girl mode, but at least I had a little help at the office."

"Tell us about the 'no weapon forged can kill him' guy," Ginny said, smiling at Buffy shyly. "And what's a muscle luncher?" Harry started at the worshipful expression on Ginny's face as she gazed up at Buffy, who was contemplating the keenness of her knife's edge. He hadn't seen that expression on her face in a long time--the one that said she'd do anything, give anything, be anything for the person at whom she was directing her stare. When Harry had last seen it, he reminded himself, it had been plastered on Ginny's face whenever she'd looked at him. It felt strange, seeing her hero-worship aimed someone else. He felt as if something was tugging at his brain, prickling inside his head uncomfortably as he looked from Ginny to Buffy.

Harry's thoughts were interrupted by Hermione's giggle. "A missile launcher, Ginny," she explained, trying to repress her mirth, "not a muscle luncher!"

Ginny looked slightly affronted at having gotten the term wrong. "Well excuse me, Miss I-Know-Everything-I'm-So-Great!"

"Tell us about the Judge," Malfoy interrupted their squabble with a roll of his silvery eyes.

"Well, well, well," Buffy remarked, surprise in her wide blue eyes, "they have been talking a lot, haven't they? Yes, the Judge. That's what the demon guy was called. Supposedly because he separated the clean from the, well, not clean. He looked more like a giant smurf to me. Smurfy, but evil."

"What do you mean, the clean from the unclean?" Draco asked, appearing for all the world as if they were in a Defense class studying up on Grindylows. Harry knew better. Malfoy had never expressed that much interested in a class before, unless you counted Potions, and only then because he seemed to have a constant desire to best Harry in front of Snape. Probably because Snape delighted in belittling him, Harry thought a little bitterly.

"Well, I'm not too up on my demonology, but Super Smurf Guy could basically fry anyone with even a shred of humanity in them. He literally burned the humanity out of people."

"That's just...." Ginny trailed off, at a loss for words.

"Fascinating," Malfoy finished for her.

"Okay, I know you meant to say disturbing and gross," Buffy said.

Malfoy stared up at her through his eyelashes and gave her a half smile. "This is just so interesting," he demurred. "We never learn anything like this in Defense. They treat us like we're too young to understand that there is real evil in the world."

Ron snorted with incredulous laughter. "Right, Malfoy. Because you wouldn't know anything about evil, being that you are."

Malfoy snarled and stood up, nearly overturning his desk. "Weasley, I swear, another word--"

"Just stop it!" Harry yelled, standing to face Malfoy. They were close, less than a foot away, and Harry could see his own anger reflected in the darkened circles of Malfoy's eyes. "How can you act like this, so cool and unconcerned, after what's happened?"

Malfoy began to reply, but Buffy cut him off. "Hey! What's going on here? Did I miss something? Because this is making the kind of sense that, well, doesn't. Why don't we just sit back down and try not killing each other?" she asked.

"No!" Harry yelled. "I will not just sit here in this room, listening to stories with this, this miserable excuse for a human being, and just pretend as if nothing's happened! I--we--lost someone today, and it's all because of him!"

Buffy stared from Harry to Malfoy, at a loss for how to handle the situation. Hermione, Ron, and Ginny sat at their desks, mouths agape, shocked into silence and inaction. Harry glared at Malfoy, daring him to say something even remotely insulting, anything at all, so that he could let loose the anger he felt with a good punch into that too-pretty face. He wanted to hurt Malfoy, pay him back for all the hurts he and his friends had suffered at Malfoy's hand, and his father's. Pay him back for Sirius....

"Despite what you are implying," Malfoy drawled, his voice dripping with venom, "my father and I are separate entities. I may look like him, but that doesn't mean I am him."

Harry faltered, momentarily stumped by Malfoy's words. Of course he understood that Malfoy had not committed the acts of his father, but he knew with every ounce of his being that Malfoy reveled in the pain and deaths his father had caused, and fully planned to follow in his footsteps. Harry's rage threatened to overwhelm him. His eyes burned and he realized that if he didn't get out of the dungeon quickly, something terrible would happen. He might make Malfoy inflate like he had Aunt Marge, or something equally dreadful. Harry was his control, and if he didn't regain it quickly, he'd hurt not only Malfoy, but his friends as well.

Harry took a step backwards, then another, never breaking eye contact with Malfoy. "That's right, Potter," Malfoy sneered. "Run away. I thought Gryffindors were meant to be brave."

On the shelf above Snape's desk a bottle exploded, sending shards of glass crashing onto the floor along with its contents: sludgy green liquid and bits of rat brains. Ginny shrieked and dived under her desk, while Hermione scrambled out of her chair and backed up against the far wall, staring at him in shock. Ron leapt up to stand in front of Hermione as a second jar exploded, shielding her from the worst of the explosions of liquid and glass. Malfoy yelped in surprise and threw his arms up to protect himself, breaking his eye contact with Harry. As if awakening from a trance, Harry blinked and gazed around him. Another jar exploded, sending more animal parts flying in a rush of liquid. Stumbling, Harry turned away from his friends and crashed out of the room to the sound of yet another jar exploding in his wake.

The world seemed to rush around Harry in a haze of dark shapes as he stumbled down the dim corridor, gasping and shaking. His rage filled him, shutting out everything else, until he couldn't feel anything else, think of anything but it. He wanted to hurt something, to destroy something. The memories of everything Lucius Malfoy had ever done to hurt him and his friends flickered through his brain as he burst into a deserted classroom, sliding down the wall to sit hunched against the cold stones. In his mind's eye, Harry saw Lucius with Tom Riddle's diary, unrepentant at the damage he'd caused to an innocent child. He saw Malfoy fighting with Arthur Weasley, humiliating him in front of his own children. He remembered Lucius standing in a circle of Death Eaters, masked and laughing with the rest as Voldemort prepared to duel with Harry, laughing as Voldemort mocked him-- bow to death, Harry. And he saw Lucius Malfoy at the Department of Mysteries.... It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter.

Something else was creeping into the back of his mind now, a tug of sadness at the remembered words. Sadness and... something like guilt. Yes, if only he had learned the difference between life and dreams, then Sirius might still be alive. Harry's vision began to clear as his rage subsided into misery, but he clenched his eyes shut against his present reality. He leaned his head back against the damp stone of the dungeon wall, allowing the coolness to soothe his racing mind. With a sigh Harry recalled the moments in the dungeon with his friends and Malfoy... the looks on their faces. Ginny screaming, hiding from him. Hermione still with shock and horror, and Ron, uncomprehending. Buffy had taken it all in stride, as if she were used to seeing things explode around her. And Malfoy... his face, usually so unreadable, had registered a strange mixture of fear, awe, and satisfaction.

Harry let his head fall into his hands with a groan. What could he say to his friends, what could he say to his professor, to explain what had just happened? They wouldn't understand, he thought to himself bitterly. They could never understand the anger he felt, the need to destroy, to inflict pain. The need sometimes consumed him so wholly that it ceased to matter who bore the brunt of his feelings. Hermione, Ron, Ginny... they didn't understand what it meant to be Harry, to have the weight of the world resting on his shoulders, and know deep inside that he wasn't up to the challenge.

"Harry, are you, um, okay?" Harry raised his head and saw with dull eyes that Buffy stood in the doorway, glancing around a little nervously. "Are you, uh, done breaking stuff? 'Cause I'm really not relishing trying to get more from brains out of my hair."

Harry shook his head as Buffy sat down next to him against the wall, nudging him a bit with her shoulder. When she sat next to him, he realized with a jolt how incredibly tiny she was, really much smaller than most of the girls he knew. To think that Buffy had defeated countless demons and averted multiple apocalypses....

"You seem pretty brain-free to me," Harry mumbled, staring at his hands, clasped tightly between his drawn up knees.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Buffy said.

"No, I only meant, there aren't any brains in your hair," Harry stammered. He felt awful about what had happened, that she's witnessed his show of uncontrolled emotion--it was inexcusable. He wondered with a brief pang if she had come to warn him that she'd be going to McGonagall. Would he be expelled for something like this? Harry couldn't imagine Dumbledore expelling him for any reason, but considering....

"It was a joke, Harry. No, Ginny took care of the sludgeyness with a Scrooging Charm. Or was it a Scouring Charm? Whatever. The important thing here isn't my hair, although I now have an extremely strong urge to lather and rinse repeatedly until I no longer picture green brain bits in it. The important thing is you. Are you okay?"

Harry shook his head. It was pointless to lie, really, when it was obvious that he wasn't okay. "I, I don't know how I am. Malfoy... it wasn't even really about him, though he does have a habit of making me really angry. It's just, those Aurors who died at the Azkaban breakout.... I knew one of them. And, and it's my job, to protect them. I'm supposed to be some kind of hero or something, saving the wizarding world from Voldemort. There's this prophecy, that I'm the only one who can do it. Only I can't, and I didn't, and it's my fault those people are dead."

Harry knew he wasn't making any sense, that he was babbling and Buffy had no way of understanding his train of thought, but he felt a little something like relief as the words spilled from his mouth, as if they'd been waiting a long time to get out.

Buffy patted his arm. She rolled her head against the wall so that she could look at him, and gave him a small smile. "I know a little something about prophecy, and destiny. When I was fifteen, and we're talking a really ditsy, only thinks about boys and clothes and dances fifteen, this wacked-out British guy just walked up to me one day after school and told me I had a destiny. That I was the Chosen One. I tried to deny it for a while, but it doesn't work like that, Harry. That's why they call it destiny--it catches up to you no matter how hard you try to avoid it."

Harry closed his eyes and swallowed hard. What Buffy said made sense. He couldn't avoid his destiny or keep pretending that it didn't exist. The battle was going to come--he'd have to face Voldemort at some point.

"But what if... what if I can't face it?" Harry asked hoarsely, not opening his eyes. He didn't think he could stand to see her face filled with sympathy and compassion. He couldn't bear it if she were nice and understanding, because she did understand--she had been there, was there, had to deal with her destiny everyday. "What if I'm not strong enough, if I can't defeat him, when the time comes?"

Buffy was silent for a minute. Harry finally opened his eyes and stared at her, willing her to give him the answers.

"Sometimes... sometimes it's not about what you're capable of giving, it's about what you're capable of giving up." Her voice was laced with sadness and a kind of bone deep tiredness that sent chills through him. "Someone once told me that, in the end you're always by yourself. You're all you've got. You have friends who are willing to die for you, Harry. Even I can see that, after only a few weeks here. And shutting them out of your life won't do you a damn bit of good, believe me. But you have to remember that in the end, you have to be willing to make sacrifices, and to keep going, because you're the one who has to go on. You're the one who has to end things."

Harry sighed and got to his feet, giving Buffy a hand up. "Thanks," he said. "I feel... better."

"Behold my success." Buffy smiled. She brushed off her pants and turned to leave. "Ugh, and behold the sliminess of my hands!"

Harry smiled to himself as he made his way out of the dungeons Buffy was right. He may have a destiny, and when it came down to it, he'd have to face it eventually, but he didn't have to go through it alone.

************

The morning of the first Quidditch match of the season dawned cold and blustery, the sky an expanse of slate grey over the pitch. Harry stuck his head out of the changing room door to check the weather conditions they would be facing in only a few minutes time: windy and cold, with a definite chance of rain, judging by the heavy clouds above. With a sigh he turned back to his team. They were gazing at him expectantly, and he knew they were waiting for some kind of big pep speech, like the kind Oliver Wood had always given before matches. The truth was, Harry wasn't terribly optimistic about their chances. Ron was still a bit squeamish as Keeper, and Seamus had only just the day before hit Ginny instead of the Bludger Harry was grateful that Ginny healed fast; only a faint yellow-blue bruise marred her cheek where the bat had grazed her.

Harry looked at each of them in turn. Katie was her usual calm, collected self, confident in her Chasing abilities. Ginny looked confident as well, and no wonder. Lately she'd been flying phenomenally well. She'd been good before, but after weeks of hard practice, her skills easily surpassed Katie's and only seemed to get better. Emma looked nervous but excited, while Seamus was clutching his stomach as if he were about to be sick. Ron looked equally green, and Harry prayed that he wouldn't flake out as he had last year. Colin grinned daftly up at him from his place on the bench. Harry wondered with a frown if the boy had taken a Soothing Serum to quell his nerves.

"A great man once told me, 'Get the Snitch, or die trying,'" Harry said, pacing in front of them.

"Don't you mean a mad man once told you?" Ron quipped.

"That too," Harry said. "But the point is well taken, regardless of the questionable state of Oliver Wood's sanity. This is Slytherin. We must beat them. And not just because it's Quidditch, and we've got a championship to defend, or any of those other things that, in the long run, don't really matter."

"Quidditch so matters!" Ginny argued.

Harry ignored her. "This isn't about petty house rivalries," he repeated, "it's about proving to those Slytherins out there, to the entire school really, that the things in life that do matter...." Harry paused to take a calming breath. "It isn't money or looks or power. It's about strength, bravery, friendship, and loyalty. It's about choosing to do the right thing." He smiled at their stunned expressions. Clearly none of them had been expecting a speech about the meaning of being a Gryffindor. "And in this case, the right thing is beating Slytherin so badly we knock that smug, arrogant look off Draco Malfoy's pointy face once and for all!"

"I don't know about all that bravery stuff, but I'm all in when it concerns the total humiliation of one Draco Malfoy," Ron said with a grin.

Harry nodded. "Right then. We'd better get out there."

The Gryffindor team walked onto the pitch to wild cheers from three quarters of the school. Harry could hear Dean Thomas's voice faintly over the noise of the crowd and the roaring of the wind in his ears. "The Gryffindors have a new captain this year, and I'm sure we're all eager to see what he's done with an almost completely new team."

"Slytherin's got a new captain as well," Cho Chang's voice sounded out over the pitch. Harry was startled to hear his old crush commentating on the game. When he thought about it, though, it made sense. All he and Cho had ever been able to properly talk about was Quidditch. "Draco Malfoy's been training his team exhaustively. Everyone's anxious to see the results of so many late night practices."

Their voices faded as Harry watched the Slytherin team emerge from the other side of the pitch. For once Malfoy's appearance, usually so impeccably polished, was less than perfect. The wind whipped fiercely, mussing the Slytherin's hair, and dark circles marred the pale skin beneath his eyes, as if he hadn't slept well in weeks. Harry smiled grimly. He hoped that whatever was keeping Malfoy up nights was torturing him in an extremely painful fashion.

Madam Hooch stepped between the teams, holding her broom in one hand and her silver whistle in the other. "Captains, shake hands."

Harry stepped forward to meet Malfoy halfway. He held out his hand, and Malfoy gripped it hard, as if trying to crush it by sheer force. Harry could feel the bones of his hand grinding beneath the pressure, but he refused to wince or back away. "My father sends his condolences, Potter," Malfoy said in a low voice, so that Hooch couldn't hear him, "on the tragic death of your godfather. He was such a useful toy."

Harry glared and gripped Malfoy's hand harder. "You're the toy, Malfoy," he growled. "Just a puppet with no spine of your own."

"That's enough!" Hooch barked. Harry let go of Malfoy and backed away to stand with his team, anger rushing in his ears. His eyes locked on Malfoy's steely grey ones, refusing to be the one to look away first. He knew Malfoy was trying to make him angry, bringing up Sirius like that. Angry enough to lose his control and give Slytherin the game, perhaps. Harry wouldn't play that game. He mounted his broom at Hooch's signal and rose high into the air above the pitch. Malfoy beat him at a lot of things--at marks, in lessons, even occasionally in duels--but Quidditch was the one thing he never beat Harry at, and Harry intended to keep it that way.

Surveying the pitch below him, Harry kept a watchful eye out for any twinkling gold or flutter of silver wings. Above the howling wind he could hear Dean and Cho's commentary. "Well Cho, it looks like Potter's really got his offensive team together. Just look at those Chaser's go! I don't think I've ever seen moves like this before!"

"That's the Hawkshead Attacking Formation, Dean," Cho's voice was full of excitement. "It's usually followed with, yes, there goes Ginny Weasley with the Porskoff Ploy! Perfectly executed."

"Gooooooal!" Dean yelled. "Ginny Weasley makes the first score of the game, and it's ten to zero in favor of Gryffindor!"

"Weasley's really improved since last year," Cho commented, "and the Gryffindor's new Chaser, Emma Dobbs, seems to be working out well."

"And the Quaffle's in Slytherin hands now, let's see what they make of it. Slytherin has two new Chasers, Nott and Zabini. Zabini passes to Pucey, Pucey's flying well today, reverse pass to Nott, Nott makes the throw...."

"Keeper Weasley saves it!" Cho exclaimed. "Gryffindor has control again...."

Harry blocked out the voices of the commentators as he scanned the pitch for a glimpse of the Snitch. Malfoy floated at the opposite end, occasionally making a loop and looking bored. Harry grinned, thinking back on the Quidditch World Cup he'd been to his fourth year. Viktor Krum hadn't sat around on his broom, letting the game go by as he searched in vain for the elusive Snitch. Maybe Harry should take a leaf from Krum's book, give Malfoy a little something to think about....

Decision made, Harry dove suddenly, adopting a look of intense concentration. He rushed toward the ground from a hundred feet up in an almost vertical dive, loving the freedom he always felt when he was on a broom, as if nothing else mattered but this. He saw Malfoy coming at him out of the corner of his eye, trying to match Harry's dive. His face was contorted in a look of part fear, part determination as he sped toward the ground at Harry's side.

"It's early in the game yet, but Potter's seen the Snitch! Look at that dive! He's heading straight for the ground. And Malfoy's seen him! He's following, they're neck and neck...."

"They're going to crash!" Cho yelled.

Harry grinned. Malfoy was going to crash, but he certainly didn't intend to. At the last second, only a foot from the ground, Harry rolled out of the dive and pulled up on his Firebolt, using all his strength and finesse to maintain control of his broom. With a look of sudden realization and shock, Malfoy tried to roll out of the dive at the last second, but it was too late--he crashed head first into the pitch with a sickening crunch that made even Harry cringe, despite knowing what would happen.

"Harry's playing this match fast and dangerous!" Cho said. "A perfect Wronski Feint at the expense of the Slytherin Captain."

"Malfoy's on his feet. He looks more angry than injured, Cho, but that was some crash! He won't be tracking Potter again anytime soon, after those sorts of tactics by the Gryffindor Captain."

Harry grinned and lapped the pitch slowly. Malfoy was on his feet, his nose bleeding profusely, but other than that he seemed fine. Harry searched frantically for the Snitch--the Feint had bought him a few precious moments of time to find it without Malfoy getting in his way.

"And Malfoy's back in the air, without even calling a time out!" Cho said, clearly impressed.

"Meanwhile the Quaffle is in Gryffindor control. Ginny Weasley with the Quaffle, drops to Bell, back to Weasley--oh! I don't think any of us saw that coming!"

Startled from his search for the Snitch, Harry focused on the game below him. At the Slytherin end of the pitch Ginny clutched at her leg which, Harry could see, was bleeding profusely through her robes. Panicked, Harry signaled to Hooch for a time out and flew to Ginny, his hands slipping with sweat on his broom. His heart raced in fear as he came closer to Ginny. She pulled up her robe to examine her knee, and Harry saw with a shock of horror that it looked absolutely smashed. The cap was out of place and the bottom half of her leg dangled uselessly from her destroyed joint.

"Ginny!" Harry gasped, amazed that she was still in the air. Her eyes were glazed with pain, but she wasn't crying, just biting her lip hard and shaking a little. "What happened?"

"Bludger. Knee," was all she could get out.

"We'll forfeit. Or, or we can try to play without you. You're not playing like that," Harry said dismally. His own words rang in his ears like a death sentence.

Ron flew out to meet them, his face whitening at the sight of sister's knee. "Ginny, get to the ground. You're done."

Taking a deep breath, Ginny wrenched her robe down and gripped her broom hard. "No," she said, her voice steely. "I'm not forfeiting just because Crabbe happened to get lucky and actually hit something for once. And don't try to tell me otherwise!" she yelled, before they could reply. "I'm going to play, and we're going to win, and there's nothing you can say to change my mind! You see this resolved face? You've seen it before--you know what it means. Now get back to your positions! Time out's nearly over!"

Ginny flew away, miraculously staying on her broom, despite her leg looking as if it was about to fall off. "She's completely mad!" Ron said. He took off, flying to his goal posts.

Harry watched Ginny carefully, hating himself for letting her continue in the game. To Harry's amazement, she flew recklessly, performing her moves as flawlessly as if she'd never been hit at all. After a few minutes, Harry couldn't stand to watch her anymore, her leg dangling sickeningly from her smashed knee as if it belonged to a rag doll instead of his very solid friend. He'd simply have to catch the Snitch as quickly as possible.

"And Ginny Weasley is back in the game after a Bludger to the knee, flying as brilliantly as ever!" Cho said, clearly amazed.

"Her knee is completely obliterated! I can't imagine how she's doing it."

"Pucey has the Quaffle, he's going for the shot, he takes it, he scores! Ten points for Slytherin, but Gryffindor holds onto the lead, forty to ten."

Harry searched frantically for the Snitch, blocking out the sounds of the commentators and the rest of the school cheering and groaning as the game went on. It seemed to last forever, with the wind batting at him harshly. It began to rain after about an hour, a hard driving rain that chilled him to the core. He scanned the pitch for Ginny, only just picking her out of the blurred figures below him by her fiery red hair. She wasn't flying as well now; she was slower, her moves sluggish, and as he watched, she barely dodged a Bludger to the head with a quick roll that forced her to drop the Quaffle into Zabini's waiting hands.

"That's it," Harry muttered to himself. "I'm ending this now." Gryffindor was up by two goals. Even with her injury, Ginny had still managed to be one of the most useful players on the field. If he caught the Snitch now, they'd win. With renewed determination born out of worry for his teammate, he searched for that hint of gold or flutter of silver that would give away the Snitch's hiding place. Suddenly, with a feeling of immense relief, he saw it, fluttering near the edge of the pitch. He dived for it, not caring that he was headed directly for the stands. He only hoped the Ravenclaws sitting there would have the sense to get out of the way when they saw him coming.

"Potter's diving!" he heard Cho's voice as if from a great distance. "Is this another feint, or has he really seen the Snitch?"

"Malfoy obviously thinks he's faking," Dean replied. "He's not even bothering to follow."

Harry's concentration narrowed until all he could see was the fluttering gold ball that was the Snitch hovering tantalizingly only a foot from front row of the stands. I'm going to crash, he thought dazedly, but at that point nothing mattered except capturing the Snitch and ending the game. Even if he had to sacrifice himself to do it....

Harry reached out and with a triumphantly yell, he felt his fingers clench around the ball with relief. Blinding white light flashed in his head with a sudden explosion of pain as he crashed into the stands full of screaming Ravenclaws. Guess they're not so clever after all, he thought inanely as everything went black.

***************

Harry was strolling leisurely through a park, verdant and almost aggressive in its greenness. The sun hung heavy and hot in the sky, a sky so violently blue that Harry couldn't bare to look at it for more than a few seconds. Gray stones dotted the rolling landscape around him--headstones. A graveyard, then, he thought to himself as he stopped to examine one of the markers.

James Potter
1961-1981
Beloved Friend and Father

"You have to know what to see," a voice said from behind him. Harry turned slowly, as if in a trance. He couldn't make sense of what was happening. His limbs moved sluggishly, as if underwater.

Sirius stood before him looking the way Harry had only ever seen him in Snape's Pensieve: young and handsome in a carelessly elegant way that said he knew he was good-looking but simply couldn't be bothered about it. His eyes were somber and dark, though, lacking the sparkling, mischievous quality Harry remembered. He took a few steps forward to stand by Harry at the grave.

"I don't understand," Harry said dully. "I don't...."

The graveyard seemed to flicker like a television with shoddy reception, and when it snapped back into focus a crowd of people stood gathered at the grave. Sirius still stood beside him, but across from them an older version of him stood beside Remus and Peter Pettigrew. Even the Weasleys were there. Everyone Harry knew and loved stood there, mourning, their faces drawn and still. Harry's eyes moved slowly back to the headstone, which now read:

Harry James Potter
1980-1997
Beloved Friend and Son

"You have to know what to see," the older, wasted version of Sirius told him sadly. His dark eyes slipped from Harry's to focus on a slight, veiled girl at the front of the crowd. She slowly lifted the gauzy slip of black material covering her face, letting it fall back to cover her bright hair--Ginny. Her eyes were sad but bone dry as she dropped a white rose onto the grave.

The graveyard flickered once more and dissolved into blackness. Harry found himself in a club, or at some sort of party, he couldn't tell. People danced around him and the younger version of Sirius to a slow, heavy beat. Their bodies moved languorously in the dim lighting, pressing close to each other until Harry couldn't tell where one dancer began and the next ended.

The lyrics of the song seemed to sing directly into his mind, so that he could hear nothing but those words. Last time I saw you, we'd just split in two. You was looking at me, I was looking at you. You had a way so familiar, I could not recognize, cause you had blood on your face, I had blood in my eyes, but I could swear by your expression that the pain down in your soul was the same as the one down in mine....

"Love is blood," Sirius said, his eyes distant and cold. He stood straight and tense, his hands clenched in tight fists at his side. "Blood screaming inside you to work its will."

"Sirius, please don't leave me!" Harry cried out, taking a step towards the other boy. "Please," he whispered, his voice hoarse, "not again...."

But Sirius backed away from him slowly as the dancers parted to make a path for him, shaking his head sadly. "You have to know what to see," he repeated. "Open your eyes, Harry."

***********

"Harry!" A loud voice yelled directly in his ear. "Open your eyes, damn it!"

Harry groaned. "Please," he whispered, "stop yelling."

"I'm sorry Harry," a voice he now recognized as Hermione's said in a gentler tone, "I was just so worried. How do you feel? Can you move? Because your eyes are still closed, and the only part of you that's moved in the past sixteen hours has been just now, when you said to stop yelling, and even then it wasn't very much moving, and what if--"

"Shut up, woman!" Harry heard Ron admonish her from somewhere off to his right. "You'll send him back into a coma with all your carrying on."

Harry forced his eyes open and blinked dazedly at the bright light of the room. He was in the hospital wing; he'd been in it enough times by now that he recognized it by the narrowness of the bed and the lumpiness of the pillow cradling his head. The ceiling above was a hazy mass of white and grey. For a moment Harry wondered if his vision had been damaged in some way, before he remembered his glasses. Rather than bothering with them, he let his eyes fall shut once more. He felt exhausted, as if he'd just run a race instead of, apparently, sleeping for sixteen hours. Every muscle ached and burned, and his head felt huge and groggy, as if it had been inflated and filled with water.

"My head feels big. Is it...?"

"No, it's head-sized," Ginny's voice assured him from the foot of his cot.

"What happened?" he asked. He remembered only a blinding flash of white, and then a strange dream... something about a graveyard, and had Sirius been there? But not Sirius as he had known him. A young Sirius, and--had they been at some kind of rave? That couldn't be right. He wished he could remember, but his head hurt too badly to even try.

"You crashed into the Ravenclaw stands. And into some Ravenclaws as well. Banged your head up pretty hard in the process, hence the coma," Ginny told him. "You gave Lisa Turpin the fright of her life, flying at her like a madman!" she added with amusement.

"Do I know Lisa Turpin?" Harry asked groggily.

"Shh," Hermione said. "Just lie still and try to rest. I'll tell Madam Pomfrey you're awake."

Harry heard the rustle of a curtain being pushed aside and Hermione's footsteps against the tile floor moving away from them. "That catch was absolutely brilliant, Harry!" Ron said after Hermione was out of range. "Malfoy didn't even go for it--he thought you were doing another feint. The look on his face when they pried the Snitch out of your fingers! Priceless."

Harry attempted a weak smile. "Wish I could've seen it...."

With a sudden jolt he remembered why he'd been so determined to catch the Snitch in the first place, even though it had been in such a precarious position. "Ginny, your knee...?"

"Is fine," she assured him. "Madam Pomfrey fixed me up straight away. I heal fast, remember? I'm right as rain." She paused thoughtfully. "What does that mean, anyway? Right as rain? Is rain somehow inherently correct in all its, er, rainyness?"

Madam Pomfrey appeared with Hermione fast on her heels by the sounds of things. "Glad to see you've decided to rejoin us, Mr. Potter," she said, sounding genuinely pleased. "Now the rest of you, shoo. Harry needs to take some potions and get his rest."

"But he's just slept for sixteen hours!" Ron complained. "How much more rest can he really need? In my opinion, he's overly rested. Too much resting is bad!"

"When you've gone to Medi-wizard school for ten years and you become a fully qualified Healer, then you can decide what's right for my patient, Mr. Weasley!" Madam Pomfrey said. "But until then, get out of my infirmary and don't even bother coming back until tomorrow at the earliest!"

"We'll see you later, Harry," Hermione said. "Be good. Do what she says, and try to rest."

"As if he's in any state to fight her off," Ginny's voice said, getting fainter and fainter as his friends moved away. "Honestly. What's he going to do? Flutter his eyelashes at her?"

Harry smiled then winced. Even the muscles in his face hurt. But it was worth it, to have beaten Malfoy like that. Despite the foul-tasting potion Madam Pomfrey was spoon feeding down his throat and the vicious throbbing in his head, Harry felt immensely satisfied. He had faked out Draco Malfoy and brought his team to a stunning victory over Slytherin. It couldn't get much better than that.

************