Resonance

Chapter 37 -- Adder’s Fork and Blind-Worm’s Sting

Professor Snape approached Draco Malfoy as he sat in the Slytherin common room, playing wizard chess with Fredericka Fredrick, a Fifth Year. "Mr. Malfoy," Snape said to get his attention before gesturing with his fingers that he should follow.

Malfoy looked up cockily at his professor. With a very casual shrug he stood and followed Snape to a dungeon classroom. As Snape shut the door, Malfoy strode casually over to a stool and hitched his hip on it. He waited for his professor to speak with a tilted head expression of impatience. Snape could not help but be glad to be getting rid of the boy in three short months.

"I have had a complaint about you, Mr. Malfoy."

"Yeah? Can't imagine who that would have been," he sneered. "You listening to Gryffindors now?"

"Only the ones I trust. I'll admit," Snape said. "But nevertheless. You had slipped below my attention so it came as a surprise."

"He's made you weak," Malfoy said. "You wanted that?"

"What you think is of no matter. You are required to heed me, not the other way around." Snape paced to the high windows before turning suddenly back. "Are you guilty of what Mr. Potter accuses you of? It occurs to me that I have not ever seen you socializing with Ms. Fredrick before this."

Malfoy shrugged. "What's it to you? You my baby sitter now?"

"I am if you are crossing the line," he replied in a very hard tone. The blonde boy was Occluding his mind without seeming to try to, making Snape suspect that Harry was correct. "If I see you again with a student below Sixth Year, I will make your life very miserable," he promised.

The boy grinned crookedly and shook his head in disgust. After a long pause, Malfoy said, "You fooled everyone, you know." When Snape did not immediately respond, he suggested, "Or are you fooling them now, maybe? Potter doesn't seem that stupid, but maybe he is."

"None of that is any of your concern," Snape said dismissively.

"Really?" He slipped off the stool and stepped over to his teacher. "You betrayed . . . a lot of people."

"They deserved to be," Snape stated.

Malfoy gave him that sloppy grin again. "It's too bad Voldemort didn't catch you at it," he said with a hint of relish at the notion.

Snape grabbed the front of the boy's robes and lifted him up to his toes. "Is there a particular reason you are taunting me? Or are you really that foolishly overconfident? Your father is not going to be able to do anything for you . . . ever." He released him, angry that he had lost control. With a frown he headed for the door.

"That's what you think," Malfoy said quietly.

"Just remember what I said," Snape returned in his most threatening voice.

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That weekend, Snape and four other teachers were assigned to respell the castle. Harry watched them very early Saturday morning before most students were awake. Hagrid and he stood at the bottom of the steps as McGonagall and Sprout formed a blue field around the main doors. When the glow stabilized, they stepped back and watched it fade to invisible.

McGonagall stepped over to Harry. "Looks like hard work, ma'am," he opined.

She shook her head. "The castle is designed to hold magic so it takes much easier than an ordinary object would. Every last stone was selected for its metal and crystalline content, especially around the doors."

Harry considered that if he had ever gotten around to reading Hogwarts: A History, he undoubtedly would have known that.

Unexpectedly, Neville came out wearing very Muggle clothes, exercise clothes, in fact. He looked surprised to find them all standing there. McGonagall gestured for him to head out. "Good morning, Mr. Longbottom," she said graciously.

"Morning, Professor," he said in a questioning tone.

Harry wondered what he was up to that the headmistress was so casual about.

"Just renewing the protective spells, my boy," McGonagall explained to Neville. At some point she had adopted Dumbledore's form of address for them; Harry kept intending to point out its inappropriateness, but could not bring himself to.

"Good idea, ma'am," Neville stated forcefully, with a strange glance at Harry.

Harry wondered at the look and watched Neville as he moved off. He went to the corner of the outer wall, put one foot up on it and bent over his knee. Harry watched his friend rather than the teachers as the risers themselves were charmed. Neville changed feet a few times, then jogged off to the edge of the forest and started around the edge of the lawn. Harry tracked him as he fell into a smooth stride around the lawn edge.

Later, at breakfast, Harry said to Neville, "I didn't know you ran."

"I started over Christmas. A Muggle friend of mine got me started on it. It's really relaxing."

Harry gave him a doubtful look and returned to nibbling his bacon. Neville did look different now; better proportioned maybe, as though he might actually be muscular under his robes. Harry wondered if the running had done that.

"What were the teachers doing this morning?" Frina asked Harry. "I saw you outside with them."

Harry, noticing Penelope's gaze come up curiously, blushed. He was finding himself much more concerned about her opinion of things. "They were renewing the protective spells on the castle."

"Do any of the spells keep people in?" Penelope asked cautiously.

"Just out," Harry replied reassuringly with a kind smile, thinking that Ginny would not like this look either.

"Good," she breathed.

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"What do I get, Mr. Potter, if I take today's potion, ice concentrate it, mix it with Dermanus powder and boil it for five days?" Greer sounded victorious by the end of the question.

"Calamnute," Harry replied confidently without looking up and without hesitating. The other four textbooks were bloody useful.

When Greer spun away with a huff, Frina asked curiously, "Doesn't the house usually get points for answering such a question?"

Greer spun back around. "What house are you in, young lady?"

"I do not have a house."

"You are at the Gryffindor table, are you not?" Greer sneered.

"We were not sorted, as you call it. We board in their tower, yes," Darsha explained calmly when Frina seemed lost for words.

"Ten points from Gryffindor then, for your cheek," she snapped at Frina.

When Greer had moved on out of immediate hearing range, Frina apologized in an angry, stressed whisper.

"It's not your fault," Harry assured her.

"Ron is very keen to win this house cup, right?" Frina insisted.

"I think he is going to have to do without it," Harry commented flatly.

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Harry walked back from checking on Hermione and Frina's wombat for them while they finished up a difficult Arithmency assignment. The fifth floor corridor was quiet and empty, his footsteps echoing off the stone walls. He thought ahead to his half-finished History assignment; just the notion of it made his brain slow down.

His steps faltered when the hair on his arms prickled as though a draft had swept around him. Harry stopped and looked around. The corridor was empty, a half moon revealed through the dark windows on the end. Even so, he reached for his wand. Nothing moved as he turned his head back and forth and began to feel a little silly for his paranoia.

He let his wand hand fall to his side and took a step along the corridor. The next instant, he was sprawled face down on the floor. He rolled over immediately, propped on one stinging hand, wand held out. No target appeared. He had heard no incantation, and had seen no spell trail. Breathing heavily, he moved the aim of his wand around him. The corridor remained utterly still.

"Accio Cloak," Harry incanted, thinking only then that someone might be standing close-by, invisible. Nothing happened. He repeated the spell in the other direction, also with no effect. He shifted to get up and found his legs befuddled somehow. He could move them, but they refused to get under him, rendering standing impossible. Heart racing harder at his predicament, Harry pulled himself along the floor a few feet, slowly because he did not want to lower his wand and use both hands.

Harry needed help. He aimed his wand at the floor and began a Pravda Bird spell. As he spoke it and the bird emerged, his wand and the bird were blasted away from his hand. His wand clattered along the floor and stopped beside a marble statue of Corin Cornelius, who was carved giving a lesson on broom safety. The silver bird spiraled along the wall beyond the statue and vanished in a small cloud of silver sparks.

Harry looked frantically back along the path the spell must have taken, peering closely at the air for any sign of disturbance. No sound or movement was revealed. He considered yelling for help, wondered if anyone would even hear him, or if his pride could withstand it. At the sound of his wand scraping on the floor he whipped his head around. His wand was lying halfway between himself and the statue now, tantalizingly close.

Wondering again, with a stab of fear, what was wrong with his legs, Harry pulled himself along the floor toward his wand. This time there was a spell flash from behind him and he was thrown forward by a blasting curse. Stabbing pain shot through his skull as his nose and teeth struck unyielding stone.

Harry carefully raised his head and put his hand over his nose, which bled freely. A fancy black boot appeared beside his wand, beneath an invisible hem, making him realize in surprise that it was a cloak. He swallowed blood and watched in horror as the boot rested on his wand on the uneven stones of the floor, clearly intending to break it.

Harry threw out his left hand, and with all his will, shouted "Accio wand!" In his mind thoughts of Dumbledore setting him up to get that wand mixed with memories of the Final Battle. The wand scraped harshly out from under the boot sole and hit his palm with a slap. He immediately cast his own blasting curse at the spot above where the boot had just re-vanished. The spell shattered against the wall and echoed up and down the corridor. His aim, left-handed, had not been very good and the figure undoubtedly had moved quickly away. Whatever the reason, the miss made him snarl in fury.

He rolled to a sitting position and switched the wand to his bloody right hand and cast a rapid succession of blasting curses in an arc, all of them shattering on the walls harmlessly. As he scanned the hallway again for any small sign, he rubbed his face painfully on his sleeve to keep more blood from his nose out of his mouth.

A minute of silence passed beyond Harry's harsh breathing until voices sounded from the adjoining corridor. Harry worried that whoever it was might get hurt as well. When the figures turned the corner and saw him on the floor, they hesitated before continuing.

Harry recognized the halo of white hair on the smallest figure. "Did you see anyone?" Harry asked loudly, his voice flattened by his plugged nose. The Slytherins approached faster now, all of them pulling out their wands and looking around themselves avidly.

"No," Suze said as they passed Cornelius. "What happened?"

Harry closed his eyes in a moment of extreme embarrassment. "Someone kicked my arse; someone under an invisibility cloak." He tried to stand up, which, if he had wanted to preserve the remainder of his dignity, he should not have tried.

Harry groaned and sat back down and pulled his robes aside. His feet were flipped in odd directions. Suze gasped and leaned down to look closer in disturbed fascination. Someone else made a distressed stomach noise. Calmly, Harry said, "I think someone took the bones out of my legs." Experimentally he moved his left leg and found that below the knee he had no control over it. His foot dragged behind as he moved it along the stones. With a huff of utter frustration, Harry sat back and said, "Suze, can you get Professor Snape or the headmistress? Please?"

Suze nodded and stood straight. "Portny," she ordered Wereporridge, "Take him to the dispensary."

Wereporridge shrugged his too broad shoulders and stooped down to pick Harry up. "Hey," Harry said in alarm, "Don't you know a Hover spell?"

"You don't want to see his Hover spell," Parkinson said dryly, "as much fun as it would be to see him use it on you."

Harry kept quiet then. Suze ran swiftly ahead of them, light as a dancer and nearly soundless in her soft shoes.

Suze rushed down four corridors and one set of stairs. Snape didn't answer his office door and the classroom was dark. It was evening, but maybe they were holding a staff meeting. By the time she made it down the many long staircases to the entrance hall, she was out of breath and disgusted by it. She had guessed right, though; several teachers were meandering before the open door to the staff room, chatting. The four Heads of House were standing around McGonagall.

Breathless, Suze pounded over to them and tried to explain.

"Ms. Zepher?" McGonagall said in question, putting a hand on Suze's shoulder.

"Harry," Suze breathed and watched their expressions and demeanors shift starkly to alarm as she took a breath to continue. "Attacked on the fifth floor . . ."

"What?" two of them said together as Snape moved quickly by her.

"Team taking him to the hospital wing," she said urgently to his back. He turned his head an instant to glance back before he continued rapidly up the stairs. McGonagall followed behind.

Harry, to his utter dismay, was dropped onto a bed in the hospital wing. To avoid messing the linens he yanked off his shoes, bending his legs disturbingly in the process. Pansy's loud voice rang out for Madame Pomfrey, grating on his sore nerves. Pomfrey bustled over and waved the other students away. They backed off to the other side of the room and stood there uneasily.

Pomfrey lifted Harry's chin and looked at his nose. "My, my, what happened, Mr. Potter?" she asked, and for once sounded genuinely sympathetic.

"My face hit the floor when someone hit me with a blasting curse." No sooner had he said this, than the double doors to the wing burst open and Snape came through them. Harry dropped his eyes, feeling furiously ashamed. Pomfrey lifted his head again and spelled his nose unbroken. It felt much better immediately, making him sigh in relief. He could halfway breath through it now.

Snape came aside the bed as the headmistress entered the wing followed by Suze. "What happened?" Snape asked in alarm.

"Someone got the better of me. Obviously," Harry replied in disgust.

"Who?" McGonagall asked.

"Don't know," he said angrily, gesturing with his hands. "He or she was under an invisibility cloak."

Snape's eyes shifted to the Slytherin Quidditch players across the room. Preemptively, Harry said, "If they hadn't happened to come around the corner, I don't know what would have happened. I couldn't even manage to hold my own." Indeed, the notion that he had been expertly toyed with was grinding harder on his pride now that he had the luxury of thinking clearly.

Harry held still while Pomfrey made his broken tooth grow back in. She then handed him a warm wet towel to clean his face and hands followed by a sip of blood replenisher. "And this, your favorite," she said pleasantly as she poured out a cup from the distinctive Skele-gro bottle.

"Skele-gro?" Snape asked sharply.

Harry pulled his robe aside and moved a leg to demonstrate. Snape stiffened in surprise at the odd floppiness of his foot. McGonagall looked thoughtful.

"Didn't want me running away, whoever it was," Harry commented darkly as he accepted the cup. He forced the liquid down past the nasty taste and handed the cup back.

"Bad night coming up, Mr. Potter," Pomfrey said sympathetically as she capped the bottle and set it on the side table.

"To go with my bad evening," he muttered and dropped back on the pillow.

"No idea at all who it was?" Snape asked, sounding frustrated as he leaned over the bed slightly.

Harry shook his head. "I only saw his or her boot. I didn't recognize it. It was a nice one, though." He pulled out his wand and sat back up to reach the towel to wipe the blood smears off of it. The wood had been badly gouged when he had compelled it to come to him. Maybe Olivander could fix it, he thought, as he stashed it back in his pocket. At least it still worked.

"I'll have your friends bring your things for the night," McGonagall said before turning to leave. "And I'll speak with you," she said to the Slytherins, gesturing broadly for them to lead the way out of the wing. Harry gave Suze a small smile of thanks when she glanced back at him before the door closed.

Harry flopped back again with his hand over his eyes. "I was incompetent," he muttered. "I tried to Accio the cloak away, but that didn't work. I couldn't think of anyway else to reveal him . . . or her."

"There are a few things you could have tried," Snape said evenly. "A Bolero spell for example."

"Can you show me?" Harry asked, desperate and eager.

"Tomorrow, certainly. When you can stand."

Harry moved one limp leg. "Yeah," he breathed. He shook his head and sighed. "Not really Auror material, I don't think."

Snape's hand moved to his shoulder. "Harry, truly your pride cannot be that fragile," he said in disbelief, sounding almost amused. At Harry's dark frown, he added, "We will arm you so it cannot happen again, all right?"

Harry looked away, biting his lips at the pain blossoming in his legs from the Skele-gro. He nodded. Snape removed his hand. "I have grading to do, but I can bring it down here."

"That's all right," Harry said dismissively.

"You are certain?" He looked surprised but willing to give in.

Harry nodded, feeling his ineptness did not need an audience. As Snape stepped hesitantly away, the doors opened to reveal his friends. Snape nodded at them as they passed.

"Harry! What happened?" Hermione asked as she came over, sounding like it might be at least partially his fault. Ron carried Harry's pyjamas and kit, which he placed under the night stand. He looked too accustomed to doing that.

Harry growled, but he sat up a bit on the pillows to explain what happened.

Eventually, his friends were shooed from the room by Madame Pomfrey. Harry took out his things to change out of his school clothes, and buried in between his pyjama top and bottom he found the Marauder's Map. Grinning at his friends' foresight, he unfolded it and activated it after checking that Pomfrey was safely in her office.

On the Map the last students were heading for their respective House rooms. J. Finch-Fletchley was still in the library, moving around in the stacks. His friends were walking on the staircase. P. Tideweather was with the other Durmstrang students in the Gryffindor common room along with many others. He scanned all the names on the page. In the House rooms they were stacked up tight together. He did not see an Avery or Jugson among them, or any others he didn't recognize. Sighing, he folded it up and stashed it in the pocket of his robe and lay down to sleep, confident in the spells on the wing to not let in anyone with ill intent. Desperate for a good rest, he forcefully Occluded his mind as he relaxed into sleep.

--------------

"Bella, pst!" a harsh voice whispered.

Bellatrix Lestrange sat up on the thinly padded stone pallet and squinted into the darkness. She hesitated a long time before moving to the cell door. When she did move, it was in near total silence. The halo of blonde hair was unmistakable. "Lucius?" she breathed in confusion and extreme suspicion, "what are you doing out of your cell?"

Malfoy looked down the corridor in each direction before replying, "I need your help. I can't get past the outer guards without an assistant." He held up a sparkling silver-framed gem on a chain around his neck. "A friend finally came through with this." He fingered it lovingly. "Some betray while others are brilliantly loyal. One never seems to know," he whispered, as though speaking to himself. It could have been a pledge to revenge.

She gasped and grabbed the bars hard. "Is that an Ampliment?" she asked hungrily.

"Yes," Malfoy replied, the word drawn out in a hiss. He stashed the shining thing back inside his robes. "I can only assume you would like to depart this place as well?" he asked cockily.

She laughed quietly. "You always have such a way with words."

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Harry was dreaming, a groggy, pain-filled dream that teased at being pleasant. He breathed out and breathed in another's warm breath. This jerked him fully into wakefulness just as soft lips found his.

"Ginny," Harry admonished, very dismayed.

The figure above him stood straight with a gasp and moved off. Quickly, Harry painfully sat up and reached for the bedside lamp just as the door to the wing opened with a swoosh. All he saw was a silhouette with very long hair turning into the dim light of the corridor.

"Peni," Harry breathed in complete shock. "Ugh," he groaned. Compelled to follow, he put on his glasses and reached for the carved crutches sitting against the wall at the head of the bed.

Rushing, and with his mind still swimming in sleep, he clumsily hobbled across the room. He thunked unceremoniously through the double doors at the end and paused because his hands were shaking on the crutches with exhaustion. The corridor was long empty and his strength wavered alarmingly. He stood swaying on the highly-polished, bent-over tree branches, trying to figure out what to do. The pain in his feet now overwhelmed his thoughts, making a decision impossible.

A figure appeared at the end of the corridor, billowing robes highlighted by the flickering sconces on the left side. "Harry?" Snape's voice sounded.

"Did you see anyone?" Harry asked.

Snape glanced around himself in alarm before replying, "No. And since we just finished thoroughly searching the castle, I would hope not."

He came aside as Harry mumbled, "Maybe I was dreaming, then."

"Mr. Potter," Pomfrey said as she strolled purposefully through the doors to the wing. "What are you doing out here?"

Harry's feet throbbed ominously almost making him choke on his reply. "I don't know." He must be insane to be upright on newly grown foot bones, he decided. Only a Crucio had ever been more painful than what he was experiencing right now.

Snape stepped closer and took one of the crutches away before slipping an arm under his. "Take these, Madame," he said, holding it out. Pomfrey took on than the other crutch in hand and Snape hefted Harry into his arms. The hospital witch held the door open for them. "You must have grown," Snape complained breathlessly as he carried his charge back into the dispensary.

Harry, stunned silly by the utter relief of being off his feet, did not reply. At his bed he expected to be dumped unceremoniously as Wereporridge had done earlier. Instead, he was lowered carefully to the mattress.

"What ever possessed you to get up?" Snape asked harshly, hand moving to Harry's shoulder as he released him.

Harry closed his eyes. "I don't want to get into it." Numb relief had given way to painful heat in his feet and ankles. Pomfrey's hands on them relieved some of it as she gently twisted his feet one way then the other. When she finished, she tossed the duvet up over his legs and stalked away.

Snape straightened the covers as he said, "Trouble sleeping?"

"It's strange sleeping here," Harry said, thinking past nocturnal visitors. "The respelling has made the dormitory easy to sleep in. It doesn't feel like that here." He thought that over more as rubbed his eyes. "It's like the shadows are blocked out some when I'm in the tower. Is that possible?"

"Perhaps," Snape replied, sounding concerned. "A number of night-calming spells were added to the Gryffindor tower with the intent of helping you sleep."

Harry tugged his glasses off and set them aside. He dropped his head back on the pillow and closed his tired eyes. "Could use one of those spells here right now," he mumbled.

"The castle has been thoroughly searched," he said. In a firmer tone, he added, "Do not get up again until morning, Harry."

"Yeah, all right," Harry murmured, half asleep already. His trepidation about nightmares did not hold sleep at bay.

Harry was in the Forbidden Forest at twilight. An aquamarine light shimmered in the cooling air as a breeze vibrated the leaves above him. A shadow floated by him. He stepped back in fear of it but it did not seem to notice him there. Other shadows flashed between the trees, hiding, watching.

Looking around him in a panic, Harry tried to find a place to hide himself, but the tall wide trunks shifted away from him when he approached them to obscure himself. He could not hide and he didn't seem to have his wand, since he was still in his pyjamas. He wrapped his arms around himself from the chill of the dew collecting on his thin clothes as he moved.

Harry froze in place as two shadows shifted into the open and clashed. A horrible screeching went up and the trees faded away, revealing a dull green world. Many dark forms converged and retreated. A bolt of pain went through Harry, forcing him to his knees. He reached out a desperate hand toward the wavering shadow in the middle of the cluster as it flattened and shrank, drawing a burst of wind towards it as it popped into nothingness.

Harry snapped awake with a gasp. The hospital wing surrounded him with its odd peacefulness. At the last moment of the dream he had seen another shadow flicker into the open, full of malevolence. He wondered what was going to happen next but he could not recapture it, even by closing his eyes. His face was wet; he dried it with a swipe of his sleeve and hurriedly fumbled for his glasses. Panicking now as the meaning of the dream flooded through him, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and reached for the crutches. Memory of the earlier pain in his feet warred with his extreme need to check on Snape.

"Mr. Potter!" Pomfrey said as she strode up the wing from her office.

"I have to . . . " Harry tried to explain.

"You have nothing you need to do at this hour, Mr. Potter," she stated, hands on hips. Her strict manner relaxed, however, when she looked over his face.

"I have to see Severus," Harry insisted, heart stopping panic filling him again as he said it.

"I will fetch him, then. YOU stay put." She stalked off.

Still holding the crutches in each hand as he sat on the edge of the bed, Harry tried to hold himself steady. It did not work all that well, though. The odd pain in the dream had unnerved him badly, and like a broken record it kept replaying itself in his head as he waited.

Finally, voices could be heard in the corridor. "I'm am sorry, Professor, for disturbing you," Pomfrey was saying.

The doors opened as Snape said, "It is no matter." The crutch from Harry's left hand hit the floor when Snape stepped into the dim light of the wing. Relief, like a spell of weakness, rendered Harry's arms useless and he could not retain it. Snape strode quickly over and scooped up the fallen crutch, gathered it up with the other Harry still held, and set them aside.

Pomfrey took them up and placed them a little farther away. "Only if the hospital wing is on fire, Mr. Potter," she chastised him before striding away.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Snape asked in concern.

Harry clasped his shaking hands together to quell them. Snape, apparently seeing this, grasped them and sat on the edge of the bed beside him. "Harry?" he prompted again more forcefully.

"I thought . . . " he started to reply before cutting himself off. He could not think it again. Realizing he needed to explain somehow, he said, "Shadows are killing each other." Snape sat straight and gripped Harry's hands tighter.

"How close by?" Snape asked.

"I don't know," Harry replied. "And I don't just see it, I can feel it too." Words failed him, so he fell silent, even though he truly wanted Snape to understand. He clutched at his chest where the stab of pain had gone though him in the dream.

"What is he saying?" Pomfrey asked. She stood between the beds, hands clasped before her the way she held them when she was diagnosing something.

Snape put an arm around Harry and pulled him sideways to lean against him. "I believe he is saying that Voldemort's former servants are killing each other and that he feels them dying." Pomfrey took a step backward. Harry frowned and dropped his gaze so he didn't see Snape give the hospital witch a most displeased expression. Snape sighed and said, "You are safe here, Harry."

"I want to know what is happening, though," he murmured. Strength was returning to his limbs, so he sat straighter against the reassuring weight of Snape's arm.

"We should inform Minerva anyway. I can summon her," Snape said, as he reached into his robes for his wand.

"I'll fetch her," Pomfrey said, forestalling him. "A little less abrupt to be woken in person," she chastised. She spun on her toe and walked out.

Harry let his head fall to the side, onto Snape's shoulder. The warmth and solidity of him chased away the last of Harry's earlier panic.

Eventually, the door opened again. McGonagall hesitated momentarily at the sight before her, until Pomfrey's passing her made her step forward. As she approached, she put up a hand to stop Snape from explaining. "Someone contacted me from the Ministry just before Madame Pomfrey arrived. Seems there was an attempted breakout from Azkaban tonight. A bit of a battle ensued as a result and two former Death Eaters were killed."

"Who?" Snape asked.

"The Lestrange brothers," she replied. "It was apparently Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy who initiated the breakout. The Ministry assure me that they are all back in custody now."

It bothered Harry that he had felt such pain and regret at the death of one who had tortured Neville's parents. In the dream he had been reaching out to save him, which sickened him now. He was pulled back to the present by Snape's arm shifting so that just a hand rested against his back.

"He saw it in his mind," Snape explained quietly to McGonagall.

Harry looked away; he didn't want anyone to know that. McGonagall stepped closer and said, "I'm sorry, Harry. I wish I had a spell to cut you free of them." For a moment it seemed she would say more, but she patted his shoulder instead. "Need anything?"

Harry shook his head, still not looking up at her.

"Will you be all right now?" Snape asked. "Do you want me to stay?"

Feeling embarrassed, Harry shook his head with certainty. Snape stood up but hovered near the end of the bed. Harry put his glasses aside yet again and lay down. Exhaustion tugged at him despite his aching bones. His eyes fell closed on their own. Footsteps headed away, scuffing lightly on the stone floor. As the door creaked open, he heard McGonagall say, "I do apologize, Severus," before their voices faded out.

In the dim corridor leading to the staircase, Snape asked, "For what? I do not think even Albus could have severed him from these remnants of Voldemort's mind. They are a part of him, probably have been since he received that scar."

McGonagall clasped her hands before her as they stopped at the bottom of the stairs before parting. "That wasn't what I was referring to." She smiled slyly and said, "I was apologizing for ever doubting that you could take care of him."

Snape stiffened and put his hand on the handrail curling upward. "Hm," he huffed lightly while shooting her a dark look that lacked real conviction. He turned away and stepped up.

She grinned and shook her head. "Goodness, I hate admitting that Albus was right," she said to his back.

He paused midway up and turned, still holding the narrow eyed look from before. "Dare I ask about what?" he inquired with some snide.

McGonagall grinned more. "Guess he must have been. Can't imagine you've changed that much," she commented playfully.

He jerked back around with an abrupt snarl before heading up and through the door to the next wing.

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