Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I Was Not Disobedient Unto the Heavenly Vision

An outcome of this theology was first of all your doctrine of Necessity or Fate,

heimarmene as you termed it, the theory that every event is the result of an eternal truth and an unbroken sequence of causation. But what value can be assigned to a philosophy which thinks that everything happens by fate? It is a belief for old women; and ignorant old women at that. And next follows your doctrine of mantike, or Divination, which would so steep us in superstition, if we consented to listen to you, that we should be the devotees of soothsayers, augurs, oracle-mongers, seers, and interpreters of dreams. But Epicurus has set us free from superstitious terrors and delivered us out of captivity, so that we have no fear of beings who, we know, create no trouble for themselves and seek to cause none to others, while we worship with reverence the transcendent majesty of nature.

- Cicero, De Natura Deorum

When it is called away from the contagion of its bodily associate, the soul remembers the past, discerns the present, and foresees the future; for the sleeper's body lies as if dead, while his spirit is alive and in full vigour.

- Cicero, De Divinatione

You have but to will a thing, and it has happened; the reform has been made; as, on the other hand, you have but to drop into a doze and all is lost. For it is within you that both destruction and deliverance lie.

- Epictetus

Stir up thy mind, and recall thy wits again from thy natural dreams, and visions, and when thou art perfectly awoken, and canst perceive that they were but dreams that troubled thee, as one newly awakened out of another kind of sleep look upon these worldly things with the same mind as thou didst upon those, that thou sawest in thy sleep.

- Marcus Aurelius

It was the mercy of the gods ... that by dreams I have received help, as for other things, so in particular, how I might stay my casting of blood, and cure my dizziness, as that also that happened to thee in Cajeta, as unto Chryses when he prayed by the seashore.

- Marcus Aurelius

Plato and the Stoics introduce divination as a godlike enthusiasm, the soul itself being of a divine constitution, and this prophetic faculty being inspiration, or an illapse of the divine knowledge into man; and so likewise they account for interpretation by dreams. And these same allow many divisions of the art of divination. Xenophanes and Epicurus utterly refuse any such art of foretelling future contingencies. Pythagoras rejects all manner of divination which is by sacrifices. Aristotle and Dicaearchus admit only these two kinds of it, a fury by a divine inspiration, and dreams; they deny the immortality of the soul, yet they affirm that the mind of man hath a participation of something that is divine.

- Plutarch

The Greek activity par excellence was the shaping of moulds. That's why Plato was so intrigued by the modest craftsmen

(demiourgoi) who plied this trade in Athens; that's why he gave the name of their guild to the artificer of the whole world.

*** In the end it is what is cast that survives. We live in a warehouse of casts that have lost their moulds. In the beginning was the mould.

- Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, trans. Parks

_______________________________

i. Draco Yoked

The worst part of the bloody dreams was that they took the war - and the victory - for granted. No one in them spoke of it, no one said anything meaningful about how, exactly, the forces of light, the gallant cause of fluffy bunnyhood, had prevailed. If they had done, the sodding dreams might have been of some minor utility.

As it was, though, the dreams were no help at all. That was the worst of it.

No, it wasn't. There was no point in lying. Well, not to oneself. No advantage in it.

The worst of it was the casual assumption that his being involved with The Berk Who Lived was part and parcel of how the Universe ought be.

It might be worse even than that, now that he thought of it. It was one thing to have possibly precognitive dreams in which he joined - openly, rashly, and with every prospect of being targeted for appalling pain - the side of All Things Bright and Banal. It was worse still to imagine that it was, just possibly, precisely his joining that side that gave the defenders of all things fluffy the accession of strength that allowed the buggers to prevail - flattering though that might be in a twisted sort of fashion. But the prospect that what finally made the world safe for Hufflepuffs and Muggles was somehow his nightmarish misalliance with The Poon Who Wanked ... well, he could only hope he could make it to a rubbish bin or the bog before he was copiously sick.

_______________________________

ii. Harry 'Neath the Harrow

These dreams were adding a new horror to sleep. If they were Freudian, he was more disturbed than he wished to believe, and a greater freak than ever the Dursleys had accused him of being. If they were precognitive, well, had he not sacrificed enough already to defeat the Dark Lord Mouldy Wart? After all - Malfoy, after all, damn it all. Harry shuddered.

_______________________________

iii. Dumbledore Kicks Against the Pricks

Bugger fate. Bugger prophecy. Bugger divination, and precognition, and omens and augury. And bugger the interplay of the whole bloody shower with Free Will. Sod all that for a game of soldiers. He was too old, too weary, and the dark was too closely encroaching, for this lark. All things would take their courses, yes; but to be tormented by hope whilst reduced to impotence, knowing the fates of those who had tried to force events and fiddle omens, was damnable. Menelaus honouring Paris's guest-token and giving the little shit house-room. OEdipus at the crossroads. Croesus and the Delphic Oracle. Tom Riddle at Godric's Hollow. Oh, those three old women with their spindle, thread, and shears had a pawky humour. Bugger the lot of them.

Albus Dumbledore hadn't been this angry since the Extremely Annoying Autumn of 1893.

_______________________________

iv. A Light on the Road to Damascus

Again, the dreams. Again, framed by the scene of the two of them, wounded but alive, waffling about the unexpectedly hollow sound that victory made, even as the lurid green miasma of the killing curse sank into and scorched the earth of the last battlefield.

'Now we both have what we wanted. And we can do as we damned well please. That is what victory is, Harry. And that is what was worth fighting for.'

_______________________________

The dream-world. After Hogwarts, after victory, after University at a re-founded Domdaniel that shared the castle with Hogwarts. After deaths and pain and a love that even prophecy might boggle at.

'She's done it.'

'Hmm? Done what, precisely, love?'

'Hermione Jane Granger Weasley, OM (2^d), MA, EBW -'

'"EBW"?'

'- Extraordinarily Bossy Witch.'

'Ah. Carry on.'

'Is now also to be "Doctor" to us mere mortals. She's been awarded her D. Mag. and elected a Fellow of Paracelsus.'

'We must have them to dinner. No. Better. A small celebration. A garden party, it's spring, with a cold collation,' Draco mused, warming to his theme, 'and by God, Bradenham ham this time and no down-market substitutions; a decent band, plenty of Bucks fizz, Pimm's cup, and pink gin, absolute cases of Bollinger, lashings of strawberries with gallons of cream, a truly select guest-list for a change -'

'Love?'

'Yes, yes, what is it?' Draco was impatient to get back to his planning. There was more of Narcissa in him than he or the late Lucius had ever cared to admit.

'Hermione herself would probably rather have tea - in a library, at that - and so far as Ron goes, he'd be happier down the local with a pint and a pie.'

Draco grimaced.

'Besides, I don't think pink gin is a terribly brilliant notion. You may not have heard it at the time, but when you and Ginny were working together during the War, the two of you were, um, rather irreverently called "Gin and Bitters" by, well, various chaps.'

'Memo to self,' Draco drawled, though where he'd picked up a Muggle Americanism Harry had no idea. '"Select guest list" means no bog-trotting Gryffindor smart-arses.'

'Draco -'

'Harry, darling, put a sock in it. Right? Thank you so much. The poor girl has spent her life being treated as a sort of walking concordance to Hogwarts: A History, she's married to my uncultivated, nay, my positively troglodyte, cousin - and at the moment I am feeling seriously empathetic to that plight - I expect his idea of romance is to take her to the Hog's Head for a rousing round of darts. Or possibly shove-ha'penny. Everyone always gives her books rather than choccy biscuits or lavender water.... She's been treated as a combination of sister and librarian by everyone from her housemates to her husband, all her life. Well, she helped save mine. And I am damned if we're going to let this milestone pass without giving her a proper celebration that doesn't resemble what the Old Boys would come up with for a Quidditch win.'

'All right, love. I'm not the one standing in your way. But if one of us could be practical for a moment? This do that you're elaborating doesn't sound like something the SCR's the right setting for.'

'Of course not, we'll have our little splash out on the lawns, with a marquee.'

'Which is my second point. We're not in Wildest Wilts here, or even Darkest Devon. Springtime it may be, Whitsun term the Kalendar may say it is, but your choices for Caledonian weather at this time of year are between frost and mists, or midges and appalling heat.'

'We are wizards, Professor Potter. I think we can charm the damned weather.'

'Yes, we are, and we can, Professor Malfoy. If we don't get so carried away with our caterers and wine merchants that we forget to plan for it.'

Draco opened his mouth, closed it again, shook his head, and sat down. 'I'm turning into Mummy, amn't I.'

'Well, bar the whole Death-Eater-by-marriage aspect, yes. But actually, I think it's super that you care so much for the very people whom you spent almost six years trying to hex to Hell and Halifax. And you're quite right: it's past time someone treated Hermione as being a woman, not just a bundle of wits and a wand.

'But someday, Draco, I'm going to make you see that there's nothing really wrong with a pint of Theakston's Best - or Goodbody's - and a pie or a ploughman's lunch.'

_______________________________

Hogwarts days in dreams, of what was and what was not, inextricably twining together....

Col Bellowes's guest lecture set many events in train, but the most immediately notable was the way in which those openly opposed to Voldemort, including those who had previously feared to say even that invented name, began to mock him and his Death Eaters openly - 'as Luther twitted Old Red Socks,' Ernie Macmillan said, he being of a literary bent. 'Auld Tammas Yowlie', they called him, or 'the Fool's Riddle', and 'Snake-Eyes McDolt', 'Tam O' Chunter' (one of Ernie's inspirations), 'St Paddy's Oversight' (a Finnegan contribution), 'Tommy Twinkles', 'Two-Faced Tom', and on and on. Dumbledore, it was known, approved, and awarded points for the most inventive mockery; and Dumbledore, it was believed, surreptitiously put some of the more outrageous japes into circulation, anonymously. Snape muttered something about the Dark Lord's being unlikely to be defeated by an army of jarveys, but no one paid Snape any heed. They were having too much fun, and feeling far too liberated,! for that. Even the serious-minded took to calling Voldemort 'Riddle,' and making up rude names for his followers, so as to deprive them of the power of fear. It was, in fact, easier to do than it was for most of them, still, to use his invented title.

_______________________________

The Hogwarts of dreams, after that memorable DA session.

Ron and Hermione had waited for them just outside the door of the Room of Requirement. The Headmaster was with them, eyes merry and uncomfortably knowing.

'Ah,' said Dumbledore. 'Draco, my dear boy. Perhaps you would be so good as to accompany me to my office. We have much to discuss, not least your arrangements for the year. And I believe Mr Potter wants time to cross-examine Mr Weasley as to his ... uncharacteristic ... acceptance of you.'

Draco and Harry exchanged a glance of frustrated amusement, and then Draco sauntered away with Dumbledore, bowing to the inevitable.

Settled in the Headmaster's office (the password of the moment, Draco had smiled to hear, was 'Turkish delight'; quite possibly, Dumbledore had had an ... inkling ... of what was to hand, and a taste for Muggle literature), they got quickly down to business.

'Draco, dear boy. Delighted as I am to have you with us, I find myself at rather a loss where to put you. Have you any ideas on what accommodations you are wanting?'

'Sir. I won't, I simply won't, believe that Slytherin House is inherently evil. I can't see why Hogwarts would have such a house to begin with, if it were. I don't really wish to be anything but what I am.'

'I understand, and I quite agree with your principles. My concern, however, is with the rather boring practical issue of your safety. Even you, dear boy, must sleep sometime.'

Draco gave Dumbledore a piercing look. 'I quite expect that what I'm about to say, you know already. But I'll say it anyway. I could, I suppose, have found a less dramatic way to break with my f- - with Lucius. A way that didn't act as an irrevocable and obvious declaration of allegiances. You, I'm sure, know why I didn't. Yes, I know you'd have accepted me without my bringing a ransom, a -' Draco laughed, wryly - 'a bride-piece. But, with respect, Headmaster, yours is not the acceptance that most matters to me.

'And for that matter, anything less dramatic by way of a commitment - and less ceremonial as a confirmation, just now, which I'm sure you're somehow aware of - well, sir, would anything less than that have satisfied those I'm going to have to work with?

'But what I wish to stress, just now, is that the only reason for me to have defected by stealth, would have been that I intended to be a spy in the field, an agent in place. I knew, even then, that neutrality no longer exists, you see. You understand, I'm sure, that my being a spy was impossible. I could not bear to bear the Dark Mark. I couldn't trust myself to keep my footing and my loyalties with that damned thing burnt into my hide - and my mind. I'm not Severus. Oh, don't pretend to look startled, sir, you know full well that I could deduce that much. The only reason the Daft Eaters can't do, is that they simply can't conceive of anyone's being cleverer than they, or able to resist the power of the Mark and the scrutiny of Old Tommy Reptile. Bloody hubris, actually.'

Dumbledore smiled, and his eyes twinkled so merrily it was disturbing.

'Anyway, sir. What I really mean to say is, I could never have a been a spy. I'd've been as poor a spy as I was a villain. Not because of any virtues I possess, but because of my faults. My temperament, my vanity, my unwillingness to suffer fools, my need for the spotlight.... I say: are you certain that that Veritaserum has altogether worn off?'

'I'm afraid so, Draco. This sudden up-rush of candour to the lips that has seized you is not alchemically induced.'

'Oh, bugger.'

Dumbledore actually laughed aloud, and carefully did not wink at Fawkes, the effect of whose tears on Draco, of course, had not yet worn off.

'Damn and blast,' Draco said. 'Well, then. All the more reason I didn't try it on as a spy.'

Dumbledore took pity on him. 'Correct me, my dear child, if I err. What you are taking the long way 'round Robin's barn to say is, You, in rejecting the Dark, have rejected also a career in stealth and the shadows. And your loyalty, both to the Light and to your housemates, impels you to try and remain amongst them to spread the good news, the word. I applaud that, of course. But I must ask you once more, Can you be certain you are safe there? I should not wish to lose you now, even more so than formerly.'

'I know I can trust Blaise. I mean, he can obviously play it off: until Tony Goldstein spoke up, I'd no idea where Blaise actually stood. I'd like to believe that others as well - Greg and Vince, in particular - are truly my friends, not just the lackeys of who I used to be, but, frankly, I don't know. But, sir, someone has to try, at least, to show them they can choose, they can take responsibility for their own souls and their parents be damned, and that it needn't mean, well -'

'"Becoming bloody Gryffindors or ghastly little Hufflepuffs"?'

Draco had the grace to blush. 'Er, more or less, yes.'

'Very well. You have the right to take on this risk. And I trust that much good may come of it. There remains the fact that you and any allies you may have or find in your House cannot maintain, ah, "constant vigilance" around the clock. With your permission, Draco, I would like to take some measures to ensure your safety.'

_______________________________

Meanwhile, in a quiet section of the Gryffindor common room, being conscientiously ignored by their housemates, Harry was sprawled on a settee, with Ron and Hermione close by.

'Look, mate,' Ron said, when the silence had gone past the merely uncomfortable. 'If you intend to, well, brood all evening, Hermione and I would as soon be elsewhere. If you intend to cross-examine us within an inch of our lives, well, we'd still just as soon be elsewhere, but if you do intend on it, we'd best get it over and done, right?'

'I'm sorry,' Harry said. 'I'm just still.... I've seen Riddle and his lackeys. All that bowing and scraping and kissing the hems of robes and what-not. It's not that I don't accept what Draco meant -'

'Oh, cripes, Harry, are you still on about that? There's nothing more unlike the Death Suckers than what My Ickle Cousin did.' Ron was grinning: he had come swiftly to the conclusion that being able to torment Malfoy on a familial basis was even more satisfying than any of the vengeances he had meditated in years past. 'Look, Harry. Magic is about formality, a lot. Ceremony. We -'

'We've always been pretty damned informal.'

'Well, yeah, mate, partly because I come over a rash when I have to be formal, but mainly, we've chucked a load of it just to make you more comfy with things.'

'What?'

'Well, we have done. So stop barracking, all right? We've been right here with you as you've gone from Prince Hal to Henry 5^th, and it's time you were told a bit about "idle ceremony", "thrice-gorgeous ceremony", in our world.'

'Ron, I never marked you for a scholar. That's a Muggle play. Um. Ron?'

'You sure about that?'

'Shakespeare was one of us?'

'Got it in one, mate. What else? He knew that ceremony mattered. Words matter.'

Hermione had a sly smile as she chipped in. 'For example, properly pronouncing "wingardium leviosa", right, Ron?'

Ron gave her the most injured look he could contrive.

'Honestly, Harry,' Hermione said, ploughing on. 'Formality and ceremony are vitally important in our world. If only you'd read -'

'Hermione!'

'Anyway. Ron's right, formality, ceremony, ritual, are most important in magical operations. Oh, you wouldn't know, but that's because you operate on a level of raw power at which most of these issues become irrelevant. But the rest of us don't do. And it was very important that Draco did what he did, and you did what you did.'

'Once you put an elbow in Harry's ribs, yeah. We'd still be sitting there, else.'

She shot Ron a Very Hermione Look. 'Don't you see, Harry? That's the key. All of these Dark rituals, as you should very well realise, have in common that the power flows one way, into Tommy Snakybritches. The rite, the ceremony, that you and Draco enacted - the fealty it involved - surely you realise that it was reciprocal. And it was a very important magical ceremony, if with Malfoy's typical flair for ostentation; I suppose he felt that only the grandest gesture would persuade the others he meant it. But he made that gesture and enacted a very ancient magical rite, and you did reciprocate it, and he could not now betray us, or be used or forced to do, by Riddle himself. If anything, that loyalty oath is stronger than a Fidelius charm.'

'Next time, though,' Ron groused, 'he'll damned well ask before dragging me into any magical operations without my assent. And the pledges were all right, but that bit he tacked on, laughing - I admit, it was at both of us, him and me, but, still - that quip about "turns out Weasley is my king", that was uncalled for, y'ask me, mate.'

'You mean,' Harry said, wonderingly, 'that all that peacocking about was actually an old, I guess pureblood, loyalty spell?'

'Got it in one, Harry.' Hermione was pleased, but obviously thought it had taken forever for the penny to drop. 'And what made it effective, and different from what the Deaf Adders do, is that element of reciprocity. It was binding because it was reciprocal. Just as much as was the formation of the DA, when we bound ourselves together in signing the parchment. Together, Harry, that's the key. Malf- - Draco pledged duties to you, yes, but you pledged back, in reciprocity. Faith for faith, loyalty for loyalty, protection for protection. It's one of the deepest and highest and most powerful magics there is.'

Harry's face was tight with concentration. 'I just can't imagine.... I can't believe. Oh, I don't mean that I don't accept and believe that Draco is on our side now. I do. I know it as well as I know myself.' Hermione and Ron exchanged a glance that all but audibly said, 'Showed him his own pensieve, did he?' Harry was oblivious, lost in thought. 'It's just hard to take it all in. Every day, since I was eleven, I've learnt something new, almost by accident, about a world I still don't seem to know the half of. And every day, the pressure to save that world ratchets up a bit. It's ... I hate this. I hate not knowing. I hate not being told. "Discipline" and Bellowes be damned.'

Harry's memory went to a brief moment, after the DADA lecture, when Bellowes had beckoned him aside, and managed what was almost a whisper, for him. 'Potter! A word! Flea in your ear, m'boy. Mark what I said about discipline, mind. But remember this, too. I'll put it in your own terms.' Harry doubted that: updated editions or not, Col Bellowes always seemed a few decades off. 'There is one right that discipline and good order can never and shall never take from the soldier, down to the rawest recruit and the simplest ranker. And that, m'boy, that is the soldier's immemorial and sacred right to be browned off and to, um, blind on about it.'

Harry shook off the memory. 'I just. Damn it, I bloody hate this. Not only the being kept in the dark deliberately, but all the times I find something out by chance, something important, that everyone just assumes I must know. I suppose that as the bleeding saviour-hero of the wizarding world, one part Christ and three parts Beowulf, I'm just presumed to know every sodding thing!'

'Harry -'

'I hate this! Everyone expects me to lead them into a battle for the fate of the sodding cosmos, and, let me tell you, it's bloody hard to do when you've one foot in your mouth and the hand that isn't holding your wand is dropping bricks!'

'Harry! Christ, mate, climb down.'

'It's a bit of magic fatigue,' Hermione said, very sure of herself. 'You've not only had to process a goodish deal of news today, you had a spot of oracle-pronouncing. Just take a deep breath, and let go.'

Harry shuddered, and, as it were, surfaced from his slough of despair. 'Sorry.' He frowned. 'I seem to spend a lot of time saying that.'

'Well, as Remus says, "The cure for fear is information". You're perfectly right that too much is kept from you and too much is expected of you. Especially when it's simultaneous. We shouldn't have burdened you by being evasive when you had questions.'

Impulsively, Harry hugged her, and Ron as well. It was as if they were first-years again.

'Right, then. Even with everything I do know, even though I know Draco is on our side. I'm still having trouble understanding. And I'm having even more trouble with the way you two are handling this. I've never much minded what Draco did to me, before. But when I think of how he was to you....'

'You think I should be having a fit of Weasley temper, with some Mad-Eye paranoia tossed in?'

'You and Hermione both.'

'Well, I did do, mate. Early in the summer, when you were at the Dursley Dungeon and out of the swim. But if you want an explanation of the whole thing, as to us and as to Draco, I can answer in a word. Tonks.'

'Tonks is responsible for all these changes of heart?'

'Let's say,' Hermione said, with an air of scientific precision, 'she was the catalyst. As to the ultimate causes, well, I think there are any number of those, from the day two eleven-year-olds met in Madam Malkin's, to Regulus's death, to Col Bellowes's guest lecture in DADA. But for now, Tonks is sufficient explanation.'

'After the Dementors went over to Vipermort, and the buggers who. The ones from the Department of Mysteries. Them. After they broke prison and scarpered, Tonks took a hand. Played her own hand, too, not a word to anyone.'

'Bellatrix.' Harry's voice was cool.

'Harry?'

'I saw.' They wisely refrained from asking if he was referring to a vision - or to his look into Draco's pensieve that they weren't supposed to have the foggiest about.

'I saw,' Harry repeated, musingly, puzzling it out as he spoke. 'Saw Bellatrix, that is, not knowing it was Tonks. Of course. Tonks could get past any Light wards, couldn't she, they'd know her, as an Auror or an Order member. As a Metamorphmagus, and Andromeda's daughter, with the blood of the House of Black in her veins, she could fool any Dark wards Lucius had installed. So ... hell, she penetrated Malfoy Manor, repeatedly, and pretended to one of her aunts that she was another of her aunts. My God, the slightest slip and she could've been killed, very slowly and painfully!'

'We all could be. That's why it's so important to get allies where we may, Harry.'

'What did you see, mate? Tonks was abso-bloody-lutely cagey with me about details. Did she spin Malfoy a good yarn?'

'No. All she did was tell the truth. I don't imagine Draco'd've heard much of that as a child. She told the truth, brutally. That he needn't think that pure blood or high birth would protect him: look at what they'd done to Regulus when he'd tried to break ranks. That even though - and of course he'd have seen the actual scene, then or later, in Lucius's pensieve - even though the "bone of the father" was that of a Muggle, they simply had to believe there was an explanation, and that the Dark Lord was truly a pureblood as he claimed he was; that unconditional trust and obedience to him were essential, and no questioning of him. That after their victory, Muggles would be reclassified as beasts, and used accordingly. That Lucius naturally had to put the Dark Lord first, and his family second, as all the Dark Lord's servants must.

'And every time Narcissa tried to shut her up, she ranted on about how Draco needed to be prepared, and swiftly, for his destiny of "absolute service and mindless, unquestioning obedience" - which Draco took well, I don't bloody think. Well, everyone knows that cow Bellatrix is utterly mad, and violent with it: it's not as if Narcissa could do much more than protest. And there was a lot more of the same, about the New Order, and cleansing the world of half-bloods and, um, anyone else who didn't fit in, and how important it is to kill, well, me, especially as, as "Bella" - read, "Tonks" - said, I was the last of the senior line of the Very Ancient Potters and All That.'

'He must've squirmed like a flobberworm before he saw the light, must our favourite ferret. I mean, hearing all that.' Ron and Hermione exchanged a secretive and conspiratorial glance.

'I think the idea that purebloods and even his own family were regarded by Old Adderface as mere tools and servants stung, yeah. And then to have seen what Lucius's pensieve showed him. Well.'

'And that's where we come in,' Ron said. 'I mean, Tonks has always been a favourite cousin of ours, even though she's closer in blood to Draco, through Narcissa. I didn't know any details, I certainly didn't imagine the ferrety git had the sheer neck to pilfer Looshy's pensieve and do a runner to the Light side, but I'd had some preparation for all this, and time to digest it, once I got through throwing a few temperaments.'

'Given what he's put you and Hermione through, Ron, I'd say you're allowed. I'm still in shock that you're able to accept this as it is, even with a few months's vague warning.'

Ron flushed a bit under the freckles. 'Mum has that sort of heart, you know. Strays and such. And, well, when you think that he's basically walked away from millions and a manor and his own family just for the sake of right. And with the Percy situation, I like to keep my family numbers, the ones in good standing, topped up. And, besides,' Ron said, speaking rapidly and turning very red, 'he is a very powerful little ferret, not to say that we don't have the utmost faith in you, Harry, but we can use all the help that's offered, and, well, he could help. I mean, I'd almost let the little poofter snog me if that's what it took to get him on our side - no tongue, though. Um. Harry? You're doing that stare thing again.'

'"Poofter"? "What it takes to get him on our side"? Ron, you're ... well, I hope you're mental.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Honestly. Boys. And God forbid they should ever actually talk about things. Yes, Harry, Draco is partial to the company of gentlemen, if you insist on being delicate about it. So's Zabini, for that matter. Did you think that Seamus, Dean, and Finch-Fletchley were the only ones in our year?' She paused, and went in for the mercy-kill. 'I mean, apart from yourself?'

Harry turned several shades more pale than, say, Sir Nicholas, and simply goggled at them.

'And Malferret's always been obsessed with you, Harry. And still is, even now he can't play it off as hatred any longer, now he's done a bunk to our lines. You're an honorary Weasley, you poor sod, I have to get used to whoever -'

'"Whomever",' Hermione said.

'- Whatever you bring home.'

Harry was gibbering, faintly.

'Oh, Harry. Honestly. Of course we knew about you. It's not the end of the world. It's obvious to us because we care, and we've been there through the whole set of, well, really, one can only call them fiascos, when you've tried to date girls. When the pin-up boy of the wizarding world can't manage to get off with any one of a succession of girls, the reason becomes mildly obvious. I know, from being raised Muggle, you feel that this is just another burden on you when you're overburdened already, and that it's not fair that, once again, you have to be "different" somehow. But - and it is in the assigned reading, Harry, and you really ought to have seen it already - in the wizarding world, conservative as it is in so many ways, this is not an issue. And that is because you go where your magic takes you. Remus and Sirius, Dean and Seamus ... certainly there are those who aren't comfortable having magic that locks in, that bonds, only with same-sex partn! ers; I think it's one reason there are so many very powerful witches and wizards who are single, though of course in any given instance they may simply have never found a proper mate with whom their magics aligned. But you and Draco have been yin and yang here since you started, Harry. If what we think is happening, is happening, don't fight it, and don't think it a burden, or shameful, or something to hide. The -'

There was, as always, no telling how long one of Hermione's expository lectures would have lasted: at least so far she hadn't cited references, or footnoted herself: but a school owl put paid to it in any case.

The missive was from the headmaster.

My dear Harry,

Please join me in my office, where Mr Malfoy and I await you and Professor Snape for a brief but important task. Please bring your wand. The password this hour is now "lavender pastilles".

- Albus Dumbledore

'I think,' Ron said, as they shamelessly read over Harry's shoulder, 'it's time for some of that feudal, ceremonial reciprocity.'

_______________________________

'Potter. Why are you loitering here?'

'I've just arrived, Professor. The Headmaster wants me to join you in his office.'

'It is too much to hope that you are being punished. If I am to be forced to attend upon you as well as upon the Headmaster, then the punishment is evidently mine.'

'"Lavender pastilles",' Harry said, mostly to stop Snape's incessant whinging. The door opened and they took to the stair.

_______________________________

'You think Harry bought into all that?'

'Honestly, Ron. It isn't as if you were spinning him a yarn.' The clear implication in Hermione's tone was, You'd damned well best not have been.

'Nnnnnoooooo.... I am putting a better face on it, for him. Cousin Draco and I still want to have a good, long chat if we're really to clear the air. But Harry needed unreserved support, so, I gave it him.'

'You're a good man, Ronald Weasley. And a good friend.'

Ron ducked his head. 'Well. It's been a bit of a facer, but. I really do find myself admiring what Malfoy did.'

'It took courage, I admit, but you've plenty of that yourself. I should know.'

Ron blushed. 'Not that sort. I mean, stealing the pensieve. Right, that took some nous. But, yeah, sort of thing Harry does for brekker, and you and I have been along for some of those larks. But, listen. All I have to do here is walk away from a blood feud. Look at what Draco walked away from, though. I mean, bloody hell, I don't even have to give up my feud with the Malfoys, actually - when the war does come, I hope like everything that I get to be the one to take Lucius down. I just have to recognise that Draco has chosen to not be a Malfoy any more.

'But he walked away from everything. From millions, Hermione. Millions. Not a shiny badge and place and preferment, like Percy wants to do if he ever expects to get his feet under Mum's table again, but a name and an inheritance and a sodding great fortune.

'And I'm not altogether sure I could have done, in his boots. Every man has his price. And, Christ, that's a lot of dosh.'

'Nonsense, Ron. You might just possibly not have done simply for the sake of the Light, but you'd certainly have done for love of Harry, just as Draco has.'

'I'd like to believe that, Hermione. I really would. But Draco's right about that, too. Sometimes, being in Harry's shadow all the time.... I try not to resent it. I should be used to it, it's not much different, after growing up as the littlest Weasley brother. But, well.'

Hermione's chin was up and her mouth firm. 'Ron, stop this. If you can't be just to Draco and Harry, at least be just to yourself. You'd have done as Draco did, for the love of Harry and of what is right, no matter what temptations were put in your way. I know that. I know you.'

'Are you sure? Because it seems to me that you've missed something. I don't, er, love Harry quite the way we both suss out in Draco. You'd have to look elsewhere for that component. What I mean to say is. Well. Um. Bugger it, all right, here, I would hope that I'd do as well as Draco did but if I did it would be for the sake of the Light and the good of Harry and the love of, well, damn it, you. Um. Bugger, I just said all that aloud, didn't I.'

_______________________________

'So you see, Severus, as his Head of House, you will need to be still more attentive to Mr Malfoy's safety than commonly. And if you have any ideas for potions that might enhance his defences, please tell me.'

Snape looked sourly at Dumbledore, and then, even more sourly, at Draco, who was standing very close to Harry.

'It is unfortunate, Mr Malfoy, that, in war, one cannot always choose one's allies. I condole with you on the fact that supporting what is right also entails supporting the celebrated Mr Potter.' Snape's voice dripped acid. 'But in accepting allies of necessity, one need not be forced into befriending those whom one would wish not to befriend.'

'I didn't join Harry's side only because it was the side of Light, Professor. I joined the side of Light because it was Harry's side.'

'Merlin's Balls! "Harry", Mr Malfoy?'

'Yes, Professor. My friend, Harry. And my cousin Ron, and my friend Hermione -'

'Disgusting. I had thought you, at least, were immune to the overblown glamour of our resident celebrity -'

'Don't snivel, Severus.' Dumbeldore's voice was sharper and far less patient than any there had previously heard.

Snape slewed around, robes billowing, and stared at the headmaster. 'Was that choice of words deliberate, Headmaster?'

'It most certainly was, Professor Snape. I am going to say to you what I said to Weasley Minimus over the summer hols, when he pitched a fit. I would that Sirius and James were here to hear it as well, because they could have profited by it also, instead of very nearly, in their arrogance and Black's spite, costing us your worth and undoubted services. In time of peace, these infantile feuds are of little lasting import, though still to be reprehended. This, however, is a time of war. We are fortunate, given the existence of just such a feud in recent years, to have Draco with us at all. Particularly now that he is with us, I will not tolerate any schoolboy rivalries that might jeopardise our chances of victory, and thus of survival: is that clear? Hogwarts will be united, or I'll know the reason why. You, Severus, have kept up your feud with James well beyond the grave, through his son. You assumed from the outset that he was just like his father, a father ! he never knew, and you presumed to take him down a peg, believing that he had been raised as a celebrity. Once you realised that this was the furthest thing from the truth, you were stuck, because the only time in your life you've ever admitted to a mistake was when you turned up here with the Dark Mark on your arm, begging sanctuary in return for spying on Tom Riddle.'

'Headmaster!'

'Be quiet, Severus. No good whatever has come of secrets and withheld information, and I shan't have it any longer. Am I understood? Very well. I cannot command that you all like one another, but I can insist that you leave off these childish feuds and respect one another, and I do.

'Now. Severus, you would oblige me by researching protective potions. Harry, you and I will be casting a charm upon Draco, of the order Protego. If you care to assist, Severus, you are most welcome to stay.'

'Am I to suppose my potion can wait five minutes, then?'

'Professor?' It was Harry who spoke.

'Yes?' Snape growled, but he avoided positive incivility.

Harry put out his hand. 'I owe you rather a lot, sir, in what you've taught me and what you've done for us, and for me, since the first, when you helped save me from Quirrell. And I owe you several apologies for my past conduct. Pax, sir?'

Snape stared at him, and at the proffered hand.

'Well, Severus?' Dumbledore's voice was of its accustomed humour and gentleness, now, and the twinkle was back in his eye.

'Apology ... accepted, Potter. I shall, er, make an effort to work with you better in future, on Order matters. Do not, however, presume that I shall not be very difficult to live with if you are a dunce in Potions.'

Harry grinned, ruefully. 'Then we do have a problem, sir, as I am a dunce in Potions.'

'Perhaps Mr Malfoy could tutor you, Harry?' Dumbledore was quite failing to suppress a smile. Draco grinned back at him, and jogged Harry's shoulder.

'I'll have him up to Longbottom's standard in a week,' he said, cheekily.

Snape shuddered.

'Oh, come, Severus. I know you are not one for Muggle matters, but - have you seen their cinema play, Casablanca?'

'In which the Yanks and the Frogs single-handedly defeat the Hun in North Africa whilst, presumably, Monty, and for that matter Rommel, is playing tiddlywinks somewhere near Alamein? I have. It is alleged to be a "classic", after all.'

'Then you will recall the final scene in which the American publican and the French policeman wander off to join DeGaulle, and the American says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship"?'

'I'm not -'

'I was, in fact, referring to Harry and Draco.'

'Thank God. I was afraid you'd booked them for the Bogart and Bergman roles.'

'Professor!' Both boys spoke as one, and sounded scandalised; but their matching blushes did not advance their cause.

Snape looked ill. 'Sweet Merlin. I meant to be in jest.'

'Ah,' said the Head. 'That is the one area in which I do permit secrets and confidences. We shall simply see what results, shall we? It's nothing to be frightened of, however. Love for Harry has already defeated Riddle in the past....'

'I remind you, Headmaster, that both students are underage, and are, in any case, students. Although the fact is unlikely ever to have impinged on the consciousness of either, given what both have gotten away with in the past, we do, actually, have rules here.'

'And I am certain that whatever transpires, neither Harry nor Draco will ever be required to appear before me on such a matter.' As usual, Dumbledore had chosen his words carefully, converting an absolute prohibition into a qualified permission: just don't get caught.

'Now. If the two of you are done blushing like schoolgirls? Very well. Draco, do you assent to our casting a protective spell on you?'

'I do.'

'Severus, Harry, wands out, and concentrate. I shall do the actual incanting.'

_______________________________

'I thought you were going to pass out for lack of oxygen when you rattled off that declaration, Ron.'

'Hermione....'

'I could just kiss Harry and Draco! They finally got you to admit it.'

'Alternatively, as you're in my lap and all, you could kiss me.'

'Are you sure you've your breath back?' Her smile was wicked.

_______________________________

'Well,' said Dumbledore. 'That's a turn-up for the books.'

'What?' Draco was panicky. Without appearing to be aware of it, he was clutching Harry's hand in his fear. 'Did it not work? Did it turn me into a newt? Did it muss my hair? What?'

Faintly, Dumbledore could hear Harry whisper, '"Y'don't look like a newt." "I go' be'er."'

'Calm yourself,' Snape spat. 'You are a Slytherin, Malfoy. Panic does not become you. The spell worked. That is to say, it accomplished its protective task. And you have suffered no ... visible ... changes. As to the rest, I shall defer to our esteemed Headmaster.'

Dumbledore was beaming far too eupeptically to swat Snape down. 'My dear boy, you are shielded admirably, and with great power, indeed. Very little harm can now come to you, even without our walls. The ... unexpected ... element -'

Snape snorted.

'- Is another matter altogether. When Harry assented to participate in your protection, and I cast the spell, something very remarkable occurred. Your magics bonded in a way that happens very rarely indeed. And they did so, simply, because they fit, like puzzle pieces, yin and yang, a key and a lock. Hogwarts has not seen such a magical bonding since 1744.'

'But what does it mean?'

Snape looked as if he would be sick at any moment. 'It means, Mr Malfoy, that you and Mr Potter are bound together magically - and inextricably. You can, if choose, go through a nuptial ceremony later -'

'What?'

'- But it would be a mere formality. It also means that, legally, you have just emancipated yourselves, and are now adults, with the disabilities of minority removed. Which, to be fair, at least means your parents, Draco, have no further legal claim upon you. You see, when two magics bond together in this way, in the course of a legitimate spell that was not cast by an interested party with the intention of creating such a bond -' and here Snape looked very hard at a smiling Albus Dumbledore - 'the ensuing bonding is treated as a permanent pair-bond.'

'Of course,' Dumbledore said, smiling in his beard, 'sometimes it's a surprise to all concerned. Ethelred the Unedifying records an instance in 840 when two enemies were accidentally, um, paired in this way. I certainly didn't anticipate this: the provisions Professor Snape cites are rarely at issue, as such bonds can only occur at very high levels of matured magical power, and one very rarely sees such levels in under-aged, or indeed youthful, wizards. You may well imagine,' he said carefully, 'that this was a wholly unanticipated side-effect.'

Snape's black and mordant humour was beginning to break through, lured to the fore by the utterly gob-smacked look on the two youths's faces. 'I suppose I should instruct one of you that you may now kiss the bride?'

Draco sputtered, and Harry shot Snape a look that clearly repented of his prior apology.

'I might as well have taken a post at a Muggle public school,' Snape sneered. 'I understand that, mirroring the Muggle navy, they have three traditions: tuck, sodomy, and the cane.'

'Severus....'

'My apologies. I trust you will all understand my need for a defensive mechanism at this point.'

'Yes, well,' said Dumbledore. 'In this context, I'm sure it will prompt Professor Snape to regale us with new levels of wit, but I must say, there is the matter of a ring.'

'A ring?' Draco was on the verge of hysteria. 'Harry and I only admitted we fancied each other and wanted to see where this went, just this afternoon! We've not so much as snogged yet, and you're telling me we're magically married?'

'You could remedy the deficiency now without anyone's having the right to object,' Dumbledore noted.

'No, thank you,' Harry said, holding onto his temper with both hands. 'If we are bonded, we are bonded. But I am not going to force the pace with Draco, and if he were to decide never to, um, if he found someone else, I would respect that and let him go. In any case, though, if we do kiss, I'm damned - with respect - if our first kiss is going to be in this office with our Headmaster and our Potions professor watching!'

Snape and Draco said, 'Thank you,' simultaneously - though their tones of voice were very different.

'Harry, dear boy. Draco. Be at peace,' Dumbledore said. 'The ring I speak of is a ring of protection.' He drew an oddly carven casket from a drawer. Inside it was a plain metal band that glistened curiously in the light. 'This ring was crafted and worn by Rowena Ravenclaw herself. If any danger threatens you that you are not alert to - as when you are sleeping, or distracted - it will transport you to a place of safety within these grounds.'

'But Hermione is forever reminding us -'

'That you cannot apparate at Hogwarts? And that the wards are impenetrable? Very true. Yet the house-elves get about, and Fawkes, like all phoenixes, appears wherever he listeth....'

'Headmaster. Are you telling me that if Nott tries to throttle me in my sleep, house-elves will appear out of the blue and translocate me to Gryffindor Tower?'

'I'm saying, my dear Draco, that there are magics other than apparition, and that you will be safe. Equally, if you are awake and in need of aid, the ring will summon aid to you.'

'But how?'

'Let us hope, my dear child, we need never learn. Now. You've had a trying day, the both of you -'

'They're not alone in that,' Snape muttered.

'- And I suggest that you, Harry, go to bed, and that you, Draco, go to the Potions room and await Severus. Severus, a word?'

_______________________________

Ron and Hermione - not without some backchat, including suggestions that, as they'd been snogging passionately and publicly for much of the evening, they had an ulterior motive - had managed to get everyone else out of the common room, and awaited Harry's return together.

When he stumbled through the door, looking drained, they were on their feet at once.

'Hullo,' he said, taking in their dishevelment, and putting off having to answer their questions by pre-empting them with his own. 'You've had an eventful time, I can see. Ron finally admitted he was mad keen on you, did he?'

'We'll tell you in the morning, mate.' Ron was in haste to change the subject. 'You look done in.'

'Yes,' Hermione said. 'If our evening was eventful, yours must have been momentous. What happened?'

'Not much,' Harry said, hollowly, swaying on his feet as he spoke. 'Made friends with Snape. Joined in casting a protection spell on Draco. Inadvertently married him.'

The twin thuds were occasioned by Ron's fainting and Harry's passing out.

_______________________________

v. And We in Dreams Behold the Hebrides

An unimaginable life after Hogwarts, after Domdaniel.

It had been McGonagall's idea, naturally enough. Bonded they may have been since the day Draco publicly chose the Light, but there was still a need for thrice-gorgeous ceremony. The need, by now, was within them as well as without, and in the days of peace it was now possible to satisfy that need and formalise the position. Minerva, with Ernie Macmillan, had taken the matter in hand, and pulled the strings that only they could pull (there was something, after all, to be said for Ernie's having the connexions he did on the Muggle side of the family, from publishers to prime ministers). Harry remained a nominal Anglican, by default, of the class that normally attended church only for 'matchings, hatchings, and despatchings'; Draco's family had for a millennium remained nominal - and, for generations of Dark Malfoys, vehemently unchurched - members of the wizarding world's old, hidden Celtic communion.

The choice of Iona for the nuptials had been inspired.

'Scared, Potter?' Draco's smile lit the narthex.

'You wish, Malfoy,' Harry grinned.

_______________________________

Truly, an unimaginable life after Hogwarts, after Domdaniel; unimaginable, but seeming, somehow, right, predestined.

'There, love. I promised you something special, and I always keep my promises. Your plebeian treat of your pint and your pie, courtesy of the Guide Mich'-worthy talents of Chef Malfoy.'

'Draco! That's ... unnaturally sweet, really, and disturbingly out of character. But thank you. Um.'

'Yes?'

'This is not precisely a pint and a pie, as served down the Broomsticks.'

'Harry, are you questioning me? The greatest Potions master since Severus Snape?'

Harry just gestured at the table.

Draco raised a challenging eyebrow. 'Look here, damn it, I carefully researched this. Cooking is merely a branch of Potions, after all. The book was very clear. A pie is meat and gravy, possibly with what I shudder to see is slangily called a "veg", in a pasty-type shell. And - despite your having been brought up in some Surrey-With-the-Whinge-On-Top back street - you have an hereditary, West Country, Potterish weakness for cider as your pint. And that is precisely what you have been given.'

'Darling, I'm not ungrateful, please know that. But when you put a fillet of beef together with mushrooms, onions, butter, Madeira, truffles, and God knows what else, and shove it in a puff pastry shell, it's not a pie any longer, it's beef Wellington. And when a chap has a pint of cider down the local, it's not, generally, Calvados.'

Draco gave him one of his delightfully mixed smiles: the ones that always made him remember just why he loved Draco so: of mischief, playful arrogance, self-mockery, and fondness all compact. 'I said I'd give you your horrid little pint-and-pie, love, I never said I'd lower myself to make it vulgar. Now, as Cousin Ron would doubtless say - probably with his mouth already full - get stuck in.'

_______________________________

'Well. This is it. It's technically your property, now, you may as well look at it, O Heir of Black.'

Harry drew Draco closer to his side as he stared at the vast pile, which seemed to sneer back at him.

'It's not as bad as it seems. Come to that, it's not as bad as it was. Cousin Tonks's gift to us: she's been ripping up all the Dark rubbish in and around it, from wards to load-bearing spells, and replacing them with Light ones. No, don't panic, she had help: after all, it's still standing, isn't it?'

'Yes. Well. Now that I think of, we could quite likely have defeated Tiny Tom well beforehand if only we'd let Tonks and Neville loose in his HQ. What she didn't break, Nev would have blown up accidentally.'

Draco gave him a steady look. 'It won't bite, Harry.'

'Well, not post-Tonks, perhaps. So this is Malfoy Manor.'

'Ghastly, isn't it.'

'Well, impressive, in a Late Visigothic Revival sort of way. Nice situation, though.'

'Yes, well, my forebears quite liked the idea of having Stonehenge in the park and Woodhenge as a folly. God, but we were a pretentious lot. But - oh! Harry, we do at least have private water! A whole, lovely stretch of good chalk-stream, positively rife with trout!' Draco's eyes gleamed with the madness peculiar to anglers.

Harry smiled, and kissed him. 'To think that the Prince of Slytherin and Spymaster for the Order has been reduced to outwitting fish.'

'Rather more difficult than outwitting Gryffindors, in my experience. And loads more challenging than foiling Tommy Riddle Taradiddle. Besides, a man must have a hobby, and the war played hell with our preserves. It will be simply ages before we can get any use out of the Malfoy shooting-box up in Bedale.'

'Shooting what,' Harry was startled into asking.

'Muggles, of course. Oh, for the love of Merlin, Harry, don't be thick. Martlets, naturally. Now, come along. You have to face the damned house eventually, why not now?'

_______________________________

The dream-world. After Hogwarts, after victory, after University at a re-founded Domdaniel that shared the castle with Hogwarts. After deaths and pain and a love that even prophecy might boggle at, and after their real adulthood was at last upon them.

The garden party to celebrate Hermione's D. Mag. was going great guns. A stretch of the west lawns of Hogwarts and a way to the castle doors had been charmed, masterfully, into the semblance of a Southern English springtime, banked with flowers, shaded by trees in blossom, sonorous with bees and birdsong. Without the area that Draco and Harry had created, the hoar and sleet were flailed by a cutting Scottish wind, in keeping with the reality of a Highlands April. They had created for their friend a magical Arcady, fit for the pastorals of English poetry, even in the heart of the Caledonian weather, and Hermione was still overwhelmed by the gift.

She was also overwhelmed by the noise and the jollity, and confessed as much. She was taking a much needed break from the blazered-and-flannelled Old Boys (Draco, planning the do, had said he never wanted to see another Creevey in a morning coat and topper from Moss Bros so long as he lived) and the Old Girls in daring spring frocks and frivolous hats, from the strawberries and cream and the inevitable claret cup, sitting quietly with Harry, Draco, and Ron.

'My God,' she sighed. 'Will we ever mature?'

Ron looked at her in alarm: he was firmly and notoriously of the opinion that she'd been forty since First Year.

'One rather hopes not,' Draco drawled. 'Growing older is in the book of the rules, but I see no obligation whatever to mature. One might wrinkle.'

'Thank you, Dorian Gray,' Harry murmured. Draco lazily flicked at Harry's ear.

'Mind the ear, love, that's for nibbling, not flicking.'

Ron made ostentatious sicking-up noises.

Hermione, of course, had long since learnt to ignore them all. 'I mean, my God. Honestly, you listen to them, and they all sound the same. The same as one another. The same as they did when we were third years. Individually, they're as competent, intelligent, individual, as anyone can well be. But put them together, especially here, and they revert to little schoolchildren without a thought in their heads beyond Quidditch, gossip, and tuck. It's as if, en masse, they polyjuice into so many Lavenders and Colins.'

'Saucer of milk, Hermione?' Draco was grinning, and Harry added a quiet miaow.

Ron put his hands up. 'It's your skins, not mine, you're risking.'

'It's different for the two of you, and you know it,' Hermione said. 'You've been at it for years -' Ron stifled a dirty-minded snort - 'and you'll spend the next century and a bit, growing more like another by the day: Harry more sophisticated, Draco less waspish, each of you bringing out the best in the other. It's a function of your particular bond. But Blaise is, after all, the Bursar of Hogwarts, and he and Justin still remain trapped in that awful Evelyn Waugh Oxford æsthete persona they've both adopted.'

'Bloody Blaise,' Harry said. 'Don't let that fool you, Hermione. Do you know what he had the cheek to do? Wrote my solicitors, if you please, with a claim against Sirius's estate for the period during which Buckbeak - as property of Hogwarts, mind you - was at Number 12.'

'Yes, precisely, Harry. That's Blaise when he's on the job. And you've had more to do with him than I in small groups. But what sends me absolutely 'round the twist is that - well, look at them.' She waved in the direction of the marquee, and of Dobby tending bar. 'They've all of them, Blaise and Justin included, regressed to a comfortable infantilism for the duration of the party. And unless you are looking, or you recognise the actual tones, you could hardly tell who was speaking if you listened to them cottoning away.'

'Well,' said a diffident voice from behind them, 'it's always that way, isn't it?'

They turned and saw a comfortably shabby figure with an academic and kindly stoop.

'Neville! Pull up a chair and join us.' Draco's smile was welcoming - and respectful.

'Yes, do, Nev,' said Hermione. 'You're one of the few exceptions to the problem. You've grown into yourself and become a man.'

'Funny, really,' Neville smiled, 'as it's generally thought that my model as a professor is everyone's favourite werewolf. But, like Harry - sorry to be so blunt, Draco - I've never much cared for looking smart, and Herbology's not a discipline that conduces to much in the way of sartorial turnout anyway. And, unlike Harry, even if Draco were my dresser, I'd never pull off the Witch Weekly centrefold look.'

'Nev,' Harry said, with an anguished look.

'Don't be embarrassed, Harry, it suits you, and you should thank Draco for pushing you to dress well.'

'He does,' Draco smirked. 'Nightly.'

'Do you mind,' Ron moaned. 'I just had that salmon terrine.'

'Fortunately,' Neville went on, cutting off the repartee, 'Luna's not clothes-minded, either.

'But. To return to what Hermione was saying - couldn't help overhearing, Doctor Weasley -'

'No, that's fine, Neville.'

'- She's quite right, you know, Hermione is. Part of what Hogwarts does, part of what it's meant to do, is to take all the raw material the wizarding world can feed into it, and, well. Make it homogeneous. And Domdaniel just puts a glaze on that. You know, it really is fascinating, now we have so many more Muggle-born students, I see the parallels. The Muggle public schools and the Muggle Universities, especially, where there are more scholarship undergraduates, do the same thing, in turning all that come through into so many little Old Boys and Old Girls with the same tastes and the same accent, the same set of references and the same shared prejudices.'

'You're quite right,' Hermione said, thoughtfully. 'I see that, really, in the Muggles I knew as a child. They may have started on the same suburban street, but if one of them, say, ends up at Oxford, she turns into something almost indistinguishable from Justin, who was down for Eton since he was a zygote.'

'Rather as Harry did, in his own way. I mean, Dursley -' Draco loaded the word with more disgust than anyone else could have managed - 'was a company director in a small way, but, my God. A pebble-dash detached somewhere in the arse region of Staines.... And Smeltings is barely a public school within the meaning of the act. Even for a Muggle member of the Evans family, Harry, your Aunt Petunia married down, by a longish chalk. And the idea that you, of all people, were raised in that ribbon-built wasteland....'

'Draco -'

'He's onto something, though, Harry,' Ron said. 'Hogwarts did have that sort of levelling influence. Nev's dead on, there.'

'And in our generation,' Neville added, 'there was the war. In a way, it took us out of the scholastic cotton-wool, but in another, it just added to the regimentation. Of course the little cuckoos all sound and think and act alike, with the same schoolboy slang and the same schoolgirl pashes. Hogwarts saw to that. But it's necessary, mind you. No, really, it is, Hermione. Go and take Bellowes off the shelf and ask - I'll dig out some Herbology earmuffs for you. First you break them down and make them uniform whilst you train them. Then you free them to find themselves and stand or fall on their own merits. They're young, still, our contemporaries. Even the DA members, most of them, even the ones who fought with the Order, they've most of them not seen what we've seen. Their adulthood is just commencing. We've potted them well, watered them and dunged them, pruned them into shape. Now we just want time to see how they bud out.'

'I remember,' Harry said, thoughtfully, 'something Dumbledore told me, once. "I would not have wished these things upon you, my dear boy. But even so, it is better for us all, and you not least, that you were not brought up in a hothouse. Not with all that you were destined to face, and be. Much as we all now cherish him, after all, I really thought that one Draco Malfoy at Hogwarts would be enough to be going on with."'

Draco pouted, prettily, until Harry relented and kissed him.

'And he went on to say that, some day, I would learn that "power, and riches, and place, and position, and status, and even a sense of style, are weapons, nothing more," and that when that time came, I would be better prepared to use them, and value them at their real worth, without being used or defined by them.'

'Well,' Draco said, 'he was right about that part of his little homily, at least.'

Neville made an expansive gesture, barely missing Ron's glass. 'You see, that's the other part of the, well, the pruning process here. Luna, and Dean, and Seamus, and Blaise to some extent, certainly Pansy, you, Colin and Dennis, Tony, Ernie, you lot, Ginny - all the Weasleys, really. You were never, even then, anyone but who you were, and it stood out. That was the sort of character that Bellowes had in mind when he talked about natural leadership. And it's the sort of character that stood out, always, in Remus and Severus and Minerva and Rubeus and, actually, in my own revered predecessor.'

'And in you, Nev.'

'Oh, rubbish, Draco, but thank you. But the rest of them will grow into some sort of the same thing as the years pass. All of you simply had a head start on being yourselves, being identifiable, having your own voices, though of course it's much more apparent now, even for you, than it was at school.'

'Not for Cousin Ron,' Draco said. 'Not for any of the Weasleys, really, but especially never for Ron. Or Gred and Forge, for that matter. They always stood out. Ron.... I've always wondered. No, never mind.'

'Bugger that, mate. There's nothing you can ask I won't answer.'

'Well. If you're sure. It's just that.... Uncle Arthur was, even then, a reasonably senior civil servant, you'd a brother in banking, Weasleys and Prewitts are Old Hogwartians time out of mind....'

'So why did I come across as a yob and a tearaway?'

'Well, that's not, actually, quite how I intended to phrase it, but, Yes.'

'Had to stand out, didn't I? Be the un-Percy. Be the un-Black, and pureblood propaganda be damned.'

'Be the un-Malfoy, too, I imagine.'

'Could you blame me?'

'Not now.'

'Reverse snobbery, really. Picked it up from Tonks, a bit, whose whole attitude was that the House of Black could get stuffed. And of course Bill was the complete rebel, he so desperately wanted to be a latter-day Marauder, the new Sirius, and Charlie's mates in the dragon trade are a damned mixed lot. And you'll note that even Neville flies the North-Countree flag a bit, as a two-fingered salute to some of the toffs and snobs we have.'

'I could wear a flat hat and buy a whippet, if it would help,' Neville smiled, putting an extra dollop of Lancashire in his voice. 'If, of course, "t'missus" doesn't mind.'

Hermione laughed.

'All serene, then?' Ron's voice was fond.

'Yes. Thank you all. I feel much more confident of the future, now.'

'Then, Doctor Weasley,' Ron said, proffering his arm, 'it's your bloody bean-feast, we'd as well go circulate again.'

'Coming, Nev?'

'No, thanks, Hermione, I'll stay here with Draco and Harry a bit.' He patted his belly, which was much leaner than in his schooldays. 'I'm pogged, wi' all t' tack these two Mary Ellens laid on.'

Hermione giggled, unnervingly. 'We'll send Luna over if we can unlatch her from that windy ass, Boot.'

Neville winked at Draco, and played up. 'Ta, Duchess.'

Hermione let Ron lead her away, still giggling.

_______________________________

Hogwarts in dreams, on that fateful day of fealty and bonding.

Professor Snape stared, unnervingly, into the gloomier corners of the Potions classroom. After a lengthy silence, he sighed.

'To have managed, Mr Malfoy, to trick even a Gryffindor into accepting your pledge of loyalty was ... not-un-Slytherin of you, at the least. And I imagine that nothing less than that little ... display ... would have convinced them. There is a certain cleverness in creating so ... honourable ... and so powerful a rite by stealth, especially so as to save your own skin, that is very much in the traditions of Salazar's House, and as your house-master, I commend you.

'Unfortunately, you have been rather too clever for yourself. As your Potions Master, I am appalled to realise that you failed to recognise your condition: a sort of euphoria resulting from the combined after-effects of Veritaserum and phoenix's tears. Ten points from Slytherin, Mr Malfoy. In your condition of exaltation, you have acted most unguardedly. Ironically, it is that unguardedness that has left you so well guarded, by your having, within an hour's span, enacted a fealty ritual that acts as a magical contract and having then had a very powerful protective spell cast upon you - by, if I may say so, three of the more powerful wizards now walking the earth.

'Normally, this exaltation, and these impulses to Gryffindorish nobility, would wear off within another hour or so. Normally.'

'"Normally"?' Draco's voice was a squeak.

'It is here that you have outsmarted yourself, Mr Malfoy. You have been, indeed, so sharp that you have cut yourself. Although I have my own suspicions as to our esteemed Headmaster's expectations and motivations, it is true that the protective spell cast upon you would not, as a rule, have resulted in your forming a ... bond ... with the Celebrated Mr Potter. But in your state of exaltation, and within an hour's time of your having chosen, without my or - to be fair - the Headmaster's knowledge -'

Draco repressed a snort. Surely Snape knew better than that.

'- to enact a fealty ritual with Potter, such a bonding was all but inevitable. There is no telling in what way it may, permanently, affect your personality. I can but hope, though with little confidence, that you will not come to regret your decisions. How you came to have any interest in our pet celebrity, or he in you, I wish never to know: the thought revolts me utterly. Please, never attempt to explain. You must simply accept that your cleverness has been paid for in full.

'Now. To less loathsome matters. You will consume my protective potion daily, and I shall administer it personally, for your own better safety. To that end, I shall have you remain after class each day. This will, I fear, attract either the suspicion or the derision of your classmates, but you've no one to blame but yourself. In the event that I should be ... unavailable ... and on weekends, you will report to Professor Dumbledore's office, where a supply will be on hand. Now drain this down and - get out of my sight.'

_______________________________

The Hogwarts of dreams, some weeks after that memorable DA session.

'I suspect cheating, Headmaster.'

'And I, Severus, do not. Minerva?'

'Never. I can say, categorically, never. The two of them? Havers. Were it not unladylike, I'd call it skite.'

'You cannot seriously expect me to believe that Potter has improved significantly in Potions to this extent merely because he has taken up with Mr Malfoy.'

'Severus....' Dumbledore sighed, and rooted about in a sack of boiled sweets. 'You truly love the art and science of Potions. It is your vocation. Teaching, however, is not. We are all of us aware why you are teaching, here, and not living your life by another, and perhaps more congenial, pattern.'

'It is a very lengthy and bitter penance for a youthful mistake, however grave that mistake was.'

'And so long as you regard it as a penance, Severus ... well, you may draw your own conclusions, there. The fact remains, Draco has taken time to tutor Harry in your discipline, and both of them ought rather to be commended for the results than subjected to such unworthy suspicions.'

'Do you suggest, then, Headmaster, that Mr Malfoy is better qualified to teach Mr Potter than am I?'

'Oh, really, Severus, take your voice out of its "sinister" register and be reasonable. Draco has been able to help Harry because they do not now have the issues between them that still persist between Harry and you; and because he recognises that Harry is not constitutionally inclined towards precise, fiddly work unless he can see the point of it.'

'Is he not, Headmaster? Whilst I confess that Transfiguration is at once a less exacting and a less important branch of knowledge than is Potions, I believe it involves the rudiments of theory and some degree of precision. And I am given to understand that the celebrated Mr Potter has acceptable marks in that class, which I cannot attribute solely to Professor McGonagall's notorious partiality to her own House at the expense of all others.'

McGonagall shot Snape a look that boded ill for his future. 'I believe that the Muggle psychologists term what we have just heard, "Projection",' she said, severely. 'I am certain that Albus has, in his usual fashion, contrived to monitor some of these tutorial sessions, and I have been unobtrusively present at one or two my ain self, unremarked.'

'Keeping tabbies - so sorry, I mean, "tabs" - on my House, Minerva?'

'I should strongly advise that you not press me much further, Severus. Suffice it to say that young Mr Malfoy has recognised that, in Potions, unlike in Transfiguration work, the relation between theory and result is not so immediately evident - and I admit that that is always a problem for Harry - and he has exerted himself to fill in the lacunæ left in Harry's education by your methods of teaching, if we are to dignify rank bullying by that name.'

'I have never,' Dumbledore said, warningly, 'had occasion to take House points due to the actions of the Heads of House, and I shall be very displeased if I am forced to begin now. Minerva, you are present because Severus's accusations involve a member of your House as well as of his own. Severus, I have already made clear that I believe your accusations to be in error. But we are not going to have a slanging match between the two members of staff on whom I and the Order most heavily rely, not at a moment when Hogwarts wants unity above all things, and wants it more desperately, perhaps, than at any time since the days of the Founders. Is that clear?'

'Headmaster,' Snape said, with a minimal bow of his head.

'I'm sorry, Albus,' said McGonagall.

'Very well. Now. Refill your cups, please - Minerva, if you will be "Mother", and pour out? Ah. Thank you. May I ask? Severus? Minerva? What, my dear friends, has the two of you - my two right hands! - so ruffled?'

'This - this relationship,' Snape snapped, 'between Potter and Draco.'

'I cannot see what Harry sees in that Malfoy boy!'

'Their magics match,' Dumbledore said, simply. 'Warp and woof, key and lock, tooth and ward, in a way we've not seen at Hogwarts in two centuries and a half.'

'But poor Harry - the last thing that poor lad wants is yet another vulnerability, an Achilles's heel, and Mr Malfoy the son of Riddle's chiefest lieutenant, forbye. And if Harry is threatened, all our world is in the balance, Albus.'

'And you cannot expect me,' Snape added, 'to rejoice in Draco's having, not merely so rashly and publicly broken with Lucius, but taken a stand next Potter that makes Draco perhaps the third target on Voldemort's list. Possibly, with respect, even the second now, before you, Headmaster.'

'You cannot imagine,' Dumbledore smiled, 'that you are, either of you, telling me anything I do not already know. I do not ask that you trust my judgment in this matter. I might suggest that you trust Fawkes's. And that you, Minerva, trust Harry: his judgment has faltered, if rarely, but his heart has never let us down. And you, Severus. Surely you can trust Draco's cunning, and his sense for his own preservation? In any case, what is done cannot be undone. We must trust that all yet shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. At the very least, we can resolve that this matter shall not come between us. I am counting on both of you for unity at Hogwarts.'

Chastened, they murmured their assents.

_______________________________

It was past midnight, in the Gryffindor dormitories. As all concerned were well aware, and as no one ever acknowledged verbally, Seamus had slipped, as he nightly did, into Dean's bed, and they were conversing lazily, punctuating their talk with snogs, even as Ron and Neville snored away and Harry thrashed in his sheets.

'I think,' Seamus said, with an audible smile, 'we'll not much longer be the only two of our kind in our year.'

'I wonder if Malfoy - all right, Draco, then - has been on his knees to Harry since the DA meeting?'

'Ah, you've a filthy mind to you, Dean Thomas, and God help me, I do love it so. But sure they've not yet made devil a move, they haven't, not even to hold hands yet, I think.'

'Don't come the stage Irishman over me, Finnegan, I know you too well.'

'And how exactly, then, would you be wanting me to come over you, acushla?'

'Put a sock in it, you ruddy sex maniac, I'm serious. They're the - queerest - couple in creation, all contrasts, Light and Dark, and the lighter one the darker of the two.'

'It's not me that can speak to the match of light and dark, now, is it, fond as I am of the contrast.'

'Charmer. But. Truly, now. What do they see in one another?'

'And how am I to know, having eyes for none but yourself? All right, all right, I'll answer you straight.'

Dean snorted.

'Take away the scar from the one and the sneer from t'other, forget that one's the Boy Who Lived and the other'n's The Prodigal Pureblood, and, faith, with respect, they're neither one much to look at. Fit, of course, with the "never too rich nor too thin" mantra that's been dinned into the Ferret since he was weaned, and Harry's having been near-starved by those Muggle relations of his; that and the compulsory games, as Seekers at that, have made them fit enough. But, 'tis true, Harry's a mouth to him like a carp, and as wide as the Shannon, and a jaw to him like a tugboat, and if Draco's not so rat-like now, the best he can hope for is to grow elfin as he ages. However, Dean Thomas, and never you doubt it, they've presence the rest of us can only dream of. Now we've seen Draco smile and stop sneering so much, we can see a bit of what it is Harry sees. And since Draco came over to us, we've seen Harry stand straight, and the worry's gone from out his face like the dark f! rom a room when the fire's lit in the hearth, and if he keeps his head lowered now, it's like a bull charging: he leads with his forehead, like your glass-chinned English boxers, and there's no denying that - as your Chaucer said of the Miller - 'tis a head to be breaking a door with. No, they're neither one so much to dream on in themselves, but now we've seen them together, they are something rare when together they are.'

'I thought you'd eyes only for me, you blarney-tongued Mick?' Dean was chuckling as he said it.

'And if it's proof you're wanting, Dean Thomas, I'll show you I can map every inch of you in this darkness.'

_______________________________

The dream-world. After Hogwarts, after victory, after University at Domdaniel; after the last of their childhood was past.

Harry, Draco, and Neville rose as Luna drifted over to them, with Ginny and Colin in tow.

'How's the press baroness, then?' Draco winked at her as she sat rather carelessly on the arm of Neville's chair.

'Pressing, dear, pressing. Harry, darling, you look well.'

'Thanks, Luna. Hullo, Gin. Colin, old boy.'

'What ho, all. Thought I'd best tag along with the boss.'

Draco gestured at Luna and Ginny. 'Which one?'

'God knows,' said Colin. 'Madam Lovegood-Longbottom pays me - nowhere near enough, I might add - and Gin here spends it before I get it. I'm just the poor, ink-stained wretch who's likelier to get the paper to bed than I am to get to me own wee cot and sleep.'

'And you love every minute of it,' Ginny said.

Neville laughed, and pulled Luna down into his lap, knocking a glass off the arm of the next chair over. 'Reparo,' Luna said, without looking. Neville just shook his head and chuckled at Colin and Ginny. 'I never imagined that our two youngest warriors - well, bar Dennis, I suppose - would end up married to one another.'

'Only thing Colin's married to is his bloody job,' Ginny grinned. 'Ever since Old Daddy Lovegood bought out the Prophet and let Luna loose on both papers....'

'Piffle,' Colin said. 'Come on, Nev, surely you saw it coming. Gin and I were in the same year, after all, and we had a whole load of interests in common.'

'Not even counting stalking Harry,' Ginny said, wickedly.

Draco grinned a feral grin. 'And you wisely gave over.'

'Obviously,' Luna said. 'They're alive, aren't they? You always were rather possessive, Draco.'

'Is Nev not?' Harry's face was a mask of innocence.

'Certainly,' Luna said, 'if it's a rare plant you've in mind.'

'Ah, now,' Neville chuckled. 'You're my fairest flower, missus. I reckon I know when I'm well off.'

'Good God,' Ginny said. 'You lot, all four of you, have been together ages longer than Colin and I have, and you're sappier than we are.'

Draco snorted. 'If Aunt Molly and Uncle Arthur are any guide, it's not likely to wear off in this century.'

'Oh, God,' Ginny said, and rolled her eyes. 'I sometimes think they encouraged us so much simply so as to have Muggles in the family.'

'As a political statement?'

'No, Draco.' How stupid can you get, her tone suggested. 'So Daddy can interrogate the Creeveys pretty much daily. By now, I think he knows more about being a Muggle milkman than my father-in-law actually does.'

Draco smiled, indulgently. 'God bless Arthur. Would that there were more of him.'

'I dare you to say that to Mum when she's on a rampage.'

'Do I strike you as suicidal, Cousin Ginny? To quote our honoured guest, Doctor Weasley, "Honestly".'

'Oh! Did you hear? About Dad, I mean?'

'No, what?' Neville gave her an encouraging look.

Ginny was beaming. 'Well, you know how, even when it meant, well, our going without, Mum and Dad kept up the tradition of, well -'

'The longstanding Weasley tradition of giving every spare Knut to the poor and the orphanages and especially those who had suffered at the hands of the Dark?' Draco spoke quietly, and with great respect.

'Well, yes. That. Anyway, the International Confederation of Wizards and the International Federation of Warlocks have awarded Dad the Dorcas Wellbeloved Prize, and it comes with rather a hell of a lot of dosh.'

'Ten thousand Galleons, I believe.'

Ginny looked at Harry rather intensely. 'Why, yes. I believe that is the sum.'

'Now, Ginny -'

'Oh, Harry. I'd no doubt you and Draco were somehow involved. Nothing big happens without your being in on it.'

'Actually, Gin,' Draco said, soothingly, 'we're not on the committee, we didn't nominate Arthur for it, and we'd nothing whatever to do with it. Believe me, with all that we both owe Molly and Arthur, and Ron, and Bill, and Charlie, and the Twins, and even you, you little redheaded spitfire, if we thought for an instant you'd any of you accept even a token of our affection and gratitude, we'd've emptied Gringotts well before now. Hell, the bloody Twins insisted on paying Harry interest on the damned seed-money for the shops. We don't think it charity, or an insult, to recognise our obligations to you all, but you do, and so we find other ways to express our love.'

'Saw it in the Quibbler, actually,' Harry muttered.

Ginny blushed. 'Sorry.'

'It's all right, Gin. And it'll be news to everyone else; you forget, Nev and Luna see to it we get the earliest edition.'

'Dobby gets it,' Draco amended. 'Probably reads the damned thing first, too. I hate that. But, yes, with the presses running at whatever ungodly hour Colin runs 'em at, Nev, Luna, and Dobby know bloody well to let the paper wait until we're up, and we've rung.'

Luna laughed. 'Yes, I imagine waltzing in early with the paper and morning tea could expose Dobby to sights that would scar him for life.'

'Oh, it has,' Harry said, blushing.

'Am I interrupting?' The speaker was a thin, well-set-up witch in a twin set and pearls. 'Or ought I to know that in advance?'

'Syb!'

'Neville, dear. Luna, Ginny, Colin. Hullo, Draco. Harry, darling.'

'Good God! Professor Trelawney!'

'Unless you know of any other Cornish seeresses, yes.'

'Please, do join us,' Draco said, recovering. 'I didn't recognise you without your glasses.'

'Or the rest of the table-rapping stock in trade, I imagine,' she smiled. 'It's a relief to dispense with it, now the war is over. Oh, my, Harry. Was I to have foreseen that stunned look?'

Everyone laughed.

'Albus hid you at Privet Drive, my dear. I had to take refuge in a reputation for utter battiness.' Her voice became dry. 'Worked, I see.'

'How is retirement finding you?'

'The question, Neville, is how am I finding it. And the answer is, I feel a horrid sense of gratitude to that appalling cow, Umbridge. Had it not been that I needed the sanctuary during the war, I'd've taken it when she sacked me.'

'I - I thought you liked it here.'

'Harry, really. I love Hogwarts. But I am, in fact, a seer, not a teacher. Teaching was never my vocation, any more than it was Severus Snape's. It was something we did to justify our taking sanctuary. It was our rent. No, Neville is an example of one who is a teacher by vocation, because it is in him. And then, of course, there's the two of you.'

'Should we not be here?' Draco was trying to remain civil.

'You're very valuable here,' Sybill said. 'And you can teach. As could our newly-minted Doctor Weasley, whose party I simply could not miss, given her longstanding interest in and appreciation of Divination.' Her smile was mischievous. 'But, to be honest, Granger - Weasley, rather - is far better suited to a high-powered research post. And the two of you are sui generis, as always. I - shall we say, I foresee - the two of you as moving seamlessly between teaching here and other forms of public duty, civic leadership: Hogwarts and Domdaniel have a revolving door. But it is right that you should be here. I was much rejoiced, I may say, to hear that the house at Godric's has been restored, and the old Potter place on Exmoor: strange, how magic lingers in the West Country, where the Old Ones held out longest. I think Finch-Fletchley is almost unique in your time as coming from Suffolk. And of course, you've the Welsh in you, Harry, and, then, the M! alfoys and the Weasleys are West Countrymen to the core. Where was I? You see, it's hard to throw off years of pretending to be utterly dotty -'

'Tosh,' said Neville, with a smile.

'- Ah, well. Worth trying it on. The point, my dear boys, is that the two of you have more property than is good for anyone, but Hogwarts ... Hogwarts is your home.'

'It's where you bonded, of course,' Nev added. 'More than that, though, it's where you found yourselves and got shut of what your families were doing to you. It's no accident, you know, that Albus offered Adjunct Masterships, whilst we were at University, precisely to those of us who needed healing when it came to home-and-family matters. Never misses a trick, that man.'

Harry discreetly blinked away a tear, and he had the impression that Draco was having to do the same.

'So you see,' Trelawney said, 'although it's not precisely - or, rather, it's not exclusively - a vocation with you, the two of you have much to offer Hogwarts, and its children, and they have much to offer you. As Neville said, Albus never misses a trick.'

'Don't I, though?' Once again, they had been startled by a new arrival: Dumbledore, resplendent in truly eye-popping robes, and beaming like the sun. 'Excellent charms work on the setting, Draco, Harry. I trust you will all excuse my interruption, but they do tell me the band is about to begin once more. Sybill, I must of course give Hermione the first dance, and I have promised Minerva the second, but there's space on my dance card for a third. Would you oblige an old man?'

'Albus, I foresee that I shall be delighted.'

_______________________________

Hogwarts, in dreams of schooldays, and war impending.

Harry entered the Headmaster's office, uncertain as to why he had been summoned, and a trifle uneasy. His heart fell when he saw who was waiting. He had never met her, but he could not be mistaken: the elegant woman in magnificent, watered-silk witch's robes who awaited him could only be Cho's mother.

'Ah, Harry,' Dumbledore said, with a sad smile. 'Thank you for being so prompt. Mrs Chang, may I present Mr Harry Potter? Harry, allow me to introduce you to Chang May-ling, Cho's mother.'

When Mrs Chang spoke, it was in an exquisite Roedean accent. 'Harry, I've heard so much about you. Please. Let us all sit down. Oh, thank you, Albus.

'Harry. I will not take much of your time, as I know it is valuable. First, though, I must tell you that my daughter sends you her affectionate regards. I know that things did not end well for the two of you, but I also know that it was for the best, as I think both of you have since learnt? Ah. Yes. I see by your expression that you have. You are learning the wisdom of bowing to the will of Heaven, I see.

'You and I, Harry, have much in common, though you cannot know that. I know something of the burdens you have borne. I too have lost much - my beloved Hong Kong, not least, now occupied by a despotism whose dealings with our magical peoples make their attitude towards Falun Gong seem positively enlightened. Now a despotism even greater threatens us all, here, in Britain. And you have been destined to stand against it.

'I also bear, as you do, a great grief from Cedric's death. We are, of course, Anglican - but we are, first and always, Chinese. If it is needed, after I have gone, I am sure Albus can explain the significance of what I am about to say. When it became clear to us that Cho and Cedric were indeed matched - and had he lived, of course, they would by now be married - the Ancestors were duly informed, and Cedric and Cho pledged their troth before the soul tablets of those in our family who have already Gone on High.

'The ancients held that a son shall not live under the same sky as his father's murderer. You, Harry, have James to avenge - dear Prongs, and Lily, whom I will never cease to mourn. Yes,' she said, with a sad smile, holding up one slim white hand, 'our years here overlapped, and I loved them both dearly. In our generation and in Cho's, Harry, there is no one to avenge Cedric, in our family, of which he had become a part. Neither in the House of Chang nor in my own ancestral House, the House of Kung.

'I am not imposing upon you any duty you have not already undertaken. In defeating Voldemort, you at once avenge James and Lily, and Cedric. I am merely recognising that you are Cedric's avenger and champion, a task you have already undertaken.'

She stood, and Dumbledore and Harry stood with her.

'I have not brought a new burden, Harry, but solace.'

Solemnly, with an exquisite bow, which Harry did his awkward best to answer, she withdrew two objects from her robes and presented them to him.

'This, Harry, is a ju-i, a sceptre awarded by the Son of Heaven for distinguished service. It is carven of Imperial jade, the magic of which you will come to know. The tutelary animal motif it bears is not, as commonly, a bat - fu, in Mandarin, represents both the bat and happiness, and was the traditional motif for a ju-i. This sceptre, though, has been in my husband's family for many generations, and it bears a chimæra, a pi-hsieh: the winged lion-unicorn. And the scroll I have given you may be of great use to you as you prepare your mind for the great battle. It is from my family, from my Great Ancestor himself, the Master whom you in the West call "Confucius".'

Harry was all but speechless. Reverently, he unrolled the ancient scroll, feeling the magic crackle. 'I'm sorry, Mrs Chang, but. I mean, I don't read characters.'

She laughed. 'Did you think, Harry, that I would give you a Muggle gift? When you are free to read, you will be able to read, in whatever language you choose. But, Harry?'

'Yes, Mrs Chang?'

'Do start at the correct end, or you'll have the most awful headache.'

_______________________________

Iona, in an impossible future that seemed, in dreams, so meet and natural.

The Celtic anchorite, the C of E vicar, and Albus Dumbledore met them in the narthex.

'Ready, my dear boys?' The Headmaster had never been merrier - nor Snape, standing by, more thunderous.

'As we'll ever be,' Draco said, squeezing Harry's elbow.

'You mean, then, to go through with this?' Snape looked sick.

'Unquestionably,' Draco answered, coolly.

'All the critical faculty of a two-headed runespoor,' Snape muttered. 'Very well, let's get on with it. For what it's worth, you, er. Have my. Um. Oh, blast it, suffice it to say I won't actually stand and object.'

'Thank you,' Harry said, calmly. 'Please know we appreciate it, and value it.'

Snape turned on his heel and walked into the chapel to take his pew.

'Practically a formal blessing, by Severus's standards,' Dumbledore beamed.