[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Pythonicus, gen, PG-13, 5/6, sequel to Potens

[lomonaaeren]

Part Four.

Part One.

Title: Pythonicus (5/6)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Mentions of Lily/James and Lucius/Narcissa, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Time travel, AU, present tense, Unspeakable Harry Potter, violence, gore, brief torture
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 5500
Summary: Sequel to “Princeps” and “Potens.” Harry has gained the loyalty of many of the young Slytherins, and others he never expected. Now he attempts to find and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes and protect and teach his students while avoiding Time’s plans—and his followers’—to make him into a Lord.
Author’s Notes: This should have three parts, and is part of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” series of fics, as well as a sequel to the first two parts of the series, “Princeps,” and Potens. The title is a Latin word meaning “prophetic” or “magical.”

So, yeah, there’s going to be one more part after this.

Part Five

“I’ve been wanting to meet you, Professor Salvare. Fleamont Potter.”

Steadying himself against the dizzying knowledge that this would have been his own grandfather—or is, or will be—Harry smiles politely and holds out his hand. James gave him about five minutes’ warning that he was bringing his father to Harry’s quarters. Harry will just have to live with the consequences.

Fleamont Potter is taller than Harry thought he would be, for some reason, with untamed grey hair and bright brown eyes that his silver glasses seem to highlight. He turns his head like a curious owl to look around Harry’s sitting room.

“Don’t remember seeing the private quarters of a Hogwarts professor when I was a student here,” Fleamont observes in a reminiscent voice. “Must say that you don’t seem to favor any particular House in your decoration.”

Harry shrugs a little. He kept the neutral colors of brown and white that were there when he moved in, and while the sitting room isn’t as clean as it would be if he knew he was having guests over, he doesn’t need to blush for it, either. The several chairs aren’t dusty, and the mantel is clean, and the fire is bright and warm.

“I don’t think favoring any House in a good idea,” Harry says. “I’ve tried to make common cause with students from all Houses, although it’s true that most of the ones I’ve sworn oaths to are Slytherins and Gryffindors.”

“What an odd combination, eh?” Fleamont chuckles as he takes the chair in front of the fire. Harry looks around for James, but he’s already left. Harry frowns a little. So it seems they’re to be in private for this meeting. “Never heard that anyone could get them to cooperate as well as you did, either.”

Harry smiles, shrugs again, and takes the chair that stands across from Fleamont. His head gives a throb, and he conceals a sigh. Healer Hawken warned him that staring too long at one particular thing, like the essays he was marking, would stir up his magical concussion. But some staring is necessary if Harry wants to get the bloody essays done. “I think other professors got caught up in the House rivalry themselves, based on the Houses they were in when they were students, or the Houses they were rivals with.”

“Also heard that you destroyed the curse on the Defense position last year.”

Harry blinks a little, disconcerted by the jump in topic, but it’s an innocuous one enough. “Yes. It was on the banister in the main staircase. Clever. Few people would have looked for it there, and it was free to influence the Defense professors in any number of ways as they walked past it.”

“Huh.” Fleamont strokes the small grey beard that hangs only halfway down his neck. “Why do you think no one else ever spotted it before?”

Harry shrugs. “From what I can tell, sir—sorry, what’s wrong?”

Fleamont pulls his hand back from a huge gesture through the air as though to brush away an annoying fly. “As if I would accept such a title from my son’s lord.”

Harry feels his eyebrow twitch, but he nods. “From what I can tell, Mr. Potter, half my predecessors didn’t even think there was a curse. Or they didn’t plan to stay more than a year in any case, or they had other goals than finding and locating the curse. Sometimes just trying to survive was enough.”

Fleamont gives a hard, dry chuckle. “Yes, I remember some of the Defense professors before this, and especially the ones James had his first four years. You’re right about that. Now. Why did you accept the oaths of your first followers?”

The questions seem random. Maybe Fleamont is just trying to get a better picture of the man that James has sworn himself to, though. Merlin knows Harry would want to do the same, if he had children.

“They were under enormous pressure. Some of them might have become Death Eaters. Others might have turned down one dark path or another, and some of them would have become petty and cruel, if not worse. I wanted to do what I could to spare them that fate.”

“Caring, aren’t you, Professor Salvare?”

“I wasn’t always so,” Harry admits quietly. “But I’m a better person than I was twenty years ago, I like to think.”

Fleamont’s eyebrows go up for some reason. He considers Harry in silence for perhaps a minute, then says, “Noticed an immediate change in James when he came home last summer.”

“Not an unwelcome one, I hope.”

Fleamont laughs dryly again. “No. I have to admit, Euphemia and I have spoiled him. We’d given up hope that we’d ever have children by the time James came along. So we gave him free rein to do pretty much as he liked, and paid for everything he wanted.” He sighs. “And then we gave his friends some of the same attention. James eventually told me that you discouraged him and his friends away from some bloody nasty pranks they might have played last year.”

Harry blinks, surprised that James told his parents that at all. “Yes, Mr. Potter, I did.”

“So it’s not only future Death Eaters that you accepted the oaths from. Since I hope you’d never think that we would raise James in that direction.”

“No, that’s true,” Harry agrees. “Although my first priority was Slytherin students who I didn’t think were being particularly well-served by their current Head of House or the current Headmaster. But after that, I was happy to fight for and beside anyone who would swear to me and accept the other comrades I’ve managed to…amass.”

Fleamont chuckles for almost thirty seconds, although Harry doesn’t see what he’s said that’s funny. Then he jumps into another subject change. “But my James also told us that you don’t want to call yourself a lord.”

“I don’t see the point of it,” Harry says, maybe more honestly than he should. “I don’t want to go through the specific requirements of becoming a magical Lord in Britain, and I don’t want to claim the kind of power that would go along with it. I need to stay humble and close to the people who depend on me. I’m content being Hogwarts’s Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.”

Fleamont leans back in his chair and moves on to irrelevant revelations about himself. “Did you know that I sit on the Hogwarts Board of Governors?”

“You weren’t with them when I made my presentation to them about Evan Rosier’s situation a few months ago.”

“No, but it was, ah, mutually decided that Edward Selwyn had served as much time on the Board as he really should, and I was selected to replace him.”

“All right?” Harry offers, not sure what else he can say.

“I think big changes are coming, Mr. Salvare,” says Fleamont while he stares intently at him. “We must all fit in the places that suit us best, and if someone else is needed to help us recognize that…well, I hope that you wouldn’t reject any advice merely because it comes from an unexpected place.”

Harry has to snort. “I get unexpected advice from my students all the time, Mr. Potter. Let alone my oathsworn.”

“Simply remain open to it.” Then Fleamont abruptly rises and holds out his hand. “Well, I’m glad to know that James’s future is in such good hands.”

“He’ll have to do a lot to define his own future,” Harry says, even as he shakes hands with Fleamont. “I can’t guide him in every step he’ll take.”

Fleamont smiles, and walks out the door, making Harry feel baffled, but also glad that this was one meeting that didn’t end with someone else swearing to him.

*

“It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Yes, it does! You just have to assume a null value!”

Harry leans on the bookshelf in the library and smiles at the table where Lily and Severus are sitting as they argue, waving their arms in the air. Someone wouldn’t have to be right next to them to know how much they were enjoying it, not if you know them well. Lily’s eyes are sparkling, and Severus leans forwards slightly as he pounds a fist on the table.

And they get to do that because he came back in time. This would never have happened in their original sixth year.

“It doesn’t make any sense to assume a null value! The graph doesn’t work!”

“You assume a null value for one of the points!”

Severus opens his mouth to respond, but Harry clears his throat, and they jump and spin around to face him. “Sorry to interrupt you, Miss Evans, Mr. Prince,” he says. “But I think Madam Pince will get a bit irritated if you don’t lower your voices.”

Lily blushes and ducks her head in a way that reminds Harry strongly enough of Hermione to sting a little. But he reminds himself, again, of why he came here. When Hermione is born, then she ought to have a better life than she did before, even.

“Sorry, sir,” Severus says, in something closer to a normal voice.

Harry waves his hand and settles down in a chair he pulls out from the table. “It’s no great matter. I simply didn’t want to see you go to the trouble of picking up your books and moving them. And the parchments?” He peers at the parchment in front of Lily, but it’s at the wrong angle and he can’t make out anything on it. “You said you had a solution to the problem?”

“Only if you make a wrong assumption.” Severus glares at Lily.

“Certain people who weren’t even considered for Ravenclaw should shut their mouths,” Lily retorts, and turns around the parchment so that Harry can see it. “You were right that your original graph didn’t make much sense, sir. So I started calculating other values for the two points you were trying to plot. And I realized that if you assumed a null value for one of them, then the rest of the graph fell into place, and it was easy to plot the other point.”

Harry stares at the graph for almost a full minute before what she’s saying hits him. “So you think you can find one of these objects, but—only if you assume the other doesn’t exist?”

Lily nods and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “That’s it exactly, sir.”

“Does it work in reverse?” Harry asks intently, his mind jolting into action. “That is, can you find the other one if you assume a null value for this one?” He taps his finger against the small dot Lily has plotted on the graph.

“No,” Lily says, with a proud smile. “Or, at least, it doesn’t give you any usable values. The swirls that you showed us just go off in random directions then.”

Harry nods intently, staring at the graph. It never occurred to him that he couldn’t find the diadem because someone had already discovered and destroyed it.

Now he just has to find out who.

“Sterling work, Miss Evans,” he says, when he realizes that he’s been staring at the graph like a fool and his students have been waiting patiently on him. He smiles at her, and she smiles back. “I think you have a future as an Arithmancer if you want it.”

Lily blushes with pride, and then shakes her head a little. “I’ve already decided to make my career in Charms, sir. But thank you.”

Severus leans forwards a little. “He’s only saying if you want it, Evans.”

“Don’t get snappish with me, Prince.”

Harry smiles at them both and resists the urge to ruffle their hair or something equally ridiculous. They’re both so cute.

And they’ve helped. Now he can search for the traces that a destroyed Horcrux would leave, instead of the object itself.

*

“I would be very careful what kinds of choices you make around Professor Salvare, Mr. Lupin.”

Harry pauses. He was going to talk to Albus, but he seems to have stumbled into something he wasn’t meant to overhear. Of course, he raises a Disillusionment Charm at once, and a charm that will hopefully mask his scent, before he peers around the corner.

Albus is standing in front of a pale, sweating Remus Lupin. Harry makes the automatic calculation, and then shakes his head a little. It’s been long enough since the full moon that the strain should have faded away. Once again, Harry wonders how soon he can “encourage” the discovery of the Wolfsbane Potion.

“I know, sir,” Remus whispers, sounding defeated. “But it’s hard when all my best friends are sworn to him and I’m not. When it was just Slytherins, it was easier.”

“You cannot make this decision on the basis of what your friends do, as easy as it might be.” Albus pats Remus’s shoulder with a heavy hand. “You have to look at what you know of Professor Salvare’s goals, and then the Order of the Phoenix’s goals. Is he actually fighting Voldemort? Or is he fighting to take his place?”

Harry rolls his eyes. He doesn’t think Albus actually believes that. But it makes a convenient idea to manipulate Remus with.

Or maybe he does. Harry has his suspicions about the reasons Albus is so concerned about Harry’s oathsworn, but he’ll have to talk to Albus directly to confirm them.

“I’ll think about it, sir,” Remus says in a small, wretched voice. “I just—I don’t really want to fight in this war.”

“I’m afraid that that choice is not left open for people of good heart, Mr. Lupin. It is fight in this war or fall before Voldemort.”

Harry has to cover his mouth with his hand so he doesn’t snort aloud. That kind of choice is always open to most people in the magical world. The number of Voldemort collaborators and people who did their best to keep their heads down in the future argues for it.

Albus glances around as if he hears something, though, and Remus backs away with an uncomfortable swallow. “I’ll think about it, sir. Really. But right now I need to get to dinner. Sirius is already concerned about me,” he adds, in an obvious, pathetic defense. “I don’t want to give him more reason to pressure me about swearing to Professor Salvare.”

Albus nods. “Of course, my boy, of course. Take at least another week to make the decision. I don’t want you to feel urged against your will.”

Another week. For something as profound as this. Harry fumes a little as he watches Remus practically run away. When most of the people who swore to me probably did it too quickly.

Albus turns back towards his office, and Harry backs up a corridor, then drops the charms and walks towards his destination again with deliberately loud footfalls. When he reaches the gargoyle, Albus is standing there with a weary, patient expression.

Or rather, his best try at a weary, patient expression. This close, Harry can see the tight lines around Albus’s eyes, and the way his body cants away from Harry as though he thinks he’ll have to go for his wand at any second.

And something else, too.

“Can I talk with you, Headmaster?” Harry asks, with as much of an open, earnest expression as he can muster himself. “There’s an important question I need to ask you.”

Albus’s eyes narrow a little, but he nods. They go up the moving staircase together, and Albus fusses with his robes as he sits down behind the desk. Harry takes his own seat and starts to open his mouth, but a streak of fiery light interrupts him.

Harry draws his wand and makes to leap up from the chair, stunned despite himself that Albus is going to attack him right in the school. But then he realizes that the streak of fiery light is a crooning, singing phoenix, who’s sitting on Harry’s lap and stretching up his beak to bill gently at Harry’s chin and nose.

Harry puts his wand down and blinks at Fawkes. The phoenix welcomed him the day he came to apply for the Defense post, but Harry hasn’t really interacted with him since then.

Fawkes gives a harder and more insistent croon, and Harry finds himself scratching his crest. Fawkes promptly chirps and turns around so that he’s sitting with his face pointed towards the Headmaster’s desk, and tilts his neck to be available for more scratching.

“Well.”

Harry looks up at Albus. His expression is notably softer. He clears his throat and says, “I may have misjudged you, Henry, my boy. No Dark wizard would find the touch of a phoenix so comforting. My apologies.”

Harry nods slowly. “I came to make a similar sort of apology.”

“You did?” Albus sounds more curious than anything else now. “Why is that?”

“I thought you distrusted me for no reason and seemed to concentrate more of your energy on opposing me than Voldemort. But—now I think I know why. I’m sorry for doubting you.” Harry sighs. “And you can remove the glamour.”

Albus goes very still. Then he says, “I will request an explanation of how you knew that,” and raises his wand to trace in a circle around the top of his head.

Harry doesn’t need the chiming from the walls to know what he’ll see. The glamours fade, and now Harry can see the circle of charred skin at Albus’s temples, the darkening of his hair, the marks like burns on his scalp. Albus put on Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem, and he’s paying with his life for it.

Some things don’t change, Harry thinks, as anticipatory grief settles into his heart.

“How did you find it?” Harry asks quietly.

Albus stares at him in a way that says he’s going along with this for now, but he does expect his own answers soon. “I have known there was a disturbance, a magical weight, if you will, on the school for a few months now. I could only sense it once you dissipated the curse on the Defense post. The resonance of that magic concealed it before. I tracked it down and couldn’t believe it when I found it. I removed two curses from it, and—I thought it was safe.” Albus closes his eyes. “I had come to realize that my wisdom was not as great as I thought it was, and that meant that I needed more.”

Harry swallows against his emotions. “But you destroyed it?”

Albus gives a small smile. “Yes. I felt the curse begin to affect me, and I removed the diadem. Then I blasted it with Fiendfyre, the one curse I had always read could destroy anything. What was it?”

“A Horcrux. One of Voldemort’s.”

Albus’s face pales so dramatically that Harry thinks he might fall over if he wasn’t already sitting down. “He made more than one?”

“Five, as near as I can tell,” Harry says. “The diadem you found, Slytherin’s locket, a cup that belonged to Helga Hufflepuff, and a ring that belonged to his Slytherin ancestors. And a fifth object that I’m having a hard time locating.”

Albus is blinking, slowly, as if it’s going to take him that long to absorb Voldemort’s monumental stupidity. Harry knows the feeling.

“Why five?”

“He intends to create a total of six,” Harry says. “To create—”

“Seven pieces of soul, yes.” Albus slaps his desk with one hand. “I always did think Tom was too interested in that particular magical number.”

Harry privately suspects that Albus thought Tom Riddle was too interested in everything Dark, but he lets that pass. “It’s taken him since his Hogwarts years to create this many. I think it’s partially the fact that the process itself is taxing and that he wants to use objects that mean something to him. He might not have that sixth object yet.”

“Does he know that the diadem has been destroyed?”

“I doubt it. He didn’t know that the ring had been destroyed until he went searching for it and didn’t find it. And he only knows about the locket and the cup because my Fiendfyre destroyed them right in front of him.”

“How did you know about them?” Albus asks quietly. “Why are you hunting them?”

Harry sighs. He wants to tell Albus, yes, but he honestly doesn’t trust him with the full truth, even granted that the diadem might have influenced his behavior. But he can tell him part of the truth which will contain the essential shards of it.

“I want Voldemort dead to protect my students. I knew that the students in Slytherin House, but others, too, would be pressured to join him. Maybe even drawn towards him, if they thought he would promise them power and protection. So I wanted to make sure that he wasn’t a threat. Some of that I did by teaching them to think for themselves—well, I thought.” Harry sighs. The results of that experiment still disappoint him. “And some of that by offering a viable alternative. But the rest of it has to go towards removing Tom Riddle from the board.”

“That answers the second question, but not the first.”

“I used to be an Unspeakable, Albus,” Harry says, meeting his eyes. “I can’t speak about the secrets I learn in the Department of Mysteries to anyone outside it.”

And that is also true. Just not the whole.

Albus catches his breath sharply. “I wondered, when I heard about some of the spells and devices you had used against Tom. But I didn’t think I would get confirmation.”

“I didn’t think I would get such opposition,” Harry says calmly. “Or I might have told you the truth before now.”

Albus flushes and averts his eyes. “I thought—the diadem showed me that you had more knowledge and intelligence than you should have had. That you had some great determination. But it neglected to show me anything else.”

“The diadem promised wit, not wisdom, according to the legends of the inscription on it.” Harry keeps his voice calm, still. Yes, a lot is explained, now.

Including the reason why Albus is still alive, despite the advancing curse. It can’t be the same curse that was on the ring. That one, Voldemort seems to have viciously protected in both timelines, maybe because it was a family heirloom instead of one that belonged to someone else.

“I can try to save your life,” Harry offers quietly. “I don’t know what this curse is, but I can try.”

“I would—appreciate that, Henry, my boy.” Albus’s gaze drifts from Fawkes, who is still snuggled in Harry’s lap, to Harry’s face. “I have made hasty judgments about you, and ones I had no right to make. Please accept my apology.”

Harry nods and keeps to himself that Albus probably only changed his mind because of the phoenix’s welcome of him. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Harry isn’t going to have two opponents as he hunts down the diary, wherever Voldemort’s put it, and he can maybe save Albus the way he didn’t manage to in his original timeline.

Time sings from the walls.

Harry keeps the grim smile he wants to give inside. Yes, certain things are going to go the way they did in the original timeline. Harry is still going to hunt the Horcruxes with Albus’s knowledge, and Albus is probably going to die of the curse from a Horcrux, although Harry might be able to slow it down enough to give him years of life instead of just a year. He’ll accept that those things will be the same.

Time snickers in the next chime.

Harry ignores it.

*

“I have, ah, been wanting to meet you in person for some time, Professor Salvare.”

“Funny, Mr. Malfoy.” Harry smiles at Abraxas over the glass of wine, which, to give Slughorn what little credit he deserves, is very good. Still, Harry would have avoided Slughorn’s vernal equinox party if he knew that the recently-released Abraxas Malfoy was going to be there. “I thought we already had.”

Abraxas clears his throat and looks around nervously, as though anticipating rescue from some quarter. He’s not going to get it. Everyone else in the bright, expanded, green-and-white-decorated room in the dungeons that Slughorn uses for his parties is carefully looking away from them.

“I heard that Narcissa told you about our coming surprise,” Abraxas babbles, but in a soft voice. “And that she intended to name the baby after you in some capacity.”

“She did, yes.” Harry takes another sip of wine and decides that torturing Death Eaters this way is much more fun than doing it for real. “Congratulations on becoming a grandfather. I hope that your concentration will be on that task in the future. It’s so hard to raise children properly, isn’t it, Mr. Malfoy?”

Abraxas’s face is the color of old cheese. He coughs a little, and murmurs, “I do sit on the Board of Governors, you know.”

Harry assumes it’s a plea for respect. He shrugs a little. “I met the Board of Governors once already.”

“Yes, during my unfortunate absence—”

“You know, incarceration has fewer syllables.”

Abraxas takes a step back from him. Harry gives him a merciless smile and contemplates what he should say next.

Abraxas clears his throat and repeats, “I’m on the Board of Governors.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat, Mr. Malfoy?” Harry keeps his voice as cool and uncaring as before. “I don’t think that I’ll take it as one. Luckily for you.”

This time, Abraxas hurries away. Harry shakes his head, and makes an excuse to leave the party as soon as possible. He’s had his share of baffling conversations with adults for this week.

*

Harry stares down at the point that he’s plotted on the graph. He’s sure of it now. The diary is on another small island off the coast, actually not that far from the cave that originally contained the locket.

He could go after it tonight. And by the morning, Voldemort would be mortal again.

Harry closes his hand into a fist and then closes his eyes in turn, hissing out sharply. The throb in his head is a reminder that the magical concussion, while better, isn’t completely healed. He cast a Stunner today, or he meant to, and actually set a second-year’s desk on fire as his concentration wavered and his magic snapped out of control.

He could go after it tonight. And he would be a fool if he did so.

Harry opens his eyes and scowls at the graph. He has no idea what protections Voldemort might have set up around his last Horcrux, especially if it’s a brand-new location chosen after Voldemort became aware that he only had one—or two, as he probably thinks—left. Harry doesn’t know if he would be able to handle them. He had to be prepared to handle the sea serpent, but he doesn’t know if he can risk a scouting mission on the diary. Voldemort might move it again if he does.

I have to have help.

But who? Harry’s mind turns through the possibilities. He doesn’t like any of them. Lucius and Narcissa are soon to have a child, and Andromeda has one. The last thing that Harry wants is to create more orphans. The rest of his followers are literal schoolchildren.

Someone knocks on the door of his quarters. Harry puts down the graph and stands up, concerned. For someone to come to his rooms this late, it’s probably an emergency. “Come in!” he calls, after he’s disabled a few wards.

The door opens, and reveals both Regulus and Severus. Harry’s concern deepens. Their presence together indicates a disturbance in the Slytherin common room, probably. And while technically he should send them away and make them fetch Slughorn, he knows that he’s better at handling something like this than the Slytherins’ Head of House.

“Is someone wounded?” he asks. “Do you need me to summon Madam Pomfrey?”

“No.” Regulus stares at him. “But someone could be.”

Harry pauses. Now he’s having baffling conversations with teenagers. Well, unlike with Fleamont or Abraxas, there’s no reason that he can’t cut through the bollocks to the truth. “What does that mean?” he demands, glancing back and forth between the boys.

“We both woke with the conviction that you were in danger,” Severus says. He spins his wand between his fingers and looks around Harry’s sitting room, as if assuming that danger is lurking behind the couch. He only looks marginally reassured when Harry raises an eyebrow at him. “And then it ebbed. Regulus and I had met up in the common room and were talking when we felt it again. We came here as soon as we could.”

Harry grimaces. That’s a side-effect of the oaths that he didn’t count on. Technically, he knew things like borrowing magic from his people was possible, but not their starting to sense his moods and the like.

“I was considering doing something reckless,” he says. “But you don’t need to worry about it. I’m going to think on it. I just need to make sure that I choose someone strong and experienced to go with me.”

Severus clears his throat pointedly and taps his wand against his own chest.

“You’re powerful, Mr. Prince,” Harry says. “And of age. But not experienced enough to handle something like this. I won’t risk you.”

“Why should we allow you to risk yourself?” Regulus asks, and then smiles, an unholy smile that makes Harry stare at him. “I know what I’ll do if you decide that you’re not going to take anyone with you.”

“I didn’t say I was going to do that. I said I would get—”

“But I felt it through the oaths now,” Regulus says. “The fluctuation. Thinking about taking help, and then making up your mind that it would be too dangerous for anyone to go with you when you said you wouldn’t risk Severus.” His smile widens. “I’ll send an owl to Healer Hawken and tell him that your magical injuries are getting worse, but that you didn’t want to bother him.”

Harry knows, from an extremely non-baffling conversation he had with Hawken a week ago, that the Healer won’t hesitate to tie him to the bed if that’s necessary. He sighs. “I won’t go alone.”

“Then what are you going to do about this artifact?” Severus demands.

“I don’t know yet,” Harry admits, although he doesn’t know if he should. Is he involving schoolchildren too much in his problems? He knows that he needs help, but does it have to be from people he chose to shelter and protect?

And having them research the location of the Horcruxes is a completely different thing than having them come with him to destroy one.

“Do you think that the Dark Lord is going to move or use this artifact right away?” Regulus asks.

“No. But the longer we wait, the greater the chance that he will.”

“That sill gives us at least a day to think about it,” Regulus says. “And I think I know someone who will help.” He turns away and trots up the corridor before Harry can question him. It’s too much, Harry knows, to think that he’s going back to the Slytherin common room.

Harry fondly remembers the days when Regulus did as he was told, and turns to Severus. “I promise you that I won’t go after this artifact without help and company,” he says. “Please go back to sleep, Mr. Prince.”

“You should do the same thing, my lord. You look like shit, if you’ll excuse me saying so.”

“I can excuse you for the language more than for the title,” Harry mutters. The headache is swelling until it fills his world.

Severus laughs briefly. “Do you need me to get a headache draught from my private stores, sir?”

Of course a seventeen-year-old Potions prodigy has his own private store of useful potions, Harry thinks, and shakes his head. “I think I’ll go to sleep the minute my head hits the pillow.”

“All right.” Severus’s face smooths out. “Then I’ll leave you to get some much-deserved rest, sir.” He waves, and turns and walks down the corridor. Harry watches him, and he does turn in the direction of the Slytherin common room.

Harry shuts the door, glances one more time at the dot on the graph, and then goes to keep his promise to his—

Minions? Can he think of them that way?

Time sings at him like windchimes, and Harry rolls his eyes and dismisses the thought from his mind. If he does start thinking of them like that, then probably he’ll end up taking Voldemort’s place in a way that he doesn’t want at all.

Irritants, though. That has a nice ring to it.