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Chapter Nine—Courage

“Draco.” A perfect raising of his right eyebrow, and Lucius turned more fully to face him. “You had something you wished to say to me? It must be important, for you to call me to Hogwarts in the middle of a school day.”

Draco did his best not to swallow, but kept walking, with his eyes fixed on his father’s. They were on the Quidditch Pitch at the moment, which for some reason Lucius appeared to think the most private place in Hogwarts. Draco reckoned it was harder to overhear something in the open air, unless you were using Disillusionment Charms. But a warded room in the dungeons would have been better. Professor Snape had offered one to his father. That would have been the ideal solution, because then Snape would have listened in.

But Draco knew that Potter and Professor Snape weren’t far away, and they would rescue him if something went badly wrong. Except that they couldn’t rescue him forever; he would have to go home sometime, and then Lucius might do worse than make cutting remarks. But Potter had insisted so strongly, and Professor Snape had agreed with him. Draco didn’t like to tell them their precautions were useless unless he could convince Lucius.

Well, you always knew that was true.

Draco lifted his head higher and said in the bored voice Professor Snape had made him spend an entire evening practicing, “It has come to my attention that I was wrong.”

Lucius looked at him, a snake-quick turn of his head. Draco held his breath. His father was startled. Maybe that was a good thing, but Draco didn’t think so. Father hated being surprised, so he would be hostile now.

But you’ve got no choice but to go forwards, as always.

“About what, Draco?” Lucius swayed his cane in front of him, touching one clump of wet grass and then another. They were walking through the rain, though a careful spell shielded them from the worst effects. “About calling me here? Then you have cost me time and money I will not easily forgive.”

Draco held back his automatic reaction, his face rigid. Another thing Professor Snape had spent time teaching him was to really control his emotions, and stop submitting to the onslaught of anger or fear. And he had just learned how well he was trained to react to the announcement that Lucius’s time was being wasted.

This isn’t about that, he reminded himself, and sighed as if annoyance was his only emotion. “No,” he said. “I was wrong in my initial reaction to the hippogriff who injured me.”

“You were?” Lucius tilted his head at him, and his eyes were a little softer this time. “In what way? It seems to me that you handled the situation well, my son, in leaving it up to me, since I have the power to redress the injury, as you do not.”

“I spent too much time whinging about it,” Draco said, and this time had to hold back the temptation to excuse himself, to stop speaking, to sound normal and like the person he was with Potter and Snape. That person would never say he was whinging about the injury, and he wasn’t, really. That bite had hurt.

But this was the lie Snape had decided on, and Draco trusted the professor in the way that he didn’t trust himself. So he continued on, whilst Lucius’s eyes seemed to widen a little more with each word. If he hadn’t been terrified, or close to it, Draco knew he would have thought that was really funny.

“I complained about it after the pain stopped. Pansy Parkinson actually tried to comfort me because she thought I was in such pain.” Lucius’s face twisted a little, and Draco cheered inwardly. His father had to put up with Mr. Parkinson, Pansy’s father, in business, but Draco knew he detested him and didn’t really want Draco to marry Pansy, the way she was always saying she would. “I complained about it for petty reasons. I betrayed Malfoy dignity. I didn’t control my own embarrassment, which I should have done to ensure that other people forgot about my humiliation.” Draco clasped his hands behind him and craned his head back until his neck ached. “I acted like a child, Father, at the time when I should be beyond such things. It was unpardonable, but nevertheless I ask that pardon.”

Lucius spent some more time swishing his cane through the grass. Draco watched. He wanted to run away or faint. He didn’t want to stand here and wait for the results of these words. He was sure Lucius knew something was off, that he would never agree to Draco’s plan, that he would say that being childish was worse and he would punish Draco for it—

“So,” Lucius said abruptly, “you want the execution canceled?”

Draco nodded quickly three times, then made himself stop when he saw his father’s lip curl. He knew Lucius’s thoughts as if he were speaking them now, because he’d heard Lucius say them to his mother before. The child looks like a toy when he displays too much enthusiasm. “Yes, Father,” he said, and now he was striving for dignity, trying to sound like Professor Snape when he stood in front of a reluctant Slytherin and explained the glories of Potions or House pride or winning the Quidditch Cup. “I believe killing the beast would let them see we put too much store on the insult offered.” Those phrases were Snape’s. They still sounded unnatural to Draco, but he had practiced them until they were just a few more lines. “On the other hand, forgoing the execution makes our enemies wonder what other penalty we might claim, what less obvious revenge. I feel it would be more in accordance with the grand traditions of our family if we took a step back and appeared to wash our hands clean of blood. Let us wash them with Galleons, instead.”

Those were Professor Snape’s words, too, and he’d made Draco practice them over and over until he knew the inflections as well as the words. But Lucius had stopped walking altogether and was staring at him, and Draco had to look back with his lips trembling and his pulse beating faster and faster in his throat. Lucius wasn’t going to fall for it, he knew Lucius wasn’t going to fall for it. It was—

“Draco,” Lucius said, and his voice was soft and simple. He stepped forwards and put a hand on Draco’s shoulder. Draco blinked. He couldn’t remember the last time Lucius had done that. It made him feel adult, equal to his father, or at least to one of his business partners. He didn’t look away from Lucius’s eyes, though, because something like this had happened before, he’d been happy, and then Lucius had reversed things.

“Draco,” Lucius said again. “You are my son. You will be a fine man. And you are not acting like a child in asking this of me, whatever your behavior may have been in the autumn.” He smiled and touched Draco’s hair, not to ruffle it, because he never did that, but as if he couldn’t believe that Draco was still so small. “Yes, what you say makes sense, and I would have seen that angle on the situation if I had bothered to look. I will cancel the execution and inform Minister Fudge that my support for the case is dropped.”

There were a few more words after that, but they weren’t as important. Lucius was only discussing the Malfoy fortune and details of business that Draco had heard before and which didn’t interest him. He could reply without hiding any emotion but boredom.

I got through it. I’m alive.

Yes, he was. Yes, Lucius hadn’t hurt him after all.

But Draco thought of something else as he watched his father’s eyes shine at him, and heard the more difficult way he was talking.

Lucius loved someone who didn’t exist. He wanted his son to be more like Professor Snape and less like Draco.

So the coil of resentment in his belly tightened one more twist.

*

Harry swallowed and sat back against the tree he’d been hiding behind as he watched the two Malfoys. He was overwhelmed.

Maybe Professor Snape and Malfoy’s father were both blind to the way Malfoy tensed up when his father was staring at him, but Harry wasn’t. He’d seen the same thing, over and over again. Done the same thing.

When the Dursleys looked at him. When he was a kid and still wanted their approval, or thought they’d love him if he just tried his hardest not to be a freak. He’d always been disappointed, but he remembered the awful waiting right now more than the disappointment.

And just because someone believed you once and gave you a chance didn’t mean they would always. Harry knew that, too. Right now, Sirius was the only adult who had believed him all the time. Professor Snape didn’t believe that Harry was trying his hardest in Potions and still getting failing marks; Remus didn’t believe Harry was an adult enough to hear all of the truth.

But they had helped him, too.

Harry’s head hurt. It was all too complicated, and not what he wanted to think about right now. He went back to thinking about Malfoy.

He had looked at his father the way that Harry looked at the Dursleys.

But he had done something about it anyway.

And that was brave, and Harry had heard Slytherins couldn’t be brave, mostly from Sirius. Remus maybe didn’t agree, but he sat by and smiled and didn’t say anything one way or the other a lot of the time. Ron and Hermione still didn’t really know he was friends with Malfoy, so they couldn’t say anything about it. And Harry knew that he didn’t trust Professor Snape’s opinion about most things.

So that left him to decide for himself if Malfoy was brave.

And Harry had to think that yeah, he was, and that he was even braver, in a way, to stand there talking with his father when he was so scared.

Someone can be brave and a Slytherin.

Harry leaned back against the tree, under the comfort of the Disillusionment Charm he’d cast on himself, and thought.

*

Severus could not deny that he was…more content than he had been in some time.

Draco had faced his father and spoken the first defiant words that he had ever spoken. Of course, Lucius had not recognized them as such, but little would have been gained if he had. This was not about confronting evil or some such Gryffindor form of the notion. Draco was following the finest traditions that Severus had encountered and tried to inculcate in his Slytherins of confrontation that would leave the enemy smugly certain of his own power, and the confronter able to continue working without interference.

But of course Draco could not see it exactly that way. He knew he had faced down someone he was terrified of and survived. And he had done it by fooling him.

Severus could already see the effect on him, the way that Draco ordered around Vincent and Gregory with a bit more confidence, the way that he often spoke up now to ask his own questions when Severus was teaching Potter the Dark Arts or to offer his own knowledge about Potions unasked. He was not afraid of his behavior being reported back to his father, or not as afraid. He was not afraid of a scolding from Severus, or that Potter would abandon him because they occasionally got into arguments.

He was losing the conviction of Lucius’s intelligence, or even omniscience, that had made him so reluctant to oppose his father for so long. He was becoming his own person.

Potter was a different story, a different puzzle. He had not tried to withdraw from Draco after the hippogriff was saved, which made Severus think that perhaps the boy could be taught by experience as well as by Draco’s and Severus’s efforts. But he no longer spoke as much as he had, even to voice complaints about the training process. He had retreated into a brooding silence rather like the one he had used after Finnigan burned his possessions, except flavored with some occasional touch of emotion.

It could be that he was thinking about the perspective that Draco’s confrontation of his father offered him, but Severus grew uncertain when he had no access to Potter’s thoughts, because the processes of those thoughts was so different from his own. He wanted to know what they were so that he might counteract them as necessary.

Potter did not speak them, and gave few clues as to what they could be, except that he increased the amount of time he spent alone as well as the amount of time he spent with Severus and Draco, and the mutt, the werewolf, and his friends. He had found more time in the day, somewhere. Severus did not know where.

He was beginning to wonder, as he watched Potter in class and racing along on his new broom above the Quidditch Pitch and at meals in the Great Hall, how much of the real boy was out of sight, churning and bubbling away under the surface. Could he understand and possibly prevent the boy’s suicidal stunts if he could gain access to that current?

Of course, his motives were not unselfish. He knew that increasing his knowledge of Potter’s thoughts would increase his contentment. And yet, they remained beyond his reach.

He was considering this one night at dinner in the Great Hall, very near the end of term, when an owl swooped in through the windows and offered a sealed letter to Dumbledore. Dumbledore read it with a frown, and stood, making one of those almost unnoticed exits he was so good at. Severus waited a few moments, so as not to be obvious, before he stood and followed.

He had seen the Ministry’s official seal on the letter.

*

Harry was laughing at a conversation between Ron and Hermione concerning the amount of potatoes it was “permissible to stuff into one’s mouth at once”—Hermione’s words—when an awful chill swept over him. He shook his head, hoping that it would fade, but it kept creeping up his back and his side and his hands.

He shivered and looked around. The first thing he noticed was that the Headmaster and Snape were both missing from the High Table, but there could be a lot of reasons for that. And besides, the other teachers were still there, and no one else seemed to notice anything wrong.

But the chill went on getting worse.

And then Harry heard a distant shriek and saw a distant flash of green light, and he was on his feet in a moment and pelting out of the Hall, because he knew what that meant and he knew, he knew what was going on.

The Dementors were coming for Sirius.

And they were. A crowd of black hooded shapes was flowing through the front doors and circling like ghosts towards the stairs that led up to the classroom where Sirius had spent the majority of his time for the last few months, except when Remus managed to sneak him out to the Forbidden Forest to run on full moon nights.

Harry screamed. He didn’t care who heard him; he just needed to scream out all the rage and frustration for a moment. Then he drew his wand and ran up the stairs, running so fast that it felt like flying, his feet tripping and stumbling but his body still propelling itself forwards, because it had to.

They would kill Sirius. They would take him away. But Harry couldn’t let that happen, and he had to stop it.

There was no one else around—again. He was all alone. And he would have to save Sirius alone.

That was just the way it was.

*

Draco stood up, and when Vince looked up and asked if he could finish his food, Draco just nodded and then sped out of the Great Hall without looking back.

He’d seen Potter leave the Gryffindor table. He’d seen his friends blink and look after him, but apparently decide that he was just going to vomit and turn back to their meals. And when Draco looked up, he’d seen the Headmaster and Snape were both gone.

And the Headmaster and Potter and Snape were the ones who knew about the Chamber of Secrets last year and the monster there. They’d even had a meeting that Draco hadn’t been part of. Professor Snape had told him a little about it later, but that wasn’t the same as being there.

This time, Draco wasn’t going to be left out of the adventure.

He heard Potter scream, and then the sound of flapping robes and thumping feet. He shuddered as he came out into the middle of the entrance hall and saw the Dementors, but he didn’t have a fainting problem around them the way Potter did, and he could see well enough that they weren’t looking at him. They were looking up the stairs. They wanted someone else.

Potter’s godfather.

Draco was sure of his identification the instant he made it, and, from the way Potter was running, so was he. Draco drew his wand and pounded up the stairs, too. The Dementors were rising through the air beside them—of course they didn’t have to take the steps—ignoring Potter and Draco completely.

Draco put on a burst of speed that made his ribs ache and his breath come so fast that he grew dizzy, and caught up with Potter. He seized his arm—and nearly got an elbow in the face for his trouble. He had to duck, and in the meantime Potter had recognized him and was screaming at him like a maniac, so that had to be dealt with, too.

“Go back, Malfoy! I don’t have the bloody time to protect you, too!”

“I like that!” Draco said. “You don’t have to protect me. I can cast Dark spells you never even heard of, and—”

“There’s only one defense against Dementors!” Potter ripped a hand through his hair in a way that made the hair stand up like the feathers of a demented Fwooper. “The Patronus Charm. Do you know it?”

Draco had to shake his head. He knew that Potter had been practicing that charm with Lupin and Black, and once or twice Draco had asked him about it, but he’d never had the intense lessons that seemed necessary.

“Then you can’t help, and you need to stay out of the way—”

A shriek came from up the stairs. It could have been anyone, but from the way Potter jerked taut as if someone had pulled on the string that ran through his heart, Draco knew he thought it was Black. The next moment, he was shooting away again, running at a speed that Draco thought would make his heart break.

Draco was right behind him, again. He didn’t care how dangerous this was—

All right, so I do care, he thought, as he caught a glimpse of a Dementor ahead of him and his heart went crazy.

—he cared about the adventure, and this time Potter was not leaving him behind.

*

Severus couldn’t think that Dumbledore didn’t know he followed. The Headmaster knew everything, including the secrets that men braver than Severus had died to keep.

But he didn’t look up as he passed out of the Great Hall and into a secret tunnel that opened in the wall at a tap of the wand. Severus waited a moment for it to close before he opened it again. And then he cast several spells of his own devising to muffle his footsteps, his breathing, and even his scent (the hard legacy of being a werewolf’s enemy). This was the one chance he had to follow the Headmaster undetected.

And he was certain he had to, though not why.

The tunnel led to Dumbledore’s office, of course. He had many ways to reach it unseen, legacy of a paranoid Headmaster of the past besieged by his own students. He stepped out into the main room and shut the door of the tunnel behind him. Severus voiced a quiet incantation that would allow him to open a peephole through the stone—that spell was not one that anyone alive but he and Lucius knew—and pressed an eye to it.

Fudge was waiting for Dumbledore. Dumbledore himself showed no surprise, which made Severus wonder again what the letter had contained. Instead, the Headmaster took his place behind the desk and looked at the Minister as if he were the one who had to bear unwelcome news and Fudge the recipient.

“Albus,” the Minister began, and then stumbled to a stop. It took him a long moment of hand-wringing before he could continue. “The Wizengamot has decided. Black is simply too dangerous to leave alive. Even if he didn’t betray the Potters or kill those Muggles, you do know that he attempted to kill Pettigrew instead of capture him, and he’s threatened several of my people who’ve come to talk to him.”

“Playful threats, I understood,” said Dumbledore, folding his hands on the desk. “Joking ones.”

You would do anything to excuse one of your pet favorites, Severus thought bitterly. You did it when Black threatened my life, and you do it now when it could cause you to sound as if you agree with Fudge in any way.

“Nevertheless.” Fudge cleared his throat nervously. “He’s still a potential murderer, and insane from his years in Azkaban.”

“Whose fault was that?” Dumbledore asked, mildly, but the “mildness” of the tone was something that Severus had felt against his own skin like a scalpel before.

“But he can’t go back to Azkaban.” Fudge was babbling now. “He’s already broken free now. So the Dementors are on the way to Kiss him. It’s the only way. I’m sorry, Dumbledore, but what could I do to stop them? They—”

Severus stopped listening to the Minister then, because he had no interest in weak people making excuses for their weakness. What he was most interested in was Dumbledore’s reaction. And though the Headmaster sat behind his desk with his head bowed, perhaps to conceal the anger on his face, the point was:

He sat behind his desk with his head bowed.

He made no attempt to interrupt the Minister, or condemn him, or to move to stop the execution. He remained still.

And that forced Severus to a decision he would have laughed at himself as mad for considering two days ago.

Who knows, he thought, as he turned and slipped rapidly up the tunnel in the direction of another that would take him to the fourth floor and the classroom where Black was held. Perhaps I have grown into the habit of stopping executions.

And earning the gratitude of Potters.

*

Harry came around the top of the stairs and saw the Dementors pouring into Sirius’s room. He heard the shrieks and screams and cast spells coming from the room, but in his mind there was that first scream, ringing on and on, and not shutting up.

He charged forwards, shoving past Dementors who didn’t pay him any attention; they were still focused on the classroom. Harry did his best not to pay any attention to the flashes of vision and despair that struck him as he brushed past individual Dementors, either.

Sirius, he saw when he finally burst into the open, was backed up against a wall, his eyelids fluttering and his fingers moving in the air as if he used to have a wand but someone had taken it away. And they did, Harry thought, bitterly, frantically. He looked around for Remus and saw him trying to cast the Patronus Charm, muttering the words under his breath again and again, but there were too many Dementors and he was overwhelmed.

So it was up to Harry.

Well, he knew that.

He raised his wand and turned to face the nearest Dementor. He caught a glimpse of a yawning mouth and swayed on his feet, but he reminded himself that Sirius was the first person who ever offered Harry a home, the first adult he ever trusted, and he raised his wand higher.

“Expecto Patronum!” he shouted.

But nothing happened, other than a faint silver light at the end of his wand. Oh, and a few of the Dementors turned towards him, and the flashes of green light and the screams overwhelming him grew worse and worse.

And then Harry remembered that he hadn’t actually produced a full Patronus, not really. He had a ghost stag that galloped around the room, and Sirius had ruffled his hair and told him about his father being a stag Animagus, but that wasn’t the same thing as a Patronus that could drive off fifty Dementors.

Or a hundred. Harry had lost count, but he knew that more than a hundred were guarding the school, and it seemed like every one in Hogwarts was swarming through the door now.

You’re going to fail, said Uncle Vernon’s voice in his head. Just like you’ve failed in everything else, you nasty little freak.

“No!” Harry shouted, but his throat was dry. And the Dementors went on closing in, and still Remus couldn’t summon a Patronus, and he couldn’t do anything, and Sirius was moaning with fear and pain and despair.

Then Malfoy screamed.

And Harry thought about what a waste it would be, if the way Malfoy had faced his father and was learning to listen to Harry and was brave died because Harry couldn’t summon up the Gryffindor courage to fight.

Rage swept away the weakness, and Harry focused on the image of Malfoy in front of his father, eyes bright, body shaking, because he couldn’t know what was going to happen and he was scared of his father and he did it anyway.

“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”

*

Draco screamed out of frustration and rage, because he couldn’t get through the Dementors into the room, and he didn’t know the spell that would scatter them, and they were probably going to kill Potter and then who would be his friend and have adventures with him?

And maybe he screamed, too, because he knew that Potter would hear him and know he was in trouble, and Potter needed someone to be a hero for. He told that to Professor Snape later, and the Professor said it was ridiculous, because Potter had his godfather to be a hero for.

But Draco screamed anyway, and that was when the silver stag charged.

It was the most beautiful thing Draco had ever seen, except maybe the way Potter sometimes flew in Quidditch games. It blazed like a comet as it cut through the Dementors. Suddenly Draco could breathe again. He stared in awe as the stag whirled around, stamping its hooves, and lowered its antlers. The Dementors in front of the classroom immediately fled down the stairs, towards the entrance. The stag charged after them.

But there were other Dementors crowding in still, and suddenly they seemed to be focusing on Draco; they were no longer just interested in Black. Draco clutched his wand, swallowed, and tried to remember the incantation for the spell.

“Expecto Patronum!” said a strong voice from down the corridor.

Then there was a silver doe running through the walls and the floor and coming down from the ceiling, it seemed that she was charging from so many directions at once, and the rest of the Dementors scattered. And Draco leaned back against the wall to get out of the way as the silver stag whirled up the stairs and joined the doe, running back and forth in the middle of the corridor until it was clear. Then they faced each other and bowed, the stag’s antlers to the doe’s bare head and soft ears, and slowly melted away.

When Draco could look at something else, he saw Potter standing in the entrance to the classroom, eyes huge and a really complex expression on his face.

And coming briskly towards them was Professor Snape.

*

Severus strode towards his students, one of whom was pressed against the wall as if he didn’t dare to move, the other of whom was looking at him with an expression that Severus hoped was the first entrance into his silent, brooding thoughts. If it was not, then Potter had bigger problems than Severus had thought he had.

He halted between Potter and Draco and looked at them both. Draco gazed up at him with the beginnings of hero-worship in his eyes. Severus resolved to remember it. Hero-worship could be a weakness, yes, but when the people one admired were useful and intelligent rather than simply adored, one could learn a great deal.

Potter stared at him, and the expression in his eyes was closer to Lily’s than Severus had ever seen it. His heart clenched painfully, and he forced the memory away. At the moment, this was not about Lily, no matter how much Severus wished she could still be alive, no matter that he carried the legacy of how she mattered to him in his Patronus. Her own Patronus had been a doe, and his had altered to match.

This was about her son.

“You cast that second Patronus.” Potter’s voice was strangely subdued. After a moment, Severus realized this was the first time he had heard it without arrogance or defensiveness or anger of any kind.

“Yes,” Severus said. “I did.” Until he knew more about the boy’s emotional state, it was best to stay with simple words.

“You saved Sirius and me and Draco,” Potter said, not seeming to notice what happened to Draco’s face when he heard his first name from Potter’s lips. Potter drew a deep, noisy breath. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome.” Severus waited, his arms folded, for the revelation that it seemed Potter was nerving himself up to make. Potter’s breathing was faster and faster, his hands clenched into fists as if he wanted to hit or kill. Perhaps he might even need to do both, before the end.

And then, of course, Black shattered the moment that Severus would have given much to keep, as he had made every effort to shatter Severus’s and Lily’s privacy when they were students.

“Harry, don’t thank him. You wouldn’t if you knew what kind of person he really was.”

Black moved up to stand behind Potter, glaring at Severus. It sometimes tired Severus to think that Black wore that expression and only that expression. He was sure his own face varied more when he looked at Black or the werewolf.

“But he saved our lives,” said Potter, and Severus’s anger altered. Black would have done well to pay attention to the complex, broken tones under Potter’s voice. “And that makes him a good person.”

“Harry, no! He was a Death Eater, one of Voldemort’s followers.”

Potter closed his eyes. Draco made a shocked little sound, though Severus was reasonably certain that he would have suspected that already; hearing Lucius speak about Severus in some contexts made it the only possible reality. Severus waited, not moving a muscle in his body, for the moment when Potter would repudiate him. Of course it would happen now. That was not a surprise.

It surprised him only how much it hurt him.

“Like everyone thought you were?” Potter asked.

“Yes.” Black knelt down beside Potter and put his arms around him. The sight sent a bolt of something dark and bitter through Severus, as if he had drunk tea without milk. He did not know why. “But he was really a Death Eater. He killed and tortured people, and he hurt us when we were in school together.”

Potter swallowed. “But you pranked him, too. You told me about that.”

Black laughed. “But that was only getting him back!”

Potter faced Black and squared his shoulders. Severus had only a moment to figure out what that stance reminded him of.

Lily, placing herself between Severus and Black in the days when she still considered Potter beneath her notice, in the days before he lost her.

“You said my dad saved his life,” Potter said. “You said that it was part of a prank on Snape. But you didn’t really explain. Did you try to kill him, Sirius?” His voice shook, and he raised a hand as if he would reach out and touch Black, then drew it back again. “You sent him down the tunnel to Remus when he was in werewolf form—I didn’t think about it—you were trying to kill him, weren’t you? And my dad thought better of it and saved his life. But you were the one who told him about Remus and the way to reach him. You said that.”

There was a little silence—or perhaps it was little for Potter and Black. For Severus, it was wide and deep and filled with shifting emotions like icebergs in an arctic ocean.

“I didn’t mean to try and kill him, Harry,” Black said. He sounded uncomfortable, but also angry, as if he didn’t really know why he was uncomfortable. “I only wanted Remus to hurt him a bit.”

“But he would either have killed him or turned him into a werewolf,” Harry said. “Remus told me how dangerous lycanthropy is. That’s why you won’t let me come with you when you run in the Forest.”

Severus’s inner silence leaped apart as if someone had tossed a boulder into the arctic ocean. Potter might have gone with them and been hurt. No. I will not allow that to happen.

“He deserved it,” Black said. He looked bored, now, which Severus knew was his defense against things he didn’t want to consider.

“He was in sixth year.” Potter’s voice rose slightly. “I don’t think he was a Death Eater yet. Was he?”

“He practiced illegal magic—”

“So were you. You were Animagi, and no one knew. You didn’t register.” Potter put his hands over his face, but he kept speaking like someone who was much older and didn’t have the luxury of being able to retreat into silence, not like someone who was about to cry at any moment. “I love you, Sirius, but I don’t like you very much right now.”

Black tried to grab and hug Potter, but Potter broke away without a word and walked out the door.

That left the three of them alone. Severus looked at Lupin, but, as always, Lupin avoided his gaze. It was Black who growled under his breath, “You tried to take my godson away from me. You bastard.”

Severus refrained from pointing out that Black had done an excellent job of alienating his godson himself, by not telling him the truth about everything. “I followed Dumbledore,” he said instead. “The Dementors were sent by the Ministry to kill you, Black. This was not an accident. And Dumbledore sat still behind his desk instead of arguing legal matters of right and wrong, or trying to find you and stop them.”

Black stared at him, his face twisting with anger and astonishment and grief. Severus knew he was on the verge of not believing him, so he added one more poke of the knife. “Just the way Dumbledore did not insist that you have a trial with Veritaserum originally, as I understand it?”

“You’re lying,” Black breathed.

“He’s not,” Lupin said unexpectedly. “It’s still close enough to the full moon, Sirius. I can tell the truth from his scent.”

Congratulations, Lupin, Severus thought. That is probably the most action you have taken in several years. To Black, he said, “You have little choice but to become a fugitive once more. The Ministry, I think, will call the Dementors back as soon as they can, and Dumbledore either has failed to convince them or will try no longer.”

“I want to take Harry with me,” Black said insistently.

“It’s too dangerous, Sirius,” Lupin began, sounding apologetic.

“You will take him when you kill me,” Severus said softly.

Black stared at him again, and this time, so did Lupin. Severus ignored that and leveled his wand at Black. Black glanced at him, then over his shoulder. Perhaps he hoped to see Potter running back to forgive him, but that didn’t happen.

“All right,” Black whispered. “All right, damn you.”

Severus did not care how often he was damned. What mattered was that Black would be gone but still alive, so that Potter did not crash once again into apathy because of the loss of his godfather.

And, from the way Lupin’s gaze lingered on Black as he turned into a dog and slunk out of the room, Severus rather thought that Lupin would be gone as well, following the fugitive as best as he could on two—or four—feet.

*

Harry stood in the corridor, next to Draco, who had put a hand on his shoulder, but that didn’t mean he was deaf. He heard everything that Snape said to Sirius, and he heard Sirius protest about taking Harry with him, and he heard him say, in the end, that he wouldn’t.

And of course he couldn’t. He would be running fast, and spending a lot of time as a dog, and Harry knew that it would be dangerous to Sirius if Harry went with him, because Harry couldn’t change into a dog and was slow.

He closed his eyes.

Sirius lied sometimes. Sirius wasn’t as good as Harry had thought he was. But neither was Snape.

And of course Harry couldn’t go home with Sirius for the summer.

Harry wanted to scream and pound his fist against something, but he was too tired for that, and the hard, new thoughts crowded his head. Sirius was going to need someone strong. He was strong, but he would be miserable if he thought that Harry was tormenting himself about going back to the Dursleys’.

And Draco had been strong to face up to his father, and Snape had been strong to cast the Patronus to keep someone alive he hated. And even Remus had been strong, because he had convinced Sirius to leave.

Harry had to be strong, too. He had to not complain about something no one could change, anyway. He had to be cheerful and face his own consequences. The Dursleys called him a freak and gave him hard work to do and starved him a bit, but so what? Harry didn’t feel anything for them like the fear he’d seen in Draco’s face when Draco looked at his father.

And Draco had still fought him. Alone.

Harry had to do the same with the Dursleys.

“Harry?”

He looked at Draco, and managed a small smile, because this was the time to start showing his new strength. He thought there was something Draco would like to know, since he’d followed Harry but still didn’t really get to be a part of the adventure. “You need a happy thought to make a Patronus,” he said. “But I couldn’t think of a happy thought, because there were too many Dementors. Then I heard you scream—”

“Your happy thought was me screaming?” Draco scowled.

“No,” Harry said. “My happy thought was you facing your father.”

Draco’s jaw dropped, and he just stood there with nothing to say. Harry knew the feeling. He took Draco’s hand and shook it, and went on shaking it until he had something to say.

“We’re still friends,” he said. “After Buckbeak and everything.”

The look in Draco’s eyes was enough to carry him through Dumbledore arriving and talking to him about how sorry he was, but with the Ministry hunting Sirius, of course Harry would have to go back to Privet Drive for the summer. Harry could smile and nod and say he understood.

He didn’t know if the look in Draco’s eyes was enough to get him through the summer, but he would try to make it be.

*

Draco had already made up his mind what he would do.

There was courage everywhere, and he wanted to join in.

So he waited until he had been back home for the summer holidays a week, and his father had gone to a Ministry function and wouldn’t be back for the night. Then he summoned Dobby, the house-elf.

Dobby came in with both ears missing this time, his face covered with scars. One eye was gone, too. Draco stood still, with his hands clasped behind his back, and his heart beating so loudly in his own ears that it hurt.

“What is Master Draco wishing?” Dobby’s voice was dull, and he looked at the ground as if he wished it would open up and swallow him.

“I have something for you,” said Draco, and then held out the sock he had saved and hidden from his laundry.

Dobby stared at it. Then he took the sock from Draco with fingers that trembled and slid it carefully over his foot, looking at Draco all the time as if he thought he would take the sock back.

“It’s a gift,” Draco said. “You’re free.”

Dobby’s eye closed, and he started crying without sound. Draco just watched him until his own eyes got hot and itchy, and then he said, “You have to scatter blood around and use your magic to make it look like you died, or otherwise my father will wonder what happened to you and try to get you back. I have some manticore blood from Professor Snape’s stores that you can use.” He fetched the vial from his trunk and gave it to Dobby. “And I’ll tell my father that I ordered you to kill yourself because you were so useless.”

“Master Draco is helping,” Dobby whispered. “Master Draco is brave.”

“Of course I am,” said Draco.

And then Dobby disappeared, and Draco stood there knowing, really knowing, that he was like Harry.

More than like.

His equal.

Chapter 10.