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Chapter Twenty-Seven—Tiara

“Is it really safe to go back into the school, with Dumbledore controlling it?” Draco had a grave impression on his face, and even if he was speaking through a mouthful of mashed turnips and therefore sounded ridiculous, Harry knew he should listen to him.

“Not safe,” Harry said. “Any more than it’s safe to go after one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes in the first place.” He looked to the side where the Resurrection Stone crouched in its silken bag, partly so that he could keep from rolling his eyes at the way Draco flinched. It’s just a name. Not all of Dumbledore’s lessons were useless. “But we don’t have a choice. If I asked Ron and Hermione, there’s the chance Dumbledore could figure out what they’re doing and take the tiara away from them before they could secure it. And they certainly couldn’t get down to the Chamber of Secrets and find the basilisk venom before Dumbledore figured out what they were doing. Or look up the modifications to the Switching Charm.”

“I’ll remind you that we haven’t found all the necessary modifications, either.” Draco licked his fingers. Harry looked away for a different reason this time, and pretended to be really busy with the bread and butter.

“I know,” he said. “But we can at least fetch the tiara and keep it safe until we do.”

Draco said nothing, but when Harry looked back at him, he found Draco smiling slightly. “I know that,” he said. “I just want to make sure that you’re aware of all the risks.” He reached out and clasped Harry’s hand, squeezing slightly. “If you aren’t, I’ll think of them, but I appreciate someone who can share the burden.”

Harry squeezed his hand back and leaned forwards to kiss him.

“There are some distractions you do not need occupying your time,” Snape’s voice said briskly, and then he was striding into the kitchen. Harry sat back in his seat and tried not to pout. “We need not rely on Granger and Weasley alone, or your own scanty knowledge of the school. My knowledge is vast.” He raised an eyebrow at Harry. “And you have that map that allows you to recognize the secret passages.”

Harry nodded. “But I wonder if Dumbledore will have trapped some of the passages. He knows more about the school than any of us.”

Snape made a flicking gesture with his fingers, as if Dumbledore’s knowledge of the school were a puff of dust he was tossing away from him. “We cannot anticipate every measure he may take,” he said. “We can only make good plans and then put the plans into operation.” He leaned forwards. “Now, we will...”

And Harry and Draco listened intently, and when Mrs. Malfoy came downstairs, then she listened intently, too.

*

“I want to come with you.”

Harry put his arms around Sirius and closed his eyes, wondering when he had started to feel so protective of Sirius and reversed the godfather and godson roles. Of course, it had probably started when he had Voldemort in his body and injured Sirius so badly. Sirius was trying to stand tall and straight, but his twisted spine wouldn’t permit it. And the hand that he used to stroke Harry’s hair still shook.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered. “We’ll have to move fast, and you can’t.” He had found that trying to refer to Sirius’s injuries tactfully made him rage, so he would speak bluntly about them.

Sirius bristled, then sighed and hugged him back. He could still hug so hard that he wrung a grunt of pain from Harry. “At least that’s a good reason,” he said. “I would have been worried if it was because Snivellus didn’t want me along.”

Harry stepped back and eyed Sirius sternly. Sirius hadn’t tried to force him away from Snape for years now, but he wasn’t above insults. “He doesn’t insult you to me anymore,” he said. “Can’t you imitate him? His level of civility isn’t very high.”

“He doesn’t insult me to your face,” Sirius muttered, and folded his arms, which caused his body to twist slightly to the side. He looked like a disheveled scarecrow with his hair sticking out in several directions. “He might go around drinking Firewhisky and muttering it to himself, you never know.”

The image of Snape sipping Firewhisky made Harry laugh. Then he shook his head. “I don’t think he does,” he said. “And I want to have you both as—as teachers.” He didn’t think there was any better word to describe his relationship to Snape right now, even though they were no longer professor and student. “So don’t say things like that that might make me choose between you.”

Sirius nodded and sighed gustily. “I don’t think I’ll ever trust him,” he said. “But I won’t speak badly about him.”

“Thank you,” Harry said quietly. He hugged Sirius again. He wanted to feel he could trust his godfather and talk openly with him instead of always listening for insults about Snape. He was feeling weird enough already, leaving his Gryffindor friends behind and associating almost exclusively with Slytherins. He didn’t want to lose the first side of himself. “And I promise that we’ll come see you the moment we get back to Grimmauld Place and tell you how it went.”

“All right.” Sirius’s arms tightened crushingly around for him a moment. “Ah, Harry. I was too late to do anything about Pettigrew betraying your parents. I thought they would be safe for a few hours whilst I tried to find more evidence. Don’t make me mistaken about your safety, too.”

“Draco would do anything for me,” said Harry. “And so would Snape. I know you don’t agree with me, but he would.”

Sirius grunted skeptically, but let Harry go. “Will you meet up with Ron and Hermione?”

“We’re going to try,” Harry said. “But we have to go in at night, and we don’t know if Ron and Hermione will be able to slip out of Gryffindor Tower without alerting Dumbledore.”

“It’s so strange to think of Dumbledore as the enemy,” Sirius said.

“Not so strange for me, cousin.”

Harry turned quickly. He had never got used to the way that Mrs. Malfoy could move so quietly, and he didn’t trust how she stood in the doorway now with her hands folded at her waist like some serene statue. She was wearing white robes, too, which increased the impression of purity. Harry wouldn’t be taken in, though. He knew from the way she peered at him that she still didn’t like him, and that she didn’t think he should be dating Draco.

“I have spent most of my life thinking of the wizards that Dumbledore led as the enemy,” Mrs. Malfoy went on, walking further into Sirius’s room, not seeming to care about the scowl on Sirius’s face or the frozen expression Harry was sure he was wearing. Her voice was light and careless, the voice Harry had heard Aunt Petunia use when she was gossiping with the neighbors. “It has required an adjustment to make myself think otherwise. But my husband began the adjustment smartly for me on the night when he tried to murder me and spill my blood as a sacrifice to strengthen a Horcrux’s guardian spirit.”

Harry winced. “I never knew that was why you fled to Hogwarts, Mrs. Malfoy,” he said.

“It is.” Mrs. Malfoy looked at him, and for once Harry thought there was some intense, if buried, emotion in her cold eyes, instead of just icy nothingness. That nothingness was what made him avoid Draco’s mother most of the time. “I was not comfortable enough to tell you until now. But I think you should trust me, too, if I am to go with you to Hogwarts.”

“No one said that you were,” Sirius snapped, and stepped in between them. His crippled hand still couldn’t hold his wand, but he’d become pretty good with the other one, and the wand was steady when it pointed at its target.

“Wait, Sirius.” Harry stepped around Sirius, putting a hand on his shoulder—sometimes he was still surprised he’d got tall enough to do that easily—and looked doubtfully at Mrs. Malfoy. “Snape mentioned something about you being part of the plan, but I didn’t know he was serious. You really want to go?”

“It is an important part of the war,” Mrs. Malfoy said. “And I can provide a distraction for either Dumbledore or the Dark Lord, depending on which of them takes note of us.” Her cheeks were pale, but Harry didn’t think that was fear; it looked more like the result of intense thought. Her eyes never left his face. “I am weary of staying in a few small rooms and wondering when my husband or his Lord will manage to murder me. I would rather go forth to meet them.”

Harry blinked, his heart swelling with fellow-feeling. He’d experienced that often enough at Privet Drive, especially after Voldemort came back and he had to worry about all the terrors he was inflicting on the wizarding world that Harry wouldn’t hear about until he went back to school. “Do you think Voldemort will show up just as we’re moving the Horcrux?” he asked.

“I do not know.” Mrs. Malfoy’s smile was slight and also cold, like a crack in a glacier. “He may have wards and alarms on it, though the lack of interference when you destroyed the other Horcruxes suggests he does not. But I would rather not take the chance. And I know that he would find me an…interesting target, as long as he did not suspect what you were truly doing. If Lucius is there or comes with him, he will be attracted by me as well.”

“I can’t allow you to put yourself in danger,” Harry began.

“You can’t?” Mrs. Malfoy raised her eyebrows higher, until she looked the way Draco did when he was in the very last stages of sucking Harry’s cock. Not that Harry was going to tell her that, and he really hoped she didn’t know the cause of his sudden blush. “When you will be in danger simply because of who you are?” She looked pointedly at the scar on his forehead.

Harry chewed his lip for a moment, then sighed reluctantly and shook his head. Forcing Draco’s mum to stay here would only make her resent him, and that would mean she disliked him for longer. And it would probably make Draco unhappy, at least if he knew his mum wanted to come.

“All right,” he said. “As long as you can keep up physically and you don’t use Unforgivable Curses or Dark Arts as the first means of defense.”

“I have lived longer than you,” said Mrs. Malfoy, in what was probably meant as a repressive tone. “I believe I know more purely defensive charms, and also the appropriate places and times to use them.”

Harry nodded in response, but didn’t voice his suspicions that Mrs. Malfoy shared the Slytherin tendency to assume that the Dark Arts should come out as soon as the enemy injured you a little bit.

Mrs. Malfoy’s eyes narrowed as if she had been the source of Draco’s talent for Legilimency, though, so Harry hastily turned away and started talking to Sirius. “Remember not to let anyone who looks like us into the house without asking us questions only we would know first. And keep the wards up. And no venturing out in dog form to look for us. We’ll come back when we come back.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mum.”

“I wouldn’t be your mum for worlds,” Harry said, shuddering as he thought of the portrait downstairs. He hugged Sirius one more time, and then turned and left the room. Mrs. Malfoy lingered behind him, and he thought he heard her ask Sirius a question.

If he was right, the question was, “You let him order you around like that?”

Harry rolled his eyes and sped up until he was practically leaping down the stairs. He didn’t understand Mrs. Malfoy’s point. She had been the one to make him into a kind of leader when she had come into the Great Hall and claimed his protection, after all. If she thought that he wasn’t an adult enough to order people around sometimes, why did she want that protection?

But then again, maybe she doesn’t connect those incidents, Harry thought, as he landed on the last stair and in front of Draco and Snape, who were waiting for him. I’m learning that an awful lot of people think awfully differently from me the majority of the time.

“Ready?” Draco asked. His face was whiter than normal, and his eyes stood out of his skull as if someone was poking them from behind. Harry stepped towards him and put his arms around him without even caring that Snape was watching and that Mrs. Malfoy was probably also on the stairs already.

“I am,” Harry said. “And I’m certain we’re going to complete this successfully.”

He wasn’t, but it was what Draco needed to hear, and he relaxed in Harry’s arms. Harry didn’t think he was misinterpreting the slight nod Snape gave him, either.

And then Mrs. Malfoy had reached the bottom of the stairs, and there was no reason to delay any longer.

*

Severus looked around and shook his head. They stood in the Forbidden Forest, not far from the gates of Hogwarts. It was a view he had seen numerous times, not least whilst strengthening the school’s protective spells over the summer so that beasts from the Forest could not invade. But he had never traveled as far between one year and the next as he had traveled between May and now.

Narcissa stood beside him, as cool and impersonal as a water-lily. She watched without comment as Severus drew his wand and released the silver doe Patronus. The doe stamped her hoof against the ground before Severus and tossed her head as if she would resist the command he gave her. But Severus arched an eyebrow and imposed his will on the magic, and she turned and faded away like one of the castle’s ghosts.

“You are sure this will bring Dumbledore?” Not many people would have known Narcissa Malfoy was nervous, but her fingers, folded at her waist, twitched a fold of her gown between them. Severus knew.

“Yes.” Severus gave a thin smile, though he was not certain Narcissa, who studied the school gates through which her son had vanished, saw it. “The Order of the Phoenix communicates by means of Patronus, mostly. The means of sending him the message will convey its own import to Dumbledore. Or he will think it does, at least.”

Narcissa eyed him sideways, then nodded and went back to watching the school. Severus cast a slight Warming Charm—the whistle of the wind past him was chill—and then a spell that sharpened his eyesight. He had to be aware the moment the door into the school twitched open and the Headmaster came hurrying out, because then it would be time to put the second part of the plan into motion.

He and Narcissa were not the main actors tonight, but only the distraction, so that Draco and Harry could make it to the Room of Requirement to fetch the tiara and then down into the Chamber of Secrets to get the basilisk venom without interference from Dumbledore. He had to remember that, and to be ready to move as soon as he saw the chance.

*

There were too many inquisitive professors in the school, Draco thought in irritation, and every single one of them seemed determined to inspect the corridors tonight.

He and Harry were Disillusioned, as well as wearing small amulets his mother had crafted for them that she said would distract the detection spells. The amulets were small packets that felt leathery and had a dark brown tinge like old blood. Draco could see that Harry had wanted to ask, but in the end he had taken a deep breath, nodded, and accepted the amulet from Narcissa without a question.

But none of that was proof against determined investigation, and Narcissa had warned them against relying too much on the amulets even when it came to the detection spells. So far, they had passed Flitwick, McGonagall, Vector, and Madam Pomfrey. All of them had paused as if they had seen the slight stir or shimmer of air that a Disillusionment Charm would cause as someone moved in front of a blank stone wall, and McGonagall and Flitwick had both held up their wands and looked further.

But Draco and Harry holding still, to the point of holding their breath, and clutching their amulets had seemed to confuse them. At least, they shook their heads and went away each time.

Finally they reached the seventh floor, and Harry shot out a barely visible hand and squeezed Draco’s arm, hard. Draco looked sideways at him, wondering if his fear had finally caught up with him. But the outlines of his face were so faint that Draco found it hard to make out his expression.

Instead, he waited, whilst Harry’s hand squeezed harder and harder. And then he relaxed, his fingers just barely encircling Draco’s wrist. But when they went forwards, they went together.

Draco ducked his head, in case Harry could see his expression better and found his delighted smile offensive.

They came to the door of the Room of Requirement and leaned against the wall. Harry cast a few temporary wards that should tell them if anyone was coming, particularly from Gryffindor Tower, and Draco added a customized spell he had learned from his book. If it worked the way it was supposed to, it would baffle the spying portraits.

And then they had to wait, because Narcissa had promised to signal them when Dumbledore came out of the school in response to Snape’s Patronus and they had seen nothing yet.

Harry put his mouth to Draco’s ear. “I can’t believe that we’ve come this far and nothing has gone wrong,” he whispered. “Something has to, at any moment.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic,” Draco snapped back, though he kept his voice so light that he thought not even Mrs. Norris could have heard him from a step away. “That’s my role. You just play hopeless optimist the way Gryffindors were born to do.”

Harry smiled; Draco felt the motion of his lips even if he couldn’t see it. Then Harry kissed Draco’s cheek and stroked his hair once before stepping back. His shoulder stayed close enough that Draco could feel his body heat.

Draco relaxed in spite of himself. Yes, he was nervous at the fact that Dumbledore hadn’t appeared to notice them so far—his spells weren’t weak, and he had to suspect some attack from Harry and Draco once he saw that Professor Snape and Draco’s mother had returned—but it was still nice to be reminded that they had lives outside the Horcrux hunt. And one aspect of those lives was the physical touches that Harry was now much less shy about giving him.

A faint silvery light suddenly lit the corridor, and a swan extended its wings in front of them and bobbed its long, delicate neck, the beak almost striking Draco’s head before it disappeared.

“There it is,” Harry breathed, and began to walk back and forth in front of the door of the Room of Requirement. “I need the Room of Hidden Things,” he murmured, exactly as the Dark Lord had said the phrase in his mind.

Draco didn’t walk with him for fear that two people would confuse the Room. Instead, he took a deep breath, tightened his hold on the wand, and hoped for the best.

*

There.

Dumbledore wore robes there was painful to look at, as always. They swirled with dark purple folds and winking silver stars. Severus moved his head in a slight nod, and Narcissa stepped behind him so that she might cast the Patronus to send to Harry and Draco in relative privacy. Severus, meanwhile, stepped forwards and reached into his pocket, drawing out the replica of Dumbledore’s wand that Narcissa had made.

It was not to be hoped that the replica would fool Dumbledore for long; he must have been familiar with his wand for years. And he would wonder why Severus had it, when Draco was had won it.

But anything that could keep Dumbledore distracted and talking until Severus received Harry’s stag Patronus in return—signaling that he and Draco were safe and out of the school, with both tiara and basilisk venom—was valuable.

The Headmaster came to a stop in front of him, smiling. He had covered the grass between the doors and their position with a brisk stride. Now he looked Severus in the eye, but someone less experienced in spying could have seen the way his gaze flicked down to the wand of elder wood.

“My boy,” he said, and his voice was husky with feigned emotion. At least, Severus thought it was feigned. One of the most annoying things about Dumbledore, as he had discovered after associating with him for years, was that he remained hard to read. Familiarity made no difference in knowledge of his facial expressions. “I knew you would come back. I doubted sometimes, I troubled my mind about matters, but I knew.” And he took a step forwards, hand reaching for the replica, exactly as if he possessed some right to it.

Severus moved smoothly away, and felt Dumbledore’s tension rise a notch when Narcissa stepped out from behind him. If the Headmaster had seen her Patronus leave, however, he gave no sign of it. He nodded to her and said, “Dear lady, were you instrumental in persuading my boys to return? I am grateful.”

“Harry has not yet returned,” Severus said, seizing on Dumbledore’s belief to spin a stronger lie. “He remains at our Apparition point in the Forest, waiting to see if you can be trusted.”

“And Mr. Malfoy with him, I trust?” Dumbledore pushed his glasses up his nose and beamed. Severus thought he might have detected a slight hitch of exasperation in his voice when he mentioned Draco. Perhaps.

“Of course.” Severus tapped his fingers against the replica. “He did not want to surrender the wand, but we convinced him that it was necessary if we were to show we trusted you.” He paused. “If we can trust you.”

“I am ready to offer you any pledge, any token.” Dumbledore could sound dignified when he wished to, and so the words did not come out as begging. It was one of the reasons that night in the Headmaster’s office had unnerved Severus so badly. Dumbledore’s desire for the Resurrection Stone must have been overpowering for him to be reduced to grasping for it. “An Unbreakable Vow, if that is what it takes.”

“Hearing you accept me under your protection of your own free will would be a good start,” said Narcissa, her voice holding just the right amount of chilly politeness. Dumbledore’s attention shifted to her, and his eyes narrowed a bit. Severus managed to keep his mouth still when it would have twitched in an approving smile, but it was difficult. Dumbledore was a half-blood, and he had grown up in a time when the divide between pure-bloods and other members of wizarding culture was even more pronounced than it was now. Narcissa, raised within that formal world, could needle him in a way few others would manage.

“I can offer you that,” said Dumbledore quietly. “Your husband has not pursued you as strongly as he might have, and Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger have offered me explanations of the danger to you within the school that I can accept.”

Meaning that he no longer thinks Narcissa engineered that danger herself to support her story, Severus thought, and barely managed to refrain from rolling his eyes. The Headmaster’s greatest problem had always been that he distrusted the words of others, not because he thought them untrustworthy, but because he put too much faith in his own perspective. Stories that did not match that perspective must be suspect.

“Then perhaps…” Narcissa let her voice trail off teasingly, and gave him a smile that Severus had seen melt more Slytherin men.

“Harry has other concerns,” said Severus briskly. This was the plan they had concocted in the first place, to distract Dumbledore by forcing him to think about conundrums he had already shown himself unable to resolve. “He wants to know if you have given up your desire for the Resurrection Stone and will permit him to destroy it.”

Dumbledore’s eyelids veiled his eyes. “I think, Severus,” he said slowly, “that, as someone older than Harry and more familiar with wizarding history, you may be able to better understand the immense power and significance of the Deathly Hallows.”

And who has ensured that he was not familiar with wizarding history? Who let him grow up with Muggles? Severus kept such emotions out of his eyes and the forefront of his mind, however; it would not do to have Dumbledore read them from him before he was ready. Likewise, he kept his arms at his sides despite the immediate and immense temptation to fold them. “I am listening,” he said.

That declaration could have meant everything or nothing, but Dumbledore had a tendency to interpret such words as broadly as possible. He nodded and smiled. “The Deathly Hallows are thought to be legend because they are so rarely gathered together, or in the possession of an owner who can be historically verified,” he said. “But consider what would happen if one person managed to accumulate them. To use them.”

Severus snorted in spite of himself. “You cannot make me believe that you want power, Albus. You have spent your life downplaying what power you do have, and you confessed to me yourself that your greatest fear is being called on to display your knowledge and become involved in the lives of your students.”

Dumbledore gave him a quick, piercing glance, perhaps because Narcissa was here and he had not wanted her to hear that, but he continued to speak in a soothing voice. “I wanted the Resurrection Stone to see my dead again, but I also wanted it to keep it out of unscrupulous hands.”

“If we destroy it, then it is out of any hands, scrupulous or not, forever,” Severus pointed out. He was reluctantly fascinated by now, however. How far will he go? How desperately will he try to convince me?

“That is true,” said Dumbledore, and bobbed his head a little, with a conciliating smile on his face that Severus didn’t trust for a moment. “Nevertheless, listen to me, please.”

Severus raised a brow and waited.

“I will prove that you can trust me,” Dumbledore said, lowering his voice as he did when he wanted to appear mysterious, “by offering you a secret that I have carried unacknowledged for years by myself. I believe that Harry’s Invisibility Cloak was one of the Hallows, and destroyed by Mr. Finnigan’s spell. Thus, the greatest number of the Hallows that anyone can possess from now on is two. And I had two at that moment in my office, Severus.”

Severus tightened his grip on the replica wand. “You mean—”

“The Resurrection Stone,” Dumbledore said, his voice so soothing it was almost sweet. “And the Elder Wand. Yes.” He paused impressively, and layered dignity on the silence. “I took possession of the Elder Wand long ago, in circumstances that—well, they are connected to my past and my dead, and do not need confessing at the moment.”

Even now, Severus thought, as he reeled under the unexpected shock of what Draco was carrying around with him and using for common household chores, he tries to determine what information he will pass on. Of course he does.

“I believe that I could cleanse the Resurrection Stone,” Dumbledore went on, and his voice rustled like the voice of Bellatrix in Severus’s nightmares. “Purge it of Voldemort’s influence, without destroying it. And then I could use both Hallows to good effect. It was always my plan to die peacefully and carry the Elder Wand to my grave with me, so that its power would end forever. That is another reason I have avoided open conflict for so long.

“Give me back the Wand and the Stone, Severus. I need them both, and they will ensure that I, and no one less capable of protecting them, keeps them from Voldemort.”

Severus took a deep breath. He had never anticipated encountering a revelation like this, and was not sure how it changed things on the ground.

Narcissa Malfoy moved before he did.

*

Harry halted the instant he stepped into the Room of Requirement, and looked warily about.

It wasn’t that he thought this was the wrong place. It had to be the Room of Hidden Things, given all the clutter scattered randomly about. Shelves packed with dusty books sagged in every direction and tipped their load to the floor. Statues and busts of sneering or smiling or laughing wizards and witches who had been famous in their day stared at the ceiling or the walls. A broken Vanishing Cabinet huddled not far from the door. Here and there, Harry could see the shimmer of mirrors and the glow of gold and silver necklaces, or perhaps bracelets, anklets, or chains.

But something was different from what he had expected, from the atmosphere he had experienced every other time he had entered the Room of Requirement. He grimaced and put a hand to his forehead as his scar began to burn.

That’s it. The room smells like Voldemort, feels like him.

Harry stood still, his arms folded, trying to convince himself that was only natural. Ravenclaw’s tiara had been here for God knew how many years; of course the sense of Voldemort’s presence might have spread out and tainted the other objects. Other people, if they’d come here in that time, probably wouldn’t have noticed because they didn’t have the link to Voldemort that he did.

But should it be this strong? The feeling that said “Voldemort” to Harry spread out like a miasma, curling down in heavy, greasy smoke to stroke the treasures and enter the eyes of the statues. If he opened one of the books, Harry thought, nausea rising in his throat, the impression of Voldemort would cling to every one of them, like a film making the letters run.

“Oi!”

Harry started as Draco shoved at his back, and stepped aside so Draco could enter the Room, though he continued to stare distrustfully in several directions. Draco glanced curiously at him, then at the mess. He groaned. “I think it’ll take some time to find the tiara,” he muttered. “I mean, it can’t be as simple as saying ‘Accio tiara,’ right?”

A clinking and rattling sounded off to the side. Harry whirled around, hand on his wand. He thought he saw a fading glow encircle Draco’s robe pocket for a moment, where Dumbledore’s wand rested, but he forgot about it when a discolored tiara soared towards Draco.

Draco laughed in astonished triumph and reached up for it. “I reckon he didn’t use any traps because he was arrogant enough to think he was the only one who would ever find this place,” he remarked.

“No!” Harry shouted when he saw the tiara almost brush Draco’s fingers. “Don’t touch it!”

Draco turned to look at him, gaping in astonishment. The tiara wobbled in the air for a moment, then startled to settle onto his head.

Harry knocked him aside, wrapping his arms around Draco’s waist and bearing him to the ground the way he had dreamed of doing under different circumstances. Draco gasped as the air was knocked out of him and then began to drum on Harry’s chest with his fists, calling him a clumsy oaf, but Harry’s attention was on the tiara.

It had fallen to the floor. He could see that most of it was tarnished, but the tarnish ran out at one place in the front, where a deep crack shimmered with gray light.

A crack in the Horcrux.

From which the guardian spirit might be able to escape.

The things around them surged, and then all of them turned and began to attack.

Harry cursed and lifted his wand. He had been right. Voldemort’s presence was everywhere, spread to the other treasures in the Room of Hidden Things. Harry hadn’t realized the guardian spirit could take over the “bodies” of objects as well as humans, but it seemed it could.

And right now, he had to hope that the Dark Arts he had learned from Snape were adequate to defending himself from a Vanishing Cabinet.

*

“I see no reason to give you the Wand,” said Narcissa in reflective tones, “though we did bring it here with that intention. My son Draco remains its master. I would not see him give up such power.” And she moved forwards and laid a hand on the replica.

Good, Narcissa, Severus thought approvingly. He was still too disoriented by the revelation to think of such a clever plan. Great pieces of knowledge had that effect on him. It was an unfortunate weakness. He had not reacted quickly or well to Lily’s desertion when he realized it was final, either.

But this was the present, when he still had a chance to make a difference, and he would not allow the past to intrude. He turned his wand so that it was pointing at Dumbledore. “Yes, exactly,” he said. “Why should we give up the Wand when it is the only one of the Hallows we can keep, and the most powerful?”

Dumbledore’s eyes flashed with a single intense emotion. It might have been sorrow, or rage. Severus was not sure; he did not think he had ever seen Dumbledore truly angry. “You still mean to destroy the Stone?” he asked quietly.

“Of course,” Severus said, and fought to keep from rolling his eyes. Dumbledore’s obsession had weakened him permanently, it seemed, attaching him to the Stone even when he should have been thinking about other matters. I owe Harry for many things, but perhaps for nothing so much as freeing me from my obsession with his father. It could have crippled me. “It’s a Horcrux.”

“But it could be purged,” Dumbledore whispered. “It could be cleansed.”

“How?” Severus demanded. Dumbledore had never been shy about mentioning the general outlines of his ideas, though he kept the details to himself most of the time. He wanted to impress others by showing that he knew more than they did.

Dumbledore said nothing, and his eyes flicked briefly to the right, which Severus knew was the sign of a lie. He snarled. “You have found nothing,” he said. “Or your research has taught you that there is no way a Horcrux will solve the destruction of its parental object, but you wish to possess the Stone in any case.”

Dumbledore gave a tiny sigh. “I gave you the chance, my boy,” he said. “I wanted to believe, when I saw that you had come back, that you had chosen sense instead of rebellion. But it is not to be.”

He spoke a single quiet word, and the ground opened up into a pit beneath Severus and Narcissa.

*

Pansy had once told Draco that she had nightmares about being attacked by her toys at night, when she was done playing with them and there were no adults around to make them behave themselves. Draco had snorted. He couldn’t imagine anything less likely to scare him than an array of marching objects.

Now that he was in the midst of it, it didn’t seem so laughable.

He fired off a Blasting Curse that made one of the Vanishing Cabinet’s doors sag to the side, but didn’t stop its march towards them. He backed up so that his shoulders bumped into Harry’s, and listened as Harry shattered several plates with chanted spells that didn’t quite cross the line into curses.

“For God’s sake, Harry, this is no time to be considerate!” Draco yelled.

Harry didn’t respond, though from the way he stiffened against Draco’s back, he probably thought he had some reason for acting the way he did. But he snapped a Lightning Curse that destroyed a plate skimming at their heads then, and Draco was satisfied.

He raised a Shield Charm in front of himself and then focused his attention on the tiara. It lay in the midst of the wreckage, gleaming smugly. There had to be some way to stop the assault by hurting it. The guardian spirit had got out of it somehow, Draco thought, seeing the crack.

If he plugged up the crack, did that mean the spirit would go away? But, no, from the reading he’d done he thought the spirit was probably fully ensconced in its hosts now and couldn’t be stopped by something as simple as that.

Absently, he cast a spell that reduced a marching statue to dust whilst Harry barked a command that forced back a whole bunch of tables trying to fall on them.

He had the power to affect the tiara. Somehow. He hadn’t really cast the Summoning Charm, but it had still come. And there had to be protections on it against someone just calling the tiara, but it had still come.

Draco cut a heavy bookshelf in half and closed his eyes, trying to remember the exact moment when he had joked about Summoning the tiara.

There had been a feeling of power coiling around him. But it hadn’t come from his wand. Draco was certain of that. After a summer of working with spells of varying power, learning to “feel” the difference in their magical signatures and how to modify them, he had also become good at sensing the source and direction of power.

Coiling around him, as if it had reached from behind him—

Draco opened his eyes as wide as the doors of the Vanishing Cabinet were hanging now and snatched Dumbledore’s wand out of his pocket.

He thought he felt something bend back in front of it, like an invisible enemy flinching. He didn’t have the time to make sure, though, and he didn’t think he had to. He raised the wand high and barked, “Conpello!”

The wand shuddered in his hand, and for a moment Draco wondered if he was awakening something worse than the force that herded the objects towards them. But then the entire room seemed to spin, and the plates and the books and the necklaces and the statues all jumped towards each other, the way Draco had meant them to.

He hadn’t planned the dark blue whirlwind that consumed them. Or the magic that snatched a tendril of gray smoke trying to escape and forced it back into the whirlwind. Someone screamed, a high and lonely cry. The air surged, and then the whirlwind vanished, and the Room of Hidden Things seemed much smaller and clearer than it had before.

The tiara still lay on the ground. Draco, shuddering, cast a spell that would plug the crack in the tiara just in case and gingerly Levitated the thing into a silk bag that he conjured for it. He thought they had destroyed the guardian spirit, but he was sure the tiara was still dangerous.

“That was quick thinking, Draco.”

Harry’s voice was thick with pain. Draco turned hastily around. Harry was cradling his right arm, which was obviously broken. He looked at Draco with an open love and admiration that almost made everything worth it, but Draco couldn’t stand to see him in pain.

“Come on,” he said gently, and reached out for Harry, drawing Harry towards him as he reached for the Portkey that would take them directly back to Grimmauld Place. “Let me send my Patronus to my mother and we’ll get out of here.”

“But the basilisk venom,” Harry began.

“I don’t want you to go down into the Chamber of Secrets injured,” Draco said firmly. “Owl your friends and have them collect it for you. If you give them the map, maybe they can find a different way in. Besides, I think that with the guardian spirit gone, this Horcrux won’t be that hard to destroy.”

Harry nodded faintly, which was the best indicator of how much pain he was in. Draco concentrated hard, and a silver bull charged out of his wand and through the wall in what was presumably Narcissa’s direction. He blinked. His Patronus seemed to change form frequently, as if with his moods; he thought it hadn’t been a bull last time.

He made sure the tiara and Harry’s arm were both carefully arranged against jouncing, and then activated the Portkey.

All the while, Dumbledore’s wand purred disagreeably against his wrist, like a cat who’d got away with some great mischief.

*

Narcissa whirled around above Severus, casting her robes out. Severus tilted his head back, speaking Lightening Charms but intent on what she was doing. If she had some better way to save them, she was welcome to exercise it.

The robes widened and spread, becoming a diaphanous net with the moon shining through it. Narcissa made short, sharp exhalations that Severus didn’t think were in any human tongue, and the robes spread further and further. Suddenly, they billowed and bent into bat-shapes, and caught the wind like dragons’ wings. Narcissa hunched her shoulders. They flapped.

Before Severus even knew what was happening, she had locked her hands beneath his arms and they were rising out of the pit. Severus looked down once, but Dumbledore and the Forbidden Forest were already dwindling beneath them. They were flying so fast but so smoothly that he could barely feel the air against his face. He shivered a bit with the realization of their speed and did his best to speak.

“What—”

“House-elves wove these robes,” said Narcissa, shouting the words into his ear as she banked and the wings flapped hard, carrying them over a mounded hill. “They built a few surprises into them.”

“We must go back.” Severus craned his head towards the school.

“I received Draco’s Patronus,” Narcissa said. “The boys have retrieved the tiara and returned home, and that is enough.”

She could sound so calm and composed even when she was yelling to be heard above the torrent of wind streaming past them, and swooping along with him in her arms a thousand feet above the ground. Severus shook his head and was glad that he was not in Dumbledore’s position.

And doubly glad when he glanced down at his hands and realized that he had dropped the replica wand. Dumbledore would have seized it eagerly—and realized too late what useless wood he held.

Severus settled back with a chuckle. So they had the Resurrection Stone, and the Elder Wand, and, apparently, another Horcrux. Draco’s Patronus would have carried a separate message if something had gone badly wrong, so they must have secured the tiara without too much trouble.

We have power on our side. And destiny.

Albus has very little compared to that.

For the first time, deep pity for Dumbledore moved in Severus, and lasted at least until they landed and Apparated back to Grimmauld Place—

And Severus saw Harry, at which point entirely different emotions consumed him, and he had Harry’s arm immobilized and the boy dosed with several different pain potions before he could speak.

Chapter 28.1.