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Hogwarts had suffered a series of attacks during the final six months of the war. The roofless Gryffindor tower jutted into the sky, as raw as a broken tooth and Harry could see damage in other wings of the castle. Nevertheless the staff, the older pupils, the Order of the Phoenix and a breakaway group of Aurors had mounted a spirited defence (against the Ministry’s orders, although the Minister was now back-pedalling like mad and denying it.) Battered but proud, Hogwarts still stood. Voldemort didn’t. This left Harry with an unanticipated problem - what to do with the rest of his life. His career as The Boy Who Lived had only lasted as long as Voldemort. At the age of twenty, he found himself redundant. A month of attending Ministry functions had convinced him that he hated politics and being an Auror was far less exciting than he had first thought, if Tonks’ and Kingsley’s complaints about reports and filing clerks were anything to go by. Besides, he had cursed enough people to last a lifetime. So when Minerva McGonagall invited him to Hogwarts to help in the necessary reconstruction, he was only too pleased to accept.
The headmistress was in the entrance hall, talking with a witch in a hard hat and a bald wizard holding a clipboard.
“Physically, the rebuilding shouldn’t be a problem,” the witch said, flicking plaster dust from her work-robes. “I’ve got a couple of lads who can charm wonders with old stone and that young witch – you know that new girl, Terry? – she does beautiful woodwork. She’s got a feel for oak. The problem’s your underlying magic and that’s not our field. Right, Terry?”
“Yer,” Terry agreed, making a note with his quill.
“So we’ll quote you for the towers and the main hall,” the witch said. “Get them re-roofed first, right? Terry’ll owl you.”
“Yer.”
“You’ll have to get your wards sorted, though,” the witch said, nodding. A spider dropped, unnoticed, from her hat, and swung to and fro next to her ear. “You’ve had some nasty hexes here, haven’t you?”
“Just a few,” McGonagall agreed dryly.
“Good luck,” said the witch. “Those wards….” She sucked a breath in through her teeth. “Not much left of them.”
Terry shook his head sympathetically and the two walked away, muttering together about mediaeval mortaring spells. They barely gave Harry a glance. The headmistress of Hogwarts held out her hands.
“Harry, how are you? I’m so glad you could get here.”
“My pleasure, Professor.” He reached out for a handshake but instead found himself pulled into a hug. Coming from the reserved and formal Scotswoman, he found this unexpectedly moving and he squeezed her in return, very glad that she had survived the war almost unscathed.
“My name’s Minerva,” she told him. “For Merlin’s sake, if anyone has earned the right to use it, you have. Come on in, the house elves have put lunch in my office.”
“The kitchens are okay, then?”
“Yes. The elves are busy repairing what they can but the curse-damage is beyond their magic. That’s why I called in the experts.”
“I noticed the hissing through the teeth,” Harry remarked. “You know, the one usually followed by ‘it’ll cost yer, mate.’”
“Fortunately we have financial assistance,” McGonagall said. “Gringotts has been very helpful with advice and a long-term loan, and a number of businessmen besides yourself have contributed to the rebuilding fund.”
Harry had never thought of himself as a businessman but supposed that she had a point. He had invested much of his inheritance in enterprises that had suffered during the war, helping them to rebuild and restock their premises. Honeydukes, Ollivander’s, the Three Broomsticks, the Weasley twins’ joke shop and Fortescue’s had all benefited from the Potter fortune. Of course the largest bequest had come to Hogwarts.
“We’re going to put up a plaque in the entrance hall,” McGonagall said, ushering him into her old office, “with the names of all the people who have contributed. There was a suggestion that we rename parts of the school after the main benefactors – the Potter Tower, the Malfoy Hall – no?”
Harry barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes.
“Not as far as I’m concerned. No doubt Malfoy would disagree.”
“You can discuss it with him later; Draco should be Apparating in this evening if he can get away from his shareholders meeting.”
“Poor Draco,” Harry said with as little sarcasm as he could manage.
“It seems that his father left things in a bit of a mess.”
“I thought Lucius was supposed to be an astute entrepreneur?”
“Astute, yes, law-abiding, no. Draco has had a number of very annoyed people to deal with, whom Lucius apparently defrauded in order to obtain funds for Voldemort’s last campaign.”
To Harry, the most surprising thing about Draco Malfoy’s defection from Voldemort’s Death Eaters was everyone else’s surprise. What was so astonishing about a Malfoy quitting a sinking ship? Draco’s instinct for self-preservation was even stronger than his father’s – obviously, since the younger scion of House Malfoy had survived. Lucius had apparently succumbed to one of Voldemort’s rages when a planned raid not only failed to capture a family of Half-bloods but also lost six Death Eaters to the Aurors. The Dark Lord had executed Malfoy senior for incompetence, when the blame should have been placed upon the lean shoulders of the Order of the Phoenix’s undercover agent. Harry wondered how many lives that man had saved, besides his own.
“I’m sorry?” Harry brought his attention back to the present, and McGonagall’s amused and penetrating gaze.
“I asked, if you’d be prepared to assist with the rebuilding of the wards?”
“Yes, of course, but I don’t know anything about them.”
“Hermione Granger has been helping Filius with the research,” the headmistress remarked, pouring tea. “Do have a sandwich. There’s egg and cress, ham, or cheese and tomato. She’s a treasure, that girl. I wonder if she’d like a job as librarian?”
Madam Pince had died in an abortive attempt to evict a group of Death Eaters hiding in her library. Harry had been unsure whether to admire her courage or wonder at her naivety.
“I think Hermione would rather do esoteric research than log books in and out.”
“Well, well, Potter, you used a four-syllable word. Wonders will never cease.”
The voice made him think of mead, as smooth as honey but with an alcoholic kick and a subtle underlying piquancy. Harry turned around slowly, giving himself the time to school his expression into one of polite acknowledgement.
“Good afternoon, Professor Snape.”
Snape narrowed his eyes and then inclined his head.
“Potter. I have completed the bases for the potions, Minerva. I cannot continue until I know exactly how we will use them.”
“Thank you, Severus. We should know by the morning. Would you like some lunch? There’s plenty here.”
Snape glanced at the laden table then at Harry. He gathered his black robes around himself with an oddly defensive gesture and gave one of his trademark humourless smirks.
“No, thank you. I shall speak with you later; do Floo me when you have need of me.”
He swept out with a flourish. Harry stared at the space that Snape had just vacated, wondering how such a huge presence could have fitted into the room. For a few seconds, Harry had been aware only of the sight of the billowing robes, that eagle’s beak of a nose, those extraordinary black eyes. There was the faintest scent of fragrant potions, of rosemary, cinnamon and pepper. The air vibrated with the echo of a deep voice.
“I’d forgotten,” Harry said, realising that McGonagall was watching him, “What he was like. I remember being overwhelmed by him but I thought that was just the memories of being a kid, dealing with an authoritarian adult. But he really is like that.”
“Awe-inspiring?” the headmistress asked blandly, “Or sexy?” She looked so contented with his gob-smacked expression that Harry thought he heard her purr.
oooOOOooo
“So of course I told the Minister that trade with Muggles was not only good for Wizard-Muggle relations but would be a way of getting the economy moving again. Economic growth is essential if we’re to fully re-establish services such as St Mungo's, the Floo network, the educational system…”
Harry tuned out Draco Malfoy’s urbane voice. He saw Hermione glance at him and wink, and then she turned her attention back to Professors Flitwick and Vector. Given a choice between discussing the interactions between Arithmancy and Charms, and listening to Malfoy, Harry just might be forced to slit his own throat. Alternately he could raid the buffet again. The elves had outdone themselves once they were freed from the obligation to supply endless portions of sausage and mash, spotted dick and pumpkin juice to unadventurous children. Harry was selecting a few interesting-looking canapés when the voice drawled just behind his ear.
“The black, fishy stuff is caviar, Potter.”
“Gosh, thanks, Malfoy.” Harry sucked a blob of sour cream from the tip of his finger. “I’m glad the elves used buckwheat for the blinis, but for true authenticity, they should have kept the vodka under a chilling charm on ice, don’t you think?”
Harry’s satisfaction at Malfoy’s disgruntled pout was all too brief. Winding each other up no longer held the appeal that it had in their schooldays. He was nibbling on a spicy king prawn when he realised that he was being watched – scrutinised might have been a more accurate term. Snape examined him as if the Potions Master was trying to work out a complex academic puzzle.
“I had never taken you for a gourmet, Potter.”
“Too many gala dinners, sir.” Harry selected a piece of French toast and loaded it with game pâté. “Which you were invited to, as well.” He glanced up, secretly amused by the predictable sneer.
“Such things are for the heroes.”
“But you’re a hero too.”
“I prefer the respect of my peers, Potter, to the undiscerning adoration of the uneducated and uninformed, which can so easily revert to contempt.”
“Did you say that without drawing breath, Professor? I wish I could get you to write my speeches.”
“I am no longer anyone’s professor, Potter.” Snape drew himself up regally, his dress robes whispering around his ankles.
“What are you doing nowadays?” Harry was rather amazed that he was standing here, having a civilised adult conversation with the bane of his childhood. All right, the second biggest bane … well, maybe that was his uncle. Snape had always seemed to be more a force of nature than a man, yet here he was, sipping from a goblet of wine and picking at the olives, allowing Harry to chat to him. Or chat him up. Oh god! Harry coughed and took a deep swallow from his Chardonnay, hoping that Snape thought he was just choking on a quail’s egg.
“I run a small consultancy with a friend, specialising in potions to counteract curses.”
“Anyone I know?”
“No.”
“I haven’t decided what to do yet.” Harry hoped that he did not sound quite as desperate to Snape as he did to himself.
“Tired of the heroism business already?”
“There seems to be a distinct shortage of Dark Lords to destroy nowadays,” Harry pointed out, a little stung by the comment.
“I would have thought that you could easily sustain and entertain yourself on the after-dinner circuit,” Snape said. “Or there’s always Quidditch.”
“You don’t have a very high opinion of my mind, do you, Professor?” Harry stared into the black eyes and thought that he saw something flash there, annoyance perhaps, at his presumption.
“I have never had any doubts about the quality of your mind, Potter; only about what you cared to put into it.”
Which made Harry laugh.
Draco Malfoy looked from one to the other, a perfect eyebrow arched in mild surprise.
“Severus, I need to ask your advice about that apothecary business for sale in Eturn Alley.” Malfoy slid a hand beneath Snape’s elbow and steered him away. Harry realised that he was disappointed that Snape allowed himself to be steered. Granted, Malfoy was an old family friend, as well as a Slytherin. Was it just that Harry had been the centre of attention ever since the end of the war and he resented being put aside? Or was it that he disliked being pushed aside by Malfoy? Or was it, a small voice pointed out, that he had enjoyed the verbal sparring with Snape?
“I need to scrub my brain in soapy water,” he muttered, gaining a puzzled look from Professor Sprout.
“Good for getting rid of aphids, dear,” she said. “Soapy water. If you don’t want to use magic.”
“Great,” Harry said. “I’ll remember that. Aphids.”
“Second year Herbology, Mister Potter.”
He was relieved when the headmistress tapped her wineglass for quiet.
“I’m glad that you could all be here today,” she told the assortment of witches and wizards. “As you know, Hogwarts is being restored to her former glory, but in order to do this, we need your help.”
“More money?” Malfoy whispered to Snape. Harry had edged towards them for some reason that he did not care to investigate too deeply. Snape shook his head but said nothing.
“The wards which protected the castle for a thousand years are all but gone. We need to restore these wards before we can invite our students and professors to return. Filius Flitwick and Hermione Granger have been working on a rite which, strengthened by potions provided by Severus Snape, should bring the wards up to an acceptable strength. The rite will be held at Beltane, a very auspicious festival, and will involve people from each of the houses. Tonight, we will find out who those participants will be.” She reached into a pocket in her tartan robes and brought out the faded, battered, patched and oddly smug-looking Sorting Hat. She smiled and waited for the muttering and rolling of eyes to stop. “Yes, I know, but this is an unbiased and magically appropriate way of choosing. The hat will read your magical strengths and weaknesses. Anyone who is willing to assist in our endeavour, is cordially invited to join me in the next room – I won’t embarrass you by playing a Sorting-style elimination game in front of everyone.”
“Thank Merlin for that,” Malfoy muttered. “Imagine the ultimate humiliation of being rejected by a moth-eaten hat – and a bloody Gryffindor hat, at that.”
“Malfoys don’t handle rejection well, do they, Draco?” Snape asked in a bored voice. Malfoy gave a choked little gasp but made no other reply. Harry recalled his own rejection of Malfoy’s offer of friendship in their first year, and wondered how things would have turned out if he had not met Ron first. Then he wondered exactly what Snape was referring to. Had Snape rejected a Malfoy – Narcissa or Lucius, perhaps? Or – and here Harry suppressed a shiver – Draco himself?
oooOOOooo
The Sorting Hat smelled faintly sour; Harry thought of Mrs Figg and the odour of cats and mothballs. His head was cupped in its soft, dusty fabric. He had expected it to fall down over his eyes but of course he had grown up since he had last worn it.
The silence went on for a minute but Harry felt that it was a silence brimming with significance. The hat eventually made a small noise as if clearing a non-existent throat.
“Harry Potter,” it said, “you surprise me.”
“That I came good in the end?” Harry asked, feeling oddly as if he was talking to Snape.
The hat sniggered. “Oh we knew that would happen. But you should have been in Slytherin.”
“Thanks for nothing.”
“You’d have learned to do things for Harry Potter instead of just for everyone else. Never mind, there’s still time. Yes, I have it…”
The silence went on for so long that Harry heard McGonagall shifting uneasily nearby.
“About the wards,” he said tentatively and the hat quivered slightly on his head.
“Ah, the wards. Well of course you’re going to have to rebuild the wards! I’m just not sure who you’ll need to help you… oh very well! Harry Potter, for Gryffindor House, Beltane.” Then very softly “And for Slytherin of course.”
Harry pulled off the hat and gave the headmistress an apologetic smile as he handed over the hat.
“I think it’s a little confused,” he said, “But it does want me to help repair the wards, for Gryffindor.” He ignored the faint squeak that came from the hat and went back to the buffet, sending the next person in.
The witches and wizards gathered together had all been hand picked – or head picked – by the mad old hat. Besides Harry, the hat had predictably selected Minerva McGonagall for Gryffindor, and for Hufflepuff Pomona Sprout and Susan Bones. The Ravenclaws were Filius Flitwick and the Muggle Studies teacher Ceridwen Morgan. Inevitably, Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy had been its choice from Slytherin. The hat had also included Hermione, who was swift to point out that she was most likely present only as a consultant. Harry wondered exactly what the Beltane Rite entailed.
oooOOOooo
Harry woke early, as had been his habit during the war. The moment of disorientation, waking up in a strange room, reminded him of the two years of moving from one hidden location to another in an attempt to evade the Death Eaters. He had even taken cover at Hogwarts for a couple of weeks when Kreacher’s defection had compromised Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and the werewolves were watching Remus Lupin’s cottage. He determinedly stopped himself thinking about Remus. The loyal werewolf had died in Harry’s arms after finally defeating Fenrir Greyback.
He took a shower – good old Hogwarts, copious hot water and fluffy towels – then dressed in jeans, t-shirt and plain robes and left the guestroom. The halls and corridors were silent and empty. He knew that many of the ghosts had come out to stand beside the house-elves at the final defence of the castle and wondered if they had survived, or if they had been scoured away in the gales of raw magic unleashed by the desperate Voldemort. Could one kill a ghost? If a basilisk could petrify Nearly Headless Nick, then maybe ghosts could be destroyed.
Harry made his way to the entrance hall where one of the great doors hung askew on its hinges waiting for the construction wizards. Harry climbed carefully through the gap and walked across the lawn to a square shape that glimmered in the grey light of dawn. He was glad to see that Dumbledore’s monument had not only been repaired after the battle, but someone had planted flowers around it – pansies gradually regaining their jewel-like colours as the sun rose. Harry shivered and hunched inside his robes. He moved closer, reaching out to touch the cold stone, as if this could bring him closer to the spirit of the old wizard. He heard a soft sound as robes brushed the grass nearby. A black-cloaked figure rose from where it had been kneeling on the far side of the tomb.
“No,” Harry said at once, his hand still extended, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, Potter?” The deep voice held no emotion that he could discern.
“For disturbing you. I didn’t mean to drive you away.” Harry turned to go.
“No matter. I was leaving anyway.” Snape tucked his hands into his sleeves. Harry got the impression that the man had been there for a long time.
“Is this the first time you’ve been back?” Harry asked, because he wanted to keep this fragile rapport with the prickly wizard.
“Yes.” The word came out as barely more than a sigh.
“His ghost isn’t here, even though he is,” Harry said. “So much of him remains at Hogwarts yet I can never quite touch him.”
Incredibly, he heard Snape’s breathing give a little catch in his throat. He realised that Snape had come here to mourn the man he had been forced to murder. The revelation that Snape had been weeping, that he had loved Dumbledore in just as deep and complex a manner as Harry had, made Harry’s chest feel tight. He felt that he had intruded on a very private moment. If he had been a year younger, he would have attempted a stumbling apology, but he had suffered so many recent losses himself, and supported others through such grief, to know that sometimes, silent company was more endurable than words.
They walked side by side through the morning mist. Snape looked up at the remains of the Gryffindor tower.
“Idiots,” he said, although it was not clear whether he meant the Death Eaters who had vented their rage on the building or the Gryffindors themselves.
“The Slytherin dungeons have survived almost unscathed,” Harry said. “Did you stay in your old rooms?”
“They are Horace Slughorn’s.”
“Will you come back, Professor Snape?”
“I do not know.” Which was indicative in itself. “As to whether the school governors would accept an ex-Death Eater again, who knows?”
“A war hero.”
“A murderer, Potter.”
Harry realised that there was a suspiciously bright, edgy look in the black eyes. Snape was still emotionally raw.
“No more than I.”
A tiny shift in the set of Snape’s shoulders, an infinitesimal loosening around the severe mouth, showed that the Potions Master accepted this tiny comfort. Snape nodded once and swept away, like a dark creature once again back in his element. Harry barely noticed the slighter figure that stood back against the wall as Snape passed by. As he turned away to return to his own room, he heard a swift tread and then a hand seized his elbow in a painfully hard grip.
“Potter!” Malfoy’s voice was loud in the stone hall. “What the fuck did you say to him?”
Harry tried to shake off the intrusive grasp.
“Bugger off, Malfoy.”
A hand flickered and the next moment, Harry found the tip of a wand pressed against his throat and Malfoy’s pale face close to his own.
“What did you say to upset him? You keep away from Severus Snape - do you hear me?”
Breathing hard, Draco Malfoy jerked the tip of the wand so that it caught the tender skin under Harry’s chin.
“Interfering bloody ferret!” Harry snapped, irritated with himself as much as with Malfoy. “Mind your own business!”
A swirl of black out of the corner of his eye, and Malfoy was jerked away with a grunt of surprise.
“Brawling in the corridors, gentlemen? Just like old times.” Snape’s voice held all its familiar smooth, silken menace. But when he met Harry’s gaze, there was something more than mere irritation there. “Twenty points from Gryffindor, wouldn’t you agree? Come along, Draco.” He nodded to Harry and gave Malfoy a little push in the direction of the Slytherin dungeons. As they walked away, Malfoy said, in a carefully judged whisper that allowed Harry to hear him, “He didn’t even draw his wand!”
Snape slowed his pace.
“Do you not understand why?”
“Because he’s a fucking Gryffindor?” Malfoy said with undisguised contempt. Snape sighed audibly.
“Maybe because he believes that undignified squabbling is beneath him? Because he has grown up? Or because he does not have his wand with him?”
“He’s an arse,” muttered Malfoy. “Go on then, why do YOU believe he didn’t draw his wand?”
“Because he did not need it. Unless you rein in your temper, you will find yourself in bigger trouble than you expect, Draco Malfoy, and I shall leave you to fend for yourself, for once.”
Malfoy gaped as Snape stalked away, then hurried to catch him. Harry went in the opposite direction, trying to rein in an impulse to snigger to himself, and with a strange warm feeling under his ribs.
oooOOOooo
Needless to say, the warmth was supplanted with a chill as Harry watched them over breakfast. Snape and Malfoy spoke together in low voices, the pale, impeccably coiffed head next to the black, unkempt one. As a schoolboy, Draco had always regarded his Head of House with undisguised admiration, now the new master of the House of Malfoy was flirting, subtly and elegantly but flirting nonetheless. And Harry hated it.
“Unnerving, isn’t it?” Hermione murmured, taking Harry’s arm as they strolled out of the breakfast room. She tilted her head towards the dark wizard and the blond. Harry raised his eyebrows. “I noticed you watching them,” his friend said.
“You notice far too much, Ms Granger. Good job Ron isn’t here, he’d have snorted coffee all over the table.”
“Are you suggesting that my beloved fiancé is a prude?”
“No, only that my best mate will never see Snape as anything but a greasy old git who made our Potions lessons hell.”
“And what do you see him as, Harry?” she asked softly.
“A wizard,” Harry said, suddenly wishing that he had not allowed himself to be drawn into this discussion. “A hero of the war, same as Kingsley, Tonks, Bill, you or Ron.”
“No.” Hermione shook her head, making the unruly bush of her hair bounce. “If any of us had died, the outcome would have been the same. Snape was vital.”
“That’s true.”
“And you’ve not taken your eyes off him since he’s been here.”
“Curiosity, my dear Hermione.”
“Curiosity, my eye. Why do you look as if you want to hex Draco Malfoy into the next county?”
Harry shrugged and Hermione rolled her eyes in the so-typically Granger know-it-all manner. “Denial, Harry?”
“Caution. Wondering if he might bite my hand off, hex me, stupefy me, petrify me or simply embarrass me in front of everyone. And I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Harry, surely you can face the possibility – the very slight possibility – of rejection?”
“Do you think he’s gay?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“Hell, no.”
Hermione giggled, morphing briefly from poised young witch to schoolgirl.
“What could he do to you that’s scarier than Voldemort?”
“Not speak to me again,” Harry muttered and blushed at the knowing expression in Hermione's amused brown eyes.
oooOOOooo
Snape stood leaning back against the wall with his arms folded. The posture was a familiar one; so often he had stood like that at the back of the Great Hall, sharp black gaze alert for errant students. Next to him, Draco Malfoy lounged as gracefully as a silver cat.
“We’ve so much in common,” Malfoy was saying as Harry and Hermione sauntered across the room. Hermione poured coffee from the pot that the house elves had left ready. She handed a mug to Harry and he took it, and passed her a plate of jammy dodgers.
“Heavens, I remember these from when I was little,” she murmured, but Harry was trying to eavesdrop on the Slytherins.
“Not just being sorted into Slytherin,” Malfoy purred, “Or the Dark Lord business – “
“Is that what you call it?” Snape sounded bored. Malfoy fastidiously raised a shoulder.
“My father made some very bad choices. So did I but I’m doing my best to put them right.”
Harry could not help a little huff of wry amusement, and Snape met his gaze then. Harry’s heart gave a disorientating skip in his chest, and he gulped hot coffee. What did Malfoy know about hard choices? Did he even listen to himself? He was speaking to the man who had been put in the unimaginable position of having to kill his mentor, his best friend, his father figure. Hermione leaned close to Harry and gave him a little nudge with her elbow, under the pretext of replacing the plate of biscuits on the table. Harry picked up a jammy dodger. Dudley had liked them when he was about six years old and Harry had been allowed the broken ones from the bottom of the packet. Dudley used to make the most disgusting noises as he sucked out the hard, sticky jam from the middle. Harry, caught up in the memory, used his tongue to loosen the jam and tease it from the centre of the biscuit.
Hermione’s voice interrupted Harry’s reverie. He looked up, to see that Malfoy was speaking earnestly into Snape’s ear, while the Potions master himself was staring wide-eyed at Harry. Or more accurately, at Harry’s mouth. Harry licked a crumb from his lower lip and Snape’s gaze followed the little action as if mesmerised.
“Harry?” Hermione said and he realised that this was not the first time she had called his name. “Earth to planet Potter?”
“Sorry. You were saying?”
“I was saying that Ron owled that he’s booked the villa for the fortnight in Greece as we’d agreed, but I’m beginning to wonder if you won’t be otherwise engaged by then.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, come on!” She dragged him off to where Headmistress McGonagall was beckoning everyone to follow her.
oooOOOooo
McGonagall led them down, below the level of the Slytherin dungeons, through a small, insignificant-looking door which she unlocked with a black iron key. To a spiral staircase, so narrow that they could only walk in single file, their lit wands showing how uneven and treacherous the treads were underfoot. McGonagall took them deeper than Harry had ever been beneath Hogwarts, into a chamber with a vaulted roof, so low that Snape and Malfoy could only stand upright in the centre of the room. There were no torches, only the light from their wands to illuminate the bare stone.
Harry wandered, trailing his fingers lightly on the rough walls. He felt quivery, jumpy, like the feeling just before taking off at the start of an important Quidditch match.
“The joining together of two things to form a third is in the spirit of Beltane,” the headmistress said quietly. Her voice ran around the walls of the room in a low whisper of echoes. “Weaving and plaiting are traditional at this time of year, which was why I thought that it would be an opportune time to weave the wards. Hermione has researched not only the history of the Hogwarts wards, but the history of Beltane rites.”
Snape gave a snort, possibly not expecting it to sound as loud as it did. McGonagall cocked an eyebrow at him in a deliberate parody of his own expression. “Yes, Severus?”
“Muggle superstition,” he said.
“Are wizards not allowed superstitions?” Filius Flitwick enquired dryly. Snape raised a shoulder in a shrug.
“I think some Muggle beliefs have their roots in magic,” Pomona Sprout said. “Certainly some plants have significance to both Muggle and witch alike – hawthorn is associated with Beltane and you are more than aware of its importance in potions, Severus.”
Snape scowled but did not reply. Malfoy smirked and edged closer to the Potions Master. Harry glared. Hermione nudged him and he folded his hands and tried to look pious, which made her stifle a giggle behind a cough. McGonagall cleared her throat. “As I was saying, Hermione has worked out a rite which should generate the magic we need to reweave the wards.”
Hermione nodded and stepped into the centre of the room. She raised her wand and gave a complex little flick, which resulted in the appearance of a low stone slab.
“The altar faces east,” she said, slipping her bag from her shoulder and rummaging in it. She removed, and un-shrunk, a yellow tablecloth and two large yellow candles. Flitwick took them and placed them reverently on the altar. “Now we have the four candles for the four quarters. Blue for Ravenclaw, in the west, red for Gryffindor, in the south; yellow for Hufflepuff in the east and green for Slytherin in the north. Professor Sprout, do you have the tree?”
Flitwick lit the candles with his wand, the soft light warming the stone to gold.
“Oh yes, of course.” Sprout turned and muttered a quick “Accio” and an earthenware pot came bobbing into the chamber, planted with a young hawthorn tree in full bloom. She guided it to the centre of the altar.
“If you could all please take your places at the appropriate sides of the altar? Thank you. The tree acts as a symbol of growth and regeneration and will help everyone to focus their concentration.”
“She sounds just like Trelawney,” Malfoy said to Snape in a stage whisper that was meant to be audible. Since Sybill Trelawney had died in a brave attempt to protect a group of terrified second-year students from three rogue Dementors, Harry found this rather tactless to say the least. He contented himself with a glare and was heartened to see that Snape looked equally annoyed.
“I’m going to hand over to Professor Flitwick,” Hermione said, coming to stand with Harry and McGonagall at the Gryffindor quarter of the room. “He will guide us through the charms.”
“We shall begin by calling up the remnants of the old wards,” Filius Flitwick said in his squeaky little voice. “We will then build new defences upon them, using them as the foundation. This is very old magic and I doubt if the words are vital here. Everyone, raise your wands and use this movement –” he demonstrated an odd flourish of his wand “– and repeat after me: 'evoco munimen' followed by the name of your house. So I will say ‘evoco munimen Ravenclaw.’ Are you ready?”
Harry opened his mouth to ask if it was a good idea to all cast the charm at once, since they did not know what the result would be, but then they were all giving the little twist-and-jab of their wands and Harry felt the magic rising out of the ground and rushing up through his feet, his legs, his torso and his head. It was a hot-and-cold prickling like static electricity, making his scalp itch and his teeth ache.
Bright streamers of fire burst from the tip of the hawthorn bush, which sparkled like a Christmas tree. Harry guessed that there were two each of blue, green, gold and red, but they were thrashing around like hysterical snakes and the wizards and witches scuttled backwards to evade them
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Malfoy snapped as he bumped his head on the low ceiling.
“I didn’t expect that to happen!” Flitwick squeaked excitedly.
“Look out!” Susan Bones gasped, ducking a flailing Hufflepuff-gold flame.
“Now what, Hermione?” Harry asked. She shook her head, staring at the crackling, hissing display. He could barely keep still for the magic sizzling through his body. Harry realised that no-one else felt it. He was the only one who had not cast the charm, maybe that was why the magic seemed to be trying to ground through him. Someone had to do something before he caught fire. It was all up to the Saviour of the Wizarding World again, although he knew one other person who could keep their head in a crisis. He edged around to the Slytherin side.
“Snape, what potions have you got?”
The Potions Master pulled out a little case of vials from his robe and flipped open the top.
“Strengthening potions to be poured onto the lowest point of the castle’s foundation to reinforce the wards,” he said.
“I don’t think they need reinforcing,” Malfoy muttered. He had his back against the wall and seemed to be trying to melt into the stone.
“Also potency and fertility potions to ensure their continuance.”
“Okay,” Harry said, “I won’t be taking any of those, then.” The thrashing snakes of light seemed to growing and getting wilder by the minute. The hawthorn was shaking and threatened to topple. Flitwick and McGonagall were casting charms at the streamers with no apparent effect. Harry took in a deep breath and raised his wand. He felt the power gathering and racing along his arm.
“STUPEFY!”
Simple, brutal and effective. The flames froze. He could feel them struggling against the bond he had put on them, and Harry knew that he did not have much time.
They had all been wrong; the wards had not died. They could not die. They were not spells that protected the castle, they were simply charms that harnessed the magic of the earth itself and wove the wards out of it. They had become detached from their sources of power; Voldemort’s dark magic had cut through their connections like a blade slicing electricity cables. Harry simply had to get the conduits in place once more.
“Snape,” he said, automatically choosing the next most powerful mage present, “Try summoning one of the Slytherin streamers. Use your wand to direct it.”
Snape immediately raised his wand and cast Accio, pulling one of the green ribbons of fire towards him. It trembled, stretched between the hawthorn and the tip of his wand.
The headmistress did not wait for Harry’s request; she immediately called one of the red streamers to her wand, and the others, even Malfoy, followed suit, until Harry was able to relax his freezing charm and all the streamers twitched and flickered, but were held in place. Hermione controlled the other red streamer and Harry now understood why the Sorting Hat had included her.
“We have to weave them,” Harry said. “They’ll hold each other in place that way.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Malfoy asked through gritted teeth. He needed both hands to hold his wand, as the streamer tugged and bucked against it.
“Just do it, Malfoy,” Harry sighed.
“Did you know about this, Granger?” Malfoy did not give up easily.
“No. But I trust Harry completely. He thinks outside the box and relies on instinct.”
“Great.”
“Draco,” McGonagall said calmly, “How many Dark Lords have you bested recently?”
Malfoy went pink but shut up.
Using the tip of his wand, Snape directed the tip of his streamer under that held by Flitwick, to his right, over Morgan’s, under Hermione’s and over McGonagall’s. It was obvious that once it was meshed with the others, it was easier to hold and direct.
“Draco, do the same but take yours in the opposite direction.”
Malfoy was happy to obey since the instruction came from his Head of House. Harry started the others off, slowly, one from each House going widdershins and the other sunwards.
“Now what do we do with it?” Ceridwen Morgan stared at the plaited, multi-coloured snake of coloured light. To Harry, it was so obvious that he wondered why she needed to ask.
“We cast it around the perimeter of Hogwarts.”
“How?” Hermione asked, with curiosity and complete confidence.
“Stand back.” Harry jumped up onto the altar and stuck the tip of his wand into the very end of the plait and pulled, stretching it out like toffee, using the wand to flick it to the floor in gleaming coils. “That’s it, come on, that’s great,” he whispered as he worked, and the multicoloured stream flowed compliant and muscular, like a tamed python. Only when he heard the hissing that echoed around the walls, did he realise that he was speaking to it in Parseltongue. Then he cast the end and whispered a command to it, and it shot straight through the wall as if the stone had melted into smoke, dragging its unreeling coil in its wake. Harry imagined it speeding around the grounds, weaving between the trees at the edge of the forest, skirting the flowerbeds and greenhouses, skimming the gates and the perimeter walls. When it reappeared through the opposite wall, he was waiting. He used the tip of his wand to lift the static end from the hawthorn and knot it to the loose tip, so that a thin, shimmering cord of multicoloured light stretched across the room.
“Now the potions,” he murmured, and Snape immediately stepped forward with a curiously formal little dip of his head and presented him with three vials. Harry dripped the viscous liquids into the string and they were absorbed, or boiled away; at least none fell to the floor. The light of the wards flared brighter, pulsed, rippled slightly, and vanished.
Harry blinked, the after-image fading away slowly from his sight. He thought that he ought to feel drained, yet he was buoyant and energised.
“Your wards are in place, headmistress,” he said.
“Thank you, Harry, and everyone. Well, that was quite an experience.”
“That’s one of the most impressive demonstrations of flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants magic I’ve ever seen,” Flitwick said, awed.
“You weren’t there when he killed Voldemort,” Snape said. “He didn’t know what he was doing then, either.”
Harry opened his mouth to protest, shut it again and grinned.
“Nope, but it worked.”
“I used to think it was luck,” Snape added, very softly, but his deep voice rumbled in the low chamber, “I doubt that anyone taught Merlin much either. Potter has an instinct for the use of the most powerful magic. May I suggest that you do not reveal this ability to the general public?”
“No intention of using it again unless I must.”
“Look at the tree!” Susan Bones said suddenly, and she pointed to the hawthorn. When Sprout had placed it on the altar, it had been in bloom. Now the little shrub was covered in brilliant scarlet berries. “I’m amazed that it isn’t burned to a crisp.”
Sprout levitated the pot carefully and turned to the door.
“I’m going to keep it in a place of honour, right in the middle of one of the courtyards,” she said.
Hermione snuffed the candles, plunging the chamber into sudden darkness. Someone, probably Morgan, gave a nervous little titter. Harry raised his wand but before he could spell it alight, a hand touched his shoulder. It was the merest brush against his robe, but it was deliberate, and it made him shiver.
“Impressive, Potter,” Snape murmured close to his ear.
“Thank you,” Harry whispered back. Wands flared into light close by and Malfoy snapped “Lumos!” and swished past, head in the air. Harry shrugged and followed.
With something of a sense of inevitability, Harry found Malfoy waiting for him. Harry wondered, not for the first time, how much pain was disguised by the young wizard’s antagonism.
“Potter,” Malfoy sighed, “Severus Snape is mine. You’re trespassing on my territory. Get it?”
Harry shook his head.
“You’re the one who doesn’t get it. Snape doesn’t belong to you or me.” The spark of his anger began to catch light. “That wizard spent most of his life being pushed around, bullied and manipulated, first by his father,” Harry noted the slight widening of Malfoy’s eyes, did he not know? Or was he surprised that Harry did? “Then by Voldemort and Dumbledore. He’s free for the first time in his life and neither you nor I have the right to make his choices for him! If he wants you, fair enough, and good luck to the both of you, but if he wants me –”
“As if!” Malfoy snorted. He swept his pale grey gaze from Harry’s head to his feet. For the first time in his life, Harry did not care. He laughed.
“Yeah, I’m a scrawny, scruffy, immature brat of a wizard. So fucking what? If he wants me, I’m his on a plate. If not, I’ll live with the disappointment. You could do the same. We’ll never be friends, Malfoy, but we might agree on one thing: Severus Snape deserves to get what he wants for a change. Okay? Get over it!”
Harry turned away with a sense of lightness, of having put something right. He glanced back. Malfoy was expressionless, as if allowing himself to look forlorn was anathema to a Malfoy but he just might, as soon as Harry had gone.
“Are you coming to dinner? Harry? Draco?”
Harry smiled at the headmistress and waited until Malfoy joined them. For a moment, he thought that he saw the flicker of a robe, disappearing around the corner, but it must have been one of the ghosts.
oooOOOooo
“I’ve already had owls from Kingsley and Arthur at the Ministry,” McGonagall said quietly. “Scrimgeour has a bee in his bonnet. He’s convinced that it is his job, his ordained task, to oversee not only the defeat of Voldemort but the implementation of laws to ensure that no other Dark Lord rises in his place.”
“You cannot legislate against stupidity,” Snape growled, staring into his firewhisky.
“He is becoming concerned at the amount of magical power the pair of you control.”
“That’s stupid,” Harry said. “I bloody defeated Voldemort, what else do they want me to do? Is he trying to push me into opposing him? Because he’s going the right way about it.”
“I can suggest an option that might be acceptable to you,” the headmistress said, splashing Old Ogden’s liberally into Harry’s glass and then her own. “Teach at Hogwarts. Utilise your considerable talents in a way that the Ministry cannot object to, the both of you. Harry, Severus, come home. I offer you sanctuary.”
The Potions Master stretched out his long legs across McGonagall’s sheepskin hearthrug and sipped his whisky.
“Back to the brats,” he muttered.
“You would be free to continue your potions research outside of your teaching responsibilities. You can become Head of Slytherin again if you wish.”
“On one condition.”
McGonagall sighed.
“Out with it, then, Severus.”
A black eyebrow lifted. Harry noted the gleam of the dark eye beneath it, amused and alert.
“Potter finds out what school is like from the opposite perspective. I will return if he does, too.”
“You’d allow me to teach Defence while you taught Potions?” Harry asked in wonder. Snape sat up, his expression schooled to a bland smile.
“Why yes, Potter, much to my own astonishment, I would. After today’s showing, I think that I could allow you that opportunity. Yes, Potter, I would like to see you back here. I would like to see you …” enunciating carefully, Snape met Harry’s startled gaze directly, his own unfathomable, “at Hogwarts, on a plate.”
oooOOOooo
Draco Malfoy Apparated home to Malfoy Manor in something of a sulk. He later met and married a French witch of impeccable lineage and taste, a distant relation of Fleur Delacour. Susan Bones accepted the post of librarian of Hogwarts. Hermione Granger married Ron Weasley in the Wizarding World’s wedding of the year. Harry Potter became the youngest ever head of a House at Hogwarts and Severus Snape, the school’s youngest ever deputy headmaster. They argued quite spectacularly over whether or not they should hold a traditional bonding ceremony; Harry adamant that Snape should never be bound to a more powerful wizard again, Snape equally determined that Harry was his, damn it, and everyone including Malfoy ought to be made aware of the fact. Scrimgeour went puce and spluttered at the thought of that pair of unrestrained mages combining their powers and that was enough to convince Harry that it might not be such a bad idea after all. Their bonding ceremony took place a year after the weaving of the wards, at Beltane, beside the lake at Hogwarts. Almost unnoticed among the guests of honour was a small, flowering hawthorn tree in a pot.