He wandered out into the gardens that night, too tired for once to deal with Filch and his suspicious glares when they passed each other in the halls. Let him have his domain to himself for one night, Harry thought, as he closed his eyes and breathed the fragile fragrance of autumn roses.

Before now he would have said that he never wanted to be alone again. He, for whom the true miracle of magic had been the gift of friends, memories of his parents from those who had loved them, a godfather, colleagues he respected and who respected him, people—so many people and from so many different places to care for—would give his life for, those who called him their family, a place where he belonged. Magic had given him those things. And yet it had brought him here tonight, alone with a shapeless melancholy, seeking something that he could not name.

He walked through rose bushes covered with faintly-glowing, fragrant lavender blossoms, fairy lights flitting obligingly before him. He stopped by the side of a gnarled old willow tree—just an ordinary willow tree, thank Merlin—stooped like a gargoyle until its flowing branches draped upon the ground. He sat down on one conveniently-placed branch and leaned his head back against the trunk, staring into the face of the almost-full moon hanging low and glorious in the clear night sky, so like the one that had witnessed his mad flight on a Thestral's back to the underground vaults of the Ministry, where he had fought Death Eaters over a prophesy spoken before his birth...where one of the people he loved most in the world had given his life to save Harry's.

"Sirius," he murmured. "It's been almost ten years, hasn't it? It doesn't feel like it should be nearly that long. Remus still misses you, you know. I do, too. I still wonder sometimes if I'll find you on the other side of that doorway if I just ripped away the veil... Would you still be waiting for me there...?"

Harry was silent for a few minutes. Then he sighed and continued softly, "You were the one who gave my father back to me, you know. You were the one who made him come to life for me. And sometimes...I think only you could understand how I feel right now. But then I wonder if you could forgive me for putting you in danger—for putting everyone in danger with my stupidity. I don't think I can ever forgive myself that, and for blaming everyone afterwards. I even blamed Remus, you know, for not being by your side when you needed him." He stopped, and spoke again after a moment, haltingly.

"I wish I could make it up to you. To everyone. And I wish—I wanted to make it up to...to Severus for treating him so horribly when he had tried to protect me. I know that he doesn't care, but it matters to me, and I... Sometimes it hurts to look at him, and know he's so alone that he no longer notices it himself. I think you might have felt that too, when you were a small and living in that house. I know I have. But then you had my father, and Remus, and even Peter, and I'll always have Ron and Hermione...but he—I don't think he has anyone. I want to trust him, Sirius. I want to believe... This once, because I've been wrong so many times before. I want—" He stopped, swallowing, closing his eyes. "I wanted to show him that he really isn't alone, and that there are people who care about him. Does that sound stupid?" Harry smiled a little. "I'm sure he would say so. He would never admit to needing anything from anyone. Maybe that's why you hated each other so—you both have that same sort of mulish pride that won't take a helping hand even when it's willingly offered."

Harry jumped down from his branch and braced himself against the trunk for a moment. "I want you back, Sirius. I wish I could talk to you for just a moment, to tell you how much it meant to me to have you with me even for those two brief years. And you know—I think I finally understand now what you and Remus said that night about giving up your lives for your friends..."

The crackle of broken twigs shattered the solemnity of the moment and snapped his body into instant alert. He spun, his wand in his hand faster than thought. Then he registered the flash of white teeth bared in a feral grin. "They say that you've been killing yourself without Voldemort's help, Potter." A voice, arrogant and disdainful as ever, accosted him.

Harry dully holstered his wand, fingers shaking a little from the dying rush of adrenaline. "Malfoy, do you not understand how dangerous it is to surprise me like that?" he snapped. He closed his eyes, searching desperately for calm.

His old nemesis moved to stand in the middle of the path facing him. "What's the matter, Potter? Stood up by your midnight tryst?"

"Move, Malfoy," Harry growled, stalking towards the man who had managed to shatter his hard-won almost-peace with his presence, driven by the need to get away before the sullen anger souring his belly could break free. Draco wasn't the enemy—hadn't been for a long time, and he didn't deserve the brittle temper that Harry had been holding back so precariously for too long.

Draco Malfoy, hair glowing white-gold in the moonlight as if he were some god from Greek mythology come to grace the earth with his presence for one night, lifted a deliberate eyebrow and smiled with cool, controlling grace. "No."

Harry stopped and shook his head. "You don't want to mess with me tonight, Malfoy," he warned in a voice gone low with the effort of suppressing the explosive anger that his Slytherin rival triggered with frightening ease.

Draco studied him, still wearing that arrogant, baiting smirk. "I still need to pay you back for that nice little spell in Sixth Year, Potter, and you've been wanting this fight for a while, haven't you? So what are you waiting for? Afraid I'll mess up that pretty face?"

The wind sliced through Harry's robes like spears of ice. He shivered—not from cold, but from the power surging strong and sure through his veins. His mind felt clear, sharp for the first time in months. His wand was in his hand again with the barest hint of thought.

"Worry about your own pretty face," he spat.

Draco smirked and drew his own wand. "Let's see you back up those words, Potter."

There was no salute. Harry felt the faint hum of magic from overhead and deflected; something invisible fell to the ground with a heavy thud, flattening a rosebush to his right. He drew fire out of the inferno in his mind and sent it whizzing through the air in the form of blue flame arrows, leaving the sharp smell of burning ozone in their wake. Draco threw up a shield just in time. A waterfall poured out of the sky over Harry, and he parted it to see a long silver spear thrusting at his face. He ducked, transfiguring his wand into a sword as hard as diamond, and sliced the spear in half. He jumped back from the morass of mud created by Draco's waterfall and swatted at him with a long chain of nettles uncoiled like a whip from his wand. Draco twisted away and set fire to the spiky wood. Harry swung at him once more before it fell to the ground in clumps of dark ash.

They both cast non-verbal sectus spells at each other at the same time. Harry, unable to block completely in the aftermath of his own attack, gasped slightly at the long thin gashes trickling warm blood down his left shoulder. He looked up. Draco was sporting a series of cuts like a wound from a claw along his side. They stared at each other for a moment, then both grinned.

Harry cast a quick healing charm on his shoulder, then swept his wand in a sharp arc, breaking the silence with his shout. "Incendio!"

"Protego!" Draco countered. A red and gold wall of fire descended upon Draco, and he disappeared from sight for a moment, completely devoured by the firestorm.

After a moment, a calm voice at the center of the fire proclaimed, "Finite illusio!"

The flame disappeared to reveal Draco irritably brushing firesparks off his sleeves. "You won't impress me with your parlor tricks, Potter," he said contemptuously.

"Just thought I'd see how long it would take you to figure it out," Harry replied with a tight smile.

Draco's eyes narrowed. "Bugger you," he snapped. Then he began to shoot off hexes and curses in rapid succession.

Harry settled smoothly once more into the rhythm of spell-casting, mildly surprised by how much he enjoyed the flow of curse and counter-curse and the clean precision of Draco's spells. That style of subtle, flowing movement and sudden, unexpected reversals felt strangely familiar; it felt almost like dueling with—

Of course. I should have guessed it before.

The rose vines covering the ornamental archway untwined themselves and struck at Draco like green vipers. Draco shot off several quick stunning spells in succession that left the vines hanging limply from their trellis. He countered with a slew of arrow-like stinging hexes that buzzed like angry wasps against Harry's shields until he managed to sweep them away with a rough blast of rose-tinted wind.

A small storm of rocks erupted from the loam at Draco's feet and flung themselves at him like swirling hail. Draco stopped them in mid-flight with an athletic jerk of his own wand and threw them back to Harry, transfigured into hundreds of tiny rose thorns. The thorns melted into a cloud of white rose petals as they met Harry's wards and fluttered away on the night breeze, leaving the sweet scent of blossoms behind.

"How romantic," Draco chuckled. "Was that all for me, Potter?"

Harry grinned. "With my compliments, Malfoy." A quiet incantation and a small flick of his wand, and dozens of conjured red and white long-stemmed roses poured from the sky, burying Draco in a cascade of flowers.

A muffled yelp came from behind the mountain of roses. "What—"

But Harry had already started on his next incantation. It was going to be somewhat trickier than his earlier transfiguration, but there should be just enough of a connection to—

A silver-eyed, pale-furred arctic fox dashed out from the flower mound just as it sagged into a brown noisome heap. The fox turned and hissed at him before transfiguring back into a scowling Draco Malfoy. "What the bloody hell was that for?" he demanded indignantly.

"Didn't you want to know what I think of your face, Malfoy?" Harry taunted.

After a moment, Draco laughed. "You know, Potter, I may start thinking that you do care after all. They do say that manure is a key ingredient in Sir Giligad's Famous Wrinkle-Free Face Cream."

Harry wrinkled his nose. "I don't even want to know how you know that," he groaned.

His next spell left Draco with a row of black bristles down his chest. "Hold still," he muttered crossly as Draco stared incredulously. "There're ninety-eight more incantations to go."

"Which bloke invented this one?" Draco asked, touching the thick fur gingerly. "Ninety-eight incantations for what?"

"Raith Susman of Yorkshire, five hundred years ago. Apparently he was very fond of talking pigs. He invented a curse that would transfigure a person into a pig with ninety-nine incantations, starting with the fur and ending with the snout. A very thorough man, Raith." Harry waved his wand again with a preoccupied air, and Draco watched bemused as more tar-black fur sprouted along both his arms. He hastily waved his own wand down his chest with a counter-spell.

"I'd rather be a ferret, thanks," he grimaced. "And I can't believe you went through the trouble of memorizing all ninety-nine incantations."

Harry gave him a lopsided grin. "Oh, I only got to sixteen or so. But that would've been enough to get you looking like Hermione's cat before Hermione tries to give her a bath." He paused. "At least, with one extra color-shifting spell you would have."

Draco's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Really. I think I've had enough of your poor attempts at magic, Potter." He snapped his wand at Harry and shouted, "Supplantio!"

Harry stumbled and tripped back against a root of the willow tree. His eyes widened as the willow tree shook violently and then reached out to wrap sinuous green branches around him, pulling him spread-eagled into the air. Draco, the bloody little ferret, had booby-trapped the path!

"Well, let's see how you get out of this one," Draco smirked from behind him. "I'll make sure not to singe your face too badly.

"Bloody—!" Harry garbled. Instead of the counter-curse Draco had probably expected, Harry disappeared from his bounds with a pop an instant before coils of red flame shot towards him.

The flowerbed exploded.

Behind the willow tree, Harry closed his eyes, turned his shields on full-strength, and held on. The supple branches lashing wildly in the sudden percussive boom of displaced air stung his face, but he waited until the ringing had died from his ears before peering cautiously around the trunk. Draco still stood in the center of their dueling ground, wand upraised in the act of spell-casting, immaculate and wild-eyed, surrounded by a perfect circle of Harry's previous transfiguration, which was giving off a very distinctive odor.

As Harry watched, Draco carefully let his arm fall to his side. "Shit," he said eloquently to no one in particular.

Harry stepped carefully out onto the path, struggling not to laugh at the expression on Draco's face. "You slept through the 'Elementary Chemistry' portion of Advanced Muggle Studies, I take it," he deadpanned.

Draco cast him a murderous glare.

"How can you have gotten an "Outstanding" in Potions but know nothing about what happens when you set fire to manure?" Harry gave up on not laughing.

"I wanted to bottle death, not horse shit," Draco groused. He fastidiously scoured the path with a spell before tucking his wand away into a holster hidden within his robes. "Merlin's balls, defeated by Harry Stinking Potter and a bloody pile of horse manure—I need a drink." Draco took two steps in the direction of the castle, then paused and tossed over his shoulder, "Come along, Potter. The first rule of drinking is to never drink alone."

Harry stilled, suddenly recalling Severus sitting alone in the darkness of his rooms, a glass of golden liquid in his hand. "All right," he replied quietly.

[[center:***]]

Harry faltered at the top of the steps to the dungeons. He could remember so vividly the last time he had set foot here. He thought longingly of Christmas—Christmas before everything had gone so unimaginably wrong—and how the castle had glowed with merriment and warmth. Even the Bloody Baron had been drafted into a group of ghostly carolers that night. He had skipped down to the dungeons, determined to rope one reclusive Potions master into the festivities—and much to his delight, had succeeded. That memory hurt now, like everything else associated with Severus.

"Oy, Potter!" Draco shouted from behind him. "Where are you going?"

Harry stopped abruptly, closing his eyes for a brief moment. He shook his head in a gesture that was almost habitual by now and turned back, resolutely locking away the memories once more. No answers, no Albus to ask the right questions, no spar to cling to but the need to believe...

Draco's rooms were tastefully decorated in silver and green, with hints of sapphire and indigo. Harry looked around with a raised eyebrow, wondering if Draco had simply transported a sitting room from the Malfoy mansion. The room, as impeccably furnished as one of the Ministry suites for foreign guests, was rather whimsically ornamented with Draco's current profession. A huge pile of books on the usage of hydra poison in Potions was stacked in the center of a lush oriental carpet; the pile leaned so perilously that Harry was certain Draco had spelled it in place. A graceful wineglass beautifully etched in silver and filled with a ruby liquid turned out, on closer inspection, to be Draco's inkpot. Scrolls turned up in unexpected places: several were balanced vertically on top of the hydra books, looking like pine trees clinging stubbornly to a rocky crag; a particularly thick scroll that might have come from the quill of a familiarly verbose Hufflepuff floated serenely alongside water lilies in a small ornamental marble fountain; several battered-looked scrolls hopped up and down on an footstool by the door until Draco hexed them with a guilty-looking grin. Harry reached up and plucked a scroll out of the chandelier; it was a Fourth Year Ravenclaw's essay on occamy feathers, enthusiastically marked with 'well done!' in red ink. The Ravenclaw, Harry suspected, would likely faint from shock at receiving praise on a Potions assignment.

"All this on a stand-in Potions professor's salary, huh? I think I've missed my calling," Harry quipped.

"Naturally," Draco sniffed. He moved to an elaborately-carved low table holding several decanters and poured two glasses. "Besides—if you've got it, flaunt it."

Harry turned from a gilt-edged family tree illustrating Malfoy generations stretching back to Septius Malfoy, a Peer of Charlemagne. "And you have definitely 'got it'," he said dryly, accepting his glass from Draco. He sat down in an antique rosewood armchair covered with gold leaf and trimmed with satin and silver-threaded silk. "So why'd you take this job? The salary would hardly make a dent in your pocket, I'd imagine."

Draco shrugged, and moved to sit in a chair matching Harry's. "I got bored. You can only spend so many days at a time counting your wealth before money begins to lose all meaning whatsoever, so I decided to take a break. I figured the business could do without me for a while. So the goblins come and find me whenever they need to dress me up for some occasion or another, and in return for not skiving off the profits too much I usually let them run the business as they please. They love counting money anyway—probably why so many goblins go into banking." Draco raised his glass in a small salute to Harry. "Cheers."

Harry returned the gesture. "Cheers," and drank. He studied his Slytherin rival over the top of his glass. Draco had grown taller than Harry since their student days together. The pride in his aristocratic face was still unmistakable, but the sneer that had hovered about his mouth in former days had disappeared into true humor; the pride was tempered by the knowledge of grief in his grey eyes, which now held both sincerity and a hard-earned confidence.

But it was not only in the physical ways that his old rival had changed. He, too, had chosen to walk his own path, had been forced to make hard decisions and had truly grown up because of them. No one but Albus—and perhaps Severus?—had known Draco's reasons for joining them instead of the Death Eaters; it was one of the few things Draco absolutely refused to talk about. But it was not hard to speculate if you had been there to see the tears on a young Draco's face, charged by Voldemort to take Albus Dumbledore's life, or if you had looked upon the desperation in his eyes as he pointed his trembling wand at the Headmaster, or if you knew, as Harry did, the way in which Narcissa, Draco's mother, had died... And so in many ways it was Draco who had taken the harder path, and Harry could respect him for that.

Which was not to say, however, that Draco was not still a stuck-up prig sometimes.

Harry's mouth quirked up slightly in an ironic smile. "So why were you roaming the rose gardens tonight? No assignation, for once?"

Draco mock-grimaced and replied, "Give me some credit for taste, at least! Speaking of which, how did you get out of that trap, anyway? Did Dumbledore or McGonagall make you a special portkey for the grounds or something?"

"Nope," Harry smiled slightly. "It was more of what the house-elves do to get from place to place. I've never been able to do it before now, and I doubt I'd be able to do it again unless I was really inspired." Then he chuckled slyly. "So 'Auror Adumbeus' not quite up to your standards, hmm?"

Draco snorted inelegantly. "Auror Drunk-on-Babbling-Beverage? From what I hear, he's a power-hungry bastard with all of the arrogance and none of the talent, and he only managed to get the Ancient Magical Artifacts position because he bribed or blackmailed Fudge into it before he got kicked out of office. Then Scrimgeour, who damn well knows he's useless, decided to stick him with us." Draco thumped his drink down on the arm of his chair and leaned forward. "If you ever want to be Minister of Magic, Potter, just say the word and we'll ransack the Ministry and throw Scrimgeour out within the day."

"Erm," said Harry, unable to decide whether or not Draco was joking. "No thanks. If you want Scrimgeour out of office, why don't you go for it?"

"Me?" Draco rolled his eyes. "Son of a Death Eater, practitioner of the Dark Arts, failed murderer of Albus Dumbledore...need I go on?"

"The Dark Arts bit would rule me out, too," Harry pointed out.

"People want a figurehead, Potter," Draco explained with exaggerated patience as if to a child, "and they believe what they want to believe. You're the Chosen One of the Army of Light—I think that means you're 'it'."

Harry made a rude noise. "I hate politics. Why do you think I decided to return here instead of joining the Aurors? Besides, you just want me there for your own schemes."

"Looks like you're finally gaining some business sense," Draco commented blandly, raising his glass in mock-salute. Then he sipped and added, "You know as well as I do that you're not going to remain here as an assistant professor forever. Just don't forget your friends when the time comes—speaking of which, people are worried about you, you know. McGonagall sent me to look for you."

"And asked you to challenge me to a wizard's duel, I'm sure." He leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his own drink. After a pause, he added more softly, "I know people are worried. But if I stop, I think I would go insane."

"Do you—" Draco began and stopped, his mouth quirking strangely.

"What?" Harry stared.

Draco shook his head slightly. "You don't really believe that Snape's gone back to Voldemort like that idiot Ademeus said, do you?"

Harry looked away. There was a moment's pause in which he could not seem to find any words at all. Then he replied very softly, "He killed Albus."

"What?!" Draco exploded out of his chair. "What the hell did you say?"

This time Harry met Draco's eyes. "Albus didn't die of a heart attack, Malfoy. S-Snape killed him. I saw him do it!"

"But Dumbledore was—he...he was alive after Snape had already left!" Draco protested.

"That was me," Harry replied quietly. "An illusion. McGonagall knew. So did Madame Pomfrey."

Draco's eyes were wide. "But if you think...if you suspect him, then why...?"

Harry got up and paced restlessly around the room before sitting back down. "Albus' Will," he replied hoarsely. His throat worked convulsively for a moment, words stuck there like unborn chicks too gangly and weak to break out of their shells. Harry bit his lower lip, then threw back the rest of his drink in a prolonged gulp.

"It was Christmas," he finally said, the words pulled out of him unwillingly by Draco's obvious need. The man had a right to know, he really did, but it was hard—so hard to set loose the memories he had locked away for the past eight months.

"Christmas," Draco echoed with stunned disbelief. He fell silent at Harry's look.

Christmas. The moment in which all choice had been torn from them, leaving behind no path but that of destiny.

He had been there, of course, to see Albus in his chair with an empty goblet beside him, Severus standing before him. Had stepped into the room just in time to bear witness, to hear Albus say softly, "Severus, please..." in a pleading whisper that chilled him to the bone, to see the fury and hatred in Severus' eyes as he raised his wand in a steady motion of terrible grace and uttered the words "Avada Kedavra!" in a voice like broken chords.

Severus. Albus sank limply into his chair as Harry stood there at the doorway to a nightmare, half-believing that in the next moment he would wake to ghosts and house-elves caroling outside his door. Instead, a wordless melody, beautiful and heart-breaking, began to pour like golden tears into the room.

"No..." He searched Severus' face desperately for an explanation, for the grief that he knew must be there, but saw only a cold, inhuman mask. Severus walked past him as if, trapped in nightmare, Harry no longer existed in the real world.

It was when he saw the two shadowy figures in the fireplace that he finally reacted. "Snape!" he screamed, feeling as if the word was tearing a hole in his heart, drawing his wand and pointing it at the back of the man whom it seemed, again and again, he did not know at all. His hand shook so hard that he could barely hold his wand, but he thought the blind, inarticulate fury gathering within him might blast the fireplace into oblivion without benefit of a spell.

Severus didn't even pause.

He shot off something that shattered against the mantle and threw a shower of granite past Severus' face. "Stop and fucking face me, you coward!" he howled, not caring in that moment about anything at all beyond the need to stop Severus before he reached the fireplace with its two masked, waiting Death Eaters.

Severus spun, and Harry didn't even see the sectus spell that stuck him like white-hot spears. He crumbled to the floor, blood spurting from his chest. Severus loomed over him, his wand clutched in a white-knuckled grip. "Do not call me coward," he hissed, and in the ragged voice and the twisted face, suddenly, there was so much pain that it could have been him bleeding from a shattered heart on that floor instead of Harry. Then he walked to the fireplace. "He is to be left for the Dark Lord," Harry heard him say, before all three disappeared.

McGonagall and Pomfrey found him a moment later, kneeling on the floor besides Albus' chair, staring unseeingly at a Will stained red with his blood.

"What did it say?"

His hands were empty of both blood and silver-etched parchment. "What?" He looked up.

Draco repeated impatiently, "Dumbledore's Will. What did it say?"

"It said—" Harry began, and stopped. "I don't...I don't remember."

"You don't remember?" Draco repeated incredulously.

"I don't..." Harry passed a hand before his eyes wearily. "...not the exact words, anyway. But it meant that I shouldn't judge without...looking beneath the surface."

"There has to be a reason," Draco muttered. "Like that time in Sixth Year. Do you remember? The Dark Lord had commanded me to kill Dumbledore, but I just stood there and..." Draco's face clouded for a moment. "When Snape drew his wand, I thought for sure that he was going to finish the job for me, but he killed those Death Eaters instead. We had a long talk after that. And then he gave me a choice..."

"A choice...?" Harry echoed.

The corner of Draco's lips lifted. "A choice. I think...the first in my life. I was scared shitless."

"But he gave you that choice," Harry said slowly.

Draco nodded.

And was he given a choice? Harry thought, Severus' twisted face floating up before him once more. Which one did he take...?

"Potter?" Draco's voice broke into his reverie, and Harry gave a quick shake of his head, wondering what expression could have been on his face to elicit that hint of worry from even Draco.

"You didn't learn the Dark Arts from your father, did you?" he quickly asked, following an earlier thought.

"What? No, I didn't," Draco said, quirking an eyebrow at Harry in surprise. "How'd you know?"

Harry shrugged. "The duel. The way you used your wand. It seemed familiar."

Draco grinned. "I guess so. Trust you to notice. No one else knows except Father. He was quite pleased. Oh, and Dumbledore, of course."

"Albus knew about you learning the Dark Arts?" Harry's voice spiraled incredulously upward.

"Snape probably told him when we first started, though I didn't know that at the time, of course," Draco replied casually.

Harry stared at Draco for a moment. "What was it like?" he finally asked curiously.

Draco considered for a moment, fingers tapping his glass gently in thought. "Not much different from your training with Dumbledore, I think. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they shared notes."

"A lot of theory, a lot of reading?" Harry asked wryly.

"And a lot of stories about what Death Eaters actually did, for me," Draco nodded. "He kept telling me to think for myself. 'Second chances are as rare in life as they are in Potions, Mr. Malfoy,' he'd say. 'Make sure that your choices are truly your own, because you're the one who will have to live with them.'"

Harry nodded. "That sounds like something he said to me once. It was...at the Last Rites of a Death Eater..."

Draco's brow furrowed. "You went to the Last Rites of a Death Eater? Why?"

Harry stared down into his glass. He had not forgotten the white-shrouded body blazing upon the pyre from four years ago. Strangely, he had never told the story to anyone, not even Ron and Hermione; for some reason, what had occurred at the Last Rites—and what had followed—had always seemed too private a thing to tell even his best friends. But Draco, who, unlike Ron with his bloodless models of battlefields and Hermione deep in her Arithmancy, had seen as much of the cruelties of war as he had, might understand. "Because I killed him," he replied softly. "Because I watched the world from his memories..." He held out his glass for a refill, and Draco poured for him solicitously. "It's strange, isn't it, how people we think we can safely lock away in an Unbreakable jar labeled 'evil' are really...human...too?" Harry gave Draco a slightly sardonic look. "Or are you going to tell me that's a Gryffindor failing?"

Draco shrugged. "Gryffindors tend to see the world in black and white."

"True enough," Harry acknowledged. "And in some sense, I suppose he was evil. He enjoyed being one of Voldemort's Death Eaters, and he enjoyed holding other people's lives in his hand. He wanted that sort of power. He...was the one who lured those elven children away to get at me, and he didn't even think twice about that. But...in the end...he only asked that his ashes be scattered over the sea—"

"You read his Will?" Draco interrupted sharply.

Harry looked up from the glass, surprised by the edge in Draco's voice. "No, Snape did," he replied. "Why?"

Draco frowned at his own glass thoughtfully. "A wizarding Will is not like a Muggle Will," he answered finally. "Very powerful magics go into their creation, because they carry the single most powerful desire of the Creator of the Will. It's almost like a more subtle form of Imperius. They typically appear at or near the Creator's death—depending on what the Will says—at the place they are most likely to be found. The one who reads the Will—and to an extent, those who hear the Will—are bound to the fulfillment of the Will. How strongly bound depends on a lot of things—like how strong the magic of the Creator and how strong his desire, the sort of ties the Creator had to the Witnesses, how willing the Witnesses would be to carry out the Creator's wishes... That's why the Wills of Death Eaters are customarily burned rather than read." He twirled the remaining cognac in his glass. "But then again, maybe Snape chose to take the risk because he already would have had a bit of protection against the Will if it truly went against his own wishes."

"Protection?" Harry asked.

"Well, he is a master of Occlumency," Draco pointed out. "And according to Father, the Snapes have always had a rather unique tradition. They have a wand that has been passed down through their family since Merlin knows when, and it chooses its bearer, not the other way around. Something as powerful as that must have some innate protections, especially since it's passed through the hands of so many powerful witches and wizards."

"But how does that happen?" Harry wondered, fascinated. "I mean, I've never heard of a wand like that."

"Father didn't tell me much more than that, and I don't think he knew much more. The Snapes have always been rather protective of their family secrets." Draco balanced his glass precariously on a low footstool buried in more student scrolls and stood. "Come along, Potter. I'm going to challenge you to a few games of Wizard's Chess to assuage my wounded pride. A galleon on my victory!"

Harry threw down his money pouch. "You win," he grinned.

Draco tossed it back. "You're a Gryffindor! You can't back down from a challenge!"

Harry sighed theatrically. "Even Gryffindors know the meaning of a 'strategic retreat', you know," he groused, but sat down at the cut-crystal Wizard's Chess set Draco had indicated.

Draco smiled wickedly. "Fortunately, they're a bit spottier when it comes to 'exploit your enemy's weaknesses'."

Harry resisted the urge to throw the White Pawn at his smirking host. Instead, he made the first move. And in a little corner of his mind, he couldn't help but wonder, Did he take that risk because of me? Even back then? But why? Why?

[[center:***]]

It was long past midnight by the time Harry stumbled out of Draco's rooms, having obligingly lost the entire contents of his moneybag to the other wizard in succeeding games of chess. He pushed away from the wall, blinking owlishly. It'd been unexpectedly hard work, losing convincingly every time, but he hadn't wanted to belabor the point. He'd get Draco back some other time, but tonight he craved something more than victory on a black-and-white battlefield. He might even be intoxicated enough to try it.

The Potions master's rooms were exactly the same as he remembered them, though he had not set foot inside them for eight months. Not even the wards upon the door had been changed, though he had stood outside for a very long time, working up the courage to touch that familiar trace of Severus' magic. It was as if Severus had believed that he would be gone for the space of hours, not months.

His sanctuary.

And for a few brief months, mine as well.

He went over to Severus' private library and gazed at the titles spanning the goldenoak shelves for long moments without touching the books or saying the simple spell that would reveal the most precious treasures in the Potions master's library. Tomorrow...perhaps. Tomorrow he would pick up the burden of unrelenting time and merciless oath once more. Tomorrow...

His fingers ghosted over the leather-bound spines, tingling where they met Severus' protective spells. The Professor had painstakingly cast permanent preservation spells on even elementary Potions text that he would surely never need again....

Harry smiled softly and pulled down a well-worn pocket-sized book that appeared to be from Severus' student days. He took the text from its place among several much larger tomes and gently turned it over in his hands. Just a Potions book, enchantmentless save for Severus' careful protections and the knowledge contained within its pages. He took it with him to the armchairs in front of the fireplace and stood looking at Severus' empty chair for a long time before sitting down in the one opposite. Harry smoothed his hand over the cover, feeling the grain of leather and reading the embossed title by touch: La Liliaceae dans Le Curatif et Les Breuvages Magiques.

With infinite care, Harry opened the book. His eyes widened at the inscription, written in a beautifully bold copperplate. "Oh...!" Then he smiled wistfully and trailed his fingertips over the words:

[[break:line]]
To Severus:
Your choices are you own, my friend. But please remember that what can harm can also heal.

Your friend always,

Lily

[[break:line]]
"Thank you, Mum," Harry whispered.

Cradling the book in his hands, he leaned back into the chair, closed his eyes and dropped into a dreamless sleep.