047.asc

// 8511
//== Personhood Theory

// 8512
//There comes a point in every plot where the victim starts to suspect; and looks
//back, and sees a trail of events all pointing in a single direction. And when
//that point comes, Father had explained, the prospect of the loss may seem so
//unbearable, and admitting themselves tricked may seem so humiliating, that the
//victim will yet deny the plot, and the game may continue long after.

// 8513
//Father had warned Draco not to do that again.

// 8514
//First, though, he’d let Mr. Avery finish eating all of the cookies he’d
//swindled from Draco, while Draco watched and cried. The whole lovely jar of
//cookies that Father had given him just a few hours earlier, for Draco had lost
//all of them to Mr. Avery, down to the very last one.

// 8515
//So it was a familiar feeling that Draco had felt in the pit of his stomach,
//when Gregory told him about The Kiss.

// 8516
//Sometimes you looked back, and saw things…

// 8517
//(In a lightless classroom - you couldn’t quite call it __unused__ any
//more, since it’d seen weekly use over the last few months - a boy sat
//enshrouded in a hooded cowl, with an unlighted crystal globe on the desk in
//front of him. Thinking in silence, thinking in darkness, waiting for an opening
//door to let in the light.)

// 8518
//Harry had shoved Granger away and said, __I told you, no kissing!__

// 8519
//Harry would probably say something like, __She just did it to annoy me,
//last time, just like she made me go on that date.__

// 8520
//But the verified story was that Granger had been willing to face the Dementor
//again in order to help Harry; that she had kissed Harry, crying, when he was
//lost in the depths of Dementation; and that her kiss had brought him back.

// 8521
//That didn’t sound like rivalry, even friendly rivalry.

// 8522
//That sounded like the kind of friendship you usually didn’t see even in plays.

// 8523
//Then why had Harry made his friend climb the icy walls of Hogwarts?

// 8524
//Because that was the sort of thing Harry Potter did to his friends?

// 8525
//Father had told Draco that to fathom a strange plot, one technique was to look
//at what __ended up__ happening, assume it was the __intended__
//result, and ask who benefited.

// 8526
//What had ended up happening as the result of Draco and Granger fighting Harry
//Potter together… was that Draco had started to feel a lot friendlier toward
//Granger.

// 8527
//Who benefited from the scion of Malfoy becoming friends with a mudblood witch?

// 8528
//Who benefited, that was famous for exactly that sort of plot?

// 8529
//Who benefited, that could possibly be pulling Harry Potter’s strings?

// 8530
//Dumbledore.

// 8531
//And if that was true then Draco would __have__ to go to Father and tell
//him everything, no matter what happened after that, Draco couldn’t imagine what
//would happen after that, it was awful beyond imagining. Which made him want to
//cling desperately to the last shred of hope that it wasn’t all what it looked
//like…

// 8532
//…Draco remembered that, too, from Mr. Avery’s lesson.

// 8533
//Draco hadn’t planned to confront Harry yet. He was still trying to think of an
//experimental test, something that Harry wouldn’t just see through and fake. But
//then Vincent had come with the message that Harry wanted to meet early this
//week, on Friday instead of Saturday.

// 8534
//And so here Draco was, in a dark classroom, an unlit crystal globe on his desk,
//waiting.

// 8535
//Minutes passed.

// 8536
//Footsteps approached.

// 8537
//The door made a gentle creak as it swung open into the classroom, revealing
//Harry Potter dressed in his own hood and cowl; Harry stepped forward into the
//dark classroom, and the sturdy door closed behind him with a faint click.

// 8538
//Draco tapped the crystal globe, and the classroom lit with bright green light.
//Green light projected shadows of the desks onto the floor, and glared back at
//him from the curved chair-backs, photons bouncing off the wood in such fashion
//that the angle of incidence equaled the angle of reflection.

// 8539
//At least __that__ much of what he’d learned wasn’t likely to be a lie.

// 8540
//Harry had flinched as the light went on, halting for a moment, then resumed his
//approach. “Hello, Draco,” Harry said quietly, drawing back his hood as he came
//to Draco’s desk. “Thank you for coming, I know it’s not our usual time -”

// 8541
//“You’re welcome,” Draco said flatly.

// 8542
//Harry dragged one of the chairs to face Draco across his desk, the legs making
//a slight screeching sound on the floor. He spun the chair so that it was facing
//the wrong way, and sat down straddling it, his arms folded across the back of
//the chair. The boy’s face was pensive, frowning, serious, looking very adult
//even for Harry Potter.

// 8543
//“I have an important question to ask you,” said Harry, “but there’s something
//else I want us to do before that.”

// 8544
//Draco said nothing, feeling a certain weariness. Part of him just wanted it all
//to be over with already.

// 8545
//“Tell me, Draco,” said Harry. “Why don’t Muggles ever leave ghosts behind when
//they die?”

// 8546
//“Because Muggles don’t have souls, obviously,” Draco said. He didn’t even
//realize until after he’d said it that it might contradict Harry’s politics, and
//then he didn’t care. Besides, it __was__ obvious.

// 8547
//Harry’s face showed no surprise. “Before I ask my important question, I want to
//see if you can learn the Patronus Charm.”

// 8548
//For a moment the sheer nonsequitur stumped Draco. Good old
//impossible-to-predict-or-understand Harry Potter. There were times when Draco
//wondered whether Harry was deliberately this disorienting as a tactic.

// 8549
//Then Draco understood, and shoved himself up and away from his desk in a single
//angry motion. That was it. It was over. “Like __Dumbledore’s__ servants,”
//he spat.

// 8550
//“Like Salazar Slytherin,” Harry said steadily.

// 8551
//Draco almost stumbled over his own feet in the middle of his first stride
//toward the door.

// 8552
//Slowly, Draco turned back toward Harry.

// 8553
//“I don’t know where you came up with that,” said Draco, “but it’s wrong,
//everyone knows the Patronus Charm is a Gryffindor spell -”

// 8554
//“Salazar Slytherin could cast a corporeal Patronus Charm,” Harry said. Harry’s
//hand darted into his robes, brought out a book whose title was written as white
//on green, and so almost impossible to read in the green light; but it looked
//old. “I discovered that when I was researching the Patronus Charm before. And I
//found the original reference and checked the book out of the library just in
//case you didn’t believe me. The author of this book doesn’t think there’s
//anything __unusual__ about Salazar being able to cast a Patronus, either;
//the belief that Slytherins can’t do that must be recent. And as a further
//historical note, though I don’t have the book with me, Godric Gryffindor never
//could.”

// 8555
//After the first six times Draco had tried calling Harry’s bluff, on six
//successively more ridiculous occasions, he’d realized that Harry just
//__didn’t__ lie about what was written in books. Still, when Harry’s hands
//opened the book and laid it out to the place of a bookmark, Draco leaned over
//and studied the place where Harry’s finger pointed.

// 8556
//__Then the fires of Ravenclaw fell upon the darkness that had cloaked the
//left wing of Lord Foul’s army, breaking it, and it was revealed that the Lord
//Gryffindor had spoken true; the fear they all had felt was not natural in its
//source, but coming from thrice a dozen Dementors, who had been promised the
//souls of the defeated. At once the Lady Hufflepuff and Lord Slytherin brought
//forth their Patronuses, a vast angry badger and a bright silver serpent, and
//the defenders lifted their heads as the shadow passed from their hearts. And
//Lady Ravenclaw laughed, remarking that Lord Foul was a great fool, for now his
//own army would be subject to the fear, but not the defenders of Hogwarts. Yet
//the Lord Slytherin said, “No fool he, that much I know.” And the Lord
//Gryffindor beside him studied the battlefield with a frown upon his face…__

// 8557
//Draco looked back up. “So?”

// 8558
//Harry closed the book and put it into his pouch. “Chaos and Sunshine both have
//soldiers that can cast corporeal Patronus Charms. Corporeal Patronuses can be
//used to convey messages. If you can’t learn the spell, Dragon Army will be at a
//severe military disadvantage -”

// 8559
//Draco didn’t care about that right now, and told Harry so. His voice was
//sharper than it probably should have been.

// 8560
//Harry didn’t blink. “Then I’m calling in the favor you owe me from that time I
//stopped a riot from breaking out, on our first day of broomstick lessons. I’m
//going to try to teach you the Patronus Charm, and for my favor, I want you to
//do your honest best to learn and cast it. I trust to the honor of House Malfoy
//that you will.”

// 8561
//Draco felt that certain weariness again. If Harry had asked at any other time,
//it would have been a fair return on favor owed, given that it wasn’t actually a
//Gryffindor spell. But…

// 8562
//“__Why?__” Draco said.

// 8563
//“To find out whether you can do this thing that Salazar Slytherin could do,”
//Harry said evenly. “This is an experimental test, and I will not tell you what
//it means until after you have done it. Will you?”

// 8564
//…It probably __was__ a good idea to discharge that favor on something
//innocuous, all the more so if it was time to break with Harry Potter. “All
//right.”

// 8565
//Harry drew a wand from his robes, and laid it against the globe. “Not really
//the best color for learning the Patronus Charm,” Harry said. “Green light the
//exact shade of the Killing Curse, I mean. But silver is a Slytherin color too,
//isn’t it? __Dulak.__” The light went out, and Harry whispered the first
//two phrases of the Continual Light enchantment, recasting that part of it,
//though neither of them could have cast the whole thing by themselves. Then
//Harry tapped the globe again, and the room lit with a silver radiance,
//brilliant but still soft and gentle. Color returned to the desks and chairs,
//and to Harry’s slightly sweaty face beneath his shock of black hair.

// 8566
//It took that long for Draco to realize the implication. “You saw a
//__Killing Curse__ cast since the last time we met? When - how -”

// 8567
//“Cast the Patronus Charm,” Harry said, looking more serious than ever, “and
//I’ll tell you.”

// 8568
//Draco pressed his hands to his eyes, shutting out the silver light. “You know,
//I really should remember that you’re too __weird__ for any __normal__
//plots!”

// 8569
//Within his self-imposed darkness, he heard the sound of Harry snickering.

// 8570
//Harry watched closely as Draco finished his latest run-through of the
//preliminary gestures, the part of the spell that was difficult to learn; the
//final brandish and the pronunciation didn’t have to be precise. All three of
//the last runs had been perfect as far as Harry could see. Harry had also felt
//an odd impulse to adjust things that Mr. Lupin hadn’t said anything about, like
//the angle of Draco’s elbow or the direction his foot was pointing; it could
//have been entirely his own imagination, and probably was, but Harry had decided
//to go with it just in case.

// 8571
//“All right,” Harry said quietly. There was a tension in his chest that made it
//a little hard to speak. “Now we don’t have a Dementor here, but that’s all
//right. We won’t need one. Draco, when your father spoke to me at the train
//station, he said that you were the one thing in the world that was most
//precious to him, and he threatened to throw away all his other plans to take
//vengeance on me, if ever you came to harm.”

// 8572
//“He… what?” There was a catch in Draco’s voice, and a strange look on his face.
//“Why are you telling me __that?__”

// 8573
//“Why wouldn’t I?” Harry didn’t let his expression change, though he could guess
//what Draco was thinking; that Harry had been plotting to separate Draco from
//his father, and shouldn’t be saying anything that would bring them closer
//together. “There’s always been just one person who matters most to you, and I
//know exactly what warm and happy thought will let you cast the Patronus Charm.
//You told it to me at the train station before the first day of school. Once you
//fell off a broomstick and broke your ribs. It hurt more than anything you’d
//ever felt, and you thought you were going to die. Pretend that fear is coming
//from a Dementor, standing in front of you, wearing a tattered black cloak,
//looking like a dead thing left in water. And then cast the Patronus Charm, and
//when you brandish the wand to drive the Dementor away, think of how your father
//held your hand, so that you wouldn’t be afraid; and then think of how much he
//loves you, and how much you love him, and put it all into your voice when you
//say __Expecto Patronum.__ For the honor of House Malfoy, and not just
//because you promised me a favor. Show me you didn’t lie to me that day in the
//train station when you told me Lucius was a good father. Show me you can do
//what Salazar Slytherin could do.”

// 8574
//And Harry stepped backward, behind Draco, out of Draco’s field of vision, so
//that Draco only faced the dusty old teacher’s desk and blackboard at the front
//of the unused classroom.

// 8575
//Draco cast one look behind him, that strange look still on his face, and then
//turned away to face forward. Harry saw the exhalation, the inhalation. The wand
//twitched once, twice, thrice, and four times. Draco’s fingers slid along the
//wand, exactly the right distances -

// 8576
//Draco lowered his wand.

// 8577
//“This is too -” Draco said, “I can’t __think__ this right, while you’re
//watching -”

// 8578
//Harry turned around and started walking toward the door. “I’ll come back in a
//minute,” Harry said. “Just hold to your happy thought, and the Patronus will
//stay.”

// 8579
//From behind Draco came the sound of the door opening again.

// 8580
//Draco heard Harry’s footsteps entering the classroom, but Draco didn’t turn to
//look.

// 8581
//Harry didn’t say anything either. The silence stretched.

// 8582
//Finally -

// 8583
//“What does this __mean?__” Draco said. His voice wavered a bit.

// 8584
//“It means you love your father,” Harry’s voice said. Which was just what Draco
//had been thinking, and trying not to cry in front of Harry. It was too right,
//just too right -

// 8585
//Before Draco, on the floor, was the shining form of a snake that Draco
//recognized; a Blue Krait, a snake first brought to their manor by Lord Abraxas
//Malfoy after a visit to some faraway land, and Father had kept a Blue Krait in
//the ophidiarium ever since. The thing about the Blue Krait was that the bite
//wouldn’t hurt much. Father had said that, and told Draco that he was
//__never__ allowed to pet the snake, no matter who was watching. The venom
//killed your nerves so fast that you didn’t have time to feel pain as the poison
//spread. You could die of it even after using Healing Charms. It ate other
//snakes. It was as Slytherin as any creature could possibly be.

// 8586
//That was why a Blue Krait head had been forged into the handle of Father’s
//cane.

// 8587
//The bright snake darted out its tongue, which was also silver; and seemed to
//__smile__ somehow, in a warmer way than any reptile should.

// 8588
//And then Draco realized -

// 8589
//“But,” Draco said, still staring at the beautifully radiant snake,
//“__you__ can’t cast the Patronus Charm.” Now that Draco had cast it
//himself, he understood why that was important. You could be evil, like
//Dumbledore, and still cast the Patronus Charm, so long as you had
//__something__ bright left inside you. But if Harry Potter didn’t have a
//single thought inside him that shone like that -

// 8590
//“The Patronus Charm is more complicated than you think, Draco,” Harry said
//seriously. “Not everyone who fails at casting it is a bad person, or even
//unhappy. But anyway, I __can__ cast it. I did it on my second try, after I
//realized what I’d done wrong facing the Dementor my first time. But, well, my
//life gets a little peculiar sometimes, and my Patronus came out strange, and
//I’m keeping it a secret for now -”

// 8591
//“Am I supposed to just __believe__ that?”

// 8592
//“You can ask Professor Quirrell if you don’t believe me,” said Harry. “Ask him
//whether Harry Potter can cast a corporeal Patronus, and tell him that I told
//you to ask. He’d know the request was from me, no one else would know.”

// 8593
//Oh, and now Draco was to trust __Professor Quirrell?__ Still, knowing
//Harry, it might be true; and Professor Quirrell wouldn’t lie for trivial
//reasons.

// 8594
//The glowing snake turned its head back and forth, as though seeking a prey that
//wasn’t there, and then coiled itself into a circle, as though to rest.

// 8595
//“I wonder,” Harry said softly, “when it was, which year, which generation, that
//Slytherins stopped trying to learn the Patronus Charm. When it was that people
//started to think, that Slytherins themselves started to think, that being
//cunning and ambitious was the same as being cold and unhappy. And if Salazar
//knew that his students didn’t even bother showing up to learn the Patronus
//Charm any more, I wonder, would he wish that he’d never been born? I wonder how
//it all went wrong, when Slytherin’s House went wrong.”

// 8596
//The shining creature winked out, the turmoil rising in Draco making it
//impossible to sustain the Charm. Draco spun on Harry, he had to control himself
//not to raise his wand. “What do __you__ know about Slytherin House
//__or__ Salazar Slytherin? __You__ were never Sorted into my House,
//what gives you the right to -”

// 8597
//And __that__ was when Draco __finally__ realized.

// 8598
//“__You did get Sorted into Slytherin!__” Draco said. “You __did,__
//and afterwards you, you somehow, you __snapped your fingers -__” Draco had
//once asked Father if it would be cleverer to get Sorted into some other House
//so that everyone would trust him, and Father had smiled and said that he’d
//thought of that too at Draco’s age, but there was no way to fool the Sorting
//Hat…

// 8599
//…not until __Harry Potter__ came along.

// 8600
//How had he ever bought for __one minute__ that __Harry__ was a
//__Ravenclaw?__

// 8601
//“An interesting hypothesis,” Harry said equably. “Do you know, you’re the
//second person in Hogwarts to come up with a theory along those lines? At least
//you’re the second that’s actually said so to my face -”

// 8602
//“Snape,” Draco said with certainty. His Head of House was no fool.

// 8603
//“Professor Quirrell, __of course,__” said Harry. “Though come to think,
//Severus did ask me how I managed to stay out of his House, and whether I had
//something the Sorting Hat wanted. I suppose you could say you’re number three.
//Oh, but Professor Quirrell’s theory was a little different than yours, though.
//May I have your word not to repeat it?”

// 8604
//Draco nodded without even really thinking about it. What was he supposed to do,
//say no?

// 8605
//“Professor Quirrell thought that Dumbledore wasn’t happy with the Hat’s choice
//for the Boy-Who-Lived.”

// 8606
//And the instant Harry said it, Draco knew, he __knew__ that it was true,
//it was just __obvious__. Who did Dumbledore even think he was fooling?

// 8607
//…well, besides every single other person in Hogwarts except Snape and Quirrell,
//Harry might even believe it __himself__…

// 8608
//Draco stumbled back over to his desk in something of a daze, and sat down hard
//enough to hurt slightly. This sort of thing happened around once a month with
//Harry, and it hadn’t happened yet in January, so it was time.

// 8609
//His fellow Slytherin, who might or might not think himself a Ravenclaw, sat
//back down in the chair he’d used earlier, now sitting on it crosswise, and
//looking up intently at Draco.

// 8610
//Draco didn’t know __what__ he should be doing now, whether he should be
//trying to persuade the lost Slytherin boy that, no, he __wasn’t__ actually
//a Ravenclaw… or trying to figure out whether Harry was in league with
//Dumbledore, though that suddenly seemed less likely… but then __why__ had
//Harry set up the whole thing with him and Granger…

// 8611
//He really __should__ have remembered that Harry was too weird for any
//normal plots.

// 8612
//“Harry,” Draco said. “Did you deliberately antagonize me and General Sunshine
//just so we’d work together against you?”

// 8613
//Harry nodded without hesitation, as though it was the most normal thing in the
//world, and nothing to be ashamed of.

// 8614
//“The whole thing with the gloves and making us climb up the walls of Hogwarts,
//the __only point__ was to make me and Granger more friendly toward each
//other. And even before then. You’ve been plotting it for a really long time.
//Since the __beginning__.”

// 8615
//Again the nod.

// 8616
//“__WHYYYYY?__”

// 8617
//Harry’s eyebrows lifted for a moment, the only reaction he showed to Draco
//shrieking so loudly in the closed classroom that it hurt his own ears. WHY,
//WHY, WHY did Harry Potter __DO__ this sort of thing…

// 8618
//Then Harry said, “So that Slytherins will be able to cast the Patronus Charm
//again.”

// 8619
//“__That… doesn’t… make… SENSE!__” Draco was aware that he was losing
//control of his voice, but he didn’t seem able to stop himself. ”__What
//does that have to do with Granger?__”

// 8620
//“Patterns,” Harry said. His face was very serious now, and very grave. “Like a
//quarter of children born to Squib couples being wizards. A simple, unmistakable
//pattern you would recognize instantly, if you knew what you were looking at;
//even though, if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t even realize it was a clue. The
//poison in Slytherin House is something that’s been seen before in the Muggle
//world. This is an __advance__ prediction, Draco, I could have written it
//down for you before our first day of school, just from hearing you talk in
//King’s Cross Station. Let me describe some really pathetic sorts of people that
//hang around at your father’s political rallies, pureblood families that would
//never be invited to dinner at Malfoy Manor. Bearing in mind that __I’ve__
//never met them, I’m just predicting it from recognizing the pattern of what’s
//happening to Slytherin House -”

// 8621
//And Harry Potter proceeded to describe the Parkinsons and Montagues and Boles
//with a calmly cutting accuracy that Draco wouldn’t have dared __think__ to
//himself in case there was a Legilimens around, it was __beyond__ insult,
//they would __kill__ Harry if they ever heard…

// 8622
//“To sum up,” Harry finished, “they don’t have any power themselves. They don’t
//have any wealth themselves. If they didn’t have Muggleborns to hate, if all the
//Muggleborns vanished the way they say they __want__, they’d wake up one
//morning and find they had __nothing.__ But so long as they can say
//purebloods are superior, they can feel superior themselves, they can feel like
//part of the master class. Even though your father would never dream of inviting
//them to dinner, even though there’s not one Galleon in their vaults, even if
//they did worse on their OWLs than the worst Muggleborn in Hogwarts. Even if
//they can’t cast the Patronus Charm any more. Everything is the Muggleborns’
//fault to them, they have someone besides themselves to blame for their own
//failures, and that makes them even weaker. That’s what Slytherin House is
//becoming, __pathetic,__ and the root of the problem is hating
//Muggleborns.”

// 8623
//“Salazar Slytherin himself said that mudbloods needed to be cast out! That they
//were weakening our blood -” Draco’s voice had risen to a shout.

// 8624
//“__Salazar was wrong as a question of simple fact!__ You __know__
//that, Draco! And that __hatred__ is poisoning your whole House, you
//couldn’t cast the Patronus Charm using a thought like that!”

// 8625
//“Then why could __Salazar Slytherin__ cast the Patronus Charm?”

// 8626
//Harry was wiping sweat from his forehead. “Because things have __changed__
//between then and now! Listen, Draco, three hundred years ago you could find
//great scientists, as great as Salazar in their own way, who would have told you
//that some other Muggles were inferior because of their skin color -”

// 8627
//“__Skin color?__” said Draco.

// 8628
//“I know, skin color instead of anything important like blood purity, isn’t it
//ridiculous? But then something in the world changed, and __now__ you can’t
//find any great scientists who still think skin color should matter, only loser
//people like the ones I described to you. Salazar Slytherin made the mistake
//when everyone else was making it, because he grew up believing it, not because
//he was__ desperate for someone to hate.__ There were a few people who did
//better than everyone else around them, and __they__ were exceptionally
//good. But the ones who just accepted what everyone else thought weren’t
//__exceptionally__ evil. The sad fact is that most people just don’t notice
//a moral issue at all unless someone else is pointing it out to them; and once
//they’re as old as Salazar was when he met Godric, they’ve lost the ability to
//change their minds. Only __then__ Hogwarts was built, and Hogwarts started
//sending acceptance letters to Muggleborns like Godric insisted, and more and
//more people began to notice that Muggleborns __weren’t__ any different.
//Now it’s a big political issue instead of something that everyone just believes
//without thinking about it. And the __correct__ answer is that Muggleborns
//__aren’t__ any weaker than purebloods. So__ now__ the people who end
//up siding with what Salazar once believed, are either people who grew up in
//very closed pureblood environments like you, __or__ people who are so
//pathetic themselves that they’re desperate for someone to feel superior to,
//people who love to hate.”

// 8629
//“That doesn’t… that doesn’t sound right…” Draco’s voice said. His ears
//listened, and wondered that he couldn’t come up with anything better to say.

// 8630
//“It doesn’t? Draco, you __know__ now there’s nothing wrong with Hermione
//Granger. You had trouble dropping her off a roof, I hear. Even though you knew
//she’d taken a Feather-Falling Potion, even though you knew she was safe. What
//sort of person do you think wants to __kill__ her, not for any wrong she
//did to them, just because she’s a Muggleborn? Even though she’s, she’s just a
//young girl who would help them with their homework in a second, if they ever
//asked her,” Harry’s voice broke, “what sort of person wants her to
//__die?__”

// 8631
//__Father -__

// 8632
//Draco felt split in two, he seemed to be having a problem with dual vision,
//__Granger is a mudblood, she should die__ and a girl hanging from his hand
//on the rooftop, like seeing double, seeing double -

// 8633
//“And anyone who __doesn’t__ want Hermione Granger to die, won’t want to
//hang around the sort of people who __do!__ That’s all people think
//Slytherin __is__ now, not clever planning, not trying to achieve
//greatness, just hating Muggleborns! I paid Morag a Sickle to ask Padma why she
//hadn’t gone to Slytherin, we both know she got the option. And Morag told me
//that Padma just gave her a __look__ and said that she wasn’t Pansy
//Parkinson. You see? The __best__ students with the virtues of more than
//one House, the students with __choices,__ they go under the Hat thinking
//__anywhere but Slytherin, __and someone like Padma ends up in Ravenclaw.
//And… I think the Sorting Hat tries to maintain a balance in the Sorting, so it
//fills out the ranks of Slytherin with anyone who __isn’t__ repelled by all
//the hatred. So instead of Padma Patil, Slytherin gets Pansy Parkinson. She’s
//not very cunning, and she’s not very ambitious, but she’s the sort of person
//who doesn’t mind what Slytherin is turning into. And the more Padmas go to
//Ravenclaw and the more Pansies go to Slytherin, the more the process
//accelerates. __It’s destroying Slytherin House, Draco!__”

// 8634
//It had a ring of awful truth, Padma __had__ belonged in Slytherin… and
//instead Slytherin got Pansy… Father rallied lesser families like the Parkinsons
//because they were convenient sources of support, but Father hadn’t realized the
//__consequences__ of associating Slytherin’s name with them…

// 8635
//“I can’t -” Draco said, but he wasn’t even sure what he couldn’t do - “What do
//you __want__ from me?”

// 8636
//“I’m not sure how to heal Slytherin House,” Harry said slowly. “But I know it’s
//something you and I will end up having to do. It took centuries for science to
//dawn over the Muggle world, it only happened slowly, but the stronger science
//got, the further that sort of hatred retreated.” Harry’s voice was quiet, now.
//“I don’t know exactly why it worked that way, but that’s how it happened
//historically. As though there’s something in science like the shine of the
//Patronus Charm, driving back all sorts of darkness and madness, not right away,
//but it seems to follow wherever science goes. The Enlightenment, that was what
//it was called in the Muggle world. It has something to do with seeking the
//truth, I think… with being able to change your mind from what you grew up
//believing… with thinking __logically,__ realizing that there’s no
//__reason__ to hate someone because their skin is a different color, just
//like there’s no reason to hate Hermione Granger… or maybe there’s something to
//it that even I don’t understand. But the Enlightenment is something that you
//and I belong to now, both of us. Fixing Slytherin House is just one of the
//things we have to do.”

// 8637
//“Let me think,” Draco said, his voice coming out in something of a croak,
//“please,” and he rested his head in his hands, and thought.

// 8638
//Draco thought for a while, with his palms over his eyes to shut out the world,
//no sound but his and Harry’s breathing. All the persuasive reasonableness of
//what Harry said, the evident grains of truth that it contained; and against
//that, the obvious, the perfectly and entirely obvious hypothesis about what was
//__really__ going on…

// 8639
//After a time, Draco finally raised his head.

// 8640
//“It sounds right,” Draco said quietly.

// 8641
//A huge smile broke out on Harry’s face.

// 8642
//“So,” Draco continued, “is this where you bring me to Dumbledore, to make it
//official?”

// 8643
//He kept his voice very casual as he said it.

// 8644
//“Oh, yeah,” Harry said. “That was the thing I was going to ask you about,
//actually -”

// 8645
//Draco’s blood froze in his veins, froze solid and shattered -

// 8646
//“Professor Quirrell said something to me that got me thinking, and, well, no
//matter how you answer this question, I’m already stupid for having not asked
//you a lot earlier. Everyone in Gryffindor thinks Dumbledore is a saint, the
//Hufflepuffs think he’s crazy, the Ravenclaws are all proud of themselves for
//having worked out that he’s only pretending to be crazy, but I never asked
//anyone in Slytherin. I’m supposed to know better than to make that sort of
//mistake. But if even __you__ think Dumbledore’s okay to conspire with on
//fixing Slytherin House, I guess I didn’t miss anything important.”

// 8647
//…

// 8648
//…

// 8649
//…

// 8650
//“You know,” Draco said, his voice remarkably calm, all things considered,
//“every time I wonder if you do things like this just to annoy me, I tell myself
//that it __has__ to be accidental, __no one__ could possibly do this
//sort of thing on purpose even if they tried until blood trickled out of their
//ears. That’s the only reason I’m not going to strangle you now.”

// 8651
//“Huh?”

// 8652
//And then strangle __himself,__ because Harry __had__ grown up with
//Muggles, and then Dumbledore had smoothly diverted him from Slytherin to
//Ravenclaw, so it was perfectly plausible that Harry might __not__ know
//anything, and Draco had never thought to __tell him.__

// 8653
//Or else Harry had guessed that Draco wouldn’t join up with Dumbledore so
//readily, and this itself was just the next step of Dumbledore’s plan…

// 8654
//But if Harry __really__ didn’t know about Dumbledore, then warning him had
//to take precedence over __everything.__

// 8655
//“All right,” Draco said, after he’d had a chance to organize his thoughts. “I
//don’t know where to start, so I’ll just start somewhere.” Draco drew a deep
//breath. This was going to take a while. “Dumbledore murdered his little sister,
//and got away with it because his brother wouldn’t testify against him -”

// 8656
//Harry listened with increasing worry and dismay. Harry had been prepared, he’d
//thought, to take the blood purist side of the story with a grain of salt. The
//trouble was that even after you added an enormous amount of salt, it
//__still__ didn’t sound good.

// 8657
//Dumbledore’s father had been convicted of using Unforgivable Curses on
//children, and died in Azkaban. That was no sin of Dumbledore’s, but it would be
//a matter of public record. Harry could check that part, and see whether all of
//this had been made up out of thin air by the blood purists.

// 8658
//Dumbledore’s mother had died mysteriously, shortly before his younger sister
//died in what the Aurors had ruled to be murder. Supposedly that sister had been
//brutalized by Muggles and never spoken again after that; which, Draco pointed
//out, sounded remarkably like a botched Obliviation.

// 8659
//After Harry’s first few interruptions, Draco had seemed to pick up on the
//general principle, and was now presenting the observations first and the
//inferences afterward.

// 8660
//“- so you don’t have to take my word for it,” said Draco, “you can __see__
//it, right? Anyone in Slytherin can. Dumbledore waited to fight his duel with
//Grindelwald until the exact moment when it would look best for Dumbledore,
//__after__ Grindelwald had ruined most of Europe and built up a reputation
//as the most terrible Dark Wizard in history, and just when Grindelwald had lost
//the gold and blood sacrifices he was getting from his Muggle pawns and was
//about to start heading downhill. If Dumbledore was really the noble wizard he
//pretended to be, he’d have fought Grindelwald long before that. Dumbledore
//probably __wanted__ Europe ruined, it was probably part of their plan
//together, he only attacked Grindelwald after his puppet __failed__ him.
//And that big flashy duel wasn’t real, there’s no way two wizards would be so
//exactly matched that they’d fight for twenty whole hours until one of them fell
//over from exhaustion, that was just Dumbledore making it look more
//spectacular.” Here Draco’s voice became more indignant. “And that got
//Dumbledore made __Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot!__ The Line of Merlin
//Unbroken, corrupted after fifteen hundred years! And __then__ he became
//Supreme Mugwump on top of that, and he __already__ had Hogwarts to use as
//an invincible fortress - Headmaster __and__ Chief Warlock __and__
//Supreme Mugwump, no normal person would try to do all that at once, __how
//can anyone not see that Dumbledore’s trying to take over the world?__”

// 8661
//“Pause,” Harry said, and closed his eyes to think.

// 8662
//It wasn’t any worse than what you would have heard about the West in Stalin’s
//Russia, and none of that would have been true. Though the blood purists
//wouldn’t be able to get away with making stuff up entirely… or would they? The
//__Daily Prophet__ had shown a pronounced tendency to make stuff up… but
//then again, when they stuck out their neck too far on the Weasley betrothal,
//they __had__ been called on it and they __had__ been embarrassed…

// 8663
//Harry opened his eyes, and saw that Draco was watching him with a steady,
//waiting gaze.

// 8664
//“So when you asked me if it was time to join up with Dumbledore, that was just
//a test.”

// 8665
//Draco nodded.

// 8666
//“And before that, when you said it sounded right -”

// 8667
//“It __sounds__ right,” said Draco. “But I don’t know if I can trust you.
//Are you going to complain about my __testing__ you, Mr. Potter? Are you
//going to say that I __fooled__ you? That I __led you on?__”

// 8668
//Harry knew he should smile like a good sport, but he couldn’t really, it was
//too much of a disappointment.

// 8669
//“You’re right, it’s fair, I can’t complain,” Harry said instead. “So what about
//He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? Not as bad as he was made out to be?”

// 8670
//Draco looked bitter, at that. “So you think it’s all just making Father’s side
//look good and Dumbledore’s side look bad, and that I believe it all myself just
//because Father told me.”

// 8671
//“It’s a possibility I’m considering,” Harry said evenly.

// 8672
//Draco’s voice was low and intense. “They __knew__. My father knew, his
//friends knew. They __knew__ the Dark Lord was evil. __But he was the
//only chance anyone had against Dumbledore!__ The only wizard anywhere who was
//powerful enough to fight him! Some of the other Death Eaters were truly evil
//too, like Bellatrix Black - Father isn’t like that - but Father and his friends
//__had__ to do it, Harry, they __had__ to, Dumbledore was taking over
//everything, the Dark Lord was the only hope anyone had left!”

// 8673
//Draco was staring hard at Harry. Harry met the gaze, trying to think. Nobody
//ever thought of themselves as the villain of their own story - maybe Lord
//Voldemort did, maybe Bellatrix did, but Draco certainly didn’t. That the Death
//Eaters were bad guys was not in question. The question was whether they were
//__the__ bad guys; whether there was __one__ villain in the story, or
//__two…__

// 8674
//“You’re not convinced,” Draco said. He looked worried, and a little angry.
//Which didn’t surprise Harry. He was pretty sure Draco himself believed all
//this.

// 8675
//“__Should__ I be convinced?” Harry said. He didn’t look away. “Just
//because you believe it? Are you a strong enough rationalist now that your
//belief is strong evidence to me, because you’d be very unlikely to believe it
//if it weren’t true? When I met you, you weren’t that strong. Everything you
//told me, did you rethink it after you awakened as a scientist, or is it just
//something you grew up believing? Can you look me in the eyes and swear to me
//upon the honor of House Malfoy that if there’s one untruth buried in what you
//said, one thing that got added on just to make Dumbledore look a little worse,
//you would have noticed?”

// 8676
//Draco started to open his mouth, and Harry said, “Don’t. Don’t stain the honor
//of House Malfoy. You’re __not__ that strong yet, and you should know it.
//Listen, Draco, I’ve started to notice some worrying things myself. But there’s
//nothing __definite,__ nothing __certain,__ it’s all just deductions
//and hypotheses and untrustworthy witnesses… And there’s nothing certain in your
//story, either. Dumbledore might’ve had some other good reason not to fight
//Grindelwald years earlier - though it __would__ have to be a pretty good
//excuse, especially considering what was happening on the Muggle side of things…
//but still. Is there one clearly evil thing that Dumbledore’s done for
//__certain,__ so I don’t have to wonder?”

// 8677
//Draco’s breathing was harsh. “All right,” Draco said in an uneven voice, “I’ll
//tell you what Dumbledore did.” From Draco’s robes came a wand, and Draco said
//“Quietus”, then “Quietus” again, but he got the pronunciation wrong a second
//time, and finally Harry took out his own wand and did it.

// 8678
//“There,” said Draco hoarsely, “once upon a time there, there was a girl, and
//her name was Narcissa, and she was the prettiest, the smartest, the most
//cunning girl that was ever Sorted into Slytherin, and my father loved her, and
//they married, and she wasn’t a Death Eater, she wasn’t a fighter, __all
//she ever did was love Father -__” Draco stopped there, because he was crying.

// 8679
//Harry felt sick to his stomach. Draco had never talked about his
//__mother__, not once, he should have noticed that earlier. “She… got in
//the way of a curse?”

// 8680
//Draco’s voice came out in a scream. “__Dumbledore burned her to death in
//her own bedroom!__”

// 8681
//In a classroom filled with soft silver light, one boy is staring at another
//boy, who is sobbing, wiping frantically at his eyes with the sleeves of his
//robes.

// 8682
//It was hard for Harry to stay balanced, to keep withholding judgment, it was
//too emotional, there was something that either wanted to start tears from his
//own eyes in sympathy with Draco, or __know__ that it wasn’t true…

// 8683
//__Dumbledore burned her to death in her own bedroom!__

// 8684
//That…

// 8685
//…didn’t sound like Dumbledore’s style…

// 8686
//…but you could only think that thought so many times, before you started to
//wonder about the trustworthiness of that whole ‘style’ concept.

// 8687
//“It, it must have hurt horribly,” Draco said, his voice shaking, “Father never
//talks about it at all, you don’t ever talk about it in front of him, but Mr.
//Macnair told me, there were scorch marks all over the bedroom, from how Mother
//must have struggled while Dumbledore __burned her alive__. That is the
//debt Dumbledore owes to House Malfoy and __we will have his life for
//it!__”

// 8688
//“Draco,” Harry said, he let all of the hoarseness into his own voice, it would
//be __wrong__ to sound calm, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for asking, but I
//__have__ to know, __how__ do you know it was Dumble-”

// 8689
//“Dumbledore __said__ he did it, he told Father it was a __warning!__
//And Father couldn’t testify under Veritaserum because he was an Occlumens, he
//couldn’t even get Dumbledore put on trial, Father’s own allies didn’t believe
//him after Dumbledore just denied everything in public, but we know, the Death
//Eaters know, Father wouldn’t have any reason to lie about that, Father would
//want us to take revenge on the __right person,__ can’t you see that
//Harry?” Draco’s voice was wild.

// 8690
//__Unless Lucius did it himself, of course, and found it more convenient
//to blame Dumbledore.__

// 8691
//Although… it also didn’t seem like __Lucius’s__ style. And if he
//__had__ murdered Narcissa, it would have been smarter to pin the blame on
//an easier victim instead of losing political capital and credibility by going
//after Dumbledore…

// 8692
//In time, Draco stopped crying, and looked at Harry. “__Well?__” said
//Draco, sounding like he wanted to spit the words. “Is that __evil__ enough
//for you, Mr. Potter?”

// 8693
//Harry looked down at where his arms rested on the back of his chair. He
//couldn’t meet Draco’s eyes any more, the pain in them was too raw. “I wasn’t
//expecting to hear that,” Harry said softly. “I don’t know what to think any
//more.”

// 8694
//“You __don’t know?__” Draco’s voice rose to a shriek, and he stood up
//abruptly from his desk -

// 8695
//“I remembered the Dark Lord killing my parents,” Harry said. “When I went in
//front of the Dementor the first time, that was what I remembered, the worst
//memory. Even though it was so long ago. I heard them dying. My mother begged
//the Dark Lord not to kill me, __not Harry, please no, take me, kill me
//instead! __That’s what she said. And the Dark Lord mocked her, and laughed.
//Then, I remember, the flash of green light -”

// 8696
//Harry looked up at Draco.

// 8697
//“So we could fight,” Harry said, “we could just keep on with the same fight.
//You could tell me that it was right for my mother to die, because she was the
//wife of James, who killed a Death Eater. But bad for __your__ mother to
//die, because __she__ was innocent. And I could tell you that it was right
//for your mother to die, that Dumbledore must have had some __reason__ that
//made it __okay__ to burn her alive in her own bedroom; but bad for
//__my__ mother to die. But you know, Draco, either way, wouldn’t it be
//__obvious__ that we were just being biased? Because the rule that says
//that it’s wrong to kill innocent people, that rule can’t switch on for my
//mother and off for yours, and it can’t switch on for your mother and off for
//mine. If you tell me that Lily was an enemy of the Death Eaters and it’s right
//to kill your enemies, then the same rule says that Dumbledore was right to kill
//Narcissa, since she was __his__ enemy.” Harry’s voice went hoarse. “So if
//the two of us are going to agree on anything, it’s going to be that
//__neither__ of their deaths were right and that __no one’s__ mother
//should die any more.”

// 8698
//The fury boiling inside Draco was so great that he could barely stop himself
//from storming out of the room; all that halted him was the recognition of a
//critical moment; and a small remnant of friendship, a tiny flash of sympathy,
//for he had forgotten, he’d __forgotten,__ that Harry’s mother __and__
//father were dead by the Dark Lord’s hand.

// 8699
//The silence stretched.

// 8700
//“You can talk,” Harry said, “Draco, talk to me, I won’t get angry - are you
//thinking, I don’t know, that Narcissa dying was much worse than Lily dying?
//That it’s wrong for me even to make the comparison?”

// 8701
//“I guess I was stupid too,” Draco said. “All this time, all this time I forgot
//that you must hate the Death Eaters for killing your parents, hate Death Eaters
//the way I hate Dumbledore.” And Harry had never said anything, never reacted
//when Draco talked about Death Eaters, kept it __hidden__ - Draco was a
//fool.

// 8702
//“No,” Harry said. “It’s not - it’s not like that, Draco, I, I don’t even know
//how to explain to you, except to say that a thought like that, wouldn’t,”
//Harry’s voice choked, “you wouldn’t ever be able to use it, to cast the
//Patronus Charm…”

// 8703
//Draco felt a sudden wrench in his heart, unwanted but he felt it. “Are you
//pretending you’re just going to __forget __about your own parents? Are you
//saying I should just __forget__ about Mother?”

// 8704
//“So you and I __have __to be enemies then?” Now Harry’s voice was growing
//equally wild. “What have __we __ever done to __each other__ that
//means we have to be enemies? I refuse to be trapped like that! Justice can’t
//mean that __both__ of us should attack __each other,__ it doesn’t
//make sense!” Harry stopped, took a deep breath, ran his fingers back through
//the deliberate mess of his hair - the fingers came away sweaty, Draco could see
//it. “Draco, listen, we can’t expect to meet on everything right away, you and
//I. So I won’t ask you to say that the Dark Lord was __wrong__ to kill my
//mother, just say that it was… __sad__. We won’t talk about whether or not
//it was __necessary__, whether it was __justified__. I’ll just ask you
//to say that it was sad that it happened, that my mother’s life was valuable
//too, you’ll just say that for now. And I’ll say it was sad that Narcissa died,
//because her life was also worth something. We can’t expect to agree on
//everything right away, but if we start out by saying that every life is
//precious, that it’s sad when __anyone__ dies, then I know we’ll meet
//someday. That’s what I want you to say. Not who was right. Not who was wrong.
//Just that it was sad when your mother died, and sad when my mother died, and it
//would be sad if Hermione Granger died, every life is precious, can we agree on
//that and let the rest go by for now, is it enough if we just agree on that? Can
//we, Draco? That seems… more like a thought someone could use to cast the
//Patronus Charm.”

// 8705
//There were tears in Harry’s eyes.

// 8706
//And Draco was getting angry again. “Dumbledore __killed__ Mother, it’s not
//enough to just say it’s __sad!__ I don’t understand what you think
//__you __have to do, but the Malfoys __have __to take revenge!” Not
//avenging the deaths of family went __beyond__ weakness, beyond dishonor,
//you might as well not __exist.__

// 8707
//“I’m not arguing with that,” Harry said quietly. “But will you say that Lily
//Potter’s death was sad? Just say that one thing?”

// 8708
//“That’s…” Draco was having difficulty finding words again. “I know, I know how
//you feel, but don’t you see Harry, even if I just say that Lily Potter’s death
//was __sad,__ that’s __already __going against the Death Eaters!”

// 8709
//“Draco, you’ve __got__ to be able to say the Death Eaters were wrong about
//some things! You __have__ to, you can’t progress as a scientist otherwise,
//there’ll be a roadblock in your way, an authority you can’t contradict. Not
//every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change, you can’t do
//anything __better__ unless you can manage to do it __differently__,
//__you’ve got to let yourself do better than other people!__ Even your
//father, Draco, even him. You’ve got to be able to point to something your
//father did and say it was mistaken, because he wasn’t __perfect__, and if
//you can’t say that, you can’t do better.”

// 8710
//Father had warned him, every night before he went to sleep for a month before
//he went to Hogwarts, that there would be people with this goal.

// 8711
//“You’re trying to break me loose of Father.”

// 8712
//“Trying to break a __part__ of you loose,” said Harry. “Trying to let you
//fix some things your father got mistaken. Trying to let you __do better__.
//But not… trying to break your __Patronus!__” Harry’s voice got softer. “I
//wouldn’t want to break something bright like that. Who knows, fixing Slytherin
//House might need __that__, too…”

// 8713
//It was getting to Draco, that was the thing, despite everything it was getting
//to him, you had to be really careful around Harry because his arguments sounded
//so convincing __even when he was wrong.__ “And what you’re __not__
//admitting is that Dumbledore told you that you could avenge your parents’
//deaths by taking Lord Malfoy’s son from him -”

// 8714
//“__No.__ No. That part’s just wrong.” Harry took a deep breath. “I did not
//know who Dumbledore was, or who the Dark Lord was, or who the Death Eaters
//were, or how my parents died, until three days before I came to Hogwarts. The
//day you and I first met in the clothes shop, that was the day I learned. And
//Dumbledore doesn’t even __like__ Muggle science, or he says he doesn’t, I
//got a chance to probe him on it once. The thought of taking revenge on the
//Death Eaters through you has __never__ crossed my mind, not even
//__once__ until now. I didn’t know who the Malfoys were when I met you in
//the clothes shop, and then I __liked__ you.”

// 8715
//There was a long silence.

// 8716
//“I wish I could trust you,” Draco said. His voice was shaking. “If I could just
//__know__ you were telling the truth, everything would be so much simpler
//-”

// 8717
//And then suddenly it came to Draco.

// 8718
//The way to know whether Harry Potter really meant everything he said, about
//wanting to fix Slytherin House, about being sad that Mother had died.

// 8719
//It would be illegal, and since he’d have to do it without Father’s help, it
//would be __dangerous__, he couldn’t even trust Harry Potter to
//__help,__ but…

// 8720
//“All right,” Draco said. “I’ve thought of a definitive experiment.”

// 8721
//“What is it?”

// 8722
//“I want to give you a drop of Veritaserum,” Draco said. “Just one drop, so you
//can’t lie, but not enough to __make__ you answer anything. I don’t know
//where I’ll get it, but I’ll make __certain__ it’s safe -”

// 8723
//“Um,” Harry said. There was a helpless look on his face. “Draco, um -”

// 8724
//“Don’t say it,” Draco said. His voice was firm and calm. “If you say no, that’s
//my experimental result right there.”

// 8725
//“Draco, I’m an Occlumens -”

// 8726
//“__OH THAT IS SUCH A LIE -__”

// 8727
//“I was trained by Mr. Bester. Professor Quirrell set it up. Look, Draco, I’ll
//__take__ one drop of Veritaserum if you can get it, I’m just
//__warning__ you that I’m an Occlumens. Not a perfect Occlumens, but Mr.
//Bester said I was putting up a complete block, and I could probably beat
//Veritaserum.”

// 8728
//“__You’re in your first year at Hogwarts! That’s just crazy!__”

// 8729
//“Know a Legilimens you can trust? I’ll be happy to demonstrate - look, Draco,
//I’m sorry, but doesn’t the fact that I __told__ you count for something? I
//__could__ have just let you do it, you know.”

// 8730
//“__WHY? Why are you always like this, Harry? Why do you have to mess
//everything up even when it’s IMPOSSIBLE? And stop smiling, this isn’t funny!__”

// 8731
//“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I __know__ it’s not funny, I -”

// 8732
//It took a while for Draco to get himself under control.

// 8733
//But Harry was right. Harry __could__ have just let Draco administer the
//Veritaserum. __If __he really was an Occlumens… Draco didn’t know who he
//could ask to try Legilimency, but he could at least ask Professor Quirrell if
//it was true… Could Draco trust __Professor Quirrell?__ Maybe Professor
//Quirrell would just say anything Harry asked him to.

// 8734
//Then Draco remembered the other thing Harry had told him to ask Professor
//Quirrell, and thought of a different test.

// 8735
//“You __know__,” said Draco. “You __know __what it costs me, if I
//agree that the poison in Slytherin’s House is hating Muggleborns, and say that
//Lily Potter’s death was sad. And that’s __part of your plan,__ don’t tell
//me it’s not.”

// 8736
//Harry said nothing, which was wise of him.

// 8737
//“There’s something I want from you in return,” said Draco. “And before then, an
//experimental test I want to try -”

// 8738
//Draco pushed open the door to which the portraits had directed them, and this
//time it was the right door. Before them was a small empty place of stone set
//against the night sky. Not a roof like the one he’d dropped Harry from, but a
//tiny and proper courtyard, far above the ground. With proper railings,
//elaborate traceries of stone that flushed seamlessly into the stone floor… How
//so much __artistry__ had been infused into the creation of Hogwarts was
//something that still awed Draco every time he thought about it. There must have
//been some way to do it all at once, no one could have detailed so much piece by
//piece, the castle __changed__ and every new piece was like that. It was so
//far beyond the wizardry of these fading days that no one would have believed it
//if they hadn’t seen the proof in Hogwarts itself.

// 8739
//Cloudless and cold, the winter night sky; it got dark long before students’
//curfew, in the final days of January.

// 8740
//The stars shining brightly, in the clear air.

// 8741
//Harry had said that being under the stars would help him.

// 8742
//Draco touched his chest with his wand, slid his fingers in a practiced motion,
//and said, “__Thermos.__” A warmth spread through him, starting from his
//heart; the wind went on blowing on his face, but he was no longer cold.

// 8743
//“__Thermos,__” Harry’s voice said behind him.

// 8744
//They went together to the railing, to look down at the ground a long way below.
//Draco tried to figure if they were in one of the towers that could be seen from
//outside, and found that right now he couldn’t quite seem to picture how
//Hogwarts looked from outside. But the ground below was always the same; he
//could see the Forbidden Forest as a vague outline, and moonlight glittering
//from the Hogwarts Lake.

// 8745
//“You know,” Harry’s voice said quietly from beside him where his arms leaned on
//the railing next to Draco’s, “one of the things that Muggles get really wrong,
//is that they don’t turn all their lights out at night. Not even for one hour
//every month, not even for fifteen minutes once a year. The photons scatter in
//the atmosphere and wash out all but the brightest stars, and the night sky
//doesn’t look the same at all, not unless you go far away from any cities. Once
//you’ve looked up at the sky over Hogwarts, it’s hard to imagine living in a
//Muggle city, where you wouldn’t be able to see the stars. You certainly
//wouldn’t want to spend your whole life in Muggle cities, once you’d seen the
//night sky over Hogwarts.”

// 8746
//Draco glanced at Harry, and found that Harry was craning his neck to stare up
//at where the Milky Way arched across the darkness.

// 8747
//“Of course,” Harry went on, his voice still quiet, “you can’t ever see the
//stars properly from __Earth,__ either, the air always gets in the way. You
//have to look from somewhere else, if you want to see the real thing, the stars
//burning hard and bright, like their true selves. Have you ever wished that you
//could just whisk yourself up into the night sky, Draco, and go look at what
//there is to see around other Suns than ours? If there were no limit to the
//power of your magic, is that one of the things you would do, if you could do
//anything?”

// 8748
//There was a silence, and then Draco realized that he was expected to answer. “I
//didn’t think of it before,” Draco said. Without any conscious decision, his
//voice came out as soft and hushed as Harry’s. “Do you really think anyone would
//ever be able to do that?”

// 8749
//“I don’t think it’ll be that easy,” said Harry. “But I know I don’t mean to
//spend my whole life on Earth.”

// 8750
//It would have been something to laugh at, if Draco hadn’t known that some
//Muggles had already left, without even using magic.

// 8751
//“To pass your test,” Harry said, “I’m going to have to say what it means to
//__me,__ that thought, the whole thing, not the shorter version I tried to
//explain to you before. But you should be able to see it’s the same idea, only
//more general. So __my__ version of the thought, Draco, is that when we go
//out into the stars, we might find other people there. And if so, they certainly
//won’t look like we do. There might be things out there that are grown from
//crystal, or big pulsating blobs… or they might be made of magic, now that I
//think about it. So with all that strangeness, how do you recognize a
//__person?__ Not by the shape, not by how many arms or legs it has. Not by
//the sort of substance it’s made out of, whether that’s flesh or crystal or
//stuff I can’t imagine. You would have to recognize them as people from their
//__minds__. And even their minds wouldn’t work just like ours do. But
//anything that lives and thinks and knows itself and doesn’t want to die, it’s
//sad, Draco, it’s sad if that person has to die, because it doesn’t want to.
//Compared to what might be out there, every human being who ever lived, we’re
//all like brothers and sisters, you could hardly even tell us apart. The ones
//out there who met __us,__ they wouldn’t see British or French, they
//wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, they’d just see a human being. Humans
//who can love, and hate, and laugh, and cry; and to __them__, the ones out
//there, that would make us all as alike as peas in the same pod. __They__
//would be different, though. __Really__ different. But that wouldn’t stop
//us, and it wouldn’t stop them, if we both wanted to be friends together.”

// 8752
//Harry raised his wand then, and Draco turned, and looked away, as he had
//promised; looked toward the stone floor and stone wall in which the door was
//set. For Draco had promised not to look, and not to tell anyone of what Harry
//had said, or anything at all of what happened here this night, though he didn’t
//know why it was to be so secret.

// 8753
//“I have a dream,” said Harry’s voice, “that one day sentient beings will be
//judged by the patterns of their minds, and not their color or their shape or
//the stuff they’re made of, or who their parents were. Because if we can get
//along with crystal things someday, how silly would it be not to get along with
//Muggleborns, who are shaped like us, and think like us, as alike to us as peas
//in a pod? The crystal things wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference. How
//impossible is it to imagine that the hatred poisoning Slytherin House would be
//worth taking with us to the stars? Every life is precious, everything that
//thinks and knows itself and doesn’t want to die. Lily Potter’s life was
//precious, and Narcissa Malfoy’s life was precious, even though it’s too late
//for them now, it was sad when they died. But there are other lives that are
//still alive to be fought for. Your life, and my life, and Hermione Granger’s
//life, all the lives of Earth, and all the lives beyond, to be defended and
//protected, __EXPECTO PATRONUM!__”

// 8754
//And there was light.

// 8755
//Everything turned to silver in that light, the stone floor, the stone wall, the
//door, the railings, so dazzling just in the reflection that you could hardly
//even see them, even the air seemed to shine, and the light grew brighter, and
//brighter, and brighter -

// 8756
//When the light ended it was like a shock, Draco’s hand went automatically to
//his robe to bring out a handkerchief, and it was only then that he realized he
//was crying.

// 8757
//“There is your experimental result,” Harry’s voice said quietly. “I really did
//mean it, that thought.”

// 8758
//Draco slowly turned toward Harry, who had lowered his wand now.

// 8759
//“That, that’s got to be a trick, right?” Draco said. He couldn’t take many more
//of these shocks. “Your Patronus - can’t __really__ be that bright -” And
//yet it __had__ been Patronus light, once you knew what you were looking
//at, you couldn’t mistake it for anything else.

// 8760
//“That was the __true__ form of the Patronus Charm,” Harry said. “Something
//that lets you put all your strength into the Patronus, without hindrance from
//within yourself. And before you ask, I did not learn it from Dumbledore. He
//does not know the secret, and could not cast the true form if he did. I solved
//the puzzle for myself. And I knew, once I understood, that this spell must not
//be spoken of. For your sake, I undertook your test; but you must not speak of
//it, Draco.”

// 8761
//Draco didn’t know any more, he didn’t know where the true strength lay, or the
//right of things. Double vision, double vision. Draco wanted to call Harry’s
//ideals weakness, Hufflepuff foolishness, the sort of lie that rulers told to
//placate the populace and that Harry had been silly enough to believe for
//himself, foolishness taken seriously and raised up to insane heights, projected
//out onto the stars themselves -

// 8762
//Something beautiful and hidden, mysterious and bright -

// 8763
//“Will I,” whispered Draco, “be able to cast a Patronus like that, someday?”

// 8764
//“If you always keep seeking the truth,” Harry said, “and if you don’t refuse
//the warm thoughts when you find them, then I’m sure you will. I think a person
//could get anywhere if they just kept going long enough, even to the stars.”

// 8765
//Draco wiped his eyes with his handkerchief again.

// 8766
//“We should go back inside,” Draco said in an unsteady voice, “someone could’ve
//seen it, all that light -”

// 8767
//Harry nodded, and moved to and through the door; and Draco looked up at the
//night sky one last time before he followed.

// 8768
//Who __was__ the Boy-Who-Lived, that he was already an Occlumens, and could
//cast the true form of the Patronus Charm, and do other strange things? What was
//Harry’s Patronus, why must it stay unseen?

// 8769
//Draco didn’t ask any of those questions, because Harry might have
//__answered__, and Draco just couldn’t take any more shocks today. He just
//__couldn’t__. One more shock and his head was going to just fall right off
//his shoulders and go bounce, bounce, bounce down the corridors of Hogwarts.

// 8770
//They’d ducked into a small alcove, instead of going all the way back to the
//classroom, at Draco’s request; he was feeling too nervous to put it off any
//longer.

// 8771
//Draco put up a Quieting barrier, and then looked at Harry in silent question.

// 8772
//“I’ve been thinking about it,” Harry said. “I’ll do it, but there are five
//conditions -”

// 8773
//“__Five?__”

// 8774
//“Yes, five. Look, Draco, a pledge like this is just __begging__ to go
//terribly wrong somehow, you __know__ it would go wrong if this were a play
//-”

// 8775
//“Well, it’s not!” Draco said. “Dumbledore killed Mother. He’s evil. It’s one of
//those things you talk about that __doesn’t__ have to be complicated.”

// 8776
//“Draco,” Harry said, his voice careful, “all I __know__ is that
//__you__ say that __Lucius__ says that __Dumbledore__ says he
//killed Narcissa. To believe that unquestioningly, I have to trust you
//__and__ Lucius __and__ Dumbledore. So like I said, there are
//conditions. The first one is that at any point __you__ can release me from
//the pledge, if it no longer seems like a good idea. It has to be a deliberate
//and intended decision on your part, of course, not a trick of wording or
//something.”

// 8777
//“Okay,” said Draco. That sounded safe enough.

// 8778
//“Condition two is that I’m pledging to take as an enemy whoever actually did
//kill Narcissa, as determined to the honest best of my ability as a rationalist.
//Whether that’s Dumbledore, or someone else. And you have my word that I’ll
//exercise my best ability as a rationalist to keep that judgment honest, as a
//question of simple fact. Agreed?”

// 8779
//“I don’t like it,” said Draco. He didn’t, the whole point was to make sure
//Harry never went with Dumbledore. Still, if Harry __was__ honest, he’d
//catch on to Dumbledore soon enough; and if dishonest, he’d already broken his
//word… “But I’ll agree.”

// 8780
//“Condition three is that Narcissa has to have been __burned alive__. If
//that part of the story turns out to be something exaggerated just to make it
//sound a little worse, then I get to decide for myself whether or not to still
//go through with the pledge. Good people sometimes have to kill. But they don’t
//ever torture people to death. It’s because Narcissa was __burned alive__
//that I know whoever did that was evil.”

// 8781
//Draco kept his temper, barely.

// 8782
//“Condition four is that if Narcissa got her own hands dirty, and, say,
//__Crucioed__ someone’s child into insanity, and that person burned
//Narcissa for revenge, the deal might be off again. Because then it was still
//wrong for them to burn her, they still should’ve just killed her without pain;
//but it wasn’t __evil__ the same way as if she was just Lucius’s love who
//never did anything herself, like you said. Condition five is that if whoever
//killed Narcissa was tricked somehow into doing it, then my enemy is whoever
//tricked them, not the person who was tricked.”

// 8783
//“All this __really__ sounds like you’re planning to weasel out of it -”

// 8784
//“Draco, I won’t take a good person as an enemy, not for you or anyone. I have
//to really believe they’re in the wrong. But I’ve thought about it, and it seems
//to me that if Narcissa didn’t do any evil with her own hands, just fell in love
//with Lucius and chose to stay his wife, then whoever burned her alive in her
//own bedroom isn’t likely to be a good guy. And I’ll pledge to take as my enemy
//whoever made that happen, whether it’s Dumbledore or anyone else, unless you
//deliberately release me from that pledge. Hopefully __that__ won’t go
//wrong the way it would if this were a play.”

// 8785
//“I’m not happy,” said Draco. “But okay. You pledge to take my mother’s murderer
//as your enemy, and I’ll -”

// 8786
//Harry waited, with a patient look on his face, while Draco tried to make his
//voice work again.

// 8787
//“I’ll help you fix the problem with Slytherin House hating Muggleborns,” Draco
//finished in a whisper. “And I’ll say it was sad that Lily Potter died.”

// 8788
//“So be it,” said Harry.

// 8789
//And it was done.

// 8790
//The break, Draco knew, had just widened a little more. No, not a little, a
//__lot.__ There was a sensation of drifting away, of being lost, further
//and further from shore, further and further from home…

// 8791
//“Excuse me,” Draco said. He turned away from Harry, and then tried to calm
//himself, he had to do this test, and he didn’t want to fail it from being
//nervous or ashamed.

// 8792
//Draco raised his wand into the starting position for the Patronus Charm.

// 8793
//Remembered falling from his broomstick, the pain, the fear, imagined it coming
//from a tall figure in a cloak, looking like a dead thing left in water.

// 8794
//And then Draco closed his eyes, the better to remember Father holding his
//small, cold hands in his own warm strength.

// 8795
//__Don’t be frightened, my son, I’m here…__

// 8796
//The wand swung up in a broad brandish, to drive the fear away, and Draco was
//surprised at the strength of it; and he remembered in that moment that
//__Father__ wasn’t lost, would never be lost, would always be there and
//strong in his own person, no matter what happened to Draco, and his voice
//cried, __“Expecto Patronum!”__

// 8797
//Draco opened his eyes.

// 8798
//A shining snake looked back at him, no less bright than before.

// 8799
//Behind him, he heard __Harry__ exhale a breath, as though in relief.

// 8800
//Draco gazed into the white light. It seemed he wasn’t lost completely, after
//all.

// 8801
//“That reminds me,” said Harry after a while. “Can we test my hypothesis about
//how to use a Patronus to send messages?”

// 8802
//“Is it going to surprise me?” said Draco. “I don’t want any more surprises
//today.”

// 8803
//Harry had claimed that the idea wasn’t all that strange and he didn’t see how
//it could possibly shock Draco in any way, which made Draco feel even more
//nervous, somehow; but Draco could see how important it was to have a way of
//sending messages in emergencies.

// 8804
//The trick - or so Harry hypothesized - was wanting to spread the good news,
//wanting the recipient to know the truth of whatever happy thought you’d used to
//cast the Patronus Charm. Only instead of telling the recipient in words, the
//Patronus itself was the message. By wanting them to see that, the Patronus
//would go to them.

// 8805
//“Tell Harry,” said Draco to the luminous snake, even though Harry was standing
//only a few paces away on the other side of the room, “to, um, beware the green
//monkey,” this being a sign from a play Draco had once seen.

// 8806
//And then, just like at King’s Cross station, Draco wanted Harry to know that
//Father had always cared for him; only this time he didn’t try to say it in
//words, but wanted to say it with the happy thought itself.

// 8807
//The bright snake slithered across the room, looking more like it was slithering
//through the air rather than the stone itself; it got to Harry after traveling
//that short distance -

// 8808
//- and said to Harry, in a strange voice that Draco recognized as how he himself
  //probably sounded to other people, “Beware the green monkey.”

// 8809
//“__Hsssss ssss sshsshssss,__” said Harry.

// 8810
//The snake slithered back across the floor to Draco.

// 8811
//“Harry says the message is received and acknowledged,” said the shining Blue
//Krait in Draco’s voice.

// 8812
//“Huh,” Harry said. “Talking to Patronuses feels odd.”

// 8813
//…

// 8814
//…

// 8815
//…

// 8816
//…

// 8817
//“Why are you looking at me like that?” said the Heir of Slytherin.

// 8818
//__Aftermath:__

// 8819
//Harry stared at Draco.

// 8820
//“You mean just __magical __snakes, right?”

// 8821
//“N-no,” said Draco. He was looking rather pale, and was still stammering, but
//had at least stopped the incoherent noises he’d been making earlier. “You’re a
//Parselmouth, you can speak Parseltongue, it’s the language of all snakes
//everywhere. You can understand any snake when it talks, and they can understand
//when you talk to them… Harry, you can’t __possibly __believe you were
//Sorted into Ravenclaw! __You’re the Heir of Slytherin!__”

// 8822
//…

// 8823
//…

// 8824
//…

// 8825
//…

// 8826
//…

// 8827
//“SNAKES ARE SENTIENT?”