Harry noticed a vague heaviness in his mind as he walked toward the Great Hall for breakfast. He was aware of where he was and where he was going, and he knew Sirius and Severus were walking on either side of him along with Remus and Dumbledore. But there was a fuzzy quality to his thoughts that he found odd - perhaps he had not slept as well last night as he had assumed. He hadn't taken his potion - he'd been too worried about Severus - and yet, he couldn't recall dreaming. And if he was honest with himself, sleeping pressed up against Severus had been a rather novel experience. There was something soothing about having the heat of another body beside him - something comforting. He could definitely get used to it.
He shook his head, trying to clear the haze from his thoughts. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, he couldn't help but think that this morning would be difficult. He'd been stared at before, had his every move scrutinized and published in the papers. But this time it all felt different; it all felt larger somehow.
Beside him he could feel a sense of excitement coming from Sirius, and it occurred to him that today was the first time in many years that Sirius would be able to walk into the crowded Great Hall as a free man. That had to be thrilling for him - it was likely that the last time he'd stood in the student-filled Hall would have been during his own seventh-year leaving feast. Both of Harry's parents would have been with him then. He glanced sidelong at his godfather and smiled when the man give him a quick wink. Something good had come of yesterday's events - despite the deaths and the chaos brought to his own life, at least Sirius was safe now.
There were two tall men armed with swords and dressed in chain mail standing in front of the doors to the Great Hall, and judging by their clothing and long blond hair, Harry guessed they were part of the group that had come from the Winter Lands. They both stood a bit straighter when they saw him approaching; the younger one on the left fought to keep a grin off his face. Both men nodded to him, and then opened the double doors. Harry felt a shiver move through his body at their behavior - was this to be his life from now on?
The familiar noise of hundreds of students talking all at once washed over Harry as he entered the Hall. Silence fell a moment later as people turned to see who had entered. But more startling than the silence was the way everyone immediately stood to their feet. It was a repeat on a grand scale of what had happened that morning when he'd left the bedroom to join the others by the fire. Somehow he didn't think serving tea was going to solve things this time.
A quick glance around the room, revealed various reactions - all of Gryffindor was smirking at him - though Harry thought Ron looked ready to burst with something he wanted to say. The Ravenclaws looked utterly intrigued, torn between staring at Harry and watching everyone else in the room. The Hufflepuffs were. . . blushing? Was it possible for an entire House to blush in unison? And the Slytherins were looking far more thoughtful than Harry had ever seen them, as if analyzing the events on a level Harry didn't want to contemplate. Even the other teachers at the head table were standing - though Hagrid was also grinning from ear to ear.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to find Dumbledore staring kindly down at him. "Perhaps a few words, Harry, to set things for the future," he suggested.
Set things for the future. Harry wasn't entire certain where to go with that, but he nodded his head anyway turning to stare at the boys and girls he'd been going to school with for the last six years. How on earth did he manage to get himself into these things? There were days when it just didn't pay to get out of bed.
And then just like that the words he needed came to him.
"You know me," he told them. "You know who I am. Think about what you know I must be feeling right now, and ask yourselves what you should be doing."
He saw the confusion on all their faces as they all glanced around at one another uncertainly. And then he saw the Gryffindors smile almost in unison. As one they sat back down in their seats. Comprehension crossed the faces of the other students, and they all began sitting down again. Harry allowed a brief smile to cross his face as he glanced at Dumbledore for reaction.
The old man had a curious look on his face, but a twinkle in his eyes. "Hm," he mused thoughtfully. "I would have used the opportunity to tell an amusing anecdote about billy goats, but I suppose this works just as well."
Sirius and Remus were both grinning at Harry, and Severus - he just shook his head and sighed. Harry headed straight for his usual seat at Gryffindor table between Ron and Hermione - the two scooted apart on the bench to make room for him as if understanding his need for physical support.
"Harry," Ron exclaimed as he approached, looking more excited than Harry had ever seen him. "Did you hear the news?"
The news? What possible news could Ron be referring too? The take-over of the Ministry, his sudden rise to the nobility, the attack of the elder demon, the chaos in the rest of the world? There was so much to choose from. But no. . .Ron looked far too excited for it to be any of those things.
"Chocolate Frog Cards?" he asked his friend, remembering Sirius' comments earlier that morning.
Ron nodded enthusiastically. "Brilliant, isn't it?"
"Wicked," Harry grinned, and all of Gryffindor house began laughing at their exchange, the tension in the room broken in an instant. There were days when Harry absolutely adored Ronald Weasley. He exchanged a look with Hermione; she just smiled and shrugged. Maybe things would be okay after all, Harry thought. Maybe there really were some constants in his life that wouldn't change no matter what? Fuzziness aside, Harry let himself be drawn into the rather amusing conversation about what all of their various Chocolate Frog Cards might say about each of them.
Since it was Sunday and there were no classes to attend, Harry had no real excuse not to meet the people waiting to speak to him after breakfast. Dumbledore had warned him that there were certain things he simply could not avoid - though he asked both Ron and Hermione to join him. Having Dumbledore, Sirius, Remus and Severus at his side certainly set his mind at ease, but he knew there were things he'd want to ask questions about that he would feel far more comfortable asking Ron and Hermione. Some of those things were bound to fall into the 'stupid questions' category, and he just wouldn't feel comfortable asking the older men. And some of the things would just be Muggle misunderstandings - he was hoping Hermione would be able to clarify any of those for him.
He spent the rest of the morning meeting people - first the group from the Winter Lands who were apparently going to act has an extra security force around Hogwarts. Surprisingly Dumbledore did not turn them away - which worried Harry. If Dumbledore thought such measures were necessary, he knew things were changing rapidly around him.
There were also a handful of Ministry workers who had been locked out of the Ministry when it it had been surrounded by the Muggle Military - among them were a rather large group of Aurors, who didn't know what to do with themselves. Left without a Minister and no communication with their superiors or the Wizengamot, they turned to Dumbledore, the senior member of the Wizengamot, and Harry for guidance - most of them were sent off to offer their aid to the workers in St. Mungos who were still dealing with the large number of injured Wizards and Witches from the attack.
The Press Core was screaming for an interview with Harry - and for once both Dumbledore and Harry saw a need to answer some of their questions. The attack in the Quidditch Pitch had panicked the population - something had to be said to calm them down. Hermione helped Harry word a nice, calming press release which they distributed to the media - the whole thing felt somewhat surreal to Harry and he found himself eager for the day to end.
Along with the people trying to get in to talk to Harry, there were also the owls. With the Ministry locked down, Harry's mail was unable to reach the Ministry official who had been left in charge of weeding through all of it. All of it came right back to Hogwarts - and the sheer amount of it staggered Harry. There were letters coming from all over the world - and this was still only the day-after the life changing events. How much worse would it be tomorrow, or the day after that? In the end they had no choice but to leave the job of collecting the letters in the capable hands of the House Elves.
It wasn't until well after lunch that Severus finally decided that Harry had done enough for the day - a fact that Harry was immensely grateful for. The strange heaviness had never really faded from his mind - despite the numerous cups of tea he'd drunk. And while it hadn't really developed into a full-blown headache, he had the distinctive feeling that he was only hearing half of what was going on around him. As luck would have it - apparently half was about all he needed to hear. For the most part people just wanted to see him - literally 'see' him - perhaps to shake his hand, or thank him for saving them the previous day. Smiling, saying something vague, and nodding his head at the appropriate time was apparently enough to satisfy everyone around him. All in all Harry found the whole thing perplexing. Perhaps tomorrow, he told himself, things would start to look different. Perhaps tomorrow, things would start to go back to normal.
Hermione and Ron invited Harry to come back to Gryffindor Tower where the rest of the sixth year students were going to spend the afternoon working on the essay Professor McGonagall had assigned them in class on Friday. Promising to join them, Harry headed down to his quarters with Severus to gather his books. It occurred to him as the two of them walked through the dungeon corridors that there was something important he had wanted to talk to Severus about - but he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was.
"Are you feeling all right, Harry?" Severus asked as they walked. Harry thought he heard concern in the man's voice and glanced over at him curiously. Why wouldn't he be alright, he wondered? It wasn't as if he'd been injured or anything.
"Fine," he nodded, notice that Severus was rubbing unconsciously at his arm. "Is the Mark hurting you?"
Severus frowned, but shook his head. "No, it's just. . ." he shrugged. "It's more of a residual pain. I can't seem to to forget that it's there."
Which sounded rather strange to Harry - it had been there for years. Why was he having such trouble now? He thought about that hard for a moment, but the haze in his head just seemed to get thicker and he sighed in annoyance. Instead he reached out and took hold of Severus' hand. The man looked startled by the gesture, and Harry smiled at him.
"Are you certain you're all right?" Severus asked again.
"Yes," Harry nodded mildly. It was rather amusing how worried Severus sounded - wasn't so long ago the man had hated him. First through fifth year in fact - Harry found that though oddly distressing. Things were much better now.
They reached the portrait door to their quarters and entered. Harry went straight to the bedroom to retrieve his books while Severus sat down in front of the fire. It only took Harry a moment to find his book bag - the satchel was sitting where he always left it beside the trunk at the foot of the bed. Bending down to check that his transfiguration book was safely tucked inside, he caught a glint of something bright out of the corner of his eye.
Frowning Harry peered under the bed. There was something there - just beyond one of the legs of the bed post. Curiously, he reached under the bed for the small object, pulling it out into the candlelight so that he could have a better look at it. He found himself starting down at his own Heartstone.
For a brief moment Harry's mind went blank. And then the questions began swirling through his thoughts. Why was his Heartstone on the floor under the bed - left there as if it had been tossed away? He felt a strange tightening in his chest. He'd thought it a rather pretty stone - green with strange streaks of red running through it. His friends had all certainly admired it. He'd worked hard on it - McGonagall had given him a high grade. But then again - it was just a stone. A lump of rock. Hardly valuable, beyond some sentimentality someone might foolishly attach to it.
It wasn't important. He probably should have thrown it away himself.
Sighing, he stood and moved over to his nightstand, opening the drawer there. He set the stone inside beside his box of potions, and slid the drawer closed, hiding it from sight. Silly, he thought, as he rubbed at his head. So silly to place such value on a lump of rock. The fuzziness in his head was really becoming annoying. Grabbing his book bag, he headed for the door.
Severus waited worriedly by the fire. He'd been watching Harry all day, waiting for some sign of stress, and had failed to see it. Granted the boy had gotten more and more tired as the day had worn on, but he'd been in a remarkably placid mood. He appeared to have enjoyed breakfast - they'd all listened in on the rather hilarious conversation the Gryffindors were having about the Chocolate Frog Cards. Apparently the Weasley twins wanted to be photographed in matching duck costumes.
Harry had also handled the large number of meetings he'd been forced to sit through with remarkable calmness.
Lupin and Black had stayed close beside him all morning; Black spent the morning cracking quiet jokes under his breath that kept not only Harry but his two friends entertained. Throughout the meetings Albus had kept one of his tins of lemon drops on the table, and he'd seen both Black and Lupin sneak one into their mouths from time to time, indicating that neither of them were as calm as they both looked. If he hadn't known better, Severus would have guessed that Harry had also been eating the lemon drops. But he had watched far too closely to have missed such a thing. Harry's calmness had not been potion-induced.
Which was remarkable.
Severus himself was a nervous wreck. He couldn't stop thinking about what had happened yesterday and last night. More and more memories of his mental-break down the previous night kept coming back to haunt him at odd moments. And while the Dark Mark on his arm was not hurting any longer, he could still feel it. It felt cold, heavy, like an iron chain weighing him down. When Albus had told all of them about Lucius Malfoy's behavior at the Ministry, he'd had little doubt in his mind about what had prompted such a thing. Severus had reacted with desperation - trying to cut off the Mark so that he could reach Harry. Lucius would have become enraged. The idea that his power was bound - there was no way Lucius Malfoy had weathered that realization calmly.
He'd known Lucius his whole life - the man had always preferred to manipulate things from the shadows. He'd never attempted to run for public office - never even spoke about seeking a seat on the Wizengamot. But he'd always had power - had always craved more. To have discovered in a single moment that all that power was utter illusion compared to what he'd inadvertently given up - it had apparently driven him out of the shadows. Lucius' actions in the Ministry were his only way of rebelling against the enslavement of the Dark Lord. Severus knew he would not willingly give away whatever power he managed to seize for himself over the next few days.
Nervously Severus began rubbing at his arm again, his fingers tracing the coils of wire beneath his shirt sleeve. He wanted the Dark Mark gone - he hated it. Hated Voldemort. His jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together as he fought back the shout of rage that the mere thought of that man - that creature! - engendered in him. All day he'd fought this rage. And mixed amongst the rage was fear and loathing. What was going to happen next? What was Voldemort planning? What would happen to Harry? How did the Mark effect any potential bond with Harry - when that thought had struck him he'd almost gotten sick.
He was bound to Voldemort - what happened if he consummated his bond with Harry? Voldemort could steal his magic - could he hurt others near him through the Dark Mark? He could take Lucius Malfoy's magic - could he also take Narcissa's? As far as he knew she was yet unMarked. He determined to research bonds at the first opportunity. And beyond what it might mean for his relationship with Harry - what if Voldemort had access to not only all his Death Eaters, but all their spouses as well? How could they possibly stand against such strength?
With all those emotions running through his mind, it left him wondering how it was that Harry had remained so calm. After all sixteen-years old boys - even ones as extraordinary as Harry Potter - were not known for their calm temperaments.
But Harry had insisted that he was fine when he'd asked him earlier in the hallway. And then he'd taken hold of Severus' hand.
Severus frowned. The events of yesterday aside, that had been completely out of character for Harry. It might have been typical Gryffindor behavior - but Harry was anything but a typical Gryffindor.
The door to the bedroom opened and Harry emerged a moment later, his book bag slung over one shoulder. One look at his face, and Severus knew something was wrong. The boy's cheeks were pale, his eyes oddly glassy as if he weren't entirely certain where he was. Severus stood up immediately. "Harry? Is something wrong?"
For a moment Harry just stared at him, and then he shook his head as if chasing away some dark thought in his mind. "No . . .I'm . . ." he shook his head again, and then laughed suddenly, giving Severus an oddly sheepish look. The sudden switch in emotion unsettled Severus. "It's just an odd memory. You know how sometimes the strangest things come back to haunt you? Gathering wool I think they call it?"
"Woolgathering?" Severus clarified, confused by Harry's response. Was he dwelling on the events of yesterday? The attack? The injured people? The Calling?
"That's it," Harry nodded with smile. "Woolgathering."
"About what?" Severus frowned. If Harry needed to talk, it was better not to let things fester. And Merlin knew the two of them needed to talk about a lot of things - he didn't have any idea where to start, but he knew they needed to talk about what had happened last night. Harry might have forgiven his violent behavior - but Severus was not able to simply sweep it all aside. He'd attacked Harry last night - some explanation was necessary.
"When I was little, I made a card for my Aunt Petunia in primary school. It must have been second or third year," Harry explained, and Severus found himself more perplexed than ever. Primary school?
"It was our teacher's idea," Harry continued, speaking almost blithely though the haunted look had not yet left his eyes despite the faint smile on his lips. "It was Valentine's Day and we were all told to make cards for our mothers. Of course I didn't have a mother, so I made one for Aunt Petunia. I worked on that card all day - I remember taking it to lunch with me so that I could make it perfect for her. When I got home I watched as Dudley gave her his card - she gushed over it and hung it up on the refrigerator. And then I gave her mine. She tore it up without ever even opening it and tossed it in the garbage." He laughed suddenly as if the memory was somehow amusing. "That's what I was thinking about. Woolgathering. . .I'm going to write about the effect transfigured ingredients have on potions."
"What?" Severus stared at the boy in confusion.
Harry motioned to his book bag. "My transfiguration essay," he explained as if that was what they had been talking about all along. "The effect of transfigured potion ingredients - it's due tomorrow." He headed out the door, leaving Severus standing there in bewildered disbelief.
"What the hell?" Severus muttered under his breath. He found himself replaying Harry's story in his head, trying to find some hidden meaning in it. With all the other insane things going on in his life, why was Harry thinking about his Aunt Petunia? And what a horrible story to be thinking about - it certainly didn't seem like something he should be laughing over. Not to mention that under normal circumstances getting Harry to talk about his childhood was like pulling teeth. And here he was volunteering a story all on his own - about his Aunt. And some Muggle card. A Valentine's Day card.
A sharp spike of panic struck Severus and he raised his hand to his throat, seeking out the familiar chain and the stone he wore hidden under his clothing. It was gone. The Heartstone he wore around his neck was gone!
Severus' blood began pounding in his ears. Had he been wearing it this morning? He couldn't remember - he'd gotten up, taken a shower, gotten dressed. He couldn't remember if the stone had still been around his neck then.
Racing into the bedroom he found himself staring at the place on the floor he'd been sitting last night when he'd tried to cut the Dark Mark from his arm. He'd ripped off his clothes - he remembered tearing at his robe and shirt so that he could get to the Mark.
Drawing his wand he cast a quick Accio. A sound from the bedside drew his attention to Harry's nightstand - the drawer was rattling. A moment later it slid open and the familiar green Heartstone flew to his hand. The chain he'd fastened to it was gone. Another quick Accio caused the broken chain to slither out from underneath the bed.
Severus stared down at the stone in his hand. If the House Elves had found the stone on the floor they would have put it in the jewelery box Severus kept in his wardrobe.
Harry had found it. Harry had found it on the floor - under the bed most likely. Would he have known it had fallen off last night? Or would he have imagined that like his Aunt Petunia he had tossed aside the gift months ago, having no value in it?
He grew nauseated with the thought and sat down on the edge of the bed. All he could see was the look in Harry's eyes when he'd walked through the bedroom door. He squeezed the Heartstone in his fist, feeling the pulse of magic that emanating from the stone - Harry's presence, so powerful but so damned raw and vulnerable. What was he doing? What in hell was he doing? He'd warned Albus that first day back in September.
"I don't care if I'm the best choice! I don't care that there's nobody else! I don't care that the damned Marriage Stone picked me!" he'd informed Albus when he'd tried to persuade him to go through with the insane plan of marrying Harry. "It won't work. We hate each other - we have nothing in common. We'll be miserable together. I'll make him miserable."
"The Marriage Stone matched you, Severus," Albus had replied. "That can only mean that the two of you are perfectly suited to one another."
"You're going to take a boy who's apparently been abused his entire life and give him to me?" Severus had exclaimed in shock. "So I can do what? Chop him up into tiny pieces and use him in a potion - because that's pretty much all I know now to do, Albus. Look at all my past relationships if you want to see how this is going to work out - my own family isn't even speaking to me any more."
"The boy needs you," Albus had said simply. And just like that Severus had caved, seduced by the very idea that he might actually be needed. That somehow, he and he alone, could do something to fix the wrongs in Harry's life.
And here he was making a mess of everything once again.