Thank you again for all the last reviews! This is the last chapter.

Chapter Six

As it turns out, Harry doesn't have to wait until the start of the school year to get that memory to send to Rita. Dumbledore visits him the very next day after the Prophet prints the interview, walking into the Leaky Cauldron and giving Harry the most disappointed look of, probably, his long career.

Harry looks up at him and arches his eyebrows a little. "Did you know I was staying here, sir?" he asks. He has to wonder if Dumbledore has been keeping track of him the past two summers and just didn't care until he was made to care, or if he assumes Harry left Privet Drive the instant he turned seventeen.

Dumbledore only nods his head and shoos Harry upstairs. Harry sees that Tom is watching him, and frowns a little. Tom's eyes flicker from the back of Dumbledore's head to a bottle under the bar.

Touched, Harry shakes his head. He doesn't want the old man getting in trouble with him, not when Tom's been so kind as to repay the life-debt with free accommodations.

They go up to Harry's room, and Harry sits down on the bed and lets Dumbledore have the chair. His sleeve falls away from his right hand, and Harry blinks. It's so blackened that it looks as though it's been burned, but it definitely doesn't smell that way.

What could have—

"Oh," Harry says, and he can't help the small smile that creeps up the side of his mouth. "Did you try to take on another Horcrux by yourself, sir?"

Dumbledore turns to him sharply and stares at him with what seems to be actual anger. "You were never so cruel a young man, Harry, I thought," he says, "to mock the cause of a man's death. Is it taking your new name that's made you so different?"

Harry thinks about it a little. He wishes that he could say that he doesn't feel anything about Dumbledore dying, but he feels a little. Mostly annoyance that he's probably never going to admit he's wrong, though.

"I'm what circumstances made me," Harry says, and lounges back against his pillow. "What did you want to speak to me about, sir?"

"Your—new last name. Harry, how could you?"

"Well, you see, sir, when a bunch of adults with their heads up their arses leave someone without gold and any means to buy supplies for themselves, then this is what sometimes happens. Although the last name bit happened because I was hardly going to call myself Snape." Harry isn't as opposed to Evans as he would have been before he heard Snape's story, but it isn't impossible that there's some Muggleborn out there called Evans right now, and he needed a name he was sure that no other wizard or witch in Britain was using.

Besides, he likes the scandal and shock and attention that the name is going to attack. He likes standing on his own.

"I destroyed a Horcrux," Dumbledore says abruptly. "The way you did. And Severus has confirmed that your Fiendfyre destroyed Tom's serpent on the battlefield. That means three are gone."

"Five," Harry says, and this is the expression that he thinks he might actually share with Skeeter. "There was also the diary in second year, which must have been one, and when I lit a Fiendfyre in the Room of Requirement last year, I heard something scream exactly like a Horcrux as it died."

"What was it?"

"There were several objects it could have been." Harry shrugs. "What matters is that five of them are gone now. How many would you say are left?"

Dumbledore stares at him steadily. Harry aims his eyes promptly at the blankets on his bed, and taps his hand a few times. He isn't about to let Dumbledore read his mind and betray information that he got from Neville.

"Two," Dumbledore says slowly. "One of the reasons that I invited Professor Slughorn to the school last year was because he had talked to Tom Riddle about Horcruxes when Tom was a student. And seven is the most powerful magical number, or at least it was said to be in a conversation between Tom and Horace."

Slughorn's first name, Harry remembers after a short struggle. He nods. "Then there are two left. Do you have any leads? And are you going to involve me now? I didn't know if you thought I was the Boy-Who-Lived or not."

Dumbledore glances away, frowning. "You were marked," he whispers. "But Tom also doubted that you could be the child destined to defeat him with your parents' defiances scattered across so many different times."

"By the way," Harry says, "my mum really did defy Voldemort three times? That's not just something that you thought was convenient for the prophecy or something?"

Dumbledore gives him a look even more scandalized than one that he gave Harry when he heard about the five Horcruxes that are gone. "Why would I make up something like that?"

"You seem to really believe in this prophecy. I thought that perhaps you invented some facts so you could have your symbol of hope for the people of Britain."

"Harry—I, no. I would never do something like that."

Harry shrugs. "So back to the Horcruxes. Do you have any leads on what they are and where they are?"

Dumbledore continues to stare at him. Then he clears his throat and says, "Yes. I believe that they are most probably Founders' artifacts. Tom Riddle had an interest in them, based on memories I recovered. Perhaps the one that you destroyed in the Room of Requirement was something related to Ravenclaw?"

"The others are what? Slytherin and Hufflepuff? He probably wouldn't want something from Gryffindor."

Dumbledore sighs a little, as if Harry's refusal to engage with him is just a childish temper tantrum, but he nods. "And because the artifacts that Gryffindor left behind, like the sword, are guarded carefully in the school. I believe that a locket that belonged to Slytherin and a double-handled golden cup that belonged to Hufflepuff are the treasures we are seeking."

There's a sharp pop from the corner of the room. Harry whirls to his feet with his wand in his hand, but there's nothing there. He narrows his eyes and casts a detection charm. Dumbledore starts to draw in his breath and then stops, probably because he remembered that Harry's birthday was a few days ago.

Harry watches the shape that the blue smoke of the charm forms in the air. It can't tell him exactly who was watching him, but if it formed the shape of an owl or a goblin or a hooded and cloaked wizard, he would know.

It doesn't. It's the shape of a house-elf.

"Dobby!" Harry calls, without taking his eyes off the corner. Dobby appears in front of him at once, with a hug that nearly knocks Harry back onto the bed. Harry pats his shoulder and nods to the blue smoke shape, interrupting Dobby's speech of gratitude.

"There was a house-elf watching us, and he left when we were discussing some very sensitive information. Is it possible that you could track him down for us?"

"Anything for the Masters Gryffindor!" Dobby says proudly. He doesn't look at Dumbledore as he abruptly disappears.

"Harry. Is that how you were able to put Veritaserum into Madam Umbridge's drink?"

Harry ignores Dumbledore, watching the struggle that seems to be going on in the corner. There are two shapes flickering in and out of sight there, and if Harry didn't know better, he would say they were wrestling. But then they appear, and that is what they're doing: Dobby has his arms clasped firmly around Kreacher.

"Kreacher is not being a spy!" the ancient house-elf yells. He finally gets his arms around Dobby's elbows and throws him off, but Dobby grabs Kreacher's ankle before he can disappear. Kreacher huffs and turns towards Harry, his ears wriggling. "Disgusting Master's disgusting godson is having a whiff of Darkest about him," he snaps.

Harry blinks. "I have used Dark magic—"

"Not that. That is dark. This is darkest." Kreacher nods at him, and then reaches into something that Harry doesn't really want to think about, wrapped around his loins, and pulls out a glittering golden locket. "Kreacher was watching, when disgusting Master's disgusting godson came back for the last talk with Master. He knew disgusting godson had been around the Darkest."

Harry remembers the way Kreacher was staring at him in Grimmauld Place then, which he honestly didn't think significant at the time. He nods. "Yes, I destroyed a Horcrux then. With Fiendfyre. Is that—"

"This is being the darkest that Master Regulus died for." Kreacher's eyes are filling up with tears, and snot dribbles down his nose onto the locket's chain. "Master Regulus was being good. Was turning away at the last moment. Master Regulus loved Kreacher best."

It takes some time to get the story from Kreacher, but when he does, Harry honestly feels ashamed about the way he used to treat Kreacher, and the way Sirius probably still does. Regulus really loved Kreacher, and it sounds like Kreacher loved him back. And the locket in front of them is gleaming with the same shimmer of Dark Arts that Harry now knows was around the diary. Then, he just thought it felt sort of greasy.

"We must bring it back to Hogwarts," Dumbledore says gravely. "We can destroy it with the Sword of Gryffindor, which was infused with basilisk venom when…"

He trails off. Harry thinks it's more than hilarious that Dumbledore still can't talk about the deeds that he did as Harry Potter, as if they're tainted or worth less somehow because of who he's beoame.

"Or we could destroy it right here," Harry says, who thinks that maybe the locket will hurt Dumbledore like the other one, whatever it was, did. Dumbledore must have acted pretty stupid to get hurt destroying a Horcrux when Harry's taken care of four of them and only got injured twice.

"There are no basilisk fangs in this room."

Dumbledore's voice is pretty repressive. Harry grins at him and puts his wand down, closing his eyes. His joy is surging up through him. He has a new name. He has Dumbledore stymied. There's going to be a way to destroy yet another Horcrux, and then they just have one more to go.

Well, and they have Voldemort to battle.

And that's what begins to add the necessary rage. If Dumbledore had told him all this earlier, if he'd supported and trained Harry the way he was trying to train Neville, they could have defeated Voldemort years ago. Dumbledore could have done it, even, once he started thinking that Horcruxes existed. This shouldn't have had to happen.

The abandonment. The refusal to look at and talk to him. The keeping secret of vital information. The pressure on Neville. None of it.

Harry roars aloud, and when he opens his eyes, a wisp of Fiendfyre is dancing above his cupped hands. "You might want to get out of the way," he says casually to Kreacher, and then he clamps his will down on the flames.

They form a miniature dragon, beautiful and blazing and made of gold, but fierce. Harry can feel it struggling against his control. He ignores that. He has a strong enough will to stab a basilisk fang into his own bloody forehead, he reminds himself. "Get the locket," he says softly.

Dumbledore is opening his mouth as the dragon zooms towards the locket. He's just starting to say, "Harry!" when the locket opens and dark shadows stream out of it.

Harry watches them without moving, keeping his hold on the Fiendfyre dragon. The shadows are flickering crazily from one shape to another as if they're all drunken werewolves. Sometimes they look like the young Tom Riddle from the diary, and sometimes they're Snape, and sometimes they look like Ron and Hermione.

"What do you fear?" the locket asks in a low, thick voice that's just on the edge of Parseltongue.

It doesn't know what to show me because it doesn't have any idea what I'm afraid of. Harry feels his lips twitch as he says, "Not much," and gestures the dragon forwards with a clenched fist.

It hits the locket, talons out and a stream of fire blowing from its jaws as if it's imitating a real dragon. The shadows shriek as the flames hit them, the familiar sound of a dying Horcrux. Harry doesn't hold his ears this time. He watches as it dies, as the chain of the locket turns to slag and the twisted form bends and smokes, until it vanishes in one more blast.

The dragon turns around and tries to breathe out on Harry's books. Harry opens his fist and lets his emotions go at the same time. The Fiendfyre vanishes.

It's very silent in the room. Harry politely doesn't look at the way Dumbledore is almost cowering on the chair, and Dumbledore politely doesn't accuse Harry of being evil.

Kreacher then begins to sob and try to kiss his hands, and Dobby starts scolding Kreacher and telling him that the proper way is to hug Harry Gryffindor's legs, and it provides a needed distraction.

"I didn't think that you would talk to me again."

Hermione's voice is soft, subdued. Harry shrugs at her from where he sits in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room on the night of the Sorting. "You can apologize and tell me the truth, if you want. That's the only way that I'm going to talk to you."

Hermione takes a deep breath and sits down on the chair across from him. Harry watches her. A strand of his hair catches his attention from the corner of his eye, and he grimaces. At least it shows no tendency to be greasy, but it still grows damn fast, and he'll need to burn it again.

"You know that Professor Dumbledore was really afraid that V-Voldemort would intercept our letters? That it was a real fear? He wasn't doing it just to torment you."

Harry rolls his eyes and picks up his book. Hermione grabs his wrist. "Wait, Harry! Please tell me what you want to hear!"

Harry shakes her off. "I already did. And the first thing you do instead is start excusing Dumbledore. He upended my life and didn't even have the courtesy to tell me why, and then he wanted to just come back and pick me up like I'm a piece of rubbish he decided he needed. Stop excusing him."

The stool at Harry's feet trembles. The fire in the hearth flares higher. Ron and Ginny are looking at him with wide eyes, and even some of the others are standing as if they're about to run. Neville, though, is hiding his grin behind a pot he's tucking seeds into.

"I," Hermione says, and her head droops. "Professor Dumbledore was wrong to do that."

"Yes, he was."

"I just—I wish you'd talked to me more about what you wanted to hear, Harry. About what would have been the right thing to do."

Harry rolls his eyes. "Not abandon me? Not hide all sorts of secrets from me without even knowing if I would 'betray' you? But you did that. It really makes you seem like you weren't friends with me, Harry. You were friends with the Boy-Who-Lived." Briefly, his gaze meets Neville's. There's at least one other person here who knows exactly what that's like.

Hermione nods, her eyes on the floor. "Are you going to be joining the war effort or not?"

Harry stands up and walks towards the seventh-year boys' bedroom. Hermione leaps up but doesn't chase after him. Instead, she calls, "Harry, please wait! Please just tell me what needs to happen!"

"I already did," Harry answers in a low voice without turning around. He thought this would hurt more, this final rupture between him and Hermione, but maybe it's not because of all the minor ruptures that have happened along the way. "You still haven't apologized."

"I'm sorry!"

Harry turns around and drapes his arms over the banister, watching as Hermione gulps and looks up at him. "Fine. Then we'll discuss it later, in a more private setting, and if you attempt to drag me into the war again, this is finished."

The entire Gryffindor common room is silent as Harry walks into the bedroom and shuts the door behind him. But at this point, Harry has accepted the fact that he's going to cause waves no matter what he does. They might as well be waves of his own devising.

The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is an Auror named Nymphadora Tonks, a cheerful young woman who mostly has pink or purple hair and turns her nose into a pig's snout on the regular and can counter any spell someone sends at her. Harry is mildly impressed with her, but less so once he finds out she's a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Still, the textbook she chose sounded interesting enough that he bought it. He can always learn more even with the Outstanding he received on his Defense NEWT.

Searching through that book and all the others he can find, though, brings up no mention of the spell that Snape used to save his life. Harry scowls at his ceiling for several nights before he decides that, yeah, he needs to know. He writes a short note to Snape asking what book he can find Sectumsempra in and uses a Wind Charm to blow it under the door of Snape's office.

A note comes back the same way, whipping onto his pillow and through the closed curtains of his bed one night when Harry lies awake reading.

No book. I invented it.

Harry finds himself staring at the note, his fingers clutching the sides of it so hard it gets a small rip in the middle. Then he puts it down and stares blindly at his curtains.

He hasn't actually thought much about what he wants to do if he survives the war. He used to think that he wanted to be an Auror, but after seeing more about the way the Ministry works and how people will turn on him, he doesn't think it's a good idea. Healing sounded complicated enough to be interesting, but the actual day-to-day work probably wouldn't be.

Creating spells, though…

Harry flips the note over and writes several different questions on the back, including how hard creating spells is and how in the world you get started in the first place. Harry is lambasting himself for not thinking of making up his own spells before this. Then again, when it turned out that his fire was Fiendfyre, he assumed he probably couldn't create anything new, only use old spells in new ways.

The note that comes back is more of a scroll, discussing the theoretical aspects of spell creation and how to be sure that an incantation you create will have the desired results. The last part of it is a list of book titles, which Harry goes to the library at once to look up. It turns out none of them are actually in the Restricted Section.

Snape apparently did his research on spell creation the way Harry did his research on Horcruxes, piecing together the necessary knowledge from lots and lots of sources.

Harry sighs a little when he realizes that, and shakes his head. He's coming to accept that, well, he has some similarities to both his mum and the man who sired him.

He doesn't have to like them, but on the other hand, it would be stupid to give up on something so powerful and interesting just because Snape can do it, too.

Dumbledore doesn't summon him to his office until the middle of October. Harry goes, wondering what it'll be this time. He can imagine lots of things, but what he thinks is likeliest is some kind of lead on Hufflepuff's cup.

He doesn't at all expect to walk in and find Sirius and Remus there.

"No, I don't think so," Harry says firmly, and turns around. The door to Dumbledore's office seals itself off before he can touch it.

"Be reasonable, Harry," Dumbledore says softly. Harry avoids his eyes, but he can smell the flesh of his rotting-burned hand—whatever it is—from here. Dumbledore still hasn't told Harry what exactly happened to his hand or what kind of Horcrux he got rid of. "Sirius and Remus are both sorry for what they did, and they realize that they underestimated you and judged you on account of your parentage. They are here to apologize."

"And their apology is so sincere that you had to trap me into staying for it, right?" Harry spits, turning around. He hears Sirius's breath catch as he sees Harry's face, probably because of the resemblance of his tied-back hair to Snape's. Harry rolls his eyes. "Fine, right. Where's the apology?"

"I'm so sorry we treated you the way we did," Remus says at once. "I—I wish that I'd overcome my objections earlier."

"What objections could you possibly have? That I was born at you?"

"Harry, come on, pup, enough." Sirius takes a hesitant step forwards. "It was pretty extreme, you have to admit that, to realize that I was godfather to Snivellus's kid all along."

Harry snarls at him, and the air around him crackles with the same black lightning that happened that first time just before he unleashed the Fiendfyre. Sirius freezes. Harry turns to Dumbledore. "If you're not going to discuss the Horcruxes, then let me out before I tear my way out."

"Harry, please understand. You need a family around you, since Severus has refused to be that for you." Through the haze of Harry's rage, he still notes that Dumbledore apparently hasn't noticed the scrolls he and Snape are writing back and forth to each other, or the conversation they had at the end of last year. "Your anger and your magic are getting out of control. You need the grounding of a stable adult influence—"

"Stable. The man who spent twelve years in Azkaban?" Harry laughs, and the lightning lowers and outlines his fingers. "Let me out or I'm going to tear my way out, Albus."

"The spells on the door are too powerful for that." Dumbledore never raises his voice. "Harry, please, be reasonable—"

There's a blaze across the room, one that shocks Harry out of his fury a little bit. If he's unleashing Fiendfyre, he'd like to know it, so that he can actually control it. But the fire lands on his shoulder, and he realizes it's Fawkes, who's shaking his tail and chirping so hard at Dumbledore Harry can feel the vibrations down through the bird's body.

Dumbledore is the one who freezes this time. "Fawkes?" he whispers.

Fawkes whips himself around, still chirping vehemently, and flies over to the door. A sweep of his claws, and it opens. Harry marches through it, and Fawkes flies past him down the stairway, all the time crooning softly like someone muttering under his breath.

When they come out at the bottom of the moving staircase, Harry looks at Fawkes. "Thanks. You didn't have to do that."

Fawkes lands on his shoulder again and nuzzles his beak briefly against Harry's chin. Then he turns and hovers in front of the gargoyle, making a noise this time that sounds like an apology.

"You don't have to apologize to me for staying with him," Harry says quietly. "We all make our own choices about that. I might have stayed with Sirius if he'd been smarter about it. And maybe you can keep Dumbledore from getting worse."

Fawkes answers him with one more little jerk of his head and flirt of his tail. Then he flies back up the moving staircase, and Harry continues back to Gryffindor Tower.

"Mr. Gryffindor." Professor McGonagall still makes a sour grimace when she has to address him that way. Harry, on the other hand, finishes putting his Transfiguration book back into his bag and beams up at her.

"Yes, professor?"

"I found this attached to your robes when you walked into the classroom. My door carries charms that alert me to the presence of such objects. I presume it is not something you have introduced yourself?" McGonagall holds out a small silver pin that looks like the kind some of the pure-blood students use to pin their cloaks.

"It has a Tracking Charm on it," McGonagall adds.

Harry simmers for a second, but he's come to acknowledge that it doesn't do any good to burn with rage all the time. He shakes his head. "Can you tell who set it up, Professor?"

"Honestly, I think it was probably one of the students. The level of skill on the charm is much weaker than it would be if an experienced adult cast it, and someone attached to Hogwarts would know about the spells on my door and be able to create something that evaded them."

Harry pauses. It's just a thought, dashing across his mind like a quick comet, but he's come to trust those flashes of instinct more than he trusts most people in his life right now. "Could you reattach it to my cloak, Professor?"

"Are you sure you want this sending information about you to an unknown entity, Mr. Pot—Gryffindor?"

"Trust me, Professor. I want to find out who's receiving it."

McGonagall gives him a dubious glance, but nods and waves her wand. The pin reattaches to his robe hem, and Harry leaves in a thoughtful mood.

Someone had to let Voldemort and the Death Eaters through the wards last year. It had to be someone in the castle, and Harry's bet is on it being a student, based on—well, mostly gut instinct, but also the fact that there don't seem to any professors who are either acting suspiciously or under suspicion.

Students, though? There are plenty of those, including some who are old enough to have the Dark Mark on their arms.

And Harry wants to find out who it is. In between his million other projects, admittedly.

Harry raises his wand. It's taken him until almost Christmas, but he thinks he has good information, finally, on who placed the Tracking Charm on him and a good lead on Hufflepuff's cup. All because he's been working like mad on his books.

No thanks to Dumbledore or Hermione, Harry thinks, then shakes his head. He can't be distracted right now. This is his first time using one of his newly-created spells seriously, and although he's tested it before, it was under circumstances where he always knew where it was trying to point him.

"Invenio fontem," Harry intones carefully. Harder than figuring out the incantation was figuring out the wand movement that should go with it. He finally let his body take its own path on that, and in the end, a sweeping movement with his wand from right to left at chest height and then a little clockwise circle at the end felt most natural.

A silver, triangular stream of light snaps out from his wand and strikes the cloak pin where it lies on the sheets of his bed behind drawn curtains. The pin rises in the air and wobbles for a second. Then silver light strikes out from it in turn, forming a path along the floor.

Harry grins, Disillusions himself, and follows it.

He quickly finds out that the charm isn't perfect. For one thing, the silver beam points through solid stone if that's the straightest path. Harry has to adjust continually as he sneaks down stairs and around corners, and sometimes cast from side to side or go up a whole flight to find it again.

But in general, it leads him steadily downwards. Harry finally stands at the top of the stairs that lead to the dungeons and watches a sliver of light plunge further on.

He sighs. "Would have to be a Slytherin," he murmurs, and follows it.

The silver light points insistently at the patch of bare stone that Harry knows, from second year, hides the door to the Slytherin common room. He waits for a few minutes in the hope that someone might come in or out and he can slip in, but it's late at night and he isn't that lucky.

Harry closes his eyes and carefully casts another Defense spell that he learned from some of the books he found while researching spell creation. When he opens his eyes again, the corridor seems to be made of flat crystal planes that lie on top of and next to each other. Harry drifts slowly forwards, an effort of will, his body now smoke as he gets it to pass under the wall and into the common room beyond.

When he's in the common room, Harry quickly releases the charm and changes back to human, and glances around. The fire is low-burning and there's a tall boy asleep on a couch in the corner, but it's a dim one far away from the silver line of light. Harry follows the light up the staircase to the seventh-year boys' bedroom, and opens the door softly.

There are only four boys there now; for some reason, Crabbe didn't come back this year. And the silver light falls on the bed with a trunk at its foot that has a truly stupid set of silver dress robes draped over it.

Harry cancels his charm and eases the curtains open. Malfoy's sleeping face doesn't at all surprise him.

He casts one more spell that will make the sleeve over Malfoy's left arm transparent, and shakes his head in disgust at the Dark Mark visible there. Yes, he still doesn't have proof that Malfoy was the one who let Voldemort and the Death Eaters in for the attack last year, but he has good enough proof that Malfoy is a Marked Death Eater in the school.

Harry passes softly out of the Slytherin common room and up to his Tower. He'll speak to Dumbledore in the morning. He's still the only one who has the power to actually expel Malfoy.

"Yes, Harry, I was aware that Mr. Malfoy is Marked."

Harry looks at Dumbledore in silence, although he jerks his eyes away again when the man tries to catch his gaze. Harry stares at the wall. "Is he the one who let the Death Eaters in for the attack last year?"

"Yes."

Harry stares at his hands, and the way they've ripped the cushion on the chair beneath him. "Why did you allow him to stay? Why didn't you say something to someone?"

"Because there is still the chance that we can save his soul. He has done a terrible thing, but in the end, none of the students in Hogwarts died, and he may yet change his mind. If we expelled him now, he would do nothing but run straight to Tom. He needs a chance to reconsider."

"No students died in Hogwarts last year because I was there." Harry lifts his eyes, and Dumbledore recoils before his gaze. "And how was I less innocent than he is? But you were talking about the Aurors arresting me for using Fiendfyre last year, and you completely turned away from me because of something I couldn't even help."

Dumbledore hesitates a long time. Harry actually wants an answer this time, though, and he waits.

"I didn't know that you were a Horcrux for certain until after the diary incident," Dumbledore finally whispers. "But I knew from the prophecy that you were most likely to either die fighting Voldemort or have to murder him."

"So there's nothing worth saving in me, right." Harry's voice is flat. "I could never be innocent from the beginning, right?"

"My dear boy, I am sor—"

Harry stands and walks out again. His gut is churning, but his mind is clear. There's nothing else he can go to Dumbledore for, even about finding the last Horcrux. His charm ought to let him find it, anyway.

And he's had enough of Dumbledore putting a bunch of innocent children at risk to protect someone who might change his mind. Harry knows what he knows, now, and he's going to put it into action.

Two days later, the Prophet blares the headline about Draco Malfoy being left right next to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Head's office with his left sleeve gone. Someone takes photos of the Dark Mark and smuggles them out of the Ministry to add to the article, too, before anyone can stop them.

Harry doesn't know if they'll actually find any evidence that Malfoy let Death Eaters into Hogwarts or spied for Voldemort, but they don't have to. The Dark Mark alone is enough to get Malfoy a trial, and Malfoy's seventeen now, which means that he can't duck Veritaserum on account of being underage.

Dumbledore tries several times to talk to him. Harry ignores all of the attempts.

Harry receives the Marauder's Map back as a gift from Sirius for Christmas, and ignores the temptation to write back. Remus got him an enormous book of curses and countercurses, which is at least useful.

The most useful gift, though, is a battered Potions book with familiar handwriting in it and a note next to it.

This is a book that contains considerable improvements to the standard brewing methods, as well as incantations for some of the spells I created. My mother's maiden name was Prince, hence the title on the cover. Use it well.

Harry hesitates for a long time. Then he writes back to Snape, a simple note that says, Thank you.

It's the only thank-you he sends to an adult that Christmas.

Harry smiles as he stands outside Hogwarts, the bitterly cold April wind whipping through his hair. It's the Easter holiday, and he's ready to use the charm he created to find Voldemort's last Horcrux.

He's tinkered with some of the charm's aspects, so that, among other things, the silver beam of light is only visible to him now. He's tested that by using it right in front of other people, none of whom reacted to it.

And he's also used it to find objects he left in Hogsmeade. It's about as ready as it will ever get, he thinks.

Harry places a picture of Helga Hufflepuff flat on the ground in front of him. It's not a portrait; Harry knows he would never get away with using a portrait for this. But this is a fairly nice, enlarged, copy of one he found in a textbook, with Hufflepuff clutching the cup that he's pretty sure Voldemort stole and made into a Horcrux.

"Invenio fontem," he murmurs, waving his wand over the picture but keeping the movement and all his attention focused on the painted cup.

For a moment, the silver light darts out and then fades away, as if it's not sure what to look for. Harry holds his breath.

And then the silver beam strikes out, leading like a stab of light from a lantern overland.

Harry mastered Apparition last year. He turns on his heel now, to make the first of many short hops along the beam of light.

The silver light pointed straight into Gringotts.

Which, admittedly, might be a problem.

Harry leans back on the wall of the shop across from Gringotts and considers. He's Apparated here every day of the holiday, wondering if there is any way to take out the Horcrux other than a frontal assault. He'd prefer to avoid that, given where his money is stored.

Well, everyone always says that goblins will do things wizards pay them for. But Harry doubts he has enough money to pay them to give up an artifact from one of their vaults—especially if they do know what it is and are storing it anyway. The problem with goblin neutrality is that it plays as well into Voldemort's hands as it does into Harry's.

Harry taps his fingers idly against his knee. Well, when in doubt, just ask.

"I beg your pardon?"

Harry's request got him brought immediately before Ragnok, who seems to be an important goblin, based on the size and location of his own office. Harry relaxes in the chair in front of him, and meets his eyes.

"Yes, I asked if there was anything you wanted that I could trade for the corrupted Hufflepuff's cup you're keeping. It's a Horcrux that Voldemort created to keep himself tied to life. I can't pay for it in Galleons, but is there something else you want?"

Ragnok trades a baffled look with the goblins who escorted Harry in. Then he faces Harry again. "You are not in fact proposing to rob this bank."

"No."

"But on the other hand, you are asking us to give up something that's stored here."

"Yes."

The goblins have a long argument in Gobbledegook. Harry watches them and keeps his hand nonchalantly in his lap. He knows they'll take it as a threat if they see him touching his wand, and honestly, Harry doesn't want that. What he wants is simply for them to cooperate.

He does have wandless magic to use if it looks like the argument is getting out of hand, of course, and they might just take his head as their price instead.

Ragnok turns towards him. "We want two things. You will give them both to us by the end of May, or we will not give you this cup."

"Yes?" Harry leans forwards to show he's listening.

"One is the Sword of Gryffindor." Ragnok's eyes shine in a way that make Harry push his estimation of the goblin one step towards "fanatic." "We made it. It belongs to us. It is not a treasure of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We want it back."

"All right," Harry says. "And the other thing?"

Ragnok pauses again, as if he thinks that Harry is going to make a fuss about things. Harry fixes him with a bland smile and waits. Ragnok finally nods. "The wizard Ludo Bagman who owed us gold went on the run, and what we seized from him was not enough to pay the debt. And then your Ministry covered it up and insisted that they would not hunt him down and bring to trial. We want him back."

Harry smiles a little, thinking of his Tracking Charm. "I have until the thirty-first of May?"

"Yes, Harry Gryffindor."

"Brilliant," Harry says, and stands up. "Nice talking to you. We have a bargain."

He saunters out of the bank, whistling. He has a hat and a phoenix to approach about the sword, first. And while the Sorting Hat might not think anything of him in particular, Fawkes is unlikely to deny Harry what he wants.

"Ludo Bagman?" Harry asks as he steps out of the shadows around the fire. He thought he might have to track the man halfway around the world, but it turned out that he never left Britain. He's just been camping on the outskirts of Muggle towns, where neither wizards nor goblins will particularly want to go.

Bagman jumps, staring at him. He's wearing a ragged group of clothes at first, but when Harry looks closer, the spells on them break and dissolve. He actually has warm robes, although frayed and patched ones. The spells are only deep enough to keep Muggles from noticing him right away.

"N-no. You have me wrong. My name is Luvido Borkman." Bagman has adopted a ridiculous accent that makes him sound like a parody of Viktor Krum. "Yes, yes, Borkman. I do not speak your English."

Harry rolls his eyes. The one big limitation of his Source-Finding Charm is that it can't point him directly at people or objects; instead, he has to find or use something that they've touched or which resembles them. But the goblins gave him a Galleon they'd seized from Bagman, and that worked well enough.

"No, you're Ludo Bagman, and you're coming back with me."

"Luvido Borkman does not know who you are. Luvido Borkman does not speak English."

"Harry Gryffindor," Harry introduces himself, with a small bow of his head. "Are you going to come back with me or not?"

Bagman tries to burn his legs from underneath him, but he's slow compared to Voldemort or the Death Eaters. Harry leaps over the childish curses and hexes, and then casts a Body-Bind that hits Bagman and ties his head to his knees. Bagman's eyes roll frantically at him as Harry snuffs his fire and takes his wand.

"You don't understand," Bagman whispers, dropping the accent. "If you take me back to the wizarding world, the goblins will kill me!"

"But they'll also give me what I'm bargaining for," Harry says with a short shrug. "And they might not kill you, as long as you either pay back your debt or work to fulfill it." Indentured servitude for wizards to pay off debts to goblins is something Harry learned about when he was researching the process of taking a new name. It's not common anymore, but humans can still choose it over being beheaded.

"You're very callous for a Gryffindor," Bagman says, and snivels.

"The name was a choice, not one I was born with," Harry says cheerfully. "The only family lineage I have to live up to is the one I choose to live up to. Shall we go?"

Ragnok's eyes won't stop moving back and forth from the captured Bagman to the Sword of Gryffindor that Harry's leaned on the side of the chair. He looks at Harry and then away again, studying the walls as if expecting the real person who brought the goblins' enemy and the goblins' sword here to burst into view.

"Both Bagman and the sword, as you requested," Harry says as calmly as he can. "And it's the twentieth of May. I believe that I requested Hufflepuff's cup?"

"How did you do this?"

"With the help of some invented magic and a phoenix." It's the perfect truth, not that they'll believe him. Still, it hurts less when goblins doubt him than when people who have been his friends for years do. Harry bares his teeth in a faint grin. "The cup?"

"We can't just go around giving artifacts away, sir," whispers one of the goblins standing behind Ragnok. It sounds like they've either forgotten Harry can hear them or forgotten they're speaking English, but Harry doesn't think they would forget something like that. No, this is a deliberate insult.

"You also need your reputation as flawless guardians of wizards' gold," Harry says sweetly. "What would happen if I told certain people that the goblins won't keep the terms of their own bargains?"

Ragnok leans forwards. "I have slain wizards for less of an insult."

Harry tilts his head a little, and lets a whisper of Fiendfyre spark along the side of his arm. "I know that you must have your sources on who really won the Battle of Hogwarts last year. Do you want me to show you why?"

Ragnok backs down with grumbles, and sends a goblin into the depths of the bank to fetch the cup. They refuse to tell him which vault it was actually in, but that's not something Harry had to know, anyway. He already knows it was probably a Death Eater, and that's enough for him.

The cup glows as they bring it into the room. Harry smiles a little. His sensitivity to Dark magic has increased enough that he can make out the shimmer of a curse around the edge of the artifact's handles.

How like the goblins not to mention that little detail, Harry thinks, and seizes the Sword of Gryffindor, and whirls it to the side, smashing it into the cup.

The goblin holding it drops the cup from nerveless fingers as it begins to scream. Harry doesn't cover his ears at all this time; after six Horcrux deaths, he expects this. Instead, he watches as a shadow rises, apparently trying to escape, and then the sword's edge gleams and catches it. There is one final hiss, and the cup, a twisted hunk of metal with a deep slash in the middle of it that cuts almost all the way through, falls still.

"Why did the sword destroy a Horcrux?" Ragnok asks when the office has been silent for perhaps a minute. "We infused it with many properties, but never that."

"I infused it with basilisk venom when I killed a basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets in my second year," Harry says lightly. That makes the infusion sound more deliberate than it was, but it won't hurt to have the goblins respect him a little more. "The sword is yours. Have a nice day."

"Harry."

Harry beaks from sleep, his wand cradled in his hand and his face turning at once in the direction of the voice speaking his name. His mind is running through various scenarios about how someone could have got into Gryffindor Tower and irritation that his sleep is being interrupted when he needs to prepare for the NEWTS tomorrow—

The lanky figure in the corner of the room carries a barely-lighted wand, but the voice is familiar enough, as is the hair that looks like his. "The Dark Lord is here."

Harry immediately stands up and reaches for his own wand. "Are you sure?"

Snape bends his left arm a little, and Harry can make out the Dark Mark with a ruddy tinge to the flesh surrounding it. "I can feel the Mark burning the way it only ever did when I was in the same small space with him."

Harry nods. He wonders for a moment if Voldemort felt the destruction of his last Horcrux and that's why he's here now, or if he just meant this to be symbolic, attacking right before the NEWTS. Well, Harry supposes it doesn't matter.

He's spent most of the last three years, if not before, preparing for this moment.

"Lock yourself inside your quarters and arm your wards," he tells Snape absently as he brushes past him down the staircase. "You'll want to have your protections up in case something goes wrong and they get inside the school."

"You are not my father any more than I have been truly yours."

"What does that mean?" Harry hisses out of the corner of his mouth. He doesn't really have time for Snape being difficult right now. He has to continue running steadily downwards.

"It means that you cannot command me to stay behind."

"Do you realize that if he sees you on the battlefield, he will kill you?"

"How much more does that apply to you, his greatest enemy and the one who dueled him to a near-standstill last year?"

Harry grimaces in acknowledgement. Well, at least Snape is a good dueler and has unexpected skill with spells thanks to the ones he's made up that probably not even Voldemort is aware of. And Harry doesn't have time to argue with him, either. "Come on, then."

They're about halfway down the stairs to the ground floor when Snape pauses and swears under his breath. Harry glances at him, wondering if Snape can sense the presence of Death Eaters as well.

"Do you not smell it?"

"What…" And then Harry does, the smell of rotting flesh, the same scent that he had to get used to coming from Dumbledore's hand. "What is that?"

"Inferi." Snape locks one elbow against the wall and gestures hard, performing another charm that Harry doesn't know, one which makes the stone of the stairwell transparent around them. Harry looks out where the entrance hall would normally be, and onto the sweep of grass that leads towards Hogsmeade.

Snape mutters something else, and Harry's eyes take on the acuity of an eagle's. Voldemort hasn't come through the wards this time, but he's just outside them, and beside him are shambling shapes. Harry shudders. Voldemort has brought an army, thousands of Inferi. He doesn't know whether they can destroy them all.

"Do you wish me to fetch Albus?"

Snape is looking at him. Harry takes a deep breath and nods. "You probably should. I wanted to defeat Voldemort myself, but I'm not as arrogant as I used to be, and I know that's going to be hard enough to do without this army."

Snape nods and slips away up the stairs again. Harry watches as the Inferi begin to hammer on the wards, which will probably wake Dumbledore up before Snape can get to his quarters. Voldemort is depending on brute strength instead of a traitor to get him inside this time, it seems.

Harry scowls. He knows the Inferi are vulnerable to fire, but he can't possibly conjure enough Fiendfyre to get rid of this whole battalion.

There's a soft, sweet sound above him that spirals into song. Harry startles and looks up. Fawkes is hanging over his head, giving him the same sort of sideways disapproving look that he did when Harry was lying in the blood and water of the Chamber. Harry smiles a little and extends his hand.

"Take me out and over them, Fawkes?" he asks.

Fawkes's tail comes down, and then they're in the air, sweeping down the dizzying twists of the staircase that remain as if they're soaring through the Chamber. Harry laughs despite how bleak everything looks as they fly out over the grounds of Hogwarts like a shooting star. The Inferi don't pause and look up at them, showing they don't have even that much free will, but a central, tall figure in the middle of them does stare up.

Voldemort, Harry thinks, and casts Sectumsempra at him almost without thinking. Voldemort ducks it, but it cuts apart two especially hulking Inferi on either side of him.

Fawkes deposits Harry near the edge of the army. Then he flames into the sky and spreads out his wings, singing. His song grows louder and louder, and Harry can see the beginning of a corona appearing to outline his wings and head. The image seems to expand outwards with his feathers, growing lines of light, becoming bigger.

Fawkes is doing what he can. Time for Harry to do what he can.

It's hard to find the rage for the Fiendfyre this time; the joy is easier. But Harry reminds himself that he isn't actually guaranteed to stop the Inferi, even now that Voldemort is mortal, and that he's alone right now. Voldemort wouldn't hesitate to cut apart Ron if he makes it inside, to kill Ginny, to drive Neville insane like his parents. He'll torture Snape to death and make what's happening to Dumbledore's hand seem kind.

For the sake of what they have been to him, for the sake of what they are now, and for the sake of all the other innocents sleeping in their beds, Harry cannot let Voldemort win.

There's also the fact that he has his bloody NEWTS to take tomorrow, and he wants to graduate and become a free adult.

There. The fire bristles along his shoulders, and Harry gestures sharply for it to leap over his head and move in on the Inferi. When it does, it takes the forms of phoenixes, larger and more bloody-colored than Fawkes, and the Inferi explode into balls of burning, dry skin and bones as if they're made of dead wood.

Voldemort is already turning towards him. "Come on, Tom," Harry calls to him, and beckons with two fingers like the insolent little bastard he is. "Or are you afraid to face a Gryffindor?"

Voldemort's face is as red as it can be when his skin is that pale. He begins to drive the Inferi apart with sweeps of his wand as he makes his way through the Inferi to Harry. They're too mindless to just get out of the way, it seems.

Harry grins and readies himself.

And just then, Fawkes dives.

He's become a glowing, radiant fireball, larger than the sun when it rises in the morning, and Harry can barely make out the shape of a bird at all in the shining wave of flame and light and death. Fawkes's song is more like a scream as he smashes into the Inferi and sets lines of heat blazing and leaping in all directions. In seconds, there's a wildfire raging there, and Fawkes's song seems to drive it faster, like wind, leaping from dripping, sludgy head to head.

The song itself is making some Inferi fall apart before the fire even touches them, Harry would swear.

Voldemort rises above the chaos, actually flying without a broom, and Harry glares. He never knew the git could do that. That's something he will definitely have to learn after he survives this battle.

Well, time to take Voldemort's advantage away. He'll have too much of one if he can hang there above the battle and just fire everything at Harry from a higher angle.

"Voco!" Harry yells. It's one of the curses that were in Snape's book, and his notes warned that it would get a violent reaction, but a violent reaction is exactly what Harry needs right now.

Voldemort shoots towards him, called by the spell and compelled to come nearer. Harry has a glimpse of startled red eyes, and then he ducks out of the way as Voldemort smashes into the ground. His flight magic appears to have been thoroughly disrupted. Harry grins and casts a spell to break the bones of Voldemort's legs while he's still trying to stand.

It only catches one of them, and Voldemort hisses like an angry cat. "Harry Potter."

"Not been my name for a long time. It's Harry Gryffindor, now. Honestly, keep up with the times, Voldemort."

That earns him a Blasting Curse aimed right at his chest, but Harry knows how to shield from that one, and then they're back in the same kind of tense duel that happened at the end of last year. But this time, Harry knows a lot more than he did, and Voldemort can't survive a direct hit like he did last year when he escaped the Sectumsempra curse.

All his Horcruxes are gone. The man, the monster, facing Harry is mortal.

"Did you realize that I found them all?" Harry asks softly as they circle. The earth around them is torn up by explosions and ripped and furrowed with curses that would have killed them if they landed. Harry is bleeding from a cut on his scalp, and the smoke from the fire Fawkes has caused billows around them and dances back. Harry had to dismiss his Fiendfyre a little while ago; it was simply too hard to keep control of it and concentrate on the duel with Voldemort at the same time. But the Inferi are thoroughly burning up in Fawkes's flames, and Harry doesn't really worry about them interfering.

"What are you talking about?"

"The diary," Harry says, and sees Voldemort's eyes widen. "The cup. The locket. The snake—"

Voldemort casts at him in Parseltongue, and Harry swears as it creates a swarm of biting insects that all slam into his left shoulder at once. They bite so fiercely that Harry knows his arm is going to be disabled even before it hangs limp next to him.

But that isn't his wand hand, and Harry never thought he would get out of this unscathed. He keeps his gaze on Voldemort, and murmurs, "Did you think that you would live forever? So sorry to disappoint."

Voldemort roars, and the roar becomes a curse Harry has never seen, rising like a wave of purple light and developing claws and fangs as it goes. When it flexes and rushes at him, Harry knows that he can't avoid it. He opens his mouth to speak a shield that might turn it back.

"Prohibeo!"

The spell hits Voldemort's beast and chews half of it into small sparkles of light. Harry follows the direction of the curse with his eyes and sees Snape striding through a corridor of pulped Inferi, Dumbledore behind him.

Voldemort turns around, clearly enraged so much that he'll engage with the enemy behind him instead of in front. Snape only lifts an eyebrow, saying nothing with such disdain that Harry hopes Voldemort will lose control.

It works. Voldemort begins a long incantation, wand swinging back and forth in his hand like a pendulum and gaze fixed solely on Snape. From the way Snape pales, Harry assumes he recognizes the spell and it's a bad one.

But Voldemort's back is to Harry. And there's a spell Harry read about, not in Snape's book but in some of the books he got from the Restricted Section, and he certainly has the power to cast it even if he's never tried it out.

"Carnifico!"

The magic rips from Harry, taking more strength than anything else he's ever cast except Fiendfyre. It erupts in an intense white beam from Harry's wand and makes him sag to his knees. But he keeps himself upright enough to watch what it happens. He's not going to miss this because his face was pressed into the dirt.

Voldemort hasn't turned around all the way yet when the white beam reaches him. Harry catches sight of Dumbledore standing with his mouth open a little, and Snape—Snape's eyes are fixed unwaveringly on Harry. He's not looking at the spell.

Which cuts Voldemort's head off.

The gore spitting from Voldemort's neck is a lot thicker and a lot worse than Harry thought it would be. Harry jerks back, but he can't keep it from splattering his face. And then he does lose his precarious balance and tilt down.

But not before he sees two things.

One is Voldemort's head rolling like a Quaffle across the ground and fetching up against one of the tussocks of burned grass.

The other is the intense pride in Snape's eyes.

The aftermath of the battle is filled with lots of voices, most of which Harry doesn't listen to.

Dumbledore comes to sit by his bed in the hospital wing in silence, except to tell him that he never wished for Harry to become a killer. Harry assumes that was part of the reason Dumbledore wanted him to walk to his death as a Horcrux sacrifice, so that he wouldn't have to commit murder. But it's stupid, so Harry only stares at Dumbledore until he leaves.

Snape is the one who tells him that Dumbledore's poisoned hand is slowly causing his death, and it's unlikely Dumbledore will survive more than a few months. Harry shrugs. He honestly can't feel much about that.

Hermione and Neville and all the Weasleys show up to hug him and exclaim over him and, in a few cases, cry over him. Harry allows that, but when Hermione tries to tell him how reckless he was to go out to face Voldemort and an army of Inferi with only a phoenix for company, Harry stares at her until she leaves.

It turns out that the Wizarding Examinations Authority postponed the NEWTS because of the battle, which is a bit of good news. Members of the Ministry show up, too, to try and interview Harry, and also to make vague threats about the kind of spells he cast. But Harry has perfected a glare that threatens a lot without saying much, and in the end, they leave.

There are a lot of newspaper articles published. Harry ignores them. He does receive an owl from Rita Skeeter promising to pay him for the real story whenever he's ready to publish it. Harry grins. That's something to look forward to when he's passed his NEWTS and recovered from the bloody fucking magical exhaustion that's keeping him in bed right now.

Sirius and Remus come into the hospital wing. Harry receives real apologies this time, but he's not going to resume a happy-go-lucky relationship with them the way they want, and Remus at least is smart enough to know that. Harry stares at them until they leave, with Remus tugging Sirius out of the hospital wing.

He receives owl after owl: marriage proposals, people congratulating him and saying they knew he was the real Boy-Who-Lived all along, offers to go into business, writers telling him that they can write his authorized biography whenever he's "ready to cooperate," vague threats, old people clucking over the young people and their tendency to just dash out and face Dark Lords on a whim, and Ministry flunkies stating that he has a variety of jobs waiting for him after graduation. Harry burns all but the funniest ones.

Among the voices he has to listen to is Madam Pomfrey's, but she admits that, other than healing the shoulder Voldemort attacked with his insect swarm, there's not a lot she can do for him. She does keep him in the hospital wing for three days for magical exhaustion.

Snape comes into the hospital wing regularly to sit with him, but he almost never speaks, so Harry doesn't have to choose whether to listen to him or not.

It's two days after his NEWTS. Harry sits on the ground near the lake, stroking Fawkes's back. Fawkes was exhausted by the battle outside Hogwarts just as Harry was, and actually spent a week as an egg instead of a chick. Harry held his breath over whether he could come back, but he did, and now a tiny baby phoenix is asleep in a makeshift nest that Harry made out of strips of woven paper. Fawkes is too little even to burn them.

Footsteps sound behind him. Harry glances over his shoulder. Snape is standing there. He hesitates, and says, "May I sit with you?"

"It's a free lakeshore."

Snape still sits down a distance from him, and watches Harry out of the corner of his eye. Harry watches Fawkes, and the ripple of the waves coming to shore. It's a peaceful day, quiet and half-sunny. The clouds passing high overhead look as if they might drop some rain later, but not right now.

"Have you thought of what you're going to do after graduation?" Snape asks abruptly.

"I'm going back to the Leaky Cauldron for a while. I still have a free room there thanks to saving Tom's life. When the Death Eaters attacked Diagon Alley a couple years ago," Harry explains, when Snape cocks his head. "And then I'll look for a small flat. I can afford a house if I go in with several other people. I might stay at Longbottom Manor for a while, Neville's invited me."

"And your—future plans?"

"Watch my back for a while." Harry smiles without humor. The defeat of Voldemort has prompted the surrender of some Death Eaters, but not all of them. In particular, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy have vanished, and with them, Draco out of the Azkaban cell he'd been put in. Well, Harry already knew the Ministry was corrupt. "Continue on my path to become a spell-creator."

"If you would like any help…"

"I've been talking to Hermione. She says that you've been a surprisingly decent Potions instructor this year. But it was two years, Snape, that was the bargain. I won't deny the help you gave me this year, but it's not enough to forgive you or think of you as a father yet. Don't push me."

Snape only nods. He actually seems relieved. Harry remembers the man's confession that he would have been happy to have Lily Potter kill him. In a way, Snape is so self-loathing it probably reassures him to have this conditional stance Harry's taking to him, that he might earn forgiveness someday, but not any time soon.

What would he be, without his self-loathing?

Harry isn't sure. He's not sure that he will find out, if Snape reneges on his side of the bargain. On the other hand, maybe he won't. And the pride in the man's eyes when Harry took down Voldemort was a nice sop. It could be more than that, someday. Still, someday isn't today.

Harry might also be closer to Sirius and Remus someday, but not any time soon. He and Hermione might have a closer friendship than their current cool conversations that end the minute Hermione starts trying to tell him what he should do, but maybe not. He and Dumbledore might make peace before the man dies, but Harry doubts it.

On the other hand, "maybe" and "someday" involve lots of pleasant possibilities, as well. Harry might invent a spell that astonishes everybody and leaves more of a legacy in people's minds than him being the conqueror of Voldemort. He might find a really nice place to live and set up strong enough wards that he can lead a remotely normal life. He might find someone to marry, have children. He might travel the world and become a legend in other countries.

He might have a baby phoenix who goes with him.

Harry doesn't know. He refuses to cage all the possibilities in words.

Snape nods again, after a long moment. "If I can give you help, let me know." And he stands. Harry thinks he's going to walk straight back to the school, but he pauses.

The moments thunder past like heartbeats.

Snape says, in the most subdued voice Harry has ever heard from him, "If someday you would permit me to claim you as my son, I would be proud to do so."

He leaves. Harry looks out over the lake and smoothes the phoenix down beneath his fingertips.

He doesn't know what's going to happen.

Harry smiles. His life has been predetermined by so many things: prophecy, weird parents, people who thought they knew what was best for him.

It's kind of exciting to have no idea what comes next.

The End.