Author's Note: It has been more than ten years since I published the first two parts of this trilogy, so to say that this story is long overdue would be a massive understatement. I hope there are still a few readers out there who remember Thicker Than Blood and Adamant and Starlight well enough to care how the story ends. If you haven't read those stories, I recommend that you do before you tackle this one. It won't make much sense, otherwise.

PLEASE NOTE: I began this series before Order of the Phoenix was published, and I have kept it set in the Wizarding World as we knew it then. This means that Dumbledore, Sirius, Dobby, et al, are still alive; Fudge is still the Minister for Magic; Horcruxes and Hallows do not exist (or we've never heard of them at any rate); and so forth. I've borrowed locations and concepts from the later books, when they suited the story, but I have NOT rewritten them to include all the events in OotP, HBP or DH. Please keep this in mind as you read.

I hope you enjoy it!

— CorvetteClaire

Sacrifice

Hated and loved. Coveted and spurned.
The trophy all seek though none value it.
The spoils of war ere the battle is fought.
His is the sacrifice brings victory or death.
—The Centaurs' Portent

Prologue: Dreams

The day was searing hot. The sky had a hard, brittle quality to it that hurt the eyes, and the lake looked as if it were made of polished steel. Even the reflections of mountains and trees in the lake's burnished surface seemed sharp-edged and dangerous. Draco found himself strangely drawn to the water, tempted to break the mirrored stillness with his fingers, if only to watch the reflected mountains shatter and dance, and dispel the feeling that the entire world was paralyzed by the heat.

He sat beneath a huge tree, his back to the trunk and his legs stretched out toward the lake. In deference to the weather, he had put off his Hogwarts robe and wore his lightest, most comfortable street clothes, but he still felt disgustingly sticky and dirty, with his shirt glued to the skin between his shoulder blades and his hair clinging to his neck.

Draco hated the heat almost as much as he did the cold, hated being inconvenienced and uncomfortable, hated having to change his habits to suit the weather. This last week of soaring temperatures had shredded his temper, until no one in the castle dared get within ten feet of him for fear he might hex them. Not that most of the population of Hogwarts cared to get within wand's reach of him anyway. He was, after all, the foul and perverted spawn of a Death Eater, murderer, madman, and all-purpose pariah.

A small, bitter smile tilted his lips at that thought. Granger had once referred to him as the Prince of the Undead, a title that seemed the highest of compliments when compared to the things he was called now. Maybe he should take to leaping out of dark corners, teeth bared, when unwary children ventured too near him, just to pass the time and live down to his reputation. He had to find some way to alleviate his boredom, or he'd soon be as mad as Fudge and the Ministry claimed. He'd already completed the coursework he missed last term, taken his exams, and done extra work in Potions and Transfiguration. He'd even taken up Ancient Runes—for fun. How mental was that? And all because Harry was gone…

Clamping down hard on his wayward thoughts, he pushed Harry's image ruthlessly from his mind and pried a stone from the dirt beside him. A flick of his fingers, and the stone sailed far out across the lake to land with a muffled plunk in the water. It disappeared with barely a ripple, and the lake's surface fell still almost instantly, as if the weight of the superheated air above had ironed it flat.

Draco sighed and twitched his shoulders, rubbing his itching back against the tree trunk. That didn't help much, so he tried lifting his hair away from his neck, to get the air moving against his skin. All he accomplished was to snag the long strands in the bark of the tree.

"Sod it," he muttered. Letting his hair fall loose around his shoulders again, he settled into his former position and turned his eyes to the lake once more.

More than a month to go, he thought, fighting the tide of depression and resentment that rose in him. Less than a week 'til his birthday—and I still don't have a present for him—and then a whole, endless, dreary, hideous month in this dreary, hideous castle full of dreary hideous…

A soft but unmistakable click sounded from his left, and Draco jerked around with a snarl on his lips. "What the hell do you think you're… Oh." He instantly recognized the man standing a few yards away, holding a camera, and some of the tension drained from him. "Weasley."

Bill Weasley offered Draco his easy, charming smile and moved into his patch of shade, dropping to a crouch beside him.

"Do you always greet visitors with bared fangs?"

Draco relaxed a bit more, hazarded a half smile. "I heard the camera."

Bill Weasley looked down at the camera in his hands, surprised, then caught the meaning behind Draco's words and grinned ruefully. "I promise I won't sell it to The Quibbler." Settling onto the grass, he said, in his pleasant way, "I brought the camera back with me yesterday, and I've been taking pictures of everyone. As a kind of record, I suppose, in case… Well, in case anyone particularly wants to remember."

"You mean, in case half of us are dead by this time next year."

Bill eyed him with some amusement. "You do have a way of stopping a conversation in its tracks, don't you?"

"I'm out of practice, I suppose." Draco almost added that the rats in the Slytherin dungeon were not the best of company, but he decided that would sound too much like a bid for sympathy, and his skin fairly crawled at the thought. He looked away, discomfited by the eyes watching him so intently.

"Hm." Bill followed the direction of Draco's gaze out toward the lake, and he contemplated it in silence for a moment. Then he said, quietly, "It must be hard, facing all these people without Harry to back you up."

Draco's lips tightened, as the old, festering resentment surged up in him again. It was with an extreme effort that he kept his voice even when he answered, "At least one of us is well out of it."

"He'll be back soon."

The matter-of-fact way he said it did not hide the warmth and sympathy in Bill's voice, and Draco found it suddenly difficult to swallow around the ache in his throat.

"More than a month," he muttered. Less than a week 'til his birthday, and I don't have a present. Pain washed through him, a pain that had as much to do with his own sense of failure as it did with loneliness. He, the last of the Malfoys, the spoiled rich brat who had paraded his parents' money before the eyes of his classmates and bought what he couldn't earn, could not find a silver Sickle to buy his boyfriend a gift. He had spent years deriding the Weasleys for their poverty, and now he would have to ask Ron for the money to buy Harry's birthday present. And Bill Weasley—tall, handsome, utterly cool Bill Weasley—was looking at him with pity.

The ache in his throat turned sour, and he suddenly wished Bill, with all his kindness and understanding, at the devil.

Whether Bill picked up on the shift in his mood, or simply decided that they had nothing left to say to each other, he rose to his feet and brushed the dirt from the seat of his well-cut trousers. "See you around, Malfoy."

He turned to leave, his camera swinging from its strap directly in front of Draco's eyes. Draco watched it for a startled moment, as an idea burst like a Wild-Fire Whiz-Bang in his head, then he blurted out, "Weasley!"

Bill halted and turned a look of mild inquiry on him.

"Do you think I could have a copy of that picture?"

"The one of you?"

Draco flushed slightly at the amusement in his tone and nodded. "For Harry."

"Of course. Come to tea on Tuesday, and I'll have it for you then."

"Where?"

"The Gryffindor common room."

"Gryffindor tower? Isn't that where your whole family is staying?" Bill nodded. "You want me to have tea with your mother? Are you mad?"

Bill laughed and started up the hill toward the castle again, calling over his shoulder as he went, "Don't worry. I won't let Mum hurt you!"

Draco yelled helplessly after him, "I am not having tea with your mother!" But Bill paid him no mind, and Draco was left to stew in frustration at the reckless, suicidal stupidity of Weasleys as a breed, and this Weasley in particular.

When Draco awoke early on Wednesday morning, he did not immediately recall what day it was. He thought only of the headache pounding behind his eyes and the sea of hostile faces he would have to confront if he wanted breakfast. For one craven moment, he considered staying in the dungeon and doing without food. He had the dormitory to himself, since Crabbe had either left early or not come home at all last night, and it was cooler down here than in the main part of the castle. There were worse places to hide from the world than in his own bed.

Then a little voice in the back of his head—the one that soured each morning by reminding him how many days remained of this ghastly summer—whispered, It's the 30th. The thirtieth! Draco sprang upright, his headache forgotten, and reached for his watch where it lay on the shelf beside the bed. He popped it open and glanced at the stars circling the ornate, gem-studded face. Sure enough, the voice in his head was right. Tomorrow was Harry's birthday.

He snapped the watch shut, tossed it carelessly onto the shelf, and scrambled out of bed. Kneeling beside his trunk, he shifted aside a stack of neatly-folded shirts to find a shining object lying on the black velvet of his dress robes. It was a small photograph in a silver frame, a picture of Draco seated under a tree by the lake, staring out at the water, his face distant and sad. He lifted the picture out of its hiding place and carried it to the bed, studying it doubtfully.

Not being a man troubled with false modesty, Draco did not worry that the picture wasn't good enough. Harry would think it beautiful, in spite of the snarls in his hair and the sweat stains on his shirt. No, it was not the face itself that worried him, but the emotions so clearly reflected in it, like the mountains in the lake beyond. He had thought himself alone as he sat beside the water and brooded on his loneliness, had not dreamed that another person, let alone a camera, was watching him. And in that moment when the shutter clicked, his painfully private thoughts had lain much too near the surface, unguarded, uncensored, and now caught for anyone to see. It made Draco squirm just to look at it. He wanted to tell the Draco in the picture to pull himself together, comb his hair, and smile nicely for Harry when he opened the package.

Harry would love it. He would recognize this Draco instantly, and his eyes would glow with that strange, frightening, fascinating light meant only for his love. Except that Draco—the real one, not the one trapped inside silver and glass—wouldn't be there to see it.

Anger, sadness and longing knotted in his throat, closing it up tight. He set the picture firmly aside and pulled writing materials from the shelf beside the bed. The note took him only a minute to compose. It looked pitifully short when it was done, but he could think of nothing else to say that was safe.

Happy Birthday, Harry. The present may not look like much, but I risked my life to get it. Now haul your seventeen-year-old arse back here, before I decide you weren't worth the trouble. —Draco

A tap of his wand turned a sheet of parchment into glittering silver and blue paper. Another tap, and the length of string unearthed from his trunk became tinsel ribbon. As he wrapped the picture carefully, tucking the note inside, Draco reflected that his extra studies in Transfiguration were coming in handy. Not only had he managed fancy trimmings for Harry's gift, but the frame itself was a product of much labor under McGonagall's gimlet eye.

He dressed quickly, with a good deal less care than usual, and snatched up the package as he strode out of the room. The common room was deserted. So were the dungeon passages, and Draco breathed a small, cowardly sigh of relief that he would not have to face any questions about his destination or the brightly-wrapped present he carried. He took the stairs up from the dungeon two at a time and nearly ran across the entry hall, urged to greater speed by the hum of voices emanating from the Great Hall. Breakfast was in full swing, the Hall packed with people who would positively seethe with fury at the idea that he, Draco Malfoy, was sending a birthday present to Harry Potter.

"Oi! Ferret!"

Draco froze with one foot on the lowest step of the main staircase and turned to see Ron Weasley slipping out of the Hall in a decidedly furtive manner.

"Where are you skulking off to?"

Draco did not bother to give an answer, as Ron clearly expected none. The Gryffindor loped across the marble floor, his long legs covering the distance in half the time it had taken Draco, then took the first three steps in a single stride. "I heard about tea with Mum," he remarked, as the two boys climbed the stairs to the first floor.

"The whole castle heard," Draco said dryly.

Ron laughed. "You asked for it, you bloody great prat. You know how my mum feels about you and Harry."

"I didn't ask for it!" Draco protested, stung out of his usual composure. "I didn't want to get within a mile of your mother, much less drink tea with her! It was your idiot brother's idea!"

"Bill?" Ron looked curiously at him. "I thought you liked Bill."

"I did—or tolerated him, anyway, which is the best I can manage with you Weasleys—until he held Harry's birthday present hostage."

Ron's laughing gaze shifted down to the neat package in Draco's hand, then he fumbled in the pocket of his robe and pulled out a large, lumpy, rather bedraggled parcel of his own. "I meant to ask you if your owl could handle this, as well. It would crush Pigwidgeon."

Draco eyed the disreputable object with disdain. "What is that thing?"

"None of your business, Ferret-face. Do I ask what you write in all those love notes you send to Harry?"

Draco grinned wickedly at him. "Go on. Ask."

"Not bloody likely!"

They had reached the end of a long, echoing corridor on the first floor and now started up the winding stair that climbed the West Tower to the owlery, Ron taking the lead.

"It's not easy to buy presents for the Hero Who Has Everything, including a pile of Galleons," Ron said. "I thought about red tights, like the superheroes in Muggle comics wear, but I didn't think you would fancy those much. So you see, Ferret, I do look out for you."

Draco grunted a sour reply and lengthened his stride to keep up with Ron.

"I looked all over Diagon Alley for just the right present and finally raided Fred and George's shop. I figured that Harry could use a laugh, in between rescue missions and battles to the death." Hefting the bulging package, he added, with a grin, "There's enough contraband in here to keep Filch howling for a month or get Harry expelled."

"You would do that to me, wouldn't you? Revenge for years of insults?"

Ron looked startled at that, turning to stare at Draco over his shoulder and slowing his ascent. "Revenge?"

"Harry gets kicked out of school, I'm stuck here with you lot, and one night I disappear quietly from the dungeons, no questions asked, no search for the remains. Very neat."

"Oh, honestly!"

Draco checked in surprise, then broke out in a wide grin. "That sounded frighteningly like Granger."

"Be glad she's having an influence on me. Otherwise, I'd pound you just for being a git." As they both resumed climbing, the owlery now close enough that they could smell it, Ron went on easily, "You can't seriously think that Dumbledore would allow Harry to leave Hogwarts or, if he did, that Harry would go without you."

"Maybe you're right about Dumbledore, but you forget that I can't leave the castle, with or without Harry." He smiled crookedly, his bitterness leaking through the elegant mask he always wore. "I'm a dangerous criminal, remember? A homicidal lunatic who can't be trusted in civilized society."

Ron snorted with laughter. "The wonder is that it took them sixteen years to figure it out. I've known since the first time I laid eyes on your ugly face."

Malfoy simply grunted at this familiar taunt and stepped through the high doorway, onto the floor of the owlery.

He looked up and around, peering through the bars of sunlight and shade for a glimpse of his owl. The early morning sun poured through the eastern window, broken by innumerable perches and hunched, feathered bodies, to paint sharp angles of brightness on the littered floor. The smell of damp straw, dusty feathers, owl droppings and forgotten mouse-corpses was nearly overwhelming, but both boys were so used to it that they barely noticed.

His eagle owl was not visible from his place by the door, so he ventured carefully into the room, whistling a familiar signal. Birds stirred above him, clicking their beaks in annoyance, but one sleek body lifted from its perch and soared down to him. The bird alit on his lifted arm. Draco made a clicking noise very much like the ones the birds had made at his intrusion, and the owl stretched out to touch his lips with its beak.

Ron eyed the oversized bird, with its hard orange eyes and wicked beak, dubiously. "Aren't you afraid it'll rip your face off?"

"She could, if she chose," Draco answered, tickling the owl's breast with one finger, "but we have an understanding."

"She rips your face off, you rip her wings off?"

"That's it. A bond of mutual respect."

Draco carried the owl to the nearest window sill and set her on the rough stone, gouged by countless taloned feet over the centuries. He produced a length of string from his pocket and began to tie the brightly-wrapped present to the owl's outstretched leg. Ron untangled his own bit of string from the snarl of junk in his pocket, keeping a cautious distance from the eagle owl's sharp beak. When Draco had finished with his own package, Ron handed him the much larger one and watched as he fastened it to the bird's other leg.

"What's her name?"

"Xenobia."

Ron gave a snort of laughter.

"Xenobia was a Palmyran Queen," Draco informed him, reprovingly, "a terrifying woman who enslaved whole tribes, conquered Egypt, and beheaded a Roman prefect. I always admired her tremendously."

"Sounds lovely. Was she a witch?"

"No one is quite sure. She's mentioned in both Wizardry in the Ancient World and Nature's Nobility as a probable ancestor of modern wizards, but there are no records from that far back. My father believed the Malfoy's were descended from her—half-Roman children she had while in captivity."

Ron shook his head in mingled admiration and disgust. "You Malfoys are a pack of loonies."

"You are not alone in that opinion." Draco leaned over to click at Xenobia again, earning him another affectionate touch with her beak. "These are for Harry," he murmured. "Find him by midnight, so he has them for his birthday."

The owl uttered an imperious hoot and launched herself from the window ledge. Her great wings—half again as long as those of the contemptible lesser creatures in the owlery—spread and lifted her effortlessly into the crystalline sky. Draco watched her, his face settling unconsciously into lines of sadness. When he could no longer see her dark silhouette against the pristine blue, he turned to find Ron standing quietly behind him.

The Gryffindor looked at him with something that, in another person, might have been sympathy. "Let's get down to the Hall before they clear away breakfast."

Draco shook his head and started for the door without looking at the other boy. "I'll raid the kitchen later. Dobby will find something for me."

Ron didn't argue. He knew as well as Draco did that no one in the Great Hall would be sorry if he chose to avoid a public meal. Except perhaps McGonagall and Dumbledore, both of whom had developed a surprising affection for Malfoy, strongly laced with protectiveness. Chances were that McGonagall would be summoning him to her office by midday to find out why he had not come to breakfast and what he thought he was doing, starving himself in this melodramatic way. Draco almost smiled at the thought, but not quite.

With a silent, weary sigh, he squared his shoulders and stepped through the owlery door to face yet another day as a pariah.

Draco awoke early the next morning, his head pounding and his eyes gritty with exhaustion. He had lain awake most of the night, staring at the green and silver curtains that walled him in, thinking of Harry and his delight when he received his birthday presents. When he had finally drifted off to sleep, he had tumbled almost at once into a familiar dream.

He lay upon the ground, his body twisted into the grotesque shape of death, filled with cold, piercing pain. All around him lay the blasted remains of his classmates, his teachers, his friends… except that Draco Malfoy had no friends, and even the dead seemed to draw away from him in revulsion. He was alone in the darkness.

Footsteps paced slowly, calmly through the devastation, drawing ever closer. A robe brushed his hand, and Draco looked up at the figure towering above him.

Unruly hair whipping in the wind. Glasses catching the fitful moonlight. A Gryffindor badge showing gold and scarlet upon the breast of a black robe.

The figure scanned the horizon ceaselessly, turning this way and that, wand raised, not deigning to notice the scattered bodies at his feet. Draco tried to reach for him, to catch the hem of the robe that still touched his fingers, but he could not move. His throat worked. Blood spilled, hot and bitter, from his mouth. The dark shape above him moved, drawing away, and a panic more terrible than any pain flooded him.

"Harry!" he cried, his voice an ugly croak in the darkness. "Harry, I'm here!"

The figure paused and turned. A familiar face gazed at him from beneath the messy black hair, from behind the crooked round glasses. His father's face.

"Father!" he gasped, as much in pleading as in fear.

No hint of recognition touched the man's features. No flicker of emotion showed in his eyes. He gazed implacably at the dying boy at his feet. Draco met his empty eyes and screamed, flinging the last of his strength into the futile cry. His father turned and strode away, leaving Draco once more alone with the dead.

He lay in the ever-thickening darkness, listening to his own strangled weeping, while the tears froze on his cheeks and frosted his lashes, knowing that it would never end.

When he awoke, numb with mingled cold and fear, he was grateful for the coming of morning, grateful for the stuffy warmth of his bed behind the green and silver curtains and for the heat of the day penetrating even to this isolated dungeon. It took him some minutes to ascertain that his blood was circulating properly and his limbs were functional—that he was not slowly freezing to death upon some blasted plain—then he crawled from beneath the blankets and dragged himself off to the Prefects bathroom for a long soak.

Vincent Crabbe was seated at the Slytherin table when he entered the Great Hall, and he offered Draco a nod of greeting. Draco settled onto the bench beside him, experiencing another surge of gratitude for the absence of Crabbe's disapproving girlfriend—a Hufflepuff named Maude who always looked at Draco as if he smelled bad—and for the fragrant heat of the coffee before him. He drank down one large cup without taking time to taste it, then poured another to nurse through his breakfast. He was not particularly hungry, but he needed hot food in his stomach.

He was halfway through a plate of eggs and fried potatoes when Ron Weasley dropped into the seat opposite him. Crabbe eyed the intruder from behind his most impenetrable Idiot Face, then nodded.

"Crabbe," Weasley said by way of greeting. He groaned and snatched a piece of toast from the nearest rack, stuffing it ravenously into his mouth, as if that one morsel of bread was all that stood between him and starvation. Then he turned his attention to Malfoy and said, through a spray of crumbs, "Up for some Quidditch practice this morning, before it gets too hot?"

Draco shrugged coolly. "Maybe."

"Well, don't die of excitement!"

Draco knew he had offended Ron—the closest thing to a friend he had these days—and he was sorry for it, but he could not bring himself to plan out a day of Quidditch and Transfiguration exercises. Not if there was even the slightest chance that Harry was on his way back to Hogwarts today. It was, after all, Harry's seventeenth birthday and the day he became a legal adult. Master of his own fate.

He had just opened his mouth to explain his dismissive attitude, when a large, feathered body came swooping over his head and landed with a thunk on the table. Draco grabbed his coffee cup before Xenobia's wing swept it into his lap. The owl stood across his breakfast plate from him, holding out her leg for his inspection.

Ron spotted the two scrolls tied to the bird's leg, one of which bore his own name, and gave a whoop of delight. "That's one fast owl you've got, Ferret! She must have flown all night without a rest!"

Xenobia bestowed an approving glance upon him and graciously allowed him to take the letters. She then accepted a piece of bacon rind offered by the Gryffindor and proceeded to rip it into bite-sized pieces with her cruel beak. Draco took the scroll Ron held out to him and stared at his name written across it in Harry's familiar scrawl.

Without a word, Draco climbed over the bench and started for the door, fighting to keep his face impassive and his eagerness in check. Every eye in the room was fixed avidly on him as he stepped through the doors into the relative privacy of the entry hall, and a babble of voices rose behind him, almost washing him from the room on the tide of noise. He turned sharply to one side, to put solid stone at his back, and broke the seal on the scroll.

It was a single piece of parchment that bore only a few lines of script.

Draco,

Thank you. It's beautiful, and I love it. Love you. I can't come home or write to you for a while. Owls aren't safe. But Dumbledore promised he'd tell you where I am when he gets back to Hogwarts.

Please don't be angry.

Love, Harry

"Malfoy?"

Draco recognized Ron's voice calling him from inside the Hall, and his insides turned over painfully. Pushing himself away from the support of the wall, he started across the entry hall toward the dungeon stairs. Weasley came out of the doors behind him, saying something about Quidditch, but Draco ignored him. He was nearly running when he reached the stairs and plunged down into the sheltering darkness. The dungeons swallowed him up, and he was back where he belonged. Safe. Alone.

September 1st

It was full dark and bitterly cold when the train pulled into Hogsmeade station. Harry was up out of his seat and pushing into the corridor before the carriage had shuddered to a halt. He did not wait for his friends, scrambling to collect their belongings from the corners of the compartment, or spare a glance for the students already queueing up in the corridor. All his attention was focused on getting out of this train, up to the castle, and home.

Home. He had once thought of Hogwarts as his true home, but now he knew better. It was not stone walls or talking portraits that held his heart. It was a slender, cold, bright-haired boy whose beauty left him breathless and whose passion sent him reeling. Draco Malfoy was all the home he needed, all the happiness his soul craved. Draco, who never spoke the word love or admitted to any feeling stronger than a desire to beat Harry at Quidditch, but whose love for Harry was so enormous and powerful that it consumed them both, filling Harry with silver-gilt fire and calling up his own wizarding power in a golden flood that he could not contain.

Impatient for his first glimpse of home, Harry peered out the window and saw, not castle lights shining from across the lake as he'd hoped, but a veritable sea of pointed hats, lanterns and lit wands massed on the station platform. They stood in clumps and milled about, like potion simmering in a cauldron.

"Blimey!" he blurted out. "It looks like half the wizards in Britain are out there!"

Hermione, who stood close behind him in the queue, cupped a hand against the glass to get a look at the scene outside. "I suppose all the families that spent the summer in the castle are riding back to London tonight. They can't stay in the castle now that the term's started, can they?"

Harry grunted a wordless assent, his eyes now searching the crowd for a telltale ginger head among the throng. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had spent the summer at Hogwarts with their under-aged children, which meant that they should be out there, right now, waiting to board the train. Harry had missed Ron and Ginny, especially on the long ride up from London—the Hogwarts Express felt empty and unfriendly without them—but he simply could not face Mrs. Weasley's hurt and anger tonight. Not with Draco in reach, at last.

He could not see any sign of them on the platform, and he was just daring to hope that he'd get clean away, when he stepped off the train and heard Ron hail him.

"Harry! Over here!"

Harry turned to see his best friend, who now stood head and shoulders above most of the crowd, waving to him. Hermione climbed down from the train and joined him as Ron pushed his way up to them.

"Good to see you, mate," he said with a grin. "Mum sent me to fetch you. She won't leave 'til she's seen with her own eyes that you're here in one piece. Come on."

He tugged on Harry's sleeve and started back into the sea of dark-robed bodies.

"What are you doing here, Ron?" Hermione asked, as they dodged a group of somber adults with their heads together. "I thought you were supposed to stay on the grounds, where it's safe."

"Mum insisted, and Dumbledore said we could see our families off. Ginny and I didn't ask; we just got in the carriage quick, before he changed his mind."

Harry started at this and shot an eager look around him, hunting for a gleam of torchlight on pale hair.

"Forget it, Harry," Ron said, dryly, "he's not here."

"If Dumbledore thought it was safe for you lot to come…" Harry began, but Ron cut him off with a humorless chuckle.

"He hasn't let the Ferret stick so much as a bleach-blond whisker through the wards all summer."

Harry bit off his response when he saw the rest of the Weasley clan bearing down on them. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley surged forward to meet him, Bill and Ginny right behind them, and Harry was engulfed in loud, affectionate greetings that left no room for embarrassment. Mrs. Weasley hugged him, while Mr. Weasley shook his hand and Bill grinned at him over his parents' heads.

The greetings done, Mrs. Weasley looked searchingly up into Harry's face and said, "You're so thin, Harry dear. Don't those Muggles feed you?"

Harry grinned. "Not much. But Sirius has been fattening me up for the last month."

Mrs. Weasley shook her head in dismay. "Dumbledore should have kept you here, where Arthur and I could look after you."

"But Mum," Ron interjected artlessly, "didn't you say you were glad he was well away from Malfoy?"

Mrs. Weasley's cheeks flamed a red so bright that it was visible in the lamplight, and Hermione uttered a muffled squeak of outrage. Harry wished that he could duck into the crowd to avoid the eyes of the entire Weasley family now turned on him. Leave it to his best mate to throw Draco's name into the conversation, just to see how much trouble he could cause.

"I'm sure Dumbledore had his reasons for keeping Harry away from the castle," Bill said, in a soothing way.

"Yeah, to keep Mum from murdering Draco. One look at Harry making cow's eyes at a Slytherin would've sent her over the…"

"Ron, will you shut up?" Hermione hissed.

"Don't bother, Hermione," Ginny said, rolling her eyes at her brother. "Tormenting Mum is his new hobby. The only person who can stop him is Malfoy, because he isn't afraid to hex the stupid git."

Harry turned an appalled look on Ginny, as the truly terrifying vision of Draco hexing Ron in front of his apoplectic mother took shape before his eyes. "Are you serious?"

"Absolutely. Ron has been at it all summer."

"Don't listen to her," Ron interjected. "He only hexed me once. No… twice. And they were little ones."

"The second time, I had to get Flitwick to unglue you, or you would've been stuck there all night."

"Unglue?"

Bill laughed aloud, earning him a furious glare from his mother. "I'll wager Malfoy never learned that spell in Charms class. It was brilliant."

"I'm surprised at you, Bill," Mrs. Weasley said, a trifle shrilly, "encouraging the use of Dark Magic on your own brother!"

"Dark Magic? Don't you think that's going a bit far? All he did was glue Ron to a wall, which was no more than he deserved."

Mrs. Weasley flushed still more brightly and pressed her lips together.

"Give it up, Mum," Ron advised, grinning. "You're wasting your breath, and we have to get up to the castle. You wouldn't want Harry to miss another meal, would you? Poor, starving Harry?"

Still wearing her rigid, angry face, Mrs. Weasley pulled her son's head down by one ear and planted a kiss on his cheek. She bid a somewhat warmer farewell to Hermione and Ginny, while Mr. Weasley and Bill shook hands all around, then she turned on Harry. Her expression melted into doting fondness, and her eyes shone brightly in the torchlight. Taking Harry's face between her hands, she kissed him soundly.

"You take care of yourself, Harry."

"I'll be all right, Mrs. Weasley."

"Well, you'll be safe in Hogwarts, at least. That's my comfort. Oh, Harry!" She pulled him into another enveloping hug. "All I want is for you to be safe and happy. You believe that, don't you, my dear?"

"Yes." He looked down into her lined, tired, kindly face and felt a wave of affection rise in him, blurring the memory of all the bitter words spoken between them and allowing him to smile at her with genuine warmth. "I'm doing my best to make that happen. For all of us."

She gazed intently up at him for a long moment, still holding his face between her hands, then she nodded and stepped back. Harry gave them all a final, distracted smile and headed off into the crowd with his friends.

They reached the line of coaches, where they found Luna Lovegood gazing blandly at the thestrals, oblivious to Neville's attempts to get her moving. Ginny joined him and together they swept Luna into one coach, while Ron, Hermione and Harry climbed into another. Harry settled into the corner of one seat and turned his eyes to the window, trying not to see the besotted looks Ron and Hermione kept giving each other. He knew exactly how they felt and wished he could give them the privacy they clearly craved. His own mouth was dry with excitement, his stomach doing painful somersaults. Slipping his hand into his pocket, he closed it tightly around the framed picture that lay there, holding onto it like a lifeline.

So close. He was so close! Only minutes, now, and he would be at the castle doors… on the steps… inside the Great Hall, seated at the Gryffindor table, staring across the room at one white-blond head among the mass of hostile Slytherins…

"Relax, Harry," Ron said unexpectedly, jolting him out of his state of seething anticipation and bringing his head around with a snap. "We're almost there."

Trying very hard to smile, Harry asked, "How was it this summer, really, with Draco and your mum in the same castle?"

"Not so bad, until Bill took a fancy to Malfoy and invited him to tea." He rolled his eyes dramatically. "I've never heard her scream so loud, even when she sent me that Howler after the flying car incident. Poor Bill."

"Poor Bill?" Harry demanded, outraged. "What about Draco?"

"Oh, she didn't start in 'til he'd left. But he probably heard her shouting all the way down in the dungeon."

For some reason he did not care to examine, the notion of Bill inviting Draco to tea irritated Harry, and he couldn't find it in him to feel sorry for any abuse Mrs. Weasley had meted out to him. "Well, it serves Bill right," he grumbled, knowing he was being unfair even as he said it. "It was a bloody stupid thing to do."

Both Ron and Hermione looked startled by his reaction, and Hermione said, "I'm sure he was only trying to smooth things over with Mrs. Weasley."

"He should've kept his nose out of it."

The light dawned on Ron, and he broke out in a huge grin. "You're jealous of Bill!"

"I am not!" Harry protested, even as his angry flush betrayed him.

"You think he fancies your ferret."

"Draco is not my ferret, and I know perfectly well that…" But Ron was laughing so hard that Harry saw no point in pressing his point and resorted to glaring daggers at him.

Hermione looked from one to the other, obviously puzzled. "I thought Bill was engaged to Fleur Delacour."

"He is." Ron sucked in a steadying breath and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "Of course, Malfoy looks a lot like Fleur, so maybe he can't tell the difference…"

"That isn't funny," Hermione informed him, severely. "If you've been making jokes like that all summer, it's no wonder Malfoy glued you to a wall."

Luckily for Harry's frayed temper, at that very moment the coach ground to a halt at the foot of the castle steps. He climbed out quickly, not waiting for the others, and joined the queue of students headed up toward the enormous front doors. Those nearest him turned to stare, as people always did these days, and a few waved or called greetings, but Harry had little attention to spare for either the friends or the gawkers. The warm glow of candlelight spilling into the night beckoned him, urging him to hurry.

Up the stone steps to the oaken doors he went, barely containing his impatience at the slowness with which the black-robed figures moved. He did not allow himself to search the crowd for a telltale glint of silver-gilt, sure that Draco was already seated at the Slytherin table where Harry could not get near him. Pride and eagerness kept his eyes glued to the head of the line, where it passed through the doors to the Great Hall and broke into a flood of hurrying, laughing children.

So intent was he upon reaching the Hall that he did not notice the tiny ball of feathers swooping above his head until it uttered a shrill cry to get his attention. He glanced up, startled, to see Pigwidgeon hovering just out of reach, a scrap of parchment in his claws. When he saw Harry's upturned face, he chittered wildly and let the fragment of paper fall. Harry instinctively snatched it out of the air, even as the miniature owl gave another piercing cry and broke into a series of acrobatic stunts that had the entire entrance hall full of students laughing.

"Oi! Pig!" Ron bellowed, "Get out of it, you little, feathered git!"

Ignoring Ron, Pigwidgeon, and the chaos they were causing, Harry turned the piece of parchment into the light of the nearest torch and read, I'm stargazing. Care to join me? —D

Harry's heart slammed painfully against his ribs, and he nearly laughed aloud as he stuffed the note into his pocket and turned at once for the main stairway.

Behind him, Hermione called, "Harry, where are you going? You're going to miss the Sorting!"

"I'll meet the new Gryffindors later," he said, tossing her a smile with no hint of apology in it.

"But the feast…"

"Oh, leave it, Hermione. I don't think he's hungry," Ron chided.

"But…"

Harry just waved to them both, as he reached the stairs and bounded up them two at a time. Ernie MacMillan shouted something after him that he did not hear, and Nearly-Headless Nick asked where he was off to in such a hurry. A group of Ravenclaws, about to enter the Great Hall, hung back to watch his precipitous departure and smirked knowingly at each other. Harry pretended not to notice any of it, but he could not quite smother a sigh of relief as he turned a corner and moved out of sight of the students in the entry hall.

With a low, breathless laugh, he took off running down the deserted corridor, headed for the nearest hidden stair and the North Tower. Five minutes later, panting and flushed with triumph, he burst into the small, bare, circular room at the top of the tower and saw the trapdoor open above him. A square of perfect, velvet-black sky, ablaze with stars, was framed in the opening. Stars of adamant.

Draco's stars.

Harry bounded up the ladder and stuck his head through the open trap. His gaze swept the rooftop, lighting at once upon the shadowy figure perched on the crenellated parapet. A euphoric grin spread over his face, and he leapt up the last two rungs, onto the roof.

"Draco!"

At the sound of Harry's voice, Draco turned his head, his pale hair glinting in the moonlight, and unfolded himself from his seat. He moved like a living shadow, a piece of the magical night, frosted with cold brilliance, staggeringly beautiful. Harry covered the distance in three long strides, reaching Draco just as he came to his feet in the middle of a large rug, a puddle of Slytherin green spread over the harsh stone.

They halted less than a handspan apart, not touching but so close that Harry fancied he could hear Draco's heart beating over the frantic racing of his own pulse.

"Draco." Harry took a moment to absorb the physical impact of the other boy's beauty, so devastating from such close range, then he reached up to catch a strand of hair that was blowing into his eyes. "I got your note."

"You have a true gift for stating the obvious."

His voice was dry and taunting, his words sardonic, but Harry was not fooled for an instant. A blazing smile broke over his face. He opened his hand to cradle Draco's cheek, his thumb brushing the ragged, silver-white scar that marked it, and Draco's lashes fell as he unconsciously warmed under Harry's caress.

When Harry spoke again, his tone had softened into a murmur. "Still mad, huh?"

"Furious."

"Yeah." He bent his head—less than before; Draco had grown a few inches over the summer—and touched his mouth to the other boy's. "So… are you going to hex me?"

"That would be my second choice," Draco breathed, his eyes narrowed to gleaming, grey slits and his head tilted back against the support of Harry's hand.

Harry smiled his triumph as he drew his Slytherin love into his arms and up to meet his lips. The kiss burned through them both like a curse. Power blossomed in the darkness, flowing between and around them, forming a net of intertwined gold and silver strands that wrapped them in a cocoon of light and heat. Their outlines blurred as their bodies seemed to melt together under the influence of their combined power. For one blissful second, Harry could swear that his feet left the ground, freed from stone and earth and the very laws of nature by the sheer magnitude of their shared happiness.

By the time Harry broke the long kiss, allowing the web of power to fade, the two boys lay tangled together on the Slytherin green blanket, their clothing banished and the shimmering bubble of a warming spell enclosing them. He lifted his head to gaze down at the boy pinned beneath him, and his heart swelled in his chest, choking off his breath.

"What's wrong?" Draco asked softly.

Harry just shook his head, unable to speak in that aching, ecstatic moment. Then adamant fingers touched his cheek, lightly, hesitantly, and the voice he loved best in all the world came in a whisper from the darkness.

"I've missed you, Harry. I'm not mad you stayed away. Not really. It was just so hard being here alone."

The lump in his throat burst, flooding Harry with love and a longing so intense it felt more like pain. He wanted to weep for joy, but that seemed foolish, and he knew it would worry Draco. So instead, he turned to press his lips into the other boy's crystalline palm and whispered, "I know. You didn't fool me for a minute."

Draco laughed, and Harry could have sworn he heard an edge of tears in the sound, but he knew better than to call him on it. "Why did you stop?"

"I just needed to look at you."

"Prat." The word was a caress, and it brought a sob of happiness up in Harry's throat. "Have you done enough looking?"

"For now." With that, he sank down into another flaming kiss, and this time he didn't stop.

Harry lay against a heap of pillows, wrapped in green blankets, with a familiar body resting against his and sleek limbs tangled with his own. The position of the stars blazing overhead told him that it was late, but he didn't care. He had no intention of leaving the tower until the sun rose, even if it meant coming in late and unwashed to breakfast on his first day back at Hogwarts. Nothing short of a Death Eater attack would separate him from Draco before morning. He also felt no desire to sleep, not wanting to miss a single second of this night.

The head resting on his shoulder stirred, and the arm lying across his waist tightened its hold. A moment later, Draco lifted his head and propped his chin on Harry's chest, gazing sleepily at him through a tangle of loose hair.

"Feel better?" Harry asked.

"Mm. How long was I asleep?"

"An hour or so."

With another throaty, wordless noise of contentment, Draco snuggled his head into Harry's shoulder again and closed his eyes.

"You know, I'll get complexes if you keep falling asleep like that. It doesn't say much for my skill as a lover."

"You're wearing me out."

Harry chuckled. "Have some supper. It'll revive you."

Draco cracked open an eye to glance at the baskets of food provided by Dobby as a substitute for the Sorting Feast—cold meat pie, bread, cheese, treacle tart and pumpkin juice. Harry had already eaten most of it, leaving enough to sustain Draco only because he didn't want his partner dying of starvation at an awkward moment. Uttering a dismissive grunt, Draco closed his eyes again.

"Come on, Draco, don't fall asleep on me."

"I'm tired. I haven't been sleeping properly since you left," Draco murmured.

Harry digested that for a moment, then asked softly, "Bad dreams?"

"Sometimes."

Harry fingered his hair lightly, lovingly. "I dreamed of you every night. Wonderful dreams. But then I'd wake up, and you weren't there."

"I dreamed of dying alone in the cold."

Harry felt a pang of sorrow and anger go through him, sharpening his voice. "That isn't going to happen."

"So you've mastered Divination now, have you?"

"I don't need to see the future. I know that you won't be cold or alone if I'm with you, and I will be, no matter what."

"Prat," Draco said sleepily.

"I'm seventeen, an adult," Harry insisted, trying to project his own certainty into the other boy. "I make my own choices, and I choose to stay with you."

"Completely ignoring such minor obstacles as the war and the Wizengamot."

"What does the Wizengamot have to do with us?"

"They declared me insane and handed me over to Dumbledore, remember?"

"But that was only for your protection!"

Draco lifted his head to fix scornful eyes on Harry's face, and he gave a short, sour laugh. "You can't honestly believe that Cornelius Fudge wants to protect me."

"Not Fudge, but the rest of them…"

"As long as he claims I'm still dangerous, Fudge can keep me shut up in Hogwarts and spread whatever stories he likes about me and my family. There is no way he's going to relinquish that kind of power over me or set me free to pollute the rest of the wizarding world. He'll keep the Wizengamot in line."

Harry opened his mouth to protest, but Draco cut him off. Dropping his head to rest on Harry's shoulder once more, he murmured, "There's no place for me to go, anyway."

Harry held Draco in silence, while an overwhelming protectiveness filled him, bringing a painful lump to his throat. He had thought that their private troubles were over, now that they were together and of an age to decide their own fates. The last thing he had expected was to find Draco still trapped in the nightmare of his father's death and his own brush with madness. How could he free Draco from Fudge's control without sparking a war of his own, fought against wizards who were supposed to be his friends and allies? He could not, at least not yet, which left him with only one choice.

"I'll stay here with you," he blurted out suddenly. "If you can't leave, then neither will I."

"That's hardly practical. There's a war on, or had you forgotten? And you're the Boy Who Lived, the bloody savior of the wizarding world."

"Not anymore. Let Fudge fight the war. If he's so keen to hang onto his power and position, let him take care of Voldemort!"

"And when Voldemort brings the war to you?"

Harry shuddered and tightened his hold on Draco, as if he could ward off the threat of suffering and death with his gangly, skinny, teenaged arms. "Then we'll fight him together, and whatever happens, we won't have to face it alone."

Draco said nothing to this for a long, quiet minute. He traced one glittering, crystalline finger down Harry's breastbone and along the curve of a rib. Harry squirmed and twitched, muffling a snort of laughter, but Draco did not seem to notice. His face remained distant, his eyes fixed thoughtfully on his own hand, as he laid it flat on Harry's chest.

"Will we die together, then?" he asked softly.

"Not die. Fight."

"The Dark Lord always wins."

"Hey, look who you're talking to! I'm living proof that he doesn't always win." When Draco vouchsafed no answer to this, Harry caught his adamant hand and lifted it to press his lips to the palm. "I don't plan to die anytime soon, and since I can't possibly live without my gorgeous Slytherin puffer-fish…"

"You're delusional." Draco's voice was oddly soft, and Harry could have sworn that the inhuman hand clasped in his was warm. He turned it slightly, watching the starlight break into colors across its surface, fascinated by its beauty. Draco lifted his head to stare at Harry's face every bit as intently as Harry was staring at his hand, and for a fleeting moment, his winter eyes were completely unguarded. "Harry?"

"Mm?"

"What are you doing?"

"Admiring your hand. I'd forgotten how beautiful it is." He frowned suddenly, his thumb shifting to stroke the smooth, flat stumps of the two outer fingers. "Why didn't Dumbledore fix it? Can't he replace these fingers?"

"He says he can, though the new fingers may not work as well as the rest. Something about the original crystalline structure and how my wizarding power uses it. I didn't listen very carefully."

That drew Harry's attention away from the hand and down to Draco's face. His frown darkened with concern. "Why not? Don't you want it whole?"

Draco shook his head. "I keep it this way as a reminder of what I did."

"I should think that's the last thing you need!" Harry protested.

"I don't want to forget anything, ever again." He drew his hand from Harry's clasp and spread it flat on the other boy's bare chest once more. Gazing down at the glittering limb, with it's cruelly truncated fingers, he added, very quietly, "When I look at it, I remember what I did to my father and why. I remember that love is a weapon. It maims. It kills. It shatters even the strongest man or the most powerful magical object. I'll never forget." He closed his hand into a fist, clenching it tightly over Harry's heart. "Never."

Harry spoke in a low, rough whisper, barely able to force his voice past the sudden constriction in his throat. "Love saved me from Voldemort. Twice. And it saved you from the dementors at the Giants' Dance."

"My own madness saved me. I was too far gone to realize I didn't stand a chance."

Harry abandoned the attempt to persuade him and settled for gathering his body close and holding him tightly in his arms, saying affectionately, "Stupid bloody Slytherin." Draco gave a tiny, almost imperceptible sigh and tucked his head beneath Harry's chin, while his arm slipped around his waist.

They lay together through the long, quiet, sheltered minutes, drawing warmth and comfort from each other. Draco's breathing gradually slowed into sleep, and Harry let him rest, unwilling to disturb him when he lay so trustingly in his arms. Finally, he closed his own eyes.

Harry stood very close to his beloved, leaning over him, cradling his upturned face in worshipful hands. The night wind lifted his cloak and blew Draco's hair about his face in a silver-blond net. With gentle fingers, Harry brushed the hair away from that perfect, porcelain brow, leaving a smear of glistening filth upon it.

He bent to bring his mouth to Draco's ear, whispering, "I love you." The words came out as a foul, rattling hiss.

Draco sighed luxuriously and reached up to loop his arms around Harry's neck. "Kiss me," he murmured, eyes shining through the clinging shadows that Harry exhaled with every breath.

Hunger churned, hot and fierce, in Harry's belly. A longing more powerful and terrible than any human lust filled him, drove him to take the offered mouth with his own, to claim the soul of his beloved.

He stooped swiftly, bringing his mouth nearly to Draco's, and heard him sigh in the last instant before they touched, "I love you, Harry."

"No!" Harry lurched upright, spilling Draco's sleeping body to the ground, and stared wildly about him.

"Harry?" Draco pushed himself up on his elbows and blinked sleepily at the other boy. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Harry swallowed the sickness that clogged his throat and collapsed back on the pillow, flinging an arm across his face to hide it from Draco's curious gaze. "I was dreaming, I guess."

Draco curled up against Harry once more, settling his head in its usual spot on the taller boy's shoulder, and said, yawning, "I thought you dreamed about me every night." When Harry said nothing, he asked, a touch of concern in his voice, "Was it about me?"

"It doesn't matter. It was just a stupid dream." Looping his free arm about Draco's shoulders, he pulled him closer and murmured, "Go back to sleep."

Malfoy smothered another wide yawn. "I thought you wanted me to stay awake… keep you company."

"I like watching you sleep, too."

Draco did not bother to point out that Harry had his eyes covered and was not watching anything. He was much more interested in sleep than in conversation, and he had barely closed his eyes when his breathing slowed and his body went slack in Harry's arms. Harry could not sleep. He could still feel the churning horror of the dream in his stomach—the longing, the foul, inhuman hunger—and he could not risk plunging into that terrible place again. So he lay very still, staring up at the stars as they paled and winked out, listening to the soft, peaceful sounds of Draco's dreamless sleep and waiting for morning.

To be continued…

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