Memento Vivere

Chapter XV / Of Stones and Snakes

They spent most of the next Saturday just talking and working on homework, which was a calculated decision on Draco's part. He wanted to avoid a repeat of what had happened last time as much as possible—at least, while he was actually spending time in Potter's presence. He didn't much care if Potter spent the rest of the evening only speaking Parseltongue and probably hiding from his friends because of it. And since it had seemed like raising his magic had been the catalyst, Draco decided they should put that off until the end or even next week.

Besides which, when he asked Potter if he'd actually been doing his homework, Potter had confessed that he had been learning something similar recently—from his vampire friend—so Draco thought it likely he was already getting plenty of practice.

So they spent the time trading stories. This time, Draco shied away from the pureblood history he had brought up before and began telling Potter children's stories instead. They were yet another thing that every wizard-raised child would know, and so they were another bit of their culture Potter should be aware of. Not to mention, they were usually filled with lessons any self respecting wizard should keep in mind as he went about his business.

Potter gave him a bemused look when he started on his first tale, but he listened attentively and only interrupted once or twice when something Draco said seemed too unbelievable. Draco just reminded him that it was a children's story, of course it was going to be outlandish, and went on as if Potter hadn't said anything at all.

Potter seemed to be most interested in 'The Tale of the Three Brothers", Draco noticed, as that was the one he had the most questions about and been the most interested in discussing after. He had even set his quill down and given Draco all of his attention, which he hadn't done with the first two. His eyes had a speculative glint as they talked about it, shot though with a bit of confusion that didn't seem to come from the story itself. Draco didn't ask about it, but he paid close attention nonetheless.

The other tale that caught Potter's attention was "The Warlock's Hairy Heart", which Draco had chosen to tell in its original state, because he was sure Potter would appreciate it more that way. His mother had always told him the original, even though his father had determinedly stuck to his own version, which cast the warlock in a much kinder light.

Potter did not interrupt at all during this particular tale, but his quill stopped moving and he spent those few minutes watching Draco attentively. Draco though he saw something stir behind his eyes while he listened, and once he was done, Potter reached up and rubbed at his scar in a gesture so familiar by now that Draco hardly gave it a second thought. He didn't comment on that story except to express pity for the warlock, but his eyes were dark as they turned back to his essay, and his face was set in an expression that probably meant he was turning the story over and over in his head.

To Draco's amusement, Potter seemed to decide that this was a good opportunity to share a few stories of his own, Muggle tales that he had grown up with (although he made a point to mention that he had only heard them or read them at school, that his relatives would never have allowed such stories of magic and wonder inside their home, particularly these ones). Draco wondered why Potter thought he would be interested in Muggle stories, but he listened to them politely and didn't interrupt nearly as much as Potter had.

The first tale Potter chose was about a family of princesses who sneaked away in the night to dance in an enchanted castle. Draco thought he might have picked this one purely because of the magic involved. The imagery of the groves of silver and gold trees and the castle were quite beautiful, and Draco noted with amusement that it involved an Invisibility Cloak. Even if it hadn't appealed to Potter when he was younger, Draco could see why it did now.

The other two, about a princess who was forced to live in the woods with seven small men and something called a "Cinderella", Draco thought Potter might have picked purely out of respect for Draco's sensibilities, because the magic presented in each was actually not very unrealistic. The apple was clearly coated in the Draught of Living Death, the queen was obviously quite skilled in disguising herself with magic, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to Transfigure a pumpkin into a carriage or rags into a fine gown. In fact, he thought his father would be quite alarmed by just how accurate these depictions of magic in these Muggle stories were.

Then Draco turned the stories over in his head and wondered if, instead of choosing them for him, Potter had chosen them because he felt some affinity for the orphaned heroines. His tone of voice when describing their circumstances had been somewhat unnerving. Draco, however, was far more interested in the magic, so he tucked that observation away for another time.

It did lead to what was possibly the stupidest argument they had ever had. Potter had made the mistake of calling Cinderella's witch a "fairy godmother", which was, of course, both ludicrous and impossible. Fairies were tiny and had little other use than as Christmas decorations; they had neither the magic nor the intelligence of the woman in the tale. Obviously, she was just a witch with too much time on her hands and an appalling soft spot for Muggles.

But Potter stubbornly insisted that was what she was called. Draco just couldn't allow him to go on with that delusion forever, so for some reason he couldn't even figure out himself, he picked a row with Potter over what a character in a silly Muggle children's story should actually be called.

Then, just as he thought he might actually get Potter to agree the name was stupid, the classroom door swung open and Luna Lovegood walked in, looking as though she might have sleepwalked there, as was her usual.

They both stopped and stared at her as she drifted dreamily across the classroom.

"Er...Luna?" Potter said, first to break the silence. "Did you need something?"

Lovegood looked at them slowly, as if she was both surprised to see them and not surprised at all. "Oh, hello, Harry. And Draco too, hello."

Potter turned and stared at him, but Draco just sneered at him and then sneered at Lovegood for good measure. One or two balls she and her father had been extraordinarily lucky in even being invited to, and she acted like that made them friends.

"What do you want, Lovegood? We're busy."

"You weren't looking for us, were you?" Potter asked hastily after a quick scowl in Draco's direction. "I don't think we're done yet..."

"Oh no. I didn't know you were here, actually." Lovegood smiled serenely at them. "I just had a feeling something interesting was happening in this part of the castle." Her eyes flitted over the quill still in Potter's hand, and she nodded as though that answered the question of what. "What have you been learning?"

"Malfoy's been teaching me some kids' stories," Potter said before Draco could speak up. Draco hissed at him under his breath. Potter stared back at him defiantly, and Draco looked away again with an irritated sigh. He supposed it wouldn't matter if Loony Lovegood knew about this particular meeting, but that didn't mean he liked it.

"Oh! Like 'How the Crumple-Horned Snorkack Crumpled His Horn'?" Lovegood asked eagerly.

Draco winced, and he tried to respond before Potter, he really did. He was not in the mood to listen to any of Lovegood's ridiculous stories. But Potter gave her a bemused smile and shook his head and got there first.

"No, I think he missed that one."

"Potter..." Draco hissed again, but it was too late. Lovegood looked absolutely aghast that anyone could have possibly overlooked such an important tale, and she immediately sat down in front of Harry to begin telling it to him with an earnest enthusiasm that might have been admirable if only it weren't over such a foolish subject.

Draco sighed noisily and walked over to the door to close it again. Now that Lovegood was here, she would likely stay until it was time for them all to leave for dinner, and he could see that he wouldn't be able to kick her out without Potter following after. And anyway, it wouldn't do to leave the door open for someone else to just wander in. Draco tapped the lock with his wand for good measure before walking back over to his seat. He would have to remind Potter that they should keep the door locked, or the next person to walk in on them might not be so welcome.

It wasn't easy, trying to find a new name in concert with his classes, the ever increasing pile of homework, his various extracurricular lessons, and worrying about when Umbridge might finally decide to fire Hagrid. Admittedly, it wasn't all that much more than when he'd been doing most of his research into wizard law, but it was much less satisfying. After a couple hours reading through law and history books, he might have felt like his brain was leaking out of his ears, but at least he also felt like he'd learned something. After a couple hours of this, he generally felt like his time would have been better spent doing something else.

At least this time, he had some help. Malfoy's list had not been very promising, but he appreciated that he had been true to his word and given him one. Sanguini had also sent him a list of possibilities, after Harry had confided in him that he was finding it difficult to find anything he liked. He didn't particularly care for any of Sanguini's suggestions either, though—except for maybe Eosphoros—or his suggestion that he look into creating his own from Latin or French or some other language he didn't know. That was all well and good for someone like Sanguini, who had lived for several hundred years and had all that time to learn a few languages. It was not so useful for Harry, who knew very little of anything that wasn't English and had no time to learn them.

A few of Sanguini's suggestions were familiar enough to put him back on another track, however. He had already found that a few old families used mythological names, and he had marked that down as a possibility but had then been distracted by other ideas. Now, he turned back to mythology, as that seemed to be the most promising path.

The Hogwarts library actually had a surprising number of books either entirely or partially about world mythologies and beliefs. Well, maybe it was only surprising to him because he'd seen very little in the way of a belief system since coming to Hogwarts. And as he skimmed through a few books, it seemed that was because there wasn't really much of a belief system among wizards—at least, not anymore. Once upon a time, long before wizards had separated themselves from Muggles completely, many of them had shared similar beliefs, although the wizards had more of a focus on magic, of course, while the Muggles focused more on beings who could have just been wizards themselves.

Reading through books on mythology, however, while considerably more interesting than any of his other extra research, took up quite a bit more time than just skimming through books of names for anything that sounded good. For the first time this year, he found himself checking out a stack of books to take back to Gryffindor Tower to read in what little spare time he had. Ron had given him his most incredulous look yet and muttered something about how he was turning into Hermione, but Harry was quite happy to ignore this. He finally felt like he was on the right track, and he was not going to let anyone spoil it.

Or so he'd thought, until he spent an afternoon sharing fairy tales with Malfoy, and then could not get them out of his head for days afterward.

The Thursday after Luna had walked in on his lesson with Malfoy, Harry ate dinner as quickly as possible and made his way to the Room of Requirement to spend some time there alone before anyone started showing up for the DA meeting. He made sure the room was ready for today's lesson, and then sat down and pulled out a book. He had been intending to spend his time perusing a book on mythology, and there was one in his bag, but it was a different book he pulled out now.

He could not say why the stories Malfoy had told him had affected him so much. The first couple had been interesting but unremarkable, and he had begun wondering what the point was. But the story about the warlock who locked away his heart had made him feel very unnerved for some reason, although his memory of it was somewhat fuzzy and clouded by pain. And when Malfoy had begun telling the tale of the three brothers who met with Death, and Harry had not been able to pay attention to anything else. He had discussed it at length with Malfoy at the time, and then gone to the library to check out The Tales of Beedle the Bard the next day to read it again.

It was this book that lay open in his lap as he skimmed over the now familiar words of the story. This version was slightly different than the one Malfoy had told him, but not in any way that mattered. All the basic elements were there: the meeting with Death, the unbeatable wand that led to the death of the first brother, the stone that brought back the dead that led to the death of the second brother, the cloak of invisibility that hid the third brother until it was time to pass on peacefully.

Harry's fingers trailed over the description of the stone. He found the other objects interesting too—a powerful wand would certainly make it easier to defeat Voldemort, and he had always appreciated his Invisibility Cloak—but it was the stone that he felt drawn to the most. A stone that could raise the dead...he could understand the second brother's desire to speak with a lost loved one very well.

A shadow fell over him, and Harry looked up to find Luna standing there, looking down at his book with intense interest.

"Hello, Luna," Harry said, feeling somewhat annoyed that he was no longer alone. "You're here early."

"You left dinner early, so I thought we might be starting earlier today," Luna said. She pointed excitedly down at the book in Harry's lap. "Are you researching the Hallows?"

"The what?" Harry said.

"The Hallows! The Deathly Hallows!" Luna sat down next to him and snatched the book out of his lap. She smiled as her eyes scanned quickly over the story. "That's very clever, Harry. The Hallows would be a wonderful thing to have in the fight against You-Know-Who."

Harry stared at her. She was not making a lot of sense, which was usual for Luna, but he wasn't sure how to react to it.

"I'm sorry, Luna, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

Now it was Luna's turn to look bewildered. She held the book up, open, in front of her face. "Then why are you reading this?"

"It's just one of the stories Malfoy told me on Saturday. I wanted to read it again..."

Luna lowered the book just enough to eye him over the top of it. He could not tell what she was thinking. Eventually, she hummed and flipped the book back around to continue reading it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the door open and Ron and Hermione came in. He ignored them, still staring at Luna. There was nothing in that story about anything called "Deathly Hallows", and yet, she had taken one glance at what he was reading and mentioned them. Whatever they were, they were the first thing she associated with that story. Could there be something else to that story, or maybe some other version of it? Luna believed in all sorts of odd and probably not real things, and there was no reason this should be any different...and yet. He couldn't help wondering.

"What are the Deathly Hallows?" he asked, giving in to his curiosity.

"These are," Luna said, holding the book up in front of her face again. "The items Death gave to the three brothers. The Elder Wand. The Resurrection Stone. The Cloak of Invisibility. Together, they're the Deathly Hallows."

As she listed the items, she drew a symbol in the air with her finger, but it wasn't one Harry was at all familiar with and he thought he would need to see it written down properly to remember it.

"Then I don't know what I'm supposed to be researching," said Harry, feeling very bewildered. "It's just a story."

"Everyone believes it's just a story," Luna said earnestly, "but it's not. They're real."

"What're you guys talking about?" Ron asked as he and Hermione sat down in front of them. Ron leaned around to get a better look at the cover of the book and then looked very confused. "The Tales of Beetle the Bard? What're you reading that for?"

Hermione, looking somewhat affronted that there was a book everyone else seemed to know that she didn't, reached out to tug the book from Luna's hand. Luna let go of it easily, still staring at Harry with eager, shining eyes.

Harry was staring back, trying not to feel too hopeful. He tried to remind himself that no matter how earnest Luna seemed, she believed lots of things that weren't true and was just as earnest about those. Malfoy had also not said anything about this or given any indication that he thought there was any truth to the story whatsoever when he had told it to him on Saturday.

"Are you sure about that?" Harry said after a moment, trying hard not to sound too sceptical. "I mean, if they were, don't you think more people would know about it? A stone that can bring back the dead...you'd think something like that would get covered in class. And the wand—"

"Oh, but there's lots of proof about the wand!" Luna interrupted eagerly. "It's gone by lots of names throughout history. The Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick—that was what Loxias named it when he took it from Barnabas Deverill and killed him. And Professor Binns has mentioned it too. The wand that Egbert the Egregious took from Emeric the Evil when he defeated him was made of elder, and it was supposed to be very powerful."

Harry glanced over at Hermione, who was far more likely to remember what had been covered in Binns' class than he was. Hermione was frowning slightly at Luna, but she went back to reading without contradicting her. Harry felt a twinge of hope and turned back to Luna.

"And the cloak...no reason that couldn't exist, right? We know Invisibility Cloaks definitely exist..."

"The cloak in the story would have to be centuries old, Harry," Ron said slowly. "No Invisibility Cloak would last that long. The charms would wear off, or it'd get damaged..."

He trailed off, suddenly looking very confused. Luna took the opportunity to shake her head and eagerly turn toward him.

"It's not just any Invisibility Cloak. You know, a cloak that's just charmed to be invisible, or one that's made of Demiguise hair that'll fade and turn opaque after a while. It's a real Cloak of Invisibility, that stays perfect forever and shields you from everything. Why else would Death have been unable to find the third brother for so long?"

Harry glanced at Ron, who was frowning right back at him. There was, in fact, a cloak that fit that description not far from here, sitting in Harry's trunk in Gryffindor Tower. One that was still perfect, even though it was old enough that his father had used it while he'd been here at Hogwarts and it had seen a fair amount of action in its time.

"Yes, but the stone, Luna," Hermione said suddenly. "The stone can't possibly exist." She shut the book and held it out; Harry took it back before Luna could.

"Why not? There's no proof that it doesn't."

"There's no magic that can raise the dead," Hermione said testily. "It's not possible."

"There's some that can imitate it, though," Harry said, thinking of the shades of his parents and Cedric that had appeared in the graveyard in June. That was more than he was comfortable saying in from of Luna, however. "And the girl in the story doesn't really come back all the way, does she? She's there, but she's still more like a ghost."

The door opened and Ernie and Hannah walked in, putting an end to their conversation. Harry did not wish to talk about whether some kids' story was actually real in front of more people than Ron and Hermione; enough of the school already thought he was mental without adding that onto it. He tucked the book away in his bag and tried to push all thoughts of the Hallows to the back of his mind until the end of the meeting.

It wasn't until they were walking back to Gryffindor Tower later that evening that he casually brought the subject up again, wondering aloud if there could have been any truth to what Luna had been saying.

"Oh, Harry, I really don't think so," Hermione said, sounding somewhat annoyed they were back on this topic. "You know what Luna is like. I'm sure she really believes in it, but how could anything like that be true? It's just a load of rubbish."

Harry looked at Ron, who shrugged. "It's just a story, It's one of those things you tell kids to teach them lessons. 'Don't go looking for trouble, don't pick fights, don't mess with stuff that's better left alone. And if you've got an unbeatable wand, don't boast about it cause it'll just get you killed.' That sort of thing."

Harry laughed, but he was quiet the rest of the way to the tower, and he excused himself to head up to bed as soon as they were inside. He still had quite a lot of homework, but he doubted he would be able to concentrate on it, and he had already finished what needed to be turned in tomorrow, at least.

When he reached his dorm, he pulled Beetle's book out of his bag, as well as the book on mythology he had intended to read instead. He set them on the bed and dropped his bag next to his trunk. Then he opened his trunk and pulled out the old cloak Dumbledore had passed on to him from his dad.

He sat on the bed for quite a while with the Cloak in his lap, just staring at it and letting the fabric slide through his fingers. He was not at all sure what to think about what Luna had told them. It was Luna, after all. But he wanted it to be true. The Cloak and the Elder Wand, it seemed, could be true. And wouldn't it be interesting if the cloak in his hands was the very one mentioned in the story, that could shield one even from Death? And if it was, then what of the other items? What of the Stone? Harry had to admit that while it was the most intriguing item of the three, it was also the one least likely to exist.

By the time Ron came up, however, the cloak was already back in his trunk and Harry was sitting in bed with the mythology book in his lap. Ron looked at him like he might say something, but in the end, he pulled on his pajamas and climbed into bed without saying anything at all.

Draco was quite certain that Potter had gone absolutely mad.

"It's just a children's story, Potter, what are you talking about?" Draco said when Potter tried to ask him if he'd ever heard anything about "The Tale of the Three Brothers" being based on anything real. "Why would you listen to anything that came out of Loony Lovegood's mouth?"

Potter frowned at him, the way he did any time Draco insulted his friends. Draco scowled right back. It had been obvious Potter had been taken by that particular story, but he would never have thought Potter would be so deluded as to think any part of it might be real. Between that and his random forays into Parseltongue, perhaps he would need to keep a closer eye on Potter in the future, just to make sure he wasn't actually mad.

"Anyway, Potter," Draco said before Potter could try to continue on that subject. "We're doing something different today. I want you to teach me something."

Luckily, this seemed to intrigue Potter enough for him to drop the silly Hallows subject. "You do? What?"

"The Patronus Charm."

It had taken Draco most of the month to steel himself to actually ask this. He rather liked their current arrangement, in which Potter came to owe him more and more and he owed Potter very little in return. This would not tip the scales in Potter's favor, but it would make them more even, not only because he would owe Potter somewhat for teaching him, but also because he actually had to ask for it. Still, Draco wasn't about to waste the opportunity of getting Potter to teach it to him now that they were on decent enough terms.

Potter looked quite surprised by the request, and he stared at Draco for a long time, thinking it over. More than once, his gaze flicked off toward the ceiling in the general direction of Gryffindor Tower, and he looked particularly uncertain. Draco crossed his arms and leaned back against a desk, trying not to seem to uncertain himself. It wouldn't do for Potter to know just how much he wanted to learn this particular spell.

"Yeah, all right," Potter said eventually, and Draco thought he could breathe normally again. "But you have to show me a spell too."

"Like what?" Draco asked, quite ready to teach Potter anything he might know.

Potter shrugged in a completely unhelpful way. Draco frowned at him for a moment, then stared at the wall while he thought over the various spells he had already considered teaching Potter.

"What about Serpensortia?"

Potter considered that for a moment. Then he nodded and got up out of his seat. "Okay. Help me get all these desks against the wall."

They made quick work of stacking the desks along either side of the classroom, leaving the middle open and with plenty of room to move around. Harry crossed to the door to make sure it was locked, and then told Draco to use the muffling charm he wouldn't share on the door and the walls for good measure. He was surprisingly comfortable stepping into the role of teacher, Draco noted as he walked around the room casting Muffliato and even adding a couple charms that would encourage anyone passing by to go somewhere else.

"Right," Potter started once they were standing across from each other in the middle of the classroom, "first of all, you should keep in mind that this is pretty advanced. Lupin told me a lot of adults can't even do it. So don't go expecting to get it on your first try, or even after a lot of tries."

Draco snorted lightly, somewhat doubtful he would have that much trouble with it, but he supposed he would keep that in mind. "All right."

"Two, learning it here in a classroom is a lot different than having to use it against actual dementors." He hesitated, but went on, "It took me three tries to fight off those dementors back in August. So even if you get it perfectly now, don't expect it to always be that easy."

Draco frowned at him. Of course, that was in line with what his father had said back in August, when he had mentioned he had run into Potter on his way out of a disciplinary hearing for casting the Patronus Charm in a Muggle area. Potter's excuse was that there had been dementors, even though there was no reason why dementors should have been there. Draco had never quite decided whether his father believed Potter's excuse or not.

But Potter certainly believed it. That just made him wonder all over again, what would dementors have even been doing there in the first place? He hadn't heard anything about the Dark Lord trying to do anything directly to Potter since June...of course, that didn't mean nothing had been happening, only that no one was going to say anything about to him or around him.

"I think that's to be expected, Potter," Draco said finally. "It's hard enough to concentrate with those things around even without trying to do magic."

Potter nodded stiffly. He, of course, seemed to find it much more difficult that the rest of them. If it had taken Potter, who had fainted more than once around them, only three tries to fight them off, then Draco thought he would certainly not do any worse than that.

"And their effect on you makes it even more difficult," Potter said. "The way Professor Lupin put it, dementors suck every good feeling and hope and happiness out of the air around them. The Patronus is made up of those feelings and the dementors can't hurt it, so it makes a good shield, but you also have to be thinking of something happy to conjure it. So when they're around, trying to suck every happy thing out of you..."

Potter shrugged, letting him come to his own conclusions about how difficult that would be. Draco nodded but said nothing, as it didn't seem Potter was quite done.

"Right, so like I said, to conjure a Patronus, you have to think of something happy. It can be a memory or just a happy thought, but the happier the better. You concentrate on it, whatever it is, and then—" Potter raised his wand and set his face in concentration. "Expecto Patronum!"

A bright silver shape burst from the end of Potter's wand, and Draco automatically darted out of the way of it, suddenly and very unpleasantly reminded of the silvery shape Potter had attacked him with back in third year. Then, it had seemed somewhat shapeless, but now he could see it took the form of an enormous stag with shining, majestic, horribly dangerous looking antlers.

The stag cantered to the end of the room and back, and then disappeared into silver mist next to Potter. Potter himself had hardly moved except to lower his wand; he stood with his shoulders square and his chin slightly raised and was absolutely humming with magic. It didn't seem to be manifesting itself outwardly yet, but it was clear their exercises had already had some effect. Or perhaps this was just what Potter was like when he used advanced magic. Either way, Draco was looking forward to seeing more of it.

"Happy thought, expecto patronum," Draco repeated.

Potter nodded, and suddenly the effect was ended, leaving only a somewhat awkward looking Potter in its wake. "Right. So...take a minute to think of something, and then you can try it."

For the first time, the authoritative tone he'd adopted faltered somewhat. Perhaps he'd realized that it was awkward talking to Draco like a teacher when it was only the two of them. He really was quite good at it, although Draco had never noticed that about him before.

He turned away from Potter to collect his thoughts. Something happy...no, something extremely happy—that would be the difficult part. Draco had plenty of happy memories and thoughts to choose from—he thought even how he was feeling right now might count—but only a few of them were exceptionally so. Flint telling him he would their new Seeker...watching the sunrise one morning with his mother while she told him about Hogwarts...his father telling him how proud he was of his marks, one of the few times he actually said it out loud...

Draco eventually settled on the first time he had been allowed fly on a real broom by himself, rather than a toy one or with his mother. He nodded to Potter, who stood back, and raised his wand, concentrating hard on the thrilling feeling of soaring high above the Manor grounds.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Silver mist burst out of his wand, but it did not coalesce into anything solid. It merely hovered there as an indistinct cloud in the air in front of him. It was also ridiculously draining to hold it there, much the way using his magic wandlessly had been. Draco waved his wand again to banish it and fought the urge to grab on to something to remain on his feet.

Potter was watching him with raised eyebrows. "That was pretty good for a first try."

Draco sniffed and stuck his chin in there air. "Of course it was. I'm a Malfoy. You didn't say it would be that tiring, though," he added, frowning at Potter.

Potter had the audacity to smirk at him. "Must have slipped my mind. Still, it's just the half-formed ones that do that. Once you're conjuring a real one, you shouldn't have that problem."

Buoyed by the thought that Potter seemed to have no doubt he'd master this, Draco raised his wand and tried again.

And he continued to try for the next half an hour, trying various memories and happy thoughts, until his legs felt like jelly from the effort of holding those half-formed Patronuses in place for any length of time. They did seem to be growing more solid and distinct the more he practiced, but eventually he had to take a break or risk falling over. Potter had the nerve to smirk at him again, and off-handedly lamented that neither of them had brought any chocolate.

Draco took this opportunity to hold up his end of the bargain and begin teaching Potter how to conjure snakes, so he would have something of his own to practice rather than watching Draco the whole time. Draco did not particularly mind having Potter watch him, but he did feel he might perform better with slightly less pressure.

"Now, it's a conjuring spell, which we're not supposed to learn until next year," Draco said, "but it's one of the easiest ones. If I could do it in second year, you can definitely do it now. The trick is you have to have a very good idea of what the animal you want to conjure looks like—"

Draco spent the next half hour or so guiding Potter through the finer details of conjuring snakes—the theory behind animal conjuration, what he needed to be concentrating on to make it work, how he could adjust the snake he conjured to be exactly the way he wanted it. Judging by Potter's expression for most of it, this was material that was somewhat over his head, and Draco thought he had a lot of nerve to joke, ever, that he could help Draco with Transfiguration.

Still, Potter dutifully set himself to working on the spell once Draco was done with his lesson, which meant it was time for Draco to work on producing a Patronus again. It was exhausting, but Draco was determined to get it by the end of the day, even if it meant staying here until curfew. For his part, after several failed attempts to conjure a snake, Potter made the surprisingly intelligent decision to take a few minutes to connect with his magic before trying again.

The two of them spent what felt like an hour not making very much progress at all in either of their attempts, until, finally—

"Expecto Patronum!"

The silvery mist that burst from Draco's wand this time was not indistinct, but rather landed on the floor in the shape of a sleek fox. Draco immediately collapsed to the ground and let out a rather undignified whoop of delight as he fell backward. Potter paused in the middle of waving his wand to watch Draco's fox Patronus dart excitedly about his head.

"Good job," Potter said, actually smiling a little. "That's loads faster than I did it."

"Well, of course. I am a Malfoy," he said again. Draco smiled back at him, a rather larger smile than he ever had around Potter, and reached up to touch the silver fox. It dissolved into mist beneath his fingers, but that was all right. If he could conjure it once, he could do it again. And he would, just to make sure he had the spell down for sure. In a minute. Once he stopped feeling like taking a nap until tomorrow afternoon.

"Now I want to see a snake out of you by the end of the day," Draco said after a minute. He tried to sound stern, or at least haughty, but he was too delighted by his success to accomplish either.

Potter rolled his eyes but raised his wand again to continue trying. "Yes, sir, Professor Malfoy, sir."

Harry was lost.

He wasn't quite sure how he had come to be lost—he was supposed to meet Malfoy in the classroom on the fourth floor, and he knew very well where that was and how to get there by now—but he was fairly certain he was. He was sure he was still in Hogwarts, but he didn't recognize this particular corridor or anything that decorated it. He wasn't exactly sure how he'd gotten here either; the staircase he'd taken should have led straight to the fourth floor.

There was a staircase at the end of the hall. He started walking. Maybe it would lead him somewhere familiar.

Halfway there, he passed by a tapestry that looked like the one of Barnabas the Barmy, except that one was on the seventh floor and he couldn't possibly still be up there. When he looked closer, it didn't resemble that tapestry at all. This one was covered in writhing snakes of all kinds and the scene on it seemed to be on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

He spent a while looking at it, and then moved on without looking back once he realized how much time had passed. He needed to keep going. Malfoy would throw a fit if he was late.

The staircase stretched away into darkness, only seeming to grow taller the longer he stood at the top trying to see down to the bottom. He descended the stairs two at a time and tried not to think about it. It would have a bottom. It had to have a bottom. Maybe the trick in getting there was just to go for it.

It did have a bottom. But when he saw that his feet had reached the next floor and he looked up, he found himself at the end of a very familiar corridor that he knew was not anywhere in Hogwarts. The single black door at the very end remained as closed as it had always been, and he didn't feel like this would be the time he managed to get it to open.

He was close...so very close...but it wouldn't yield to him just yet...it would take more planning...

He began walking down the corridor anyway, because there was still something about the door that called to him. He noticed along the way that the stairway that usually led off to the left was no longer there. There were only the floors and walls of this one stone hallway, and the sconces along the way to illuminate it, and the single black door at the end.

He stopped in front of the door and stared at it longingly. If only it would just open...but there wasn't even a handle tonight...

No handle...but maybe he could push it open, like the door that closed off Mrs. Figg's kitchen...

Harry smiled and reached out to touch the door, intending to give it a small push just to test it. If it remained firm, there would be no point in putting all his strength into trying to push it open.

His fingers brushed over the wood...

...and the door dissolved away into a dark abyss.

Harry hesitated for only a fraction of a second before stepping through. He had thought he would feel elated that the door had finally disappeared, but he only felt and overwhelming curiosity to see what was on the other side, to figure out why the darkness felt so familiar and inviting, like a part of him had just come home.

He stepped out onto a windswept moor, empty and dreary and grey. The ground was rocky and uneven, with small outcroppings scattered about like a giant had passed through and kicked up the earth with his boots. This place had reminded him of a scene in one of his books since he had first read it, and he had almost been thrilled to learn they would be coming back here this year so he could see it again.

He could just barely hear the sounds of the village behind him if he tried hard enough to listen and the wind chose to blow in the right direction. He didn't care to try. He would only hear the dull sounds of everyday life that he could have easily heard back in London and the gleeful squeals of the other children. They always thought these trips to be a lark and a half.

He was quite fond of them too, but for a very different reason.

He heard the first bit of hissing and jumbled speech that he had been hoping for and eagerly looked around. A small snake slithered toward him across the ground and he knelt down to properly say hello. The first time this had happened, he had been quite amazed—and thrilled—but now he was only amazed that his little friends would choose to risk their lives by crossing such open ground when he would have been quite happy to seek them out among the rocks instead.

Well, he supposed they didn't actually have anything to worry about. He would protect them if anything tried to attack them.

"Hello, friends," he murmured as the first snake reached his shoes and a second and a third appeared nearby. "I've been practicing a new trick. Would you like to see it?"

He doubted they were the same snakes every year, or that they would remember him enough to know what he meant even if they were, but they always hissed their assent to that question and he always showed them, as he would have done even if he were without an audience. These outings were always the perfect opportunity to practice his abilities. There was just something different about this wide-open, dreary place as opposed to his musty room in London, and he could rarely find the room or privacy in the city to practice bigger and flashier tricks.

He took a moment to pet each snake gathered at his feet and to hand out the dead mice he had brought along just for them. Then he stood up and closed his eyes. He felt his power rise up at once, an immense wave of wind and pressure and extended senses that always made him feel three times bigger than he really was. He always felt as though he could do anything, in that first moment. Perhaps he might even be able to fly one day with such power as this.

But first, he had to properly learn how to use it, and he hadn't quite perfected that yet.

That wasn't to say he couldn't use it well. He could command the animals some of the other children kept as pets with just a thought now. Only a year ago, it had been difficult to keep his control over one of them for any longer than a few seconds. Now he had more than enough control to hang stupid Billy Stubbs's rabbit from the rafters after the boy's slight against his parents.

A faint smile crossed his lips as he remembered Billy's face when he had seen his precious pet. He wouldn't be saying a word against his parents again any time soon.

He breathed and reached out with his extra senses. He had been practicing moving things without touching them lately, which he had always been able to do with ease but not necessarily finesse. It was the finesse he was most interested in now, as he lifted a ring of stones and set them to spinning in the air around him. Then another ring, which he set to spinning in the opposite direction. Then he began plucking stones from the two rings at random to hang them in the air in the patterns he saw in the night sky.

His power swooped happily around him, mirroring his own joy in performing such wonderful, impossible tasks. After a few minutes, he barely even had to concentrate on what he was doing; he had hardly considered the next place to set a stone before one had been set there, revolving slowly around a random axis. His power did always seem to enjoy being used, he thought, odd as that was to consider, and it generally became easier to call on and direct the longer he used it.

Until it reached its limit. He reached it a bit sooner than usual today, but then, he had been doing quite a bit more with it than usual. He finally began to feel exhausted, as though he had just run a race after a night of very little or no sleep, and he allowed his little satellites to drop back to the ground. All but one—a nicer, smoother stone than the rest—which he slipped into his pocket to play with later.

He supposed working with his power was like working with any other muscle; overworking it would do no good, but pushing it just slightly beyond its limits, while tiring and painful, would only make it stronger in the end. He was somewhat frustrated by how little he really had to do to push his power to that point, but he was sure that would change in time. He felt as though he had the power to do anything he like once he trained himself properly, and he fully intended to get there. Frustrating though it was at the moment, it would be worth it in the end...

"I'll visit again and talk to you properly tomorrow, okay?" he whispered to the snakes gathered about his feet. Then he thought about it for a moment and knelt down to allow one of them to wrap around his arm, to be a companion at least until he brought it back here tomorrow. He would enjoy having a companion for a little while, and he might even be able to sneak it into someone's bed if they annoyed him.

When Harry woke in the morning, he felt his magic dancing around him, toying with the edges of his sheets and curtains and the tips of his hair, and he couldn't remember a time when he'd felt more relaxed. It felt right to let his magic loose, to exist within it like this rather than it existing within him. It was extremely difficult to remember that he would have to get up or his friends would worry, and even more difficult to actually get out of bed. He wouldn't have minded falling back into a doze with his magic curling about him.

It was only when he did drag himself out of bed that he noticed his scar was prickling, although it was a bit different than when he woke up after dreaming about the corridor and the door. He did vaguely remember dreaming about the door again, and perhaps something about stones and snakes. That was probably only because he had been so obsessed with the Hallows over the last week and how long it had taken him to finally conjure a snake yesterday evening with Malfoy. He put it out of his mind.

It was too bad he wouldn't be meeting with Malfoy or Snape today, he thought as he made his way to the bathroom, his magic still dancing about him like a curling breeze. Malfoy had said not to expect it to manifest like this for some time, and he would be thrilled to see that Harry was a quicker learner than he'd assumed. As for Snape, he thought he might actually stand a chance of blocking the man out of his mind completely with his magic fluttering about like this.

He felt like he could do anything if he wanted it badly enough.

A delighted laugh rose in his throat, and he shrugged and let it out, uncaring whether it would only make Seamus more sure he was off his rocker or Ron to wonder what had happened to the real Harry Potter. He felt more happy and free than he had in months, and he didn't really care who knew it.