They Call This Winning?

By Abraxisdragon

Beta: Tar Irene

All the usual disclaimers. No infringements intended. All my blood, sweat and tears for nothing but personal enjoyment.

Warnings:

Part I – Chapters 1 thru 7

Mention of bisexuality, inference of M/M sex.

Spoilers for all seven books except for the epilogue in Book 7 – That bit of clichéd fluff didn't happen! This story begins immediately after Chapter 36 of "The Deathly Hallows". Sorry, but fate (and this author) have different plans for Harry and company. You don't come out of 'war' mode just because the war is over.

A/N: Another way that this story is not canon compliant (according to an interview with JKR) is that Harry doesn't lose his ability to speak Parseltongue. It is just too useful to give up and snakes can be really fun characters. Since there is so much cross marriage in the wizarding world we will just speculate that he could have had a recessive gene for the talent and his possession by Voldemort simply activated it. Or… like any language, Parseltongue once learned, even magically, is not forgotten. After all, JKR had Ron Weasley mimic it to open the Chamber of Secrets in Book 7. Take your pick or invent your own.

Chapter 1 – The Beginning of Strange New Connections

(Late in the day – May 2, 1998)

… … "And quite honestly," he (Harry Potter) turned away from the painted portraits, thinking now only of the four-poster bed lying waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower, and wondering whether Kreacher might bring him a sandwich there, "I've had enough trouble for a lifetime." (JKR – the last paragraph of "Chapter 36 - The Deathly Hallows".)

Harry almost immediately discovered just how naïve this thought was as his path to Gryffindor Tower led past the main entry hall just outside the doors of the Great Hall where he encountered a group dressed in red Auror robes dragging Lucius, Narcissa and Draco Malfoy toward the outer doors of Hogwarts.

Two things about this scene sent waves of hot anger burning through Harry. The first was that the men were brutalizing the helpless trio using the long-chain shackles attached to their wrists and ankles partly to jerk them along, but mostly to send them roughly to the floor and then using stinging hexes and booted feet to make them struggle to stand again laughing and jeering as Lucius and Draco tried to protect Narcissa with their own bodies. The second thing that angered him was the condition of the Aurors and their robes. They were clean and fresh with no sign of battle damage. But what set him into action was the pleading eyes of Narcissa Malfoy suddenly fixed on him as she cried out.

"Harry Potter! I lied to Him for you! Help us!"

Both wands suddenly in his hands, the holly in his right and the elder in his left as if an autonomic reflex, he stalked toward the group.

"Let them go! Now!"

A fleshy-faced man, whose Auror robes seemed ill fitted on a too soft body, turned to face Harry.

"You stay out of this, boy. This scum is Auror business."

Then the man made a gross mistake. He pointed his wand at Harry.

The intent to petrify the group was a mere thought that had not yet formed the words, much less sent any command to Harry's tongue, when the spell flashed from both his wands simultaneously and the Entry Hall was littered with toppling, red-robed bodies. The three Malfoys who were already on the floor were frozen with no further movement, Lucius and Draco both arched protectively across Narcissa.

"Oh, Harry! What have you done?"

"Bloody brilliant, mate. Did you see that Hermione? Both wands and wordless!"

"Ron! He petrified AURORS!"

"Oh, yeah … well, it was still brilliant … wasn't it …?" Ron's voice tapered off into a mumble at Hermione's strident expression of rebuke.

The voices startled Harry. He had forgotten that Ron and Hermione were so close behind him. Their presence brought his mind back from battle mode and into sharp focus. Oh, shite! What to do now? All Harry could think of was to go with his first thoughts about the Aurors.

"Hermione, look at their robes. They couldn't have been in the battle. And how they were treating shackled prisoners. I don't think real Aurors, the kind ofAurors Kingsley would have, would behave that way. Go get Professor McGonagall. Ron, help me get the Malfoys out of there and revive them."

Hermione hurriedly scampered off, a look of relief on her face at Harry's command to call for 'higher authority' to deal with the problem. Harry couldn't suppress a sharp pang of disappointment. What had happened to the Hermione who had stood strong, making life and death decisions daily, for the past year? Why was she acting more like she had in their First Year?

Ron, however, stood stubbornly in place, glaring at the petrified family.

"I say leave the Death Eater trash there until Professor McGonagall gets here!"

As much as Harry wanted to immediately check the Malfoys for injuries he could see that Ron was right, but for a very different reason than the hatred fueling his red-headed friend. The Petrificus spell would keep any injuries from worsening and the image of the father and son struggling to protect their wife and mother was a much stronger argument presented this way.

"Okay, but see if you can get someone from the infirmary down here in case they are really hurt."

"They're busy with wounded of our own. There's a medi-wizard assigned to the holding cells at the Ministry that'll do for the likes of them."

Harry's patience with Ron snapped and he spoke a little more sharply than he had actually intended. "Just do it Ron. If they aren't real Aurors, we don't know what condition the Ministry is in right now." Of course, Harry thought to himself, if they were real Aurors then conditions at the Ministry were shite no matter who was in control.

Ron looked like he still wanted to argue but, to Harry's relief, seemed to recognize that Harry was close to the end of this tether and turned and huffed off up the stairs toward the infirmary instead. Now the question was whether he would make any real effort to do as Harry asked him or just loiter around in the halls until he thought he had been gone long enough to make a good excuse of it. Well, not much change there. Harry had never trusted that the 'new', 'cooperative' Ron that had returned to their camp would be a permanent thing. Ron had always reverted to his base personality, his prejudices engaging before his brain, and had to learn the same lessons over and over again throughout their friendship. But did he ever really learn, when it was just cycle after cycle of blow-up, sulk, apology and reconciliation?

Harry didn't have to wait long for Hermione to return with McGonagall, a man wearing Auror red close on their heels. In contrast to the ones lying all over the hall, this man looked tough and lean and fatigued. His robes were disheveled, his boots scuffed and both were stained with mud or worse. Either Hermione or McGonagall must have passed on Harry's suspicions because the man gave Harry a sharp speculative glance and immediately began to examine the fallen red-robbed figures.

"Well this one works in Magical Games and Sports." Then indicating the fleshy-faced leader, "And I think this one is a clerk in Magical Transportation … some office on that level, anyway." He continued to the other side of the hall. "Much the same here. No one I recognize as having ever been in the Auror Division before … before they took over. Might be that Kingsley has recruited some extra help to direct things at the Ministry but he wouldn't be sending untrained ones outside of it. They could also be leftovers from … them, trying to prove that they're not. I need to check this out." The man finally looked up at Harry "Good call, Mr. Potter." and hurried off.

McGonagall turned to Harry.

"I'm sure they will send someone to sort this out and collect the Malfoys as soon as they can. We'll just leave the lot petrified until they do. I hate to ask you to do more Harry, but I'm up to my eyebrows with clearing out every one not necessary to deal with the … the aftermath. Could you stand watch over them until I can find someone else to do so?"

And that should have been the end of it …

… but Harry couldn't keep Narcissa's words from echoing through his thoughts.

No matter that she had first asked for word of Draco's survival as barter, she had still saved his life in the forest and, with her plea for his help, she had effectively called in that life-debt. The broken, helpless expression on Lucius' face and the terrified one on Draco's finished making up his mind.

"Professor, I owe Mrs. Malfoy a life-debt and she asked for my protection for all of them. I …."

McGonagall laid a motherly - well, as vaguely maternal as Harry had ever experienced from the austere Scottish woman - hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Whatever she did, you paid the debt when you saved them just now. You don't owe them anything more."

Harry shook his head.

"She lied to Voldemort. She stood right there in front of that snake-faced monster and told him I was dead when she knew I wasn't. They might need medical care and I … I want custody of them."

Harry didn't know where that last thought had come from but, as he blurted it out, it seemed like the right thing to do. McGonagall very obviously didn't agree. She got that rather pinched look of disapproval on her face that Harry had come to know all too well over the years.

"That, Mr. Potter, is complete folly!" Then her voice softened a bit, "You must allow the proper authorities deal with this. I'm sure that you will be allowed to speak at their trials. Narcissa, if she never received the Dark Mark, may not even be held for trial. Draco, because of his age, you may be able to help. But Lucius? The Wizengamot isn't going to let him off this time and rightly so."

Hard emerald eyes bored into hers.

"Then I'll remind them who's asking."

McGonagall pulled back from that intense stare.

"You don't want to take that attitude, Mr. Potter."

"What? It's all right for me to die, for me to kill … but not to help someone? Look at them!" Harry waved his hand toward the pitiful tableau of the Malfoys. "The only thing in their mind is to keep each other safe! They're not a threat now, not even Lucius."

At McGonagall's unequivocally dubious frown, he continued.

"You didn't see what I did through my connection to Voldemort. Lucius didn't want this anymore. He was nothing more than a prisoner in his own home after he escaped from Azkaban, just doing what he had to do to keep his family alive. He didn't raise a wand in the battle. Ok, I don't think that he regrets much of anything but Voldemort becoming such an insane bastard and, yeah, he needs to do something to payback all the things he did … maybe in ways that will teach him how wrong his way of thinking is. Rotting in prison or dead isn't going to do that. And seeing that happen to his father isn't going to do Draco any good either."

There was no softening in McGonagall's expression. Harry suddenly felt like that Firstie who stood in front of her trying to tell her that things were seriously mucked up about the Philosophers Stone. Only now, it wasn't some stupid rock. It was the whole wizarding world that was mucked up. Many of the thoughts that had plagued Harry during all those long fearful nights of the past year began to coalesce for him and Harry felt an angry desperation to make her, to make anyone, listen to him this time.

"Hasn't this war destroyed enough people, enough families? Are the Ministry and the Wizengamot just going to keep on doing the same thing Voldemort did? The same things that let him get so powerful in the first place? Keep feeding the hatred, keep tearing our world apart? Is this what I was willing to die for?"

"Or are they going to stop this stupid shite and build us a world honest and fair for everyone; where punishing the guilty has something to do with righting the wrongs they did not just taking revenge on them; where the next sociopath with delusions of godhood can't even get a good start at it because the government is doing what it should be doing rather than just whatever it thinks will keep it in office. You tell them they better figure it out because I'm done! Finished! I won't fight another Dark Lord for them!"

Minerva had the good conscience to feel a bit ashamed of herself for thinking that Harry had been threatening violence against the Wizengamot. However, no matter what he had done to rid them of Voldemort, to her he was still a child with no understanding of the realities of the adult world; especially the reality of a creature like Lucius Malfoy. Merlin! After what the boy had said during his duel with Voldemort she could finally accept that Albus had known what he was doing in trusting his ability to control Severus Snape, but that had been a wartime necessity. Which this wasn't! Not to mention, Lucius Malfoy wasn't Severus Snape! And Harry Potter certainly wasn't Albus Dumbledore!

She opened her mouth to tell him this when the hard, determined look on his face made it clear to her that this wasn't the right time to try and argue him out of such nonsense. She was weary to the bone. Let Shacklebolt deal with the boy's stubbornness. She quickly changed the direction of her argument.

"If you feel so strongly about this you can petition the Wizengamot for custody. I'm sure that Miss Granger can find some legal precedent. The old laws are full of such cases. They were mostly demands for monetary regress and recompense for damages but personal servitude of various degrees was allowed under certain circumstances. I'm sure she will find something that you could use." She withheld the fact that such servitude reparations had been forbidden during the Grindelwald trials but, justifying this deception by the fact that this piece of misdirection would keep the boy from doing anything rash, she continued "For now, we must cooperate with whatever decision Minister Shacklebolt makes. I'll return with someone to guard them as soon as I can."

As McGonagall walked away, shaking her head in frustration, Harry was still very conflicted as to what to do. Silent until now, Hermione finally spoke.

"Ron's not going to agree to this, Harry. Not for the Malfoys. He hates them too much."

She was right about Ron, of course. But how did Hermione, herself, feel?

"What about you?"

"I … I think he's wrong to hate so much … but you can't say he doesn't have good reasons. We all do. You most of all. I think that you are being foolish to take responsibility for them. Professor McGonagall is right. You've paid the life-debt by stopping those men from taking them. They don't deserve any more than that. Please, Harry, let the Ministry and the Wizengamot handle it. We're going to have enough to do just preparing for our N.E.W.T.s and putting our lives back together."

That last hit a wrong nerve with Harry. Ron and Hermione did have lives to 'put back together', families to fall back into. But what did he have? Who did he have? His parents? Dead. Sirius? Dead. Dumbledore? Dead. Remus? Dead. Snape? Dead. Even Hedwig … dead. It was not something he was ready to deal with now. The fate of the Malfoys was a much easier problem.

Considering his ignoble experiences with the members of both those wizarding institutions, other than Albus Dumbledore and Amelia Bones who were both dead now, Harry couldn't accept turning over the responsibility of his life debt to them.

Kingsley Shacklebolt certainly was no Fudge. But Scrimgeour hadn't been either and he still had made plenty of problems for Harry to protect his position as Minister. Kingsley had cooperated well enough with Harry as an Auror and member of the Order, but who could tell what he would do now that he was experiencing the power and, to be fair about it, the responsibility of being Minister? The Auror mindset was definitely more 'catch and punish' than 'rehabilitate'.

As for the Wizengamot, Harry didn't think they would approve of his plan any more than McGonagall had. He was pretty sure that the members who had suffered under Voldemort's regime would be after revenge, and those who hadn't would be looking to cover their own collaboration – not much chance for anyone named Malfoy either way.

And yeah, the Malfoys weren't on anyone's deserving list. But Narcissa had saved his life and that put her on his list. Her plea had put Lucius and Draco right there beside her. That made their future Harry's problem and his custody of them a necessity.

What was it that Uncle Vernon had said when Grunnings took over some smaller business and there was a threat of a government sanction over how they had done it? … 'Possession is 9/10ths of the law. When this all blows over we'll still own it.' … Wouldn't Harry stand a better chance of getting custody of the Malfoys if he already had it?

"Will you at least help me get them out of here before Ron gets back?"

The disapproval was too plain on Hermione's face and Harry had neither the time nor the energy for more argument. He stepped over the bodies of the possibly false Aurors, collecting the Malfoys' wands from the waistcoat of one as he went, to stand next to the frozen trio.

"Ok, you don't have to help me. But you and Ron can take over guarding these 'maybe' Aurors while I do what I have to do." Then in a much louder voice, "Kreacher!"

The ancient house elf appeared immediately.

"Can you take the Malfoys and me to some place safe and quiet?"

"Certainly, Master."

With a snap of the elf's fingers, the Entry Hall suddenly disappeared.

OOOOOOOOO

What Harry felt was nothing like apparition. Rather than the smothering, squeezing tube effect, it was more like becoming two dimensional - flat like a piece of parchment - then flatter still - like an ink line - followed by a blink of something Harry couldn't describe, because it felt more like having no body at all than anything else. And then the reverse - a line again, parchment again and then his normal self. But that normal self was now standing someplace else. And it hadn't been uncomfortable at all! Strange, yes, and a bit disorienting but not totally, grossly unpleasant like apparition.

His first reaction was "WOW!". His second, not unsurprisingly considering the way he hated portkeys and wasn't that much fonder of apparition or tumbling clumsily out of floos, was: "Kreacher, can you teach me how to do that?"

The elf looked totally shocked, and maybe a bit disapproving. "No wizard is ever asking a house elf for teaching!"

"Well, I am. That was brilliant! Much better than the way we apparate."

Kreacher's disapproval morphed into surprise at this compliment but this was quickly followed by apprehension.

"Kreacher does not know if a wizard can learn house elf magic, Master."

Harry hadn't meant to cause that reaction.

"Well, you think about it. If I can't, I can't, and that's all right. But I'd like to try if you can think of some way to teach me."

Turning his attention from the now very thoughtful elf, Harry truly became aware of his surroundings. It was a shock. He had expected Kreacher to take them somewhere within Hogwarts and this certainly wasn't that. Still, the room, with its long table, massive chandeliers and lavish decorations, did look familiar. In fact …

"Kreacher, where are we?"

The elf confirmed Harry's suspicions.

"Malfoy Manor, Master Harry. Kreacher could not think of any other truly safe place for them." Again the elf was anxious. "Is this wrong, Master?"

"No, no." Well, Harry couldn't fault the elf's reasoning. But what did he do now? "Do you know any healing, Kreacher? They might be injured."

"Yes, Master. House elves are able to heal but … most wizards are not knowing it … are not trusting us … with things of such importance."

"Well, I trust you. I'll un-petrify them and you can check them and heal anything you think might need healing."

Kreacher was playing with the fake Horcrux locket and avoiding looking directly at Harry. "They will not want it, Master."

The suddenly sullen tone of the elf's voice conveyed something more along the lines of 'they would rather be rotting in their graves than allow it' and 'they will curse any house elf who tries it'. Harry didn't have time for reasonable discussion so went directly to hard assurance.

"I didn't save them just to let them die from stupid prejudice. If they give you any trouble, I'll stupefy them." Harry pointed the holly wand at the trio, first removing the chains from their wrists and ankles and then removing his own paralysis charm.

Draco collapsed across his mother in a heap. Lucius managed to gracefully roll sidewise away from Narcissa without falling on her and then sat up and reached out to pull Draco off of her as well and assist her into a sitting position. Harry found himself fixed by weary and very wary, yet sharply intelligent, silver-gray eyes. There was also quite a bit of the same fear in them that he had seen in his visions of Voldemort's gatherings in this same room. It was confusing to Harry to have a man like Lucius Malfoy looking at him with the same emotions that Voldemort had evoked in the man.

"I am grateful for your aid, Mr. Potter. I … Well, we shouldn't impose further … Healing is probably not necessary …" Then, at the hardening expression on Harry's face and the twitch of his holly wand hand, Lucius surrendered to the situation.

"If you would permit it of course, I would prefer that your house elf attend to me first." Throughout this broken monologue, Lucius had been surreptitiously shifting his position on the floor to place himself between Harry and Kreacher and his wife and son. "… It is not prejudice, I assure you … It is as he stated. We have no experience with his kind of healing."

Shite! As shocking as Lucius' deference and capitulation was, that was overridden by another realization. Harry had forgotten that petrified people were still completely conscious of everything going on around them.

"Kreacher! Can you obliviate wizards?" The elf didn't seem to understand. "Erase a small piece of their memory … without damaging the rest of their mind?"

The elf was thoughtful for a moment. Then, he smiled … perhaps somewhat evilly. Harry was exasperated but still a little amused that someone was having fun in the middle of this confused mess.

"Oh yes, Master. If you order it, Master."

"Then pop back to Hogwarts, right now, and wipe everything that happened after I petrified them from the minds of all those men in the Entry Hall!"

"Before healing, Master?"

"Yes! But get back here as quickly as you can! And don't let anyone see you obliviate them!"

Kreacher immediately disappeared with the characteristic house elf 'pop' and Harry turned to find Lucius staring at him with a sardonically arched eyebrow. Harry couldn't keep a sheepish expression from coloring his face.

"Well … I trust Professor McGonagall and Hermione not to tell anyone but Kingsley Shacklebolt about what I did but if I want his cooperation it would be better he didn't have the problem of that lot screaming about it to anyone who'll listen."

Lucius' smile matched the eyebrow and he seemed to be a bit less wary, less fearful.

"Oh, I quite agree with your actions. It is only that I have suddenly realized that, while your choices are Gryffindor to the core Mr. Potter, your methods seem a touch more Slytherin than I would have expected. And this talent you have for... 'inspiring' house elves..." he admitted with a grimace, that might have been from pain, but Harry doubted it. "Having them rebel, attacking wizards and even admitting to abilities in healing and obliviation. I had thought Dobby's behavior an aberration but now Kreacher … so obviously not … at least not when it involves you. It gives me a glimmer of hope that you might be able to follow through on your intention to protect my wife and son. As for myself … I do not believe you are Slytherin enough for that. Still …perhaps it would not hurt to discuss the options."

There were too many strange ideas there, as strange as Lucius Malfoy seeming to take comfort and gain courage from Harry being more Slytherin than he had thought. The whole thing was … well, Harry guessed, it was a little 'too Slytherin' for him to get his only 'partially Slytherin' mind around. Also, as uncomfortable as it had made Harry for Lucius to be wary and fearful toward him just like he had been towards Voldemort, this renewal of the man's confidence, little as it was, only made him more uncomfortable for a total opposite reason. It reminded Harry too much of the man Lucius had been and might easily become again now that the threat of Voldemort was gone.

The man's casual and careless mention of Dobby didn't sit well with Harry either. The little elf had died for Harry. He had been brave and loyal because he chose to be and didn't deserve such a slur as 'aberration'.

However, before Harry could put enough coherence to these thoughts to form any response to Lucius, Kreacher returned and the healing commenced … with Lucius first, as the man had requested, since Harry didn't see any reason to push the issue.

Then, too quickly, another problem was added to the mix by a request from Narcissa while Kreacher was treating a reticent Draco; only Lucius' stern stare keeping the boy from attempting to escape the house elf's aid.

"Mr. Potter, I must ask you to allow me to fulfill a debt I owe to Severus Snape."

The totally useless death in the Shrieking Shack flashed behind Harry's eyes. As he answered Narcissa, he couldn't keep the futility of it from reflecting in his voice. "He's dead."

"Yes. I heard what you told … Him … during the duel. That is why I must ask you to allow me to see to the disposition of Severus' body per his wishes. It was what he requested of us in return for his having saved Draco. However, that will require that you retrieve the body. If it worries you to leave us unattended we will pledge our good behavior while you are doing so."

"If you heard what I said then you know that he was a traitor to Voldemort. How can I trust you to … to do right by him?"

It was Lucius who answered as Kreacher moved his attention from Draco to Narcissa. "Whatever he was to Him, he was a friend to us … as much as anyone in His inner circle could be … certainly more than any of the others … even those tied by blood."

The dark expression on Lucius' face left Harry with little doubt that if Mrs. Weasley hadn't dealt with Bellatrix during the battle Lucius wouldn't have allowed her to survive her 'Master' by any great length of time, even if he had to kill her with his bare hands like a muggle. The man now resembled the Lucius of old even more and Harry adjusted his grip on both his wands but then relaxed again as Lucius' anger morphed into determination as he continued speaking.

"Yet, had Severus done nothing further, he was all that stood between Draco and death for his failure to kill Dumbledore. That is a debt I owe him above all others. Surely you can understand that we can be trusted in this matter much more than … than, say, people like those from whom you have just rescued us."

The images Harry's imagination conjured of the possible ill treatment of Snape's body were sickening. Yes, this was something he must do. A decent burial was the least he could do for Dumbledore's spy, the other who had been Dumbledore's man through and through. Then, as he tried to think of a way to get to the bodies laid out in the Great Hall without causing any uproar or need for argument and explanations, he remembered that he hadn't seen Snape's body there. The sudden realization that only he, Ron and Hermione knew where Snape had died and that they hadn't given a single thought to taking care of Snape's body swamped Harry with guilt.

"Kreacher, are you finished healing them?"

"Yes, Master. There were no serious injuries."

"Then I need you to take me … " Harry felt like retching. "… to take me to the Shrieking Shack."

"Wait!" It was Narcissa who reached out to grasp Harry's wrist and prevent him from leaving. Her still beautiful, though haggard, face bore an expression of concern Harry had never thought to see directed at him from that source.

"You are quite young to be dealing with this, Mr. Potter, … if … if Severus still lies where he died. Please … please allow Lucius to accompany you."

OOOOOOOOO

Severus Snape did not lie in repose. He lay in the broken sprawl in which he had died. Still, there seemed to be an odd aura of peace about him, especially in the lax face, the once piercing and then, when he died, so empty eyes hidden behind relaxed lids as if in sleep. Harry was relieved that the man's eyes were not open and staring as they had been when he died.

For the first time in Harry's memory Snape actually looked his rather youthful - by wizarding standards - thirty-eight years. Maybe it was just the absence of his always vitriolic personality, but to Harry it seemed to be a continuation of the last, almost intimate, moments they had shared; as if somehow accomplishing that confession had relieved the man of years of burden and care. Pocketing his wands, he knelt beside Snape's body, reaching out a hand toward his face but not daring to actually touch him.

"I shouldn't have left him here."

Harry didn't realize he had spoken aloud until Lucius answered him.

"Perhaps. However, you did have a great many other things to deal with at the time. Also, it did keep him from being … disturbed. I do not think he would have faulted you for it." Strangely, Lucius' voice, always about as irritating as fingernails on chalkboard for Harry, was now calmly comforting.

Harry gave a choked half-sob, half-laugh.

"He could always find fault with me for anything … even just breathing. Merlin! It doesn't make any sense but … I think I'm going to miss him. He gave me some memories … when he was dying … things I needed to know … but personal stuff, too." Another choked laugh, "All those years he treated me like shite, did everything he could to make me feel worthless yet, in the end, he … it seemed important to him that I … that I understood him … that what I thought about him mattered to him. I … I haven't had time to think about that, to understand it."

Strong hands lifted Harry to his feet and moved him away from the body.

"Severus was never an easy man to know. You need not worry. I will attend to his body as he wished, in secret with no public knowledge of it. As for you, Mr. Potter, it … it has been a long … a long and terrible day and you should return to Hogwarts, to your friends … to rest and do your thinking. I will await you at my manor when you are refreshed. You have my vow on it."

When Harry made no answer, he continued, "My vow and more. By all rights, your debt to my wife need not have been extended to me. If that hold on my honor does not reassure you, be reminded that you are my best chance to avoid Azkaban or worse and that I will certainly exhaust that possibility before I choose the life of a wanted fugitive."

Oddly, it was more reassuring to Harry that Lucius had a self-serving motive for keeping his word. Knowing that the man would need his wand to apparate and knowing that they had a number of spare wands anyway – old pureblood habit that – he handed back Lucius' wand, along with Narcissa's and Draco's. Harry watched him kneel, take Snape's body in his arms and apparate.

Afterward, Harry stood, staring at the remaining blood pool, too weary to move. There really didn't seem to be enough blood to make the vast difference between life and death. Nagini's poison hadn't worked that fast on Mr. Weasley so Snape had to have bled out. Not that Harry really knew about such things but, for someone who had loomed so large in Harry's mind and life, it really seemed to him that there should be more blood. Shouldn't the room be bathed in it? How could such a mediocre rusty blot on a dirty wooden floor be the only evidence of Snape's death? Be the culmination of the seven years of suspicion, anger, dread and turmoil with which he had infused Harry's life? Mark the deep confusion Harry was feeling right now, trying to reconcile the 'vicious greasy git' that Harry had hated without doubt with the complex and - in many ways - admirable man he had seen in the pensieve, a man for whom he could feel so much sympathy?

Harry remained mesmerized by the static pool of blood and his own maelstrom of thoughts and emotions until Kreacher finally spoke.

"Master is in need of rest. Where does he wish to be doing so?"

Lucius' words echoed in Harry's mind. Yes, it had been a long and terrible day. Harry just wanted to go … the word that formed in his mind was 'home'. But, when he tried to define where that might be, he found no image of any existing place behind that emotional label. His mind finally defaulted to the place that had come the closest to being home for him for the longest period of time.

"Gryffindor Tower."

Harry flattened and flattened, paused, expanded and expanded and found what had once been his Gryffindor dorm bed sitting in front of him. He fell into it and lost consciousness.