Chapter 86 of "Wind": Strategizing

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

Another transition chapter. And more not-nice things happen.

Chapter Eighty-Six: Strategizing

Harry frowned at the letter in his hand. It was short, and really should not have caused as much shock and confusion as it did. It was a simple request, and he could say no, and the person who had made the request would be bound to obey.

It’s my own sense of obligation to her that’s making it hard to say no, he thought, and read the letter again.

June 4th, 1996
Dear Harry:

Since you told me about the battle you intend to hold on Midsummer Day, I have thought I would like to join you in it. Tell me if I can. I have conducted intensive studies of Transfiguration in the past few months, and you have reason to remember my skill with rune circles.

Sincerely,
Henrietta Bulstrode.

The problem, Harry thought as he lay back against his pillow, was that Edith Bulstrode was intending to stay at the school for the summer—she had no wish to stay with her father—and Harry had promised that Edith would not have to see Henrietta again. Henrietta would undoubtedly make a valuable addition to the battle, but Harry couldn’t justify asking Edith to leave the school for that, even if it would only be for a few days. She had nowhere else to go, nowhere else she would feel safe. She barely trusted the strength of Hogwarts’s wards to keep her hidden from her mother.

In the end, he wrote a refusal. He would post it with Hedwig tonight, and hope that Henrietta accepted it for what it was: an appreciation of her battle prowess, but a determination to abide by his promises, even when those promises had consequences he didn’t especially like.

“Have you finished making my gift yet?”

Harry looked up, startled. Draco stood in the doorway of their bedroom, grinning at him with brilliant eyes.

“Not yet,” said Harry, and stood. “I have this letter to post, and anyway, it’s not your birthday until tomorrow, or don’t you remember?”

“I remember, of course,” said Draco with a sniff, fiddling with the ring on his finger that contained Hawthorn’s solidified magic. He had developed the habit to insure that everyone noticed it in the past few days, and once he explained what it was, he had received more than one envious and awed glance. Harry wondered if Draco realized that Harry himself wasn’t going to express awe past the initial acceptance of the gift. “But I thought you might want to give me a hint. Or a choice, the way that you did last year.” He slightly dipped his head, and regarded Harry from under his lowered eyelashes.

Harry choked as he remembered the bond Draco had asked for last year, connecting them mind to mind and making it impossible for him to hide any secrets or emotions. “You want that again?”

“I didn’t say that I wanted that,” said Draco. “Just that I might like to choose. Unless, of course, you want to tell me what gift you intend to get me now, and I can decide if I’d rather have that one.”

“All of this is just a ploy to get me to tell you what your gift is early,” said Harry with some determination, and picked up his letter. “I have to go to the Owlery. You are welcome to come with me and continue trying to worm the surprise out of me if you really want to.”

“It’s not just a ploy,” Draco complained as he trotted beside him. “Why should it be? Of course I’d want to know what the better gift was, one I imagined or one that you made. Why are you irritated with me, Harry?”

“I’m not irritated,” Harry corrected him, as they went through the entrance hall and made their way up the first staircase. “I’m exasperated. There’s a difference.”

Draco tried a few other “subtle” ways of asking for his gift early, causing Harry to shoot him continual disgusted glances. They met Michael and Owen when they were on the fifth floor and near the quarters McGonagall had assigned them, though, so that distracted Draco thoroughly. He’d already told Harry that he didn’t like the way Owen watched him, trying to absorb indications of his intent from his face and actions.

Harry concealed his chuckle, and wondered if Draco had noticed the way Michael watched him yet. Harry couldn’t imagine it turning serious; Michael, as the son of a Dark pureblood family, would know what this courting ritual meant, and that he stood no chance of breaking apart a couple joined by it. But he was perfectly welcome to admire Draco from a distance.

I think the world would be improved if more people did that, Harry thought, while he answered Owen’s questions about where he would be during the battle.

“I’ll need to be fighting Voldemort,” said Harry. “Apart from the fact that only my magic can counter his, there’s a prophecy that concerns the both of us, and he’ll be aiming for me.”

Michael nodded. “Do you want us to protect your friends and partner, then?” he asked, gaze sliding to Draco. Harry hid a smirk, both at the question and at Draco’s indignation that anyone would consider him in need of protection.

“I would appreciate your help in doing so,” Harry admitted. “Distant guardianship, at their shoulders, because Draco, Snape, and my brother all need to be free to move around during the battle. There may be a slight chance that they’re in less danger than normal; the prophecy speaks of my taking a ‘division of the heart’ that will enable me to defeat Voldemort, and I think that he may interpret that as the death of someone close. So he may avoid trying to hurt them, in case he gives me that division. But I can’t be entirely sure he’ll interpret the prophecy that way, and every bit of protection helps.”

“Harry!” Draco all but squawked. “Shouldn’t you be asking your guards to stand at your back?”

Harry gave him a bright smile. “But, Draco, you’re important to me,” he chirped. “And I can protect myself better with my magic than you can with your own powers.”

Draco gave him a glare. Michael took the opportunity to study his profile. Harry swallowed another chuckle, and looked back at Owen.

“There’s one thing we’ll have to settle after the battle, though,” he said. “If Midsummer does defang Voldemort, the way I hope it will, and make him less of a problem for months or even years, then we have to give you a more regular role in my life than just bodyguards. Where I intend to spend the rest of my summer—well, I think I may take Draco and Professor Snape with me, but probably no one else. So think about that, please.”

“We will,” said Owen, snapping his fingers under his twin’s nose to get his attention. “Thank you for giving us a place in the battle, Harry.”

Harry nodded, trying to convince himself that Owen’s tone held only the usual gratitude, and nothing worshipful or slavish, which would have been unbearable. “You’re welcome.”

Owen and Michael turned back to their own room then, and Harry and Draco made their way to the Owlery. Draco at least went on complaining about the bodyguards instead of getting his birthday gift, which Harry found a relieving change of subject.

*

Indigena spat dust out of her mouth, and then paused to shake dirt out of her hair. A moment later, she wondered why she’d bothered. More dirt fell into it from the roof of the tunnel.

I hate being this far underground, she thought, even as she stroked the vine that had dug the tunnel through the dirt and let her get this far. A second vine had extended beside it and widened the passage enough for Indigena to crawl through, but had retreated so she could fit in. And now they were about to head into unknown territory, the concrete and heavy stone there was no choice but to bore straight through.

This was heavy business, and dirtier than she had imagined, breaking into Tullianum from beneath to rescue the Death Eaters imprisoned there. It meant she didn’t have to attend the Death Eater meeting tonight, though, as the others tugged in their new recruits and initiated them. Indigena had had enough of killing and torture from hearing her Lord talk of it.

She took a deep breath and touched the vine again. It rustled obediently. Indigena felt a smile of pleasure and love light her face, and didn’t conceal it. Why should she? They were alone here, and ahead of them was a task that only they could do.

She leaned against the vine and closed her eyes. “Ready, my love?” she murmured. “For the final push?”

The tendrils, dark green veined with black, that she’d dreamed of and bred and created curled around her in answer. Indigena wrapped herself close, the plants beneath her skin flexing towards the outside. They would give her the ability to ride with her vine upwards and not be smashed. Indigena’s body hadn’t been fully human for years. She’d never regretted implanting the vines, leaves, and flowers that she had; they bounced most spells, disguised her when she needed to be disguised, and shielded her in moments like this. It only saddened her that most other people looked askance at her for it.

“Now,” she whispered.

The vine struck upwards. Indigena felt the grinding shock when it hit stone. She closed her eyes and hung on, riding every wave as it again and again. Tendrils writhed over her head, seeking out tiny cracks in the solid material, probing always towards the presence of greater warmth and light overhead. Tullianum was their sun, and they were the long-buried seeds rising to meet it.

How great a force this is, Indigena thought, as the stones above her ground and shifted apart. The force of green and growing things, which drives a flower through inches of soil when the spring comes, which sends sap pumping up through trees like a heartbeat, which makes the first seeds return in months to an area blasted by fire or magic. And everyone else underestimates it.

The vine was tiring. It reached out to her, and Indigena bled her magic into it, pumping it full of the power that meant more to a creation like this than sap or blood. It surged again, and she held it, warmth and sleek life shifting beneath her, primal as muscle.

Ram. Ram. Ram.

She didn’t know how long it took. She didn’t know how much blood she shed as broken chunks of stone and concrete rasped against her skin. All she knew was the single, driven purpose, the will, that she was giving both herself and the plant. She was a strong witch. She chose to do something, and it got done. On and on they rose.

Indigena wasn’t surprised to feel blasts from wands striking at the creeping tendrils that had already made it through Tullianum’s floor. The Aurors would be trying to destroy her beauty before it could get far. But they were utterly inexperienced with magic like this. They didn’t understand the insane determination that powered it, either the vine’s or her own.

Indigena reached deeper into her own magic, and it answered her, reaching and grasping and whipping. Indigena knew Aurors were flying as the tendrils grabbed them, though she could not hear the sounds of their bodies smashing from down here, and only faintly feel the trickle of blood across leaves. Down here, it was peaceful.

The tendrils crawled on, racing and sniffing over the stone, seeking out those cells where people with the Dark Mark resided. Indigena felt herself smiling as the flowers she’d made for just this purpose turned back and forth, flagging out the smell of her Lord. The Mark on her own arm pulsed in recognition, and the vine lashed forward, driving through the doors, or grasping them and wrenching them off their hinges.

They flooded free, Death Eaters captured last year and Death Eaters captured this year, and Indigena sent up the massive arms of the plant, calling up three times her old strength so that they could tear open holes in the floor, and then withdrawing them. Most of the Dark Lord’s servants didn’t hesitate, dropping into the holes and sliding rapidly downwards. All the holes would lead to the massive tunnel Indigena and the vine had come through, in the end, and that would lead them to a spot on the outskirts of London where they would be able to Apparate to the Dark Lord’s side. Since he would be calling, most of them should be able to reach him even without their wands.

And as for their wands…well, the Dark Lord had sent Karkaroff to kidnap a certain wand maker, who would create new weapons for his loyal servants.

Indigena waited until she was sure that no one with a Dark Mark was left in Tullianum prison. The Aurors had retreated and gone for help, or were dead. She pulled back the arms of the vine, reluctantly, and slid down the tunnel and into the dirt one where the Death Eaters waited.

A heavyset man, who fit her Lord’s description of Walden Macnair, looked at her with a faint smile. “And you’re a Yaxley of Thornhall,” he said.

It was hard to remember human speech for a moment, but Indigena nodded. “Come to rescue you,” she said, pulling up her left robe sleeve to reveal the Dark Mark. “We join our Lord for an assault on Hogwarts at Midsummer.”

Macnair laughed, and his eyes shone. “That is what I like to hear,” he said, and helped her lead the others back down the tunnel.

*

Harry winced at the sight of the Daily Prophet headline the next day.

DEATH EATERS BREAK OUT OF TULLIANUM; TEN AURORS KILLED

He read the story, but the headline had encapsulated it, really. Immense vines of a kind that no one had seen before had dug up into the prison and dragged open the cells of those who carried Dark Marks. They had also killed every Auror that fired curses at them, until the remaining ones had run. Scrimgeour was quoted saying that he considered this a terrible tragedy and would reinforce the prison with new spells against any attack from beneath.

Harry suffered a momentary pang of guilt. Should I have anticipated that Indigena Yaxley would do that?

Maybe he should have, though he hadn’t known she could create vines that would dig through stone. The ground around Hogwarts was dirt, and it was no real surprise that she’d been able to bore through that. But this…

Lucius told me she was dangerous, Harry thought, eating his eggs without putting down the newspaper, which hovered in front of him thanks to a Levitation Charm. I had no idea how right he was.

“Harry? Can I have my gift now? You haven’t even wished me Happy Birthday yet!”

Harry looked up with a faint groan. Draco was sitting down on the other side of him, and he obviously hadn’t seen the Daily Prophet headline. He looked under his plates as if searching for his gift there, then fixed Harry with an expectant gaze.

Harry grimaced and shook out the paper so that he could see it. Draco lost his smile.

“Voldemort did that?” he breathed.

Harry nodded. “With the help of Indigena Yaxley. They certainly didn’t plan their escape themselves.” If they had, he thought, as he turned to his breakfast while Draco read, then I would be contacting Scrimgeour in hysteria over my parents potentially breaking free.

“I—I can’t believe this happened,” Draco whispered. “You’d think the Ministry would have had wards under Tullianum.”

“Under Tullianum?” Harry snorted. “Why should they have? It’s underground—far underground, with solid stone beneath it. A prisoner could only do something about it if they had their wand or could do wandless magic, and the wards should have taken care of both those problems. They weren’t going to waste magic on what seemed secure. There would have been an outcry against them for that, just as there will be for this.” He lapsed into brooding, wondering what Scrimgeour was doing at the moment, and convinced that he needed to send letters to his allies now, with the exception of Henrietta, asking them to come to the school and aid him in the Midsummer battle.

“Well, they’ll have wards there now,” Draco muttered, as he finished reading the article. He folded it neatly and tucked it away, then turned back to Harry. “And none of that excuses you from wishing me a happy birthday, or giving me a gift as soon as possible.”

Harry smiled faintly, and tried to pull his mind back to matters that he thought of as minor in comparison with how Voldemort might use the escaped Death Eaters. “It’s in our bedroom, Draco,” he said. “Do you want to go back and get it now, or wait until lunch?”

Draco bit his lip. “Why couldn’t you have brought it to breakfast with you?” He was spooning food onto his plate, though, obviously unwilling to go without breakfast so that he could see his gift. “Or why can’t you Summon it now?”

“Because it was too big for me to carry in my arms.”

Draco flushed with excitement, and all but bounced in place on his seat. “That should be brilliant, then,” he said. “I’ll come back with you to the bedroom at lunch.” He gave Harry a stern look. “And it should be worth waiting for.”

Harry gave a weak smile. He did hope Draco would like his gift, but he wasn’t entirely sure he would. Well, that worry had just faded and shriveled in the wake of his worry about Tullianum.

*

“You realize what this could mean, Rufus.” Amelia’s voice was quiet, but inflexible. She probably kept it that low just so he wouldn’t hear the gloating in it, Rufus thought sourly. She had lost to him on the issue of giving werewolves Portkeys to Tullianum, but she was going to win this struggle.

She sat in front of the desk in his office, and so did several other Elders of the Wizengamot, hastily summoned just after Rufus received a firecall informing him of the prisoners’ escape. The rest of them looked as victorious as Amelia. They were starting to feel his strength for the first time, Rufus thought, and few Wizengamot Elders liked being bridled by the Minister. Cornelius’s weakness had spoiled them further, and made them think it the natural state of affairs, that the Wizengamot should direct the future course of the Ministry.

“I do, Amelia,” said Rufus, leaning back and letting his eyes survey all of them at once. He could hear Percy Weasley’s nervous shuffling behind him, and spared a thought to wish the boy would calm down. “It means that we can no longer count on Tullianum as secure. And the Death Eaters are going to swell You-Know-Who’s forces when they go back to him.”

Amelia laughed quietly. “It’s more than that, Rufus,” she said.

There’s a danger here that I didn’t foresee, then. Rufus believed he had kept a reasonable handle on the formation of coalitions in the Wizengamot to oppose him, and had just as subtly undermined them. This one, though, he hadn’t noticed. None of the Elders in the room was as close to Amelia as Emily Gillyflower had been. That bothered Rufus. What’s their common bond? What cause do they share?

“In what way?” he asked, playing dumb. “Have you received more news on You-Know-Who’s activities that I’m unaware of?”

One of the other Elders, a pompous idiot named Nasturtian whom Rufus had never liked, snorted. “You’re perfectly aware of these activities, aren’t you, Rufus?” he asked. “Seeing as how that young halfblood’s published an article recently supporting werewolves’ rights, and you did the same thing?”

“It was hardly an article,” said Rufus. “It was an interview in the Prophet, and I believe I alleged that werewolves were dangerous creatures, as well.” Inwardly, he cursed. He’d made it look as if Harry controlled him, or at least as if someone could make a good case that he did.

“You alleged,” said Amelia. “But I don’t think that you really mean it, Rufus. And now this escape from Tullianum. One might think that you could be a bit more prepared.”

Rufus ground his teeth as he watched her eyes. He and Amelia had been friends and colleagues for years, and then Emily had been bitten. Now Amelia was acting out of fear and guilt and rage at the way she felt compelled to abandon her friend. Rufus understood why she was pressing him so hard, using any excuse to worm her way back to the werewolf issue, but he hated it nonetheless.

“More prepared?” he asked, with a faint frown that concealed the speed of his thoughts.

“Yes, prepared.” Amelia leaned forward. “And so, of course, Rufus, we have to ask each other if we really want an unprepared Minister in a time of war. Of course we can’t have one who can’t meet the challenges. Poor Cornelius wouldn’t have stood the test. We had to vote him out. And, well, of course it’s too early yet to say if you really don’t have what it takes, but we would hate to find out that you don’t. Some more preparation would not go awry.” Her face was all anxious helpfulness.

Rufus heard the threat behind her words. We enacted a vote of no confidence on Fudge. We can do the same to you, if you get too troublesome.

And he had been, he realized now, with a blast of self-blame. He had not realized how deep and entrenched the hatred of werewolves was, how panicked the Wizengamot was in the wake of that bite, and how little it would take to tip the balance against him. With this escape, the rest of the Elders might accept the spin that Amelia was hinting she could put on it—that the escape was the fault of an incompetent Minister who let a fifteen-year-old boy tell him what to do. Being seen as in the pocket of Harry would help him no more than it had helped Fudge to be seen as in the pocket of Augustus Starrise.

They would vote him down in a panic, and accept the next and strongest candidate who appeared—almost certainly Amelia herself.

If he stepped wrong now, he stood the chance of losing everything.

Rufus had played the game of politics for most of the last sixteen years. This was his own fault for forgetting some of its fundamental lessons. Harry was able to forget them, but, well, Harry had Lord-level power, a diverse gathering of allies, and a responsibility to fewer people than Rufus did, ultimately. Rufus had his mind, and that was close to it, particularly with the deaths last night. Ten fine Aurors had fallen, and that included comrades who would have done their best to support him against unfair pressure from various portions of the Ministry.

Time to retreat and regroup.

“I am no one’s pawn,” he said now, his voice mild. “I had not realized that the perception had occurred. Of course a Minister must be strong in a time of war, Amelia, and Cornelius would never have done.” He met her eyes and held them. “I intend to do.”

She got the message. They’d danced with each other too long for her to ignore it. She smiled and nodded. “Good, Rufus. Really, that’s all we wanted to know.” She stood and extended her hand across the desk to him. “I need to go back to the Department and see to my people. We’ve lost so many…” And she let him catch a glimpse of her genuine grief, as a kind of reward.

Rufus shook back, accepting the grief with a slight nod. He would withdraw some of his vocal support for werewolves, modify his stance, in return for Amelia and her coalition not spinning this escape from Tullianum the way they could have. He disliked the practice, but there was much to dislike in politics, and if he had had the rarified sensibilities of a Gryffindor, he would have got out of the game a long time ago.

He waited until Amelia and the other Elders were out the door, and then turned to Percy. “I want you to write to Harry,” he said. “They’ll be watching my post for the next few days, so it can’t come directly from me.”

“What should it say?” Percy whispered. His face was pinched, outraged, and very nearly white. Rufus knew he had followed the contortions of the confrontation well enough to understand what they were up against.

“The details of what happened here,” said Rufus. “The motivations.” He smiled thinly. Harry would probably still be angry with him for backing off his public support for the werewolves, but, well, Rufus had moved too quickly on that. Time to back off, circle, and attack from another direction.

And he would do it by speaking to someone few if any of his opponents would expect to be helpful.

He rose to his feet. “If anyone needs me,” he told Percy, “I’ll be in Tullianum for the next little while, inspecting the damage. And after that will have to come a press conference with the Daily Prophet, I suppose, which can translate into an article illustrated with brave photographs of me inspecting the damage.”

He swept off, wondering if anyone would realize the other reason he wanted to visit the prison. Former Death Eaters and deranged Light Lords were hardly the only prisoners held there. There was also a certain werewolf, who had given out gnomic utterances so far. Rufus would see what he would say when faced with the Minister himself.

*

Harry had a sheaf of letters clutched in his hand when he met Draco at the door to the Slytherin common room after their morning consultations on future classes with their Head of House. His face was pale, taut, and determined, and Draco wished irritably that Voldemort hadn’t chosen last night to break his Death Eaters free. Then Harry would be able to concentrate solely on his birthday, and not on politics.

“What is it?” he demanded, when they arrived in the bedroom, he looked around, and he still saw nothing large, valuable, and obviously for him.

Harry blinked for a moment, as though he’d forgotten what they came for, and then smiled thinly. “Oh, yes,” he muttered, and laid the letters on his bed while he reached under it. Draco heard him mutter, “Finite Incantatem!” and then he was pulling at folds of cloth, which rolled under his hand as he dragged them out.

Draco gaped. He had no idea how Harry had managed to get something so large under his bed without Draco noticing.

Then he thought, He’s a Lord-level wizard, you fool, and shook his head, paying attention to the gift as Harry unrolled it before him.

“Happy birthday, Draco,” he murmured.

Draco blinked. It was a tapestry, a dark blue one. It was also a very good likeness of himself, standing with a cloak in the Malfoy colors hanging from his shoulders and his hands resting easily on his left hip and his wand, in the middle of a circle of moon signs, quartered at his hands, feet, and head with symbols. The one at his right hand was a stalking lion, the one at his feet a skull, the one at his left hand a barren tree, and the last, above his head, three stars surrounding a dark space in the center. Draco saw the stars were brighter than the rest, glowing as if on fire.

“What does it represent?” he asked, almost ashamed to admit he didn’t know. His eyes went back to the eyes of his woven image. They were mesmerizing, and as if he had modeled for the weaving himself.

“Our courting ritual,” said Harry. He nodded at the lion. “That’s for my birthday, or the first of August—the constellation Leo. The skull’s for Halloween, obviously. The barren tree represents Imbolc, which comes in February. And the stars are—“

“Walpurgis,” Draco finished, reaching down to trace the symbol above his head. The threads shimmered with living heat against his skin. He shook his head in wonder. “And each of the symbols will brighten as we complete the courting ritual for that particular date?”

“Exactly,” said Harry. He gave a small smile at Draco’s stare. “I did pay attention to what you told me about the ritual, Draco, even if I didn’t read as much on it as you did. And I contacted a weaver in London that same week, giving her a detailed description of you. This has been a long time in the weaving, but I wanted to show you that I take this seriously.”

Draco slowly shook his head. “I had no idea, Harry—“

“Well, it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise if you had an idea, now would it?” Harry softened his words by letting the tapestry slip out of his arms to the floor, and stepping over it to kiss Draco solidly. “Happy birthday. I am sorry that I’ve been distracted, but this makes the Midsummer battle all the more worrying. It means we’ll probably get all the Death Eaters in one place, which I’m pleased about, but—“ Harry shrugged.

Draco put his arms around Harry and leaned his head on his shoulder for a moment, still watching his woven image. He decided that he might as well give Harry his own gift. “Do you know,” he muttered to Harry, “I managed to possess Snape last night.”

Harry jerked back in startlement and stared at him. “You did? I—that’s wonderful, Draco. But are you sure that he wasn’t just letting you do it to tease you about it later?”

Draco snickered. “No. I made him give a horribly-written Hufflepuff exam a good mark. Then I lingered in the back of his mind to see if he remembered and corrected it. He never did. And this morning, I heard a Hufflepuff squealing about her high mark in Potions.”

Harry looked torn between laughter and worry. “That comes close to a violation of his free will, Draco,” he murmured.

Draco concealed a sigh. It’s a good thing he has people around him who worry less about ethics than he does. “I think it’s a pretty small violation in the scheme of things, Harry,” he said. “And it proves that I can possess a Legilimens. That part of the Midsummer battle will work.”

“I hope so,” said Harry, and his face grew pale again as he looked at the letters on the bed. “I should send these.”

Draco stepped back, and let Harry go to the Owlery. Then he sat back and looked at the tapestry of himself for a time. He noticed that the second full moon sign past Walpurgis, the one that probably stood for June, glimmered just a little brighter than the rest of them. The tapestry marked the passage of ordinary time, too.

One thing about his depiction stayed with him as he gazed.

Harry made me more beautiful than I actually am.

*

Done.

Snape stepped back, and then prowled slowly around his cauldron. The potion within glimmered silver. It smelled like fresh, raw meat and blood. It would attract many werewolves, especially those running mad in their beast forms without a sane idea in their heads.

And it would poison them the next time their bodies changed from human to wolf. The lengthening of the bones would call out a venom like acid, deeply painful, feasting on their marrow. The alteration of their flesh and muscle would inspire the composition of their blood to change as well, until it burned them. And the last stages of the transformation would trigger the emotional poison, drowning their minds in despair and inspiring them to bite themselves until they died. Because a werewolf was made to withstand enormous amounts of magical damage, the poison would take a long time to work.

If he ever used it.

He had promised Harry that he would not.

Snape stopped and stared down into the potion, well-aware that it cast a faint silver light that glimmered on his face and perhaps made him look slightly mad.

He had created this poison solely to work out his hatred and his fear. He would feel safer to have this on hand, even though he would never use it.

No. Never.

Of course, there was one problem: the hatred and fear hadn’t gone away. In fact, they coiled in the back of his mind, poisoning him, making him wake from sudden dreams of gleaming teeth and loping bodies and hot breath, and causing him to start at a casual mention of the full moon.

But he would never use it, because he had promised Harry.

He filled vials with the potion before it could cool into uselessness, set Warming Charms on them, and took them over to a cabinet on the far wall. He pushed them to the back of the highest shelf, then closed the cabinet and put the strongest locking spells on it that he knew.

He wasn’t going to touch them. He wasn’t going to use them.

They were just going to be there.