Harry
“Blagh!” someone said.
Harry reflexively almost fired off a curse and caught himself just in time when he saw Weasley red hair. “Ronald?”
The rest of his Vipers filed into the room behind him, wands at the ready. They’d managed to creep through the Department of Mysteries with only one scuffle that ended as soon as the Death Eaters realized who they were fighting and disappeared, only to stumble on what looked like all the DA except Jules.
“Where’s Potter?” Theo demanded.
“A ha ahaha,” Ronald said. His nose looked broken. “’E ran away, ‘e looged so fuddy…”
“Drew them off,” Macmillan panted. He and Roper were trying to keep Bones from bleeding out, looked like. Finnegan and Patil were unconscious on the floor. Patil really did not look good. “That way.”
As soon as Macmillan pointed, Eriss was off like a shot. “Justin, stay and help them,” Harry said, running after her. His and the Vipers’ silenced shoes made no sound even though they were sprinting.
Eriss paused at the edge of a closed door.
Harry glanced over Theo, Blaise, Luna, and Neville. They had their wands out and he’d never seen Luna this focused.
“What,” Theo said, “inspirational speech time? Right before you blast the door down?”
“This isn’t a novel,” Harry sneered, and eased the door quietly open.
Sounds of battle spilled out right away. Eriss darted through. He didn’t get any immediate urgency through the familiar bond so Harry opened it the rest of the way and followed her in a half-crouch.
The Order had come, and Jules was down there somewhere, fighting with them around the creepy arch from earlier. Masked Death Eaters swarmed everywhere, more of them than Harry had expected, more than the Order people for sure, but he did not care. He was here for his brother and no one else.
He plunged down the raised seats. A spell shot his way, Order or Death Eater origins it didn’t matter. Harry fired back and dropped and rolled and cast a strong Notice-Me-Not on himself. Attention skipped right over him, just another body in the chaos, and he hit the floor.
Jules was nowhere to be seen.
Neville
“Where’d he go!” Blaise shouted. Spells shot past them and reflected in his wild dark eyes.
“Can’t see!” Theo called back, neatly dodging a spell. The Death Eater paused, peered at him, and whipped around.
Neville raised his wand.
Luna laid a hand on his wrist. “He left us alone,” she said. “It’s not right to strike a retreating foe in the back, is it?”
“Death Eater,” Neville said.
“One who didn’t try to kill us. C’mon,” Theo said, diving down the steps.
Neville looked at the chaos, thought of Harry down there somewhere, being more reckless than Neville had ever seen him because of Jules running headlong into danger, and he didn’t even hesitate to go after them. He set up an overpowered shield around him as he ran and focused on deflecting various spells. The Order were mostly around the edges of the pit, shooting down and in; they were trying to get to Jules who was somewhere in the middle, like Harry—
“Neville!” Luna slammed into him and they both went down in a tumble. Neville saw a split-second view of a red spell shooting through the space he’d just occupied before his head cracked on the stone. Stars took over his vision and he rolled, banged his elbow, back, hip, knees, back again, then the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him.
Someone he didn’t know loomed over him. Maskless, but unfamiliar, and Neville raised his wand without thinking. The figure fired off a spell before he could aim—
He screamed. The pain was too much.
“Kingsley, stop! He’s one of us!” A familiar head of black hair appeared between himself and the figure. Neville curled around himself, panting and screaming through gritted teeth with every breath. It hurt. It hurt.
“Neville? Neville, can you hear me? Fuck.” He forced his eyes open and focused. Someone was babbling apologies in the background but Neville couldn’t think about more than one person at a time and Harry would always take precedence.
“Har—rahhhhh,” he hissed.
“Fuck,” Harry repeated. “Luna!”
Neville breathed through the pain. There was Luna’s head of bright blond hair. It was a beacon in the chaos. It made sense. Of course Luna would be here. He was safe with Luna and Harry.
Harry was saying something about stabilizing, levitation, safety, but Neville’s ears felt fuzzy. He tried to stop making noises. It was hard. Everything hurt.
Then he saw Harry look panicked, which never happened, and then draw his wand and conjure a Death Eater mask and pull it on.
This made so little sense that Neville shook his head, hard. He stopped right away because Merlin that hurt. He must have hit it harder than he thought, because he had to be hallucinating, there was no way Harry was wearing a Death Eater mask. Oh, wait, unless it was a trick, which actually did make sense, it was very Harry, very Harry, ha, that rhymed, why were his thoughts so loopy? Wasn’t there a fight going on? Serious, Neville, be serious.
Neville struggled to sit up and make his mind cooperate, clutching the gash that split his chest. Luna pushed at his shoulder, trying to get him to lie back down, but he ignored her. She’d gotten some kind of blood-rune shield up with those Muggle runes she liked to use, and they were safe, everyone was ignoring them, meaning he could scan the battle, and there was Harry, recognizable even with the mask because Neville knew his dueling style by sight better than he knew his own—
Harry was sprinting up the steps two at a time, wand raising in slow motion. Neville realized where he was running. He was chasing down a small cluster of people, two Order members and a maskless man writhing on one of the benches, a man Neville recognized.
“Crouch,” he snarled. “Kill him, Harry—”
He waited. Of course Harry had conjured a mask; the Order people would assume this was Death Eater treachery, Harry would dodge another murder charge, the world settled back into some kind of order and so did Neville’s head. Luna was still tugging at him and trying to get bandages on his chest. Neville resisted. Once he’d seen Harry take down the man who’d stood there and watched Neville’s parents get tortured, then he could rest, then—
But Harry’s spell missed.
Neville blinked. Harry didn’t miss. Definitely not twice in a row. Which meant—which meant the two Order people crumpling to the ground—that was intentional.
His world screeched to a halt as Harry reached out a hand, and Crouch took it.
“Amplius. Auri,” Neville growled. He’d never cast the spell wandlessly before.
And he’d never used it in an environment with this much overwhelming sound. His head was already messed up and the spell didn’t help but Neville focused on their conversation through sheer force of will.
“—believe you made me wear one of these to save your ass,” Harry said. Definitely Harry. Not a case of mistaken identity. “You fucking owe me, Barty.”
Barty. Barty.
“You absolute fucking madman,” Crouch said, and this made even less sense because he was a monster, he couldn’t feel affection but it was right there in his voice. “That was Alastor Moody you just stunned.”
“Oops,” Harry said. Neville could hear his smirk clear as Luna’s hair.
“Boneburn Curse,” Crouch said disgustedly, and kicked one of the Order people. “Hypocrites. That’s only a step below Cruciatus.”
“Don’t kill them,” Harry said in a low voice.
Crouch snorted. “One of these days you’ll ask too much of me. They won’t be rejoining this battle.”
Harry shrugged. “I’m only here for Jules.”
That made… kind of sense. Harry didn’t like Moody much, didn’t like the Order much, they were too loyal to Dumbledore and he was here for Jules alone, he was a Slytherin and that meant he’d damn everyone not on the list of his people, Neville knew that and accepted it, he just—
Crouch should not be on that list. But apparently he was.
“Get him and go,” Crouch said. “I won’t stop you.”
Neville lost control of the spell. Sound slammed through his head and now he screamed for real, back arching, blood on his hands and in his throat, his head hurt his chest was falling apart—
“Stupefy,” someone whispered right next to him.
It all ended.
Harry
He moved on autopilot. Down the dais steps. Into the battle again. A few Death Eaters let him slip through their ranks without more than a glance. The mask was as good as a free pass. Harry didn’t know why the Order hadn’t exploited that before. He couldn’t let them see him take it off, though, because then they’d ask what the hell he’d been doing with it on in the first place, and that was a line of questioning he couldn’t afford. Harry cast a strong Notice-Me-Not on himself, tore it off, dashed back to Neville and Luna.
“It’s me,” he said, stepping through Luna’s rune-shield. She looked up and through the charm. “I had to knock him out,” she said.
Harry nodded. “Makes sense. Can you get him out of here?”
Luna gestured at her robes. They were lined with runes written in blood. “I did this while I waited for you.”
“Portable shielding,” he said. “I’m impressed.”
“Yes, it’s taken some time,” she agreed. “I hope it works. Find us when you can. I believe Neville may have a bellyarod.”
“What’s a—never mind, can you explain later?”
Luna smiled at him, almost—sadly? “Of course, Harry Potter.”
“Black,” he said.
She shrugged. “Both.”
Harry blinked.
Luna levitated Neville’s unconscious form. His bleeding had stopped, just slowed; she’d used stasilus. It would keep Neville alive for now.
“Be careful,” she added, and then like a wraith she was moving back up the benches.
“Harry!”
His Notice-Me-Not dissolved but Harry was already turning, eyes wide, looking for the familiar voice—
Sirius. His godfather was here, sprinting down the seats and batting spells aside, Vanessa and Hazel and a man Harry had met once named Ian on his heels. The other three got hung up when the Death Eaters turned on them but Sirius made it through.
“What are you doing?” Harry said, heart pounding wildly. He didn’t stop scanning for Jules but the only light was spellfire and it was almost impossible to pick anyone out. Somewhere he thought he heard Bellatrix’s cackling laugh.
“You said you wanted your lawyer,” Sirius said, like it was obvious. “Vanessa Flooed me.”
Someone screamed. He was frozen for a long second. Sirius had come. Sirius had come for him.
A spell shot by close enough to ruffle his hair and Harry snapped out of it. “Stupefy,” he hissed, aiming back at where the spell had come from, and followed it up with a cutting curse and a really vicious bone-breaker. At least something connected because there was a grunt and a body staggered backwards.
“Cousin.”
Sirius and Harry spun around in unison.
The battle had left a weird little bubble around them, probably the don’t-kill-Harry-Black order. Bellatrix was ignoring him too. She had eyes only for Sirius.
“Hey, Bella,” he said, knuckles white on his wand. “It’s been a while.”
“Two years,” she singsonged. “Two years since I heard you screaming…”
“Speaking of which, you seem saner than I expected,” Sirius commented. “Can’t really go to St. Mungo’s and all.”
“Noooo, but I do serve a master Legilimens,” she crooned. “He pieced my mind back together. Mostly. And the dementors had a deal to let us off light if we had this.” She waggled her left arm tauntingly. Her robe sleeve slipped up and showed the Dark Mark. “You probably benefited a little, cousin, seeing as you bunked with us for so long… how’d it feel to be treated like one of the scum?”
“Awful,” Sirius said. “How’d it feel to bust out?”
“Wonderful,” she said.
They circled for another second.
“Sirius,” Harry said in a low voice.
Sirius’ eyes were for Bellatrix alone, hard as black diamond. It was like the progress had all been stripped away and he was a terrifyingly thin step away from the madness Azkaban left in him.
The madness Bellatrix was clearly even closer to.
“It’s all right, widdle Harry,” Bellatrix said. “Blacks don’t kill Blacks.”
“Blacks don’t let other family members disgrace our name either,” Sirius said. “Isn’t that what you told me when I went Gryffindor?”
“It’s what I said when you befriended Potter,” she said.
“I’m Lord Black. I declare what disgraces our name. And it’s you, not me.”
“Ask your Heir how much he abhors me,” Bellatrix said with an evil smirk. “Ask your Heir if I ought to be condemned for what I’ve done.”
Sirius snorted.
Harry really, really hoped Sirius didn’t ask, because he didn’t know what he would say.
Bellatrix’s steps shifted. Sirius’ eyes narrowed.
“Get Potter!” a Death Eater shouted. Jules burst from the crowd, no longer holding the prophecy, harried and panting and alive—
In the split second Harry was distracted, four other Order members surged after Jules and the Death Eaters on his tail. Among them, James Potter. The dais seethed with bodies. Harry was torn away from Sirius, caught up in a duel with no sides, all his concentration tied up in shielding.
Theo elbowed his way out of a gap. Eyes on fire and smile curling. Blaise was right behind him, face set, not enjoying it like Theo was (like Harry was) but still ready to fight.
“Jules,” Harry said, and he knew they’d be right there flanking him as he fought his way back towards where he’d last seen his brother.
They found each other almost on accident. Harry tripped over a half-conjured bit of rubble on the floor, Blaise blasted a Death Eater aside, and Harry slammed straight into Jules.
“Harry,” Jules said, “thank Circe—”
“We have to go,” Harry said.
“They’re all hurt,” Jules said.
Blaise grabbed his elbow. “No, we got them out, Justin stayed back to help them. It’s fine, they’re fine, but right now we need to—”
“Dumbledore!”
The cry split the room.
Harry flinched back out of reflex and slipped on something round. He looked down—Moody’s fake eye stared up at him accusatorily. It had been the first thing Harry cursed away. He’d gotten lucky that Moody was so fixated on getting revenge on Barty that he’d dropped his guard for a split second and missed Harry’s identity.
Constant vigilance, he thought at the eye, not letting himself relax at all even though Dumbledore’s presence was enough to scatter everyone like cockroaches when you click a light on. Death Eaters bolted for the exits. Some made it, some didn’t, until only a few other people were still locked in furious pitched battle in the middle of the room. Dumbledore was busy dueling five people at once, most of the Order was down and out, it was just—
Sirius, Bellatrix, James, and Andromeda Tonks. Harry couldn’t tell who was dueling whom. Spells and taunts flew, wands blurred in the air, their faces all twisted with hate.
Harry stepped forward, wand-half raised. He had no clear shot. “Don’t,” Theo said, gripping his elbow. “You’ll only get one of them hurt if you interfere.”
Blaise had Jules in a similar grip.
“Dad,” he whispered.
Harry looked at him, for just a second, to wonder at the love and fear on Jules’ face. He looked on the outside like Harry felt on the inside. But how anyone could feel that for James—
A flare of green light barely missed Sirius’ side and Harry felt his entire body seize up.
James ducked a jet of red light shot by Merlin knew who. “You’ll have to do better than that,” he taunted, returning fire that licked up Bellatrix’s robes, and she screamed in rage and redirected the flames at Andromeda, who jumped back to shield, and then James was slashing his wand down at Sirius in a motion Harry recognized as one of the nastiest non-Dark curses in existence—
Sirius’ jet of red light hit James square in the chest.
He stumbled backwards, face still set in a mocking smile, right through the veil. It fluttered once as if in a high wind and fell still.
Harry blinked. Sirius had frozen while Bellatrix cackled in triumph, still battling Andromeda. It felt like everyone was staring at the veil, the whole world, waiting for James Potter to hit the ground on the far side.
But he didn’t and he didn’t and he didn’t, and Harry thought about what the Unspeakables studied in this room, which meant…
“Dad,” Jules said, “DAD!”
He lunged forward.
Harry caught the back of his robes at the same time as another, larger hand. Lupin helped haul Jules backwards. His own face was crumpled into grief but he wrenched Jules into his arms.
“DAD!” Jules screamed. “DAD!”
“It’s too late,” Lupin said. “It’s too late, Jules, do you hear me? He’s… he’s gone.”
Gone. Dead. Harry felt like he floated away from them instead of walked. He had no place in their moment of grief. He felt none of his own. Only emptiness, like he’d taken his first breath of fresh air in years.
James Potter was gone. He couldn’t hurt Harry anymore.
“Harry?” Blaise said hesitantly. “Are you…”
“Fine,” Harry said. He blinked the shock away. “Fine—it’s fine, Blaise, you know I’d have done it myself if I could,” he said softly. “I need to go to Sirius.”
Blaise nodded. He and Theo hung back while Harry slipped over. Somewhere Bellatrix had left Andromeda on the ground and disappeared. Dumbledore was searching for her, face set and terrifying. He had what looked like half the Death Eaters from the fight bound in a pile on the floor. Harry hoped Barty wasn’t among them, but right now Sirius took priority.
“He’s gone,” Sirius said quietly. He hadn’t looked away from the arch.
“I know.” Harry refused to look at it. “Sirius, hey.”
“I can hear them on the other side,” Sirius whispered. “There’s people in there.”
“Here, too,” Harry reminded him. “Sirius. You used stupefy, you weren’t… trying to do this.”
Sirius blinked and got a look on his face like he was waking up. “I…”
“It’s fine,” Harry said. It probably wasn’t, but then again they could probably blame Bellatrix or battle chaos. “It’ll be fine.”
Vanessa and Hazel and their other friend possibly-Ian finally got to the dais, breathing hard. All three of their robes were disasters and half of Hazel’s hair was singed off.
“James?” Vanessa asked.
Harry nodded since Sirius seemed incapable of responding.
Vanessa looked around at everything with a sigh. “This is going to be absolute hell to clean up.”
“Yeah…” Hazel sighed. “I’ll go make sure the Ministry arrests the right people. Ian, organize Floo to St. Mungo’s, see if anyone’s got immediate curse issues and find anyone who can heal.”
Harry shifted and looked around. His instincts were prickling at him, and Eriss was uneasy too, but neither of them could pinpoint why. Just a general sense of disquiet.
Something was wrong.
“Sirius,” he said in a low voice. “Sirius, I think we should go.”
Jules
“He’s not gone,” Jules said flatly. He wasn’t. There was no way. He’d heard the voices behind the curtain, people hid back there, Dad was just on the other side, he’d be back—
“He’s gone,” Remus said, voice breaking. “Jules, he’s—he’s not coming back.”
Jules shook his head. Ignored the battle dying down, Dumbledore hunting for Bellatrix, Harry running to his fake family.
“Yes,” Remus whispered.
It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t it wasn’t but—
He hadn’t reappeared. Dad always came when Jules needed him. Always, no matter how much it messed up his day. Jules had always hated that Harry never got to see that side of him—but he loved his father for it, and if Dad wasn’t coming when Jules had been screaming, if Dad wasn’t trying to stand near him in a fight then…
“He’s gone,” Remus said again. Tears dripped onto Jules’ head. He barely felt them.
One thought was clear in his head: Sirius Black did this. Lord Sirius fucking Black. Who Dad and Dumbledore originally put in Azkaban because he was unhinged, out of control, a danger to the people closest to him.
And they’d been right.
He’d stopped fighting and Remus’ grip was looser, now, but not loose, like he thought Jules might throw himself through the veil. As if. He might throw someone else through the bloody thing, see how he liked it.
Jules was going to kill him.
But Remus’ grip wasn’t loose enough yet. It galled him, it took all his self-control, but Jules waited. Patiently. If he sagged, Remus would think he’d given up.
A quarter of the way around the dais, he could pick out Black’s head, standing above the two women and man who’d come after him. People were starting to organize around them with purposeful motion instead of aimless post-battle confusion. Jules couldn’t see Harry or his Merlin-forsaken Slytherin friends or Dumbledore but Black—Black he could see.
Black was moving away, through the crowd and toward the door. No one really noticed him go.
Someone called out to them, and Remus let go, cautiously, and bent down to pick something up.
Jules tore himself away and bolted.
“No!” Remus shouted, but there were Aurors and Hitwizards pouring into the room now, moving to arrest the Death Eaters, and no one heard him among yells to get down and hands in the air and toss your wand away.
He took the tiered benches two at a time and surged up towards the door Black had taken.
Harry
All it took was a second, was Eriss drawing his attention through the chaos toward Lupin and Jules. He’d seen murder in Jules’ eyes and known they had to go.
Someone else might’ve missed it but Harry knew that look intimately from the mirror. They were brothers, after all, and some similarities were nature, not nurture.
He dragged Sirius through the brain room. They were in the hallway on the other side when he heard a crash and Jules’ voice shout “Wingardium leviosa!”
Sirius let Harry drag him, following along blankly. He hadn’t snapped out of it, still, not completely. There was no emotion on his face beyond a sort of blind shock. Later Harry could think about what it meant to him that Sirius trusted him enough to follow without question but there was no time now.
They skidded into the spinning room and he looked around in sudden panic. Jules was coming, and the Aurors and Order would be right behind him, and Sirius had just killed Lord James Potter, negligent father and icon of the family that had saved wizarding Britain, and Sirius was a murderer and suspected Dark wizard, still dealing with the social stigma of Azkaban—
“Tell me the way out!” he demanded, wand out even though there was nothing to curse, no spell he knew that would work here.
A door sprang open. It led to the same hallway he and Jules had come down what felt like so long ago. Like the Department of Mysteries wanted them gone.
Harry didn’t question it and took off running, tossing an illegal locking spell at the door over his shoulder. Who knew if it’d hold up down here with all the wards and strange old magic but it was better than nothing.
His heart was in his throat the agonizing four seconds it took for a lift to respond to the button. Harry kept looking over his shoulder, left hand holding Sirius’ wrist in a death grip, but Jules didn’t appear—
The lift doors slid open with a cheerful ding.
Harry shoved Sirius through and hit the button for the atrium.
Right as the lift doors closed, he thought he saw a beam of light spill into the hallway.
The lift rattled upward. Harry closed his eyes and breathed.
“Harry,” Sirius said hoarsely. “What…”
“You just killed James Potter,” Harry said. Sirius flinched but platitudes were for people who had more time on their hands. “Forget Lupin and Jules, our whole world is going to be out for your blood. Tensions were high in that room. You need to get home. We can handle this once things have calmed down.”
“Vanessa. And your friends.”
“She’s smart, she’ll work it out,” Harry said. “I didn’t have time to warn her or Theo and Blaise. They’ll be fine.” He could feel Eriss with Theo; there was tension from her end but reassurance that everything was fine.
Sirius stared at the wall. “James,” he said blankly. “He’s gone.”
“Gone,” Harry said, watching him carefully. He definitely thought the world was better off without James Potter in it, and although he was slightly disappointed he’d have to wait for the afterlife to actually curse the man, Sirius had as much or more right to vengeance. The question was if he decided in hindsight that it was worth it.
Sirius took a shuddering breath. “I didn’t mean to,” he said quietly. “I mean, I…”
“It’s okay,” Harry said. “It was a stunner. I saw it, Blaise and Theo saw it, hell, Lupin probably did. Memory examination will show the spell you used. No one could’ve predicted that outcome.”
Of course, there was the problematic fact that Sirius had been dueling Bellatrix but also sort of James. Memory examination would turn that up, too. Harry pushed those thoughts away. They could deal with that later; first he had to get Sirius out of here.
“Let’s just get home,” Sirius said. “That was… quick thinking.”
Harry considered and then leaned in a little. Sirius wrapped one arm roughly around his shoulders and Harry hugged him back, supporting Sirius’ weight for a few seconds.
The lift rattled to a halt. He pulled back and dropped into a ready stance as the doors opened, but the Atrium was empty; all the first responders seemed to have gone down below. Good sign.
They were halfway across the floor when a jet of red light hit Sirius in the back.
He went down with a thud. “Protego maximus. Renervate!” Harry cast, and Sirius groaned. More spells bounced off the shield he’d gotten up and Jules yelled incoherently. The shield wouldn’t hold for long. “Go,” Harry said. “Sirius, run—I’ll delay him, Floo home.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Sirius said instantly.
“Go,” Harry said. “I will be fine you bloody stupid self-sacrificing Gryffindor, now go! I didn’t kill anyone tonight!”
Sirius stood up and cast another protego maximus. Jules was sprinting towards them. They had seconds, maybe.
“Go or I arrange to have Lupin killed too,” Harry said flatly.
Sirius’ eyes widened.
“I can and will,” Harry said, making his voice cold, resolute, releasing the damper on his eyes. Part of him shrank back in horror from the pain he was causing Sirius but Harry neatly compartmentalized it.
“…okay,” Sirius whispered, and he turned and bolted for the Floo just as his shield came down.
Harry deflected three times nonverbally and managed to land a weak Sticking Charm on the floor near Jules’ feet. Jules stumbled and staggered to a halt.
Fire flared behind them.
“He’s gone,” Harry said evenly. “Jules, listen. You can’t catch him now.”
“Like hell I can’t,” Jules snarled. “I’m in your Floo wards, I can—I can go to your house, I’ll fucking kill him, he killed Dad—”
Shit. No way would Sirius think to tweak the wards, not in this state. Harry had to delay Jules until other people got here and broke up the fight and he could get home and change the wards himself. And if it came to a fight, he could not reveal his actual skill level.
“Jules, he didn’t mean to. It was a stunner. None of us knew what that veil is,” Harry said.
Jules laughed brokenly. “A stunner? Is that what he told you?”
“It’s what I saw,” Harry said. “The distinctive red light of a Stunning Spell unique from any other spell’s color.”
“You spend too much time with Hermione,” Jules spat. “Did she feed you a textbook?”
Harry pressed his lips together and swallowed back about seventeen different retorts that would only make Jules angrier. “I paid attention in class. Sirius never meant for this to happen.”
Jules
“So what?” Jules spat. “It still fucking happened!”
In the half-light of the empty atrium Harry had never looked more eerie, or more hateable. Jules looked at the sharp angles of his face and his Slytherin tie and his vicious resolute Avada-colored eyes.
He’d never looked less like Jules’ brother.
The grief threatened to take over. Jules’ wand hand dipped a little and he fought it back, clinging to anger because otherwise he was going to collapse or start cursing everything in sight and Merlin damn it but he didn’t want to hurt Harry.
“J-Dad wouldn’t want you to be a killer,” Harry said.
Jules’ fragile hold on his temper snapped and he shot off a curse without thinking. Harry blocked but Jules put everything into his magic and hurled spell after spell at his brother. “What would you know!” he screamed. “About what—Dad would want—what would you fucking know! You’re not a Potter, you were never there, you didn’t know him, you don’t even fucking care—”
“I wasn’t there because he wouldn’t let me be!” Harry roared right back. He found his footing and got off the defensive, a little and then more, and suddenly Jules was shielding as much as flinging curses. “It wasn’t my fucking choice—he left me to rot with Muggles and hated me for my Sorting so don’t you dare blame me for not being there—”
“I don’t care!” Jules was using spells he’d only ever studied or aimed at wooden targets, spells that caused serious damage and were barely not Dark, spells his dueling classes and the DA had only ever looked at sideways and he’d had to study in private. “And you know what, I bet he would want me to kill Black, he hated him too, you want to know what he said?”
“Jules don’t,” Harry said.
Jules wasn’t very good at nonverbal casting but he knew some nasty curses that he’d drilled over and over as last-ditch weapons and he started throwing them now. Harry stumbled, mouth slamming shut as his lips sewed themselves together, and Jules pressed his advantage, not even thinking about what he was saying because anything to hurt his brother who was stopping him from getting to Black. “He said Black was a plague and we’d have to find a way to get rid of him eventually—he’s a danger and unstable and a Dark wizard and he needs to die, we were going to do it! We fucking will, or I will.”
Harry dove to the floor and rolled to dodge a barrage of spells. His next curse came within an inch of Harry’s elbow and Harry dove behind the fountain. Jules laughed. “Slytherin fucking coward, this is exactly what Dad hated about you, he said it all the time—said he wished he’d kept you so he could’ve stamped this out of you when you were little, made you a normal Gryffindor Potter—but you know what, I’m glad you weren’t around, I’m happy you ended up with the fucking Muggles, I just wish you weren’t stuck there longer, you’re a fucking psychopath and you deserved whatever they did to you because you don’t even care!”
“I care,” Harry snarled, stepping out from behind the statue. Jules paused. Something had changed—the stitches had torn out of Harry’s lips and his mouth and teeth and chin were covered in blood, but not just that, something in his eyes or expression or the angle of his wand in his hand or something. “I care about lots of things, brother. I cared enough about you to come along tonight and keep your stupid Gryffindor ass safe.”
Jules registered that Harry’s wand hand was steady but his other one was shaking. And something was off about his voice, too; it was heavy on the s sounds and bled together in a way that he really did not like. A familiar way.
Like Parseltongue.
“But you know what?” Harry hissed.
“What?” Jules spat. “What don’t I know, what am I too stupid or Gryffindor or noble to understand—”
“I don’t fucking care anymore,” Harry said.
Jules barely had time to block.
He’d been winning before, and now he realized Harry’d been holding back. Not with skill but with magic. He wasn’t any faster now, wasn’t any more coordinated, but now he was hurling spells that Jules didn’t know, releasing sickly light and rotten-egg fumes. Heat cracked the marble under their feet. Jules pressed forward and barely felt the snarl on his face, only the hatred coiling in his stomach.
It felt like dueling a Death Eater.
“Dark—wizard,” he snarled.
Harry’s mouth twisted in a bloody rictus grin but he made not a sound as he dueled.
Jules felt a little desperate but he wasn’t losing. Wasn’t too badly off, actually, they were well matched, and once he’d gotten over the shock of the nastier spells he was actually holding his own pretty well.
Except Harry was just the slightest bit better.
And Jules was having to spend more and more energy on shields.
Welts swelled on his face and his left eye was swollen shut. Blood sheeted down Harry’s mouth and robe-front. Jules thought one of his fingers was broken and Harry’s left robe-sleeve and hand were black with burns. The marble turned to sand under his feet and Jules stumbled back as a cutting curse gashed open his left calf, and then a purple light clipped his ribs and he screamed as something inside him tore, and he landed a Boneburn Curse on Harry but it wasn’t enough, Harry dropped to a knee from the pain but Jules didn’t have time to do more than get back on solid ground and cast a bandage spell on his leg before Harry had taken the curse off and shot back to his feet.
He had to end this.
Jules took something to the arm and vicious electrical pain lanced up and down his torso but it bought him a tiny opening. “REDUCTO,” he bellowed, and put all his emotion and all his remaining magic behind the spell.
Harry’d been halfway through another wand motion and he broke it off and managed to conjure a heavy block of stone in between them.
It exploded with an earsplitting crack.
Jules was picked up and thrown backwards like a rag doll. He hit the floor and slid, head thumping into the marble hard enough for him to see stars. Tiny bits of stone pounded him and the ground; he threw his arms over his head just as some bigger pieces slammed into him or the floor nearby.
The silence that followed was eerie.
His ears rang as Jules staggered to his feet. He didn’t know if it was the head blow or the noise. There was his wand, two or three meters away; the distance wobbled as he tried to walk over to it but he kept moving. Get wand, that was the first rule of dueling. Or something like that. He was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to have dropped it at all.
Across the Atrium, stone clacked. Jules spun and almost lost his balance. Harry was leaning on the wall by the fireplaces, shaking stone dust out of his for-once-not-perfect hair and clutching his right arm close to his chest. It was bent at a sickening angle but his wand was in his burned left hand and pointed dead at Jules.
The head blow had knocked something out of place. He stared at Harry and Harry stared back. Dad was dead, Jules was going to kill Sirius Black, he’d just said some unforgivably awful things, Harry was holding him at wandpoint, and he just felt numb.
Harry stuffed his wand into his pocket with a jerk and stepped into a fireplace. Jules didn’t move or break eye contact as Harry pinched some spilled Floo powder off the ground and threw it down. His lips moved in the shape of Grimmauld Place and then he vanished in flames almost as green as his eyes.
Jules was still standing there when Dumbledore, Fudge, half the Order, and a squadron of Aurors burst into the Atrium. “Jules,” Dumbledore said, sweeping up to him. “Dear boy, are you all right?”
“Fine,” Jules said hollowly. Everything was hollow. Him, the world, who cared? He was numb and clinging to the numbness because if he let himself think— “I’m fine.”
“Dumbledore, I demand an explanation!” Fudge sputtered.
Dumbledore drew himself up to his full height and even after months of being ignored by him, Jules couldn’t deny his relief. Dumbledore was here and things were going to work out. He’d handle it. “The explanation, Cornelius, is that which I have been trying to tell you for a year now,” he said in a terrible voice. “Lord Voldemort has indeed returned, as evidenced by his closest followers assaulting the most protected part of the Ministry of Magic on this very night, after having learned that the Boy Who Lived would be here tonight.”
“Thanks to leaks in the Ministry,” someone shouted. Jules glanced at the Aurors and saw their grumbling; it wasn’t all directed at the Order, either. Glares were being aimed at Fudge.
And curious stares were pointed at him. Jules abruptly wanted to scream or cry or curse them. He didn’t want to be the Boy Who Lived tonight, he wanted to go home.
But he was the Boy Who Lived, so he set his shoulders and pushed everything down until the ringing in his ears got louder and the numbness filled his whole head.
“Potter! What happened here?” Moody barked, covered in fresh curse damage and missing his eye. He looked deranged.
Jules lifted his chin and stepped forward, away from Dumbledore’s protective height. He’d disobeyed the man to be here tonight and if he could do that he could face them on his own. “I asked to visit the Ministry tonight because of something related to me in the Department of Mysteries,” he said. His voice sounded strange. Empty, buzzing, like his ears, like his skull. “Someone leaked it, and—when we got here, we were attacked. Death Eater ambush. They chased me into the Department of Mysteries, but some of my school friends came after me,” he said, looking anxiously at the Order.
“They’re safe,” Kingsley reassured him in his soothing voice. The tall man looked really awful but at least he was standing on his feet and out here which meant he wasn’t in immediate danger. “They’ve been taken to St. Mungo’s.”
The things pressing in at the numbness got a little less heavy. Safe. They were safe and being healed. “Right,” Jules said, clearing his throat. “So—then Order of the Phoenix backup arrived, right as we were about to be overrun by the Death Eaters and… then…” He took a deep breath. “Everyone was dueling. Sirius Black hit my father with a Stunning Spell and knocked him through the death veil thing.”
The Aurors burst into furious noise, as did some of the Order—he guessed not everyone had seen it, not everyone realized. Jules kept talking because the alternative was fall apart. “I ran after Black. I guess he bolted ‘cause he knew he… has to face the law for this. But I got in a fight on the way—” he gestured around at the spell damage done to the Atrium—“and Black got away. He’s probably Flooed back to his house.”
Everyone burst into a storm of excited noise. No one threw questions, which was good, because Jules felt like he was about to crack in half.
“My boy,” Dumbledore said gently, “this fight in the Atrium—was there another ambush? Was someone else here?”
Jules turned and looked at him, standing there and gently prodding, oh so delicately trying to figure out where Harry was and what had gone wrong. Harry, who had already faced one murder trial, who Jules had just hurled some awful stuff at, who’d walked away rather than keep fighting. “Yeah,” he said, “a Death Eater. They ran, I think when they heard you all coming. I don’t know who. They had a mask on.”
“Most impressive!” one of the Aurors said. “For a lad to fight off a Death Eater alone—this is the mark of serious spellwork here…”
Jules nodded stiffly. He’d told his story. He’d done his duty. Now he just wanted to leave.
Dumbledore rounded on Fudge. “You will give the order to remove Dolores Umbridge from her post at Hogwarts and rescind each and every one of the recent Educational Decrees. You will tell your Aurors to stop searching for my Care of Magical Creatures professor so that he may return to teaching, and arrest instead the dozen Death Eaters currently incapacitated in the Department of Mysteries. I will give you half an hour of my time tonight, which should be plenty to cover the finer details of Mr. Potter’s story. After that, I shall need to return to my school. If you need more help from me you are, of course, more than welcome to contact me at Hogwarts. Letters to the headmaster will find me.”
Fudge goggled some more while Dumbledore picked up a bit of rubble. It was half the size of Jules’ head and one of the bigger pieces of Harry’s conjured stone shield.
Jules felt a little sick thinking about what might have happened if Harry hadn’t shielded in time.
“Portus,” Dumbledore said. “Take this, Jules—it will return you somewhere safe—”
Fudge opened his mouth, probably to protest an unauthorized Portkey, but Jules was reaching out already. He didn’t care where it took him as long as he got away from here.
The familiar navel-jerk of a Portkey tore him away from the Ministry and Jules closed his eyes.
His feet hit the floor. For a long second he doesn’t open his eyes again but the familiar smell tells him where he is right away, citrus and old books and something else he can never quite name. Dumbledore’s office.
The dozens of spindly silver instruments clicked and whirred on their tables. Jules looked out the window. Approaching dawn painted a light greenish-blue line on the horizon.
It was unbearable standing in the quiet, serene, perfect room. The portraits should be screaming and howling instead of sleeping; the books should be lying torn on the floor. Jules paced in tight circles and kept his eyes glued on the floor and tried not to think.
But it was useless; the numbness was slipping away and he couldn’t stop thinking that it was all his fault. If he hadn’t ruined the swap he’d never have been in the Ministry and the others would never have come after him, been hurt because of him.
Dad was—Dad was dead because of him.
He couldn’t be alone with this, couldn’t be alone right now, there was a dark void where Dad used to be and if Jules looked at it for too long—
There was a grunt and a snuffle. “Ah,” a nasally voice said, “Julian Potter. You spend far too much time here…”
Jules whirled. Phineas Nigellus Black, former Headmaster of Hogwarts, leered down at him. “And just how did you get in? Dumbledore sent you, I presume? A message for my great-great-grandson?”
“Yeah,” Jules spat, “I have one. You can tell Black to go fuck himself.”
“Dear me, such language,” Phineas Nigellus said. “I would never have stood for such when I was Headmaster. What has he done now?”
Jules opened his mouth and then paused. He couldn’t say it.
But… not saying it wouldn’t make it any less true. He was a hero, a Potter, the Boy Who Lived; he had to be braver than this.
“Killed my father,” he snarled. “That’s what.”
Phineas Nigellus blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Jules’ hands formed fists and his nails bit into his palms. “He’s killed my father. So you can tell him he can go fuck himself before I kill him.”
Phineas Nigellus snorted. “As if he’d have killed James Potter. The boy has always been too sentimental for his own good; he rightfully holds a grudge for the Azkaban incident but he couldn’t bring himself to kill Potter.”
“Well, he has,” Jules spat. “Knocked him right through the death veil thing in the Department of Mysteries.”
A stunner, Harry’s voice insisted, but what did he know? There were other red spells, if maybe not the distinctive Stunning Charm red, and they’d been in a battle. Jules didn’t remember exactly what color the spell was. Harry could easily have gotten that wrong.
“My,” Phineas Nigellus said, “how the mighty fall… though does it count as falling if one never hits the ground?”
Jules’ vision went red and he snapped his wand out, firing curses at the portrait without thinking.
They deflected madly around the room but Dumbledore had apparently warded the place all to hell and the portraits were fine. A few of the silvery instruments went crashing to the floor and a stack of papers on the desk caught fire. Jules stopped, breathing hard, and doused the flames with a muttered incantation.
“Poor form, that!” one of the portraits bellowed. They were all awake now, and angry.
“To attempt to defile the portraits of a Headmaster!” a witch shouted. “In my day you’d be expelled for that, boy!”
“Dumbledore’s given this one far too much free rein,” someone else agreed.
“SHUT UP!” Jules shouted.
His wand emitted a bang and though the portraits kept trying to talk, no sound came out.
Phineas Nigellus made a rude gesture and stalked away through the side of his frame. He didn’t reappear.
Jules went back to pacing. Guilt and rage and grief wriggled in his chest like a parasite. He couldn’t remember ever wanting to be someone else before but right now he’d give anything to be—to be normal, to not have the weight of that prophecy on his shoulders, to not be the Boy Who Lived.
Green flames sprang to life in the empty hearth and he jumped about half a meter in the air. His wand was out and trained on it in a heartbeat but it was just Dumbledore, stepping smoothly out onto the rug and spelling ash off his hems.
The portraits burst into cheers and applause that overrode whatever silencing Jules had accidentally laid on them.
“Thank you,” Dumbledore said softly, looking around the office with something close to relief, or peace.
He glanced at Fawkes’ perch just as the phoenix appeared on it in another burst of flame, orange and hot this time. And then, finally, for what felt like the first time in an age, he looked Jules in the eyes.
“You will be pleased to know,” he said, “that none of your friends nor those of your brother will suffer lasting damage from the night’s events.”
Jules tried to say good but the word just wouldn’t form in his mouth. He was glad they were okay, really he was, even Harry’s friends who’d come more for Harry than for him, but—not everyone was.
“Order?” he got out instead. There were other people besides Dad who’d been fighting down there…
“Several of our number have serious injuries, but only one life was lost,” Dumbledore said softly.
Jules met his eyes as he nodded. Dumbledore’s gaze was kindly. It was almost impossible to bear but Jules bore it because he had to.
“I know how you are feeling, Jules,” Dumbledore said softly.
“You don’t,” Jules said. That was one thing he was sure of.
One of the portraits made a snide comment about tragically misunderstood teenagers but Jules ignored them.
Dumbledore shifted and leaned back on his desk. “You are not the only one who has suffered loss—”
“Maybe not, but it’s my fucking fault,” Jules said loudly. “Do you understand that, Professor?”
For a second, Dumbledore’s eyes were wide and—wounded, but then it went away. He said nothing.
Jules snorted. “Didn’t think so.”
“There is no shame in what you are feeling,” Dumbledore said.
Well, Jules got that there was no shame, but shame wasn’t the only reason someone might not show the world what they were feeling. He wasn’t ashamed. He was angry, and he couldn’t show them because he had to be strong. A symbol, a leader.
Dumbledore tried again. “And it was not your fault.”
“I wanted to know,” Jules snarled at the window. “I wanted to know, so I—fucked up the plan, I went to the Ministry, I was… Ron and Parvati and Susan—they’d never have come if not for me, Dad wouldn’t have… it wouldn’t have happened if not for me!” He spun and kicked one of the spindly little tables and sent it crashing to the ground.
“Really!” Armando Dippet’s portrait said. Jules ignored him.
“James was on the team to provide backup for Tonks,” Dumbledore said very softly. “He would have gone to the Ministry tonight regardless of whether it was truly you they were guarding or not.”
Jules fell very still.
“So you see,” Dumbledore said, even more softly, “it is not really your fault at all. If anyone is to blame for James’ presence, it would be me.”
For a second, Jules looked at him and considered this explanation. Dumbledore at fault. Dumbledore the reason Dad died. Dumbledore the leader of the Order of the Phoenix.
“No,” he said. “No, you’re… Dad chose.”
Dumbledore just looked… tired. Jules guessed that came with being the leader in a war where people—where people died. But Dad believed in this, Dad was gone and he’d died for something he thought was worth it, Dad had been brave and strong and good and now he was dead.
Jules sat down on the floor and leaned on the bookshelves and closed his eyes. If Dumbledore could be tired, so could he. Just for a few minutes.
“It’s Black’s fault,” he whispered.
Dumbledore’s robes rustled. “Jules… your brother.”
“Yeah,” Jules said. “He was there.”
“You did not fight a Death Eater in the Atrium.”
Jules was silent for another minute. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why did you and Harry fight?” Dumbledore said.
“He was defending Black,” Jules said, fists clenching again at the memory. He’d been so close. If Harry hadn’t gotten in the way, he could’ve Flooed through.
“Yet you still protected him?” Dumbledore said, eyebrows delicately raised.
Jules shook his head. “Harry’s lost… enough ‘cause of… Dad.” It pained him to say it, to think it, but—Dad wasn’t perfect, he’d made mistakes, and Harry was one of them. “I mean… I can’t hate him for… wanting to protect the one adult who’s been nice to him… and I said some awful things.” He had to stop and swallow. “Awful things.”
Dumbledore, for some reason, looked sadder than ever. “You are growing into a very good man, Julian,” he said. “Better than I had a right to hope for, with the weight that has been on your shoulders your entire life.”
Jules said nothing, because really, what was there to say? Of course he had a weight on his shoulders. He always had, always would. He didn’t know what it felt like to not be the Boy Who Lived, and he didn’t want to know.
They waited in silence. Light crept across the floor, not full sunlight yet but getting stronger.
“What did the prophecy say?” Jules said.
Dumbledore looked at him.
“The initials. It took me a while, but… APWBD. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,” Jules said. “It’s on your seal stamp that you use for official letters.” He’d been breaking those letters open most of his life.
“Very good,” Dumbledore said. He stood, walked around his desk, and sat down with the slow, careful motion of someone in pain. “Please sit.”
It was a request, not a command. Jules stared at him for a long moment before he got up and dragged a chair over in front of the desk with a screech.
Dumbledore didn’t wince. “You have known, your entire life, that your scar is the mark of a connection forged between you and Lord Voldemort fourteen years ago,” he said.
Jules nodded.
“I made the decision, that night, to protect you using the kind of magic that Lord Voldemort does not understand,” Dumbledore said. “Perhaps the only kind, for he was—is—a brilliant man and his knowledge of magic surpasses almost every wizard alive today. I speak, of course, of the fact that your mother died to save you and Harry.
“She worked powerful ritual magic, and I completed the enchantment, erecting heavy wards around the home of the Dursleys, tied to you, your brother, and your mother’s blood. I delivered Harry to your Aunt Petunia, your mother’s only living relative.”
“But she hated him,” Jules said. “She didn’t give a damn—they abused him—”
“But she took him,” Dumbledore said. “Grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, but she took him, and in so doing she sealed the enchantment. Lily Evans’ children would have a safe refuge there. You could be protected at the Dursleys by unassailable magic, should it be necessary, for your entire childhood.”
At the cost of Harry’s, Jules thought but didn’t say.
“What does that have to do with… anything now?” Jules said. “It’s done with. Harry left, the wards are gone—”
“It may not be directly relevant,” Dumbledore said, “but the time has come, I think, for me to be fully honest with you, and explain things I perhaps ought to have explained years ago. I did not wish to burden you with too much too soon. I watched you grow up in Potter Manor, happy, loved, as carefree and normal as I could have hoped; I watched you meet your brother and attend Hogwarts and face Voldemort not one but three more times by the time you turned fifteen, and I could not bring myself to add to that so soon.”
Jules narrowed his eyes. “The prophecy.”
Dumbledore nodded heavily. “You asked me, when you were younger, why Voldemort tried to kill you, and I said I would tell you when you were ready. I believe you are ready.
“There was a prophecy made, sixteen years ago, to me. I was interviewing a candidate for the post of Divination Professor here at Hogwarts, the many-times-granddaughter of a very gifted Seer. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, very politely, that I did not think she was suited for the job. I turned to leave.”
He waved his wand, and a Pensieve floated out of a cabinet off to one side, until it rested on the desk between them. Jules leaned forward and watched as Dumbledore prodded its contents with his wand.
A ghostly figure swirled up out of the silvery contents, a figure shrouded in shawls and beads, pushing large bottle glasses up her nose.
“Trelawney?” Jules blurted.
Dumbledore nodded.
She spoke, but not in the ethereal tones he was used to; her voice came out hoarse and rough and deep. “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives… The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…”
The slowly revolving form of Professor Trelawney sank back into the mists of the Pensieve.
Jules stared at it unseeing for a second, and then he looked up at Dumbledore. “I don’t… what does that mean?”
“It meant,” Dumbledore said, “that the only person with a chance to defeat Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly sixteen years ago. This child would be born to parents who had defied Voldemort three times.”
“Me,” Jules said.
Dumbledore took a deep breath. “The odd thing is, Jules… it might not have applied to you at all. Sybil Trelawney’s prophecy could have meant any one of three wizards, all born at the end of July that year, both born to parents in the Order of the Phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Lord Voldemort three times.”
“Me and Harry, then,” Jules said, frowning. “But who’s the third?”
“The other was Neville Longbottom.”
“So—so then—it might not be me,” Jules said. A strange sort of panic turned his stomach and he looked at Dumbledore with wide eyes. “I might not—why was it my name on the prophecy?”
“The Keeper of the Hall of Prophecy relabeled it after the events of Halloween, 1981,” Dumbledore said. “It was clear that you were the child meant by the prophecy, not Neville, not Harry.”
“But—Neville and Harry were born at the end of July too—and the Longbottoms—”
Dumbledore held up a hand. “The next part of the prophecy said that Voldemort would mark this Chosen One as his equal,” he said. “When Voldemort left that scar on your forehead, he created his own worst enemy, in the tradition of would-be tyrants everywhere.”
“It still might not have been me,” Jules said. “What if he chose wrong or…”
“Created his own worst enemy,” Dumbledore said. “Not discovered, not met. Created. You were the youngest of the three possible children, born the second of the Potter twins, closest to midnight on the last day of July. He marked you and by doing so he gave you powers, he transferred some of his own magic to you, which has allowed you to survive him several times.”
Jules doubted that. Voldemort took his blood the year before, and now some of his mum’s protection would be weakened; he knew enough about blood magic to guess that. And this whole year, he hadn’t felt anything, noticed anything. He wasn’t anything special. He was just—himself.
But he’d survived Voldemort four times, now, three since the one as a baby didn’t really count as his doing. Jules didn’t think Dumbledore was right that Voldemort gave him powers… but he had made himself an enemy. And maybe Jules didn’t need any special powers. He’d done just fine without them so far.
He closed his eyes. This was too much for one night, too much for one person all at once. Dad was dead and this would all be important information at any other time but right now Jules just wanted to curl up in bed and cry and sleep.
There was one more thing he had to ask before he could let himself fall apart. “The last line,” he said. “Neither can live while the other survives… that means… one of us has got to kill the other. Doesn’t it.”
Dumbledore nodded. Tears shone in his blue eyes, which for once weren’t twinkling.
Jules wasn’t surprised. He’d always known he would kill Voldemort one day. The prophecy didn’t change that. If anything it made it easier, to have a confirmation, to know this wasn’t just an accident or a mistake. He was destined. Chosen. It didn’t say he’d succeed but it at least said he would have a chance.
Sunlight peeked over the horizon and spilled into the room, over Jules’ hands and Dumbledore’s desk and the base of Fawkes’ perch.
Jules watched the dust motes dance through it for a few seconds before he stood up and left without a word.
Walking back to Gryffindor Tower was a blur. It was early enough that no one else was really up, not now, right after exams and before the Leaving Feast, and he saw no one in the halls but the portraits. They all stared at him as he walked. Word spread fast through the halls of Hogwarts.
Jules crawled into his bed, hexed the curtains shut, and finally, finally let himself break.
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