Chapter 1

A Beginning

Harry sat looking out of the bedroom window thoughtfully. Everything should have been normal, he was free of the Dursleys, summer was almost over and school was starting again, his seventh and final year. There did not appear to be any immediate threat on the horizon, and so far everything seemed to be going along perfectly. That, however, didn't stop Harry feeling quite strange about everything.

Technically in the wizarding world he was of age since he had already had his seventeenth birthday which allowed him to perform magic legally anywhere he chose; no more worry about the Ministry and talk of breaking his wand. It was a relief to know that he was considered adult enough to do as he saw fit and it was liberating, but also a little unnerving. He had been at the Burrow for a little over a week now and Ron had been encouraging him to do magic at every opportunity. If there was any distance to be covered the second youngest Weasley insisted that they Apparate and Harry was beginning to come to the conclusion that they were more annoying than the twins had been when they had first learned.

Dumbledore had sent the dark haired youth the form to apply for his Apparating Licence on the 31st of July already filled in; all he had had to do was sign it. Mad-eye Moody had taken him to the Ministry five days ago and Harry had passed first time, much to Ron's chagrin since the redhead had had to take his test twice; once at Easter when Ron had failed and once at the beginning of the summer.

Everyone had been very pleased, but Harry didn't know what all the fuss was about -- quite frankly he didn't like Apparating. It wasn't that he wasn't good at it, he had actually picked it up strangely easily, but it felt harsh and unpleasant. This was an opinion that no one else seemed to hold and hence was another strange feeling to add to all the others which appeared to be trying to make up for the fact that last year had been nothing to write home about.

Harry knew he was brooding but he needed to straighten things out in his head and he wanted to understand the progression of events which seemed to be trying to change his life -- again. The sixth year at Hogwarts had been surprisingly uneventful: Voldemort had not shown his hand and although there had been various Death Eater attacks nothing major had occurred. It had been a little difficult at school when he had first started because of the subjects he wanted to take and certain teacher's prejudices even though his OWL results had been significantly better than expected, but something had happened there to smooth the way. For once Harry had not asked what, but he remembered the way McGonagall and Snape had spent half a term glaring at each other and he suspected it had something to do with his head of house.

The most talked about event of the whole twelve months had been the escape from Azkaban of the Death Eaters imprisoned there after the debacle at the Ministry of Mysteries.

It was funny, over the past year Harry had found it very difficult to think of that time and yet now he was dwelling on it. Sirius' death had changed him greatly -- he knew that, and he had avoided the subject completely even in his own thoughts for a long time. Last year he had tried to be more the Harry Potter people remembered, what Ron cheerfully referred to as the Gryffindor hero rather than the angry boy he had been through most of his fifth year. He was not a prefect and yet he couldn't escape the fact that other pupils seemed to look to him as if he was. It seemed to Harry as though his restored integrity put him above the rest of the student body in his fellows' eyes.

The dark haired youth knew he had been avoiding the whole issue of Sirius' death and it had taken him all the summer after his godfather had died to realise that he preferred himself before his fifth year. He had taken the pain deep down inside and tried to be what every one wanted him to be.

All year he had played a role. On the outside he had shown people a calm, sometimes cheerful face. Harry had talked with his friends and pretended that he had moved beyond Sirius' death. He had been made Quidditch captain for Gryffindor and they had happily wiped the floor with Slytherin. It had almost been like before: Harry against Malfoy, Gryffindor against Slytherin, almost back to simple school rivalries.

It had been nice, but of course Harry knew the truth, he knew he would one day end up a killer or an obituary in the Prophet and it made him separate. There was part of him he did not let out, part of him that his friends' love had not been able to reach over the whole of the school year and suddenly, as he considered his world, this bothered him. Harry thought that Hermione knew there was something about him, but she had not questioned him and she had not mentioned it to Ron.

Thinking about it now, the thing was Harry knew he was no longer the same as the he had been last year either. The hollow empty place he had inside him that had opened up like a chasm when Sirius had fallen through the veil had changed. He could pinpoint the exact day it had transformed; it had been towards the middle of the summer holidays three days before his birthday. Up until that point the summer had been what he considered normal: his relatives had been being their ordinary, nasty selves, although these days they ignored him rather than anything else, and he had been doing his homework and sending owls to Ron, Hermione, Tonks and Remus as usual, and then he had woken up knowing that the world had just shifted. It was that simple -- no doubt, no second-guessing, Harry had known.

At first he had not understood what was different, he had not been able to explain exactly what he felt. Harry had suspected Voldemort's influence, maybe some trick to worm his way into his mind, but his scar had not been hurting and there were no signs. His Occulmency training had sharpened his mind far beyond the tricks the Dark Lord liked to play and he had discarded that idea.

It had taken him until his birthday to realise he was completely unafraid of this new knowledge and it was as if something had clicked into place in the universe and become right. Harry had been considering it ever since and he did not know what the rightness was, but he knew he had to find its root. The empty place was no longer just a hole that could never be filled; it felt like a slot inside his soul that was looking for something. Harry did not understand the feeling and it confused him somewhat, but he knew he was not afraid and he knew he had to search out the cause. It had occurred to him to tell Dumbledore or Hermione what had happened, but something had held him back. It was something that was still preventing him talking to anyone about what was happening.

It was the strangest thing as well: since that morning, when he thought of Sirius he did not want to close his mind and forget. The grief was still there but the anger had fallen away. On the first night he had realised this he had cried, sobbing his sadness into his pillow as he never had before, and ever since Harry had felt a little better. His godfather was gone but his memory was kindled in Harry's mind. There was still the guilt, but it had dimmed to a manageable level that meant he did not have to bury it anymore.

It was all such a sudden change and sometimes Harry thought that the ideas crowding his head were bound to spill out. His mind was so full as if everything he had been hiding from for the past year was coming out at the same time, and yet he was not overwhelmed. Even as he watched Ginny tear across the garden after George, or possibly Fred, he did not feel as if he was sinking.

"What y'doing, mate?" Ron asked brightly as he came wandering into the room.

"Watching Ginny terrify George," Harry replied and turned to his friend with a grin. "I think when we made her lead chaser we created a monster."

"Nah," the youngest Weasley son said and dropped onto the bed, "she was that all by herself before we did anything."

Ron had had yet another growth spurt at sometime over the holidays, probably something to do with his mother's cooking, and Harry was sure his friend was six foot three if he was an inch. Ginny was no more than five foot six, but the dark haired youth had no doubt the girl could hold her own against all her brothers. They lapsed into silence as Harry glanced back out the window to where the only Weasley daughter had just tackled her older sibling. Harry smiled fondly.

"You're not finally going soft on our Ginny are you?" Ron asked in a dubious tone and drew the dark haired boy's attention back from his thoughts again.

"Well what with you and Hermione making doe eyes at each other all the time," Harry replied and schooled his features into a wistful expression, "maybe I'm considering it."

His best friend looked a little anxious at that. Ginny's crush on Harry had been legendary but they both knew the girl had moved on and Harry could see all the nasty possibilities working their way through Ron's mind.

"Um, Harry," the lanky boy started rather awkwardly, "you, um, well that is..."

The second youngest Weasley really did not appear to know what to say and Harry blinked at him innocently for a few moments. The dark haired wizard couldn't help but grin when he saw suspicion slowly begin to dawn on his friend's face.

"Don't frighten me like that!" Ron protested loudly . "God, I thought you'd gone soft in the head or something."

With a laugh Harry climbed to his feet and stretched the kinks out of his back, enjoying the moment. It felt like it had been such a long time since he had been able to tease Ron without worrying about the rest of the world, or do anything without worrying about the rest of the world for that matter. The Gryffindor knew he had many things to think about but it felt like he was waking back up to the universe after a long sleep and he decided to enjoy it.

"The sun's out, it's the last day of the holidays," he announced suddenly. "What on earth are we doing inside?"

Ron's face broke into a wide grin at that.

"Couldn't have put it better myself, mate," the redhead commented and stood up beside his friend. "Shall we?"

With a flourish the boy produced his wand and Harry followed suit.

"The apple tree?" the dark haired wizard asked jovially.

"See you there," Ron replied brightly and pointing his wand at himself Disapparated with a loud pop.

Shaking his head and grinning wryly Harry gritted his teeth and then did the same.

Their last day of freedom went very quickly and before Harry knew it they were on platform 9 and 3/4 meeting up with Hermione and climbing onto the Hogwarts express. In the excitement of seeing everyone again and going through the usual greetings Harry almost forgot that the world had transformed. Until the initial excitement of going back to school was over he barely thought about the changes the summer had wrought. Only when Hermione and Ron settled into talking together did Harry find himself looking out another window and as the train trundled through the English countryside he was reminded of his thoughts.

Harry found himself pondering everything again, but nothing would sort itself out in his head. He was waiting for something, a clue or a sign that would show him the right way, and it was doing no good trying to rationalise it all until he found it. When Ron stood up and excused himself to go to the loo Harry pulled his eyes away from the window and he caught Hermione looking at him. Their gazes locked, but only as their friend closed the door to the compartment did she speak.

"There's something different about you," she said quietly and paused for a moment. "You look ... better."

The dark haired wizard did not quite know how to reply, but after a while he smiled at her.

"I think I am," he told her honestly.

"I'm glad," Hermione said with a smile of her own.

Then she picked up the book she had had sitting on her lap since the beginning of the journey and finally began to read it. It was not the longest conversation in history but Harry realised that they had said what they needed to say. He felt a little more comfortable and went back to looking out of the window, hoping that he would begin to understand what he was looking for soon.

It was when the train reached the platform at Hogsmeade that things took a turn for the more strange. That was when Harry's eyes landed on Draco Malfoy for the first time that school year and he felt every cell in his being sit up and take notice.

There was something very different about the blond boy as Harry caught sight of him through the crowd of milling pupils and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was wearing his hair slightly longer so it fell around his face, or that he had grown taller over the holidays. It was the way he didn't seem to be listening to his constant companions, Crabbe and Goyle, and that he looked as though he was deep in thought. Even when he glanced up and caught Harry watching him the patented Malfoy sneer did not instantly appear. Only when Crabbe noticed that the two boys were looking at each other did that expression grace the blond Slytherin's face.

"What you looking at?" Ron asked cheerfully as he bundled onto the platform.

"Malfoy," Harry said without thinking about it.

"Maybe this year that snake will get what's coming to him," the ginger haired boy said acidly without seeming to realise that Harry was not in an adversarial mood.

"Maybe," The Boy Who Lived agreed quietly, knowing without a doubt that what he was looking for had something to do with the boy who had been his enemy from his first day at Hogwarts.

It should have been a very unsettling feeling, but somehow the Gryffindor found it puzzling, but not uncomfortable.

"First years this way," Hagrid's familiar tones broke Harry out of his thoughts and he looked up to see the half giant standing at the end of the platform.

It was a tradition that they would get off the train and greet Hagrid before making their way up to the school and that is exactly what they did. Harry wondered briefly what Draco Malfoy could have to do with his search but soon put him out of his mind and set his thoughts to starting the school year. Even though he was not a prefect with one friend who was and another who was head girl they needed to make it to the castle as fast as possible. Several people had thought he would be head boy, but Harry did not have expectations of grandeur and he was quite glad that honour had fallen to a Hufflepuff.

It was only later after the excitement of the sorting ceremony and the introduction of the first years, when he was finally lying in bed, that he realised something. Malfoy had not been at the evening's festivities, which was odd since he was a Slytherin prefect, and Dumbledore had only stayed for as long as was necessary.

Over the next two days Harry watched Malfoy. On the surface he acted and sounded like the same Slytherin who went out of his way to make other people's lives difficult, but to Harry it looked as if there was no feeling behind the act. When he spotted the blond wizard heading towards the library on his own just after dinner Harry decided he had had enough of waiting. He took the longer route to Madame Pince's domain but at great speed and made it to the main door before the Slytherin. For his part the blond boy didn't even seem to notice him until he was almost on top of Harry.

"Hello, Malfoy," the dark haired boy said evenly.

The Slytherin looked at him blandly.

"Potter," he responded coldly, but to Harry's ears his voice was missing its biting edge.

Without any others to witness what was going on it seemed that Malfoy could not be bothered to work up the energy to pretend that he wanted revenge. After his father's escape from Azkaban the previous year the Slytherin had gloated at Harry and told him how his days were numbered, but now he seemed to not care.

"Welcome to our side," the words came out of Harry's mouth before he had even realised he was going to say them.

All the things he had been seeing over the past two days all added up in his brain and that phrase popped out of his mouth. Harry was actually quite surprised himself. For a moment Malfoy just stood there and stared and then his eye's hardened.

"He swore he wouldn't tell anyone," the blond boy hissed through his teeth. "I should have known that meddling old man couldn't be trusted."

Then before Harry could say anything the Slytherin turned on his heel and stalked away. Frozen into inaction at Malfoy's anger the dark haired boy had to run to catch up with his quarry. He managed to come shoulder to shoulder with him before they reached any of the well-trodden roots around the school.

"Dumbledore didn't tell me," Harry said emphatically and put his hand on Malfoy's shoulder to stop him, "he would never betray a confidence, not even for me."

The blond boy stopped but he shrugged off Harry's hand angrily.

"Too late, Potter," the Slytherin spat, "there's no other way you could know."

He turned to leave again but Harry moved faster and put himself in the way.

"I've been watching you," he admitted honestly and the other boy actually looked surprised.

Then the Slytherin's eyes narrowed again as if he didn't believe Harry.

"You were different when you got off the train," the dark haired boy decided that sharing his reasoning was the only thing he could do. "I've known you six years, Malfoy, and over the last couple of those I decided to try and understand my enemies. I know more about you than you'd like to think and when I saw you on the platform I knew something had changed. You weren't at the feast and Dumbledore left as soon as he could. You've been acting the same, but you're not."

He refused to let the blond boy look away and Malfoy actually appeared a little startled.

"Still quite a jump you made," he said coolly.

"Call it wishful thinking," Harry said with a shrug.

That drew a raised eyebrow from the other boy.

"It changes nothing," Malfoy said suddenly his expression completely closing off again, "stay away from me, Potter."

Then he pushed past the dark haired boy and went to leave.

"I know what it's like," Harry said without turning and heard Malfoy's stride falter. "I know what it's like not to be able to tell your friends things, to know that you're totally alone in some stuff no matter what anyone else tells you. If you want to talk I'm around."

The blond boy's footsteps started up again and then Harry knew Malfoy was gone.

"You're doing it again," Ron's voice cut through the repetitive thoughts that were wandering around inside Harry's head.

The Gryffindor turned to his friend who was sitting across the study room table and tried to look apologetic. Ever since his little talk with Malfoy the dark haired wizard had been trying to analyse exactly what he had said and why he had said it. It had been as if he was almost another person when he accosted the Slytherin and it had felt strangely inevitable. The searching feeling was still there at the back of his mind, but Harry was positive he had taken one step closer to finding what he was looking for.

"Sorry," he apologised to Ron, "what did you want?"

"You to stop staring into space like a loon," the second youngest Weasley said with a smile before his face became more serious again. "What's up, Harry, you've been acting weird since we got back?"

For a moment the dark haired young man considered brushing off the redhead with platitudes, but something stopped him. He had hidden part of himself from his friends for a long time and it felt like now was a good point to at least start to change that.

"Something's coming," the Gryffindor said plainly.

The immediate reaction from his friend was a look of horror.

"You don't mean You-Know-Who?" Ron whispered with wide, uncertain eyes.

Harry shook his head with a small smile: the youngest Weasley son had such an expressive face and the dark haired youth could read him like a book. The Gryffindor remembered when he had been like that; everything he thought travelling across his expression. Life had changed that aspect of his character but Harry appreciated it in his friend.

"No," the dark haired youth said calmly, "not You-Know-Who."

He did not use Voldemort's name for Ron's sake since it still made the redhead uncomfortable.

"I don't know what it is," Harry admitted openly, "but I know I'm looking for it. It's not bad."

There was a second when the Gryffindor almost told his friend that it had something to do with Draco Malfoy, but good sense told him that it was not the time. Ron was frowning at him thoughtfully now.

"You're sure it's not another of those dreams from Him?" the redheaded wizard said evenly.

This time Harry nodded, he'd never been surer of anything in his life. Dumbledore had taught him Occlumency the previous year and he could see through the things Voldemort sent at him, which happened occasionally. This had nothing to do with the Dark Lord at all.

"It's not like that," the Gryffindor told his best friend, "it's just something I know and it's like having a jigsaw puzzle without knowing what all the pieces are. The funny thing is when I figure out a piece it just slots into place without me having to do anything -- kind of strange."

Ron looked at him steadily and then nodded.

"Whatever you say, mate," the redhead said firmly. "Just remember if you need help I'm here."

A warmth filled Harry then. He had missed the undemanding loyalty of confiding in his best friend. The Gryffindor beamed at the second youngest Weasley and finally opened his textbook.

"Thanks, Ron," he said genuinely, "that means a lot."

"Now about this essay," Ron changed the subject looking a little embarrassed, "can you believe McGonagall gave us homework on the second day?"

Harry smiled and turned to the correct page in his book.

"No," he replied, slipping into normal pupil mode, "I think they mean to work us to death this year."

For once Harry's brain stayed on track and he was well into the essay when Hermione joined them. The young woman's head girl duties took her away from her friends quite a lot, but she always made it back to them eventually. Harry greeted her cheerfully, moved his books so she had room to put hers down and then went back to writing.

"Harry says something's going to happen," Ron said after they had been sitting quietly for a few minutes.

Once it might have annoyed Harry that his friend seemed to need to tell Hermione what they had spoken about, but now he didn't really mind, after all the head girl was the brains of the operation.

"What kind of thing?" Hermione asked in a tone that suggested she was interested but not quite sure if it was her place to ask.

"I don't know," the dark haired wizard replied as open with the young woman as he had been with Ron, "just something. I'll know when I find it."

"You will tell us if it's bad won't you," the female Gryffindor said evenly, looking him right in the eye.

Harry gave her a very firm nod. He could see the curiosity behind his friend's gaze and he appreciated her curbing it for now. He did not think he would have that grace for long.

"But it's not bad, I promise," he said calmly, turning back to his essay.

"Just be careful, Harry," Hermione said and patted him on the shoulder, "you're important to us."

The dark haired wizard gave his friends a smile to show that they were important to him as well and then he began writing again. It wasn't until he was riffling around in his bag for a spare quill after he snapped the end off the one he was using that he found the note.

For a moment the initials confused Harry: he knew exactly who the note was from but couldn't work out the references. Then he smiled: of course: Scar Head and Ferret Face, just a couple of the insults they had traded over the years. The dark haired youth put the parchment back in his bag feeling that another piece had just slotted into his puzzle and then went back to work.