Seeking the Star

Ch.9.

Harry opened the door to the Headmaster\'s office with a little trepidation. Albus had sent him an owl at breakfast, summoning him directly after the meal. He was completely unsure what to expect, although knowing Albus, he knew it would be something tricky. He was greeted by the smiling face of the Headmaster and the unsmiling face of Severus Snape. \'Well,\' he thought, \'at least things are in order that way. If Severus was smiling, I\'d be truly worried.\' He felt quite sure that the quirk of Albus\' mouth was entirely due to his thought processes. Harry sat down without being invited, folded his hands in his lap, and waited.

\"Good morning, Harry.\" Albus\' eyes had the twinkle that meant he was most definitely about to spring some news that may or may not be pleasing. \"I\'ve managed to wheedle out of Severus that you\'ve been improving greatly in your Potions work. I think it would be fruitful, due to our Sanos bonding, if you helped him prepare my Protection potion. I believe it\'s brewed twice a week, correct, Severus?\" Snape nodded curtly, not exactly pleased with the arrangement. However, he noted, it could be far worse. Potter was at least becoming a highly competent student. His Potions marks had begun equaling Granger\'s, which was a feat in itself. Albus had confirmed his theory that all of Potter\'s marks had risen drastically due to his rather sudden development of scholarly habits. \"Lovely, then. You wieporeport to Professor Snape\'s office in your free period between Charms and Potions on Mondays and Fridays.\"

\"You realize, sir, that you\'ve cut out almost all my free time.\" Harry said. It wasn\'t really a question. He knew Albus knew.

\"Yes, Harry. But I think you\'re more than ready for the challenge. And further, an addition of our bond protection to the potion has become essential; there have been attempted attacks on my person.\" Harry digested this information silently, his expression unchanging. Snape was secretly impressed at Harry\'s handling of Albus\' demand without his former selfish temper.

\"Fine. However, I want my rooms open to me, and with easy access from Gryffindor Tower, a connection to the library, full access to the Restricted Section, and a small workroom.\" Dumbledore nodded sagely.

\"As you wish, Harry. I\'ll cajole the castle immediately.\" Snape looked from old wizard to young wizard, trying to hide his confusion and his shock that Albus had bent so easily to the boy\'s demands, not to mention the fact that it was possible to cajole the castle into anything.

\"Is there anything else, Professor?\" Dumbledore shook his head. Snape was still too dumbfounded to move without revealing his confusion. \"Well, then, I\'ll see you tonight, Professor Snape. Professor Dumbledore,\" He inclined his head to the Headmaster and left the office.

Albus patted Snape\'s hand, which was gripping the arm of his chair, comfortingly. Leaning over conspiratorially, he chuckled. \"Trust me, Severus; I got the better end of the deal.\"

\"Rooms, Sir?\" Snape said, finding his voice.

\"His summer rooms. He rediscovered them last week, but they\'re rather, shall we say, out of the way. Over the summer, Harry figured out that the castle can choose to ignore the blunter laws of physics and connect places that are far from each other, or even have rooms that theoretically would overlap. Had I let him explore more, he might have found the teachers\' passageways, which would have been quite a shame.\" Dumbledore\'s eyes suggested that it wouldn\'t really have been much of a shame at all.

Severus snorted. \"You give in easily to him.\"

Dumbledore sobered. \"Ah, not at all, Severus, not at all.\" He took a sherbet lemon from the bowl on his desk and placed it delicately on his tongue. \"And you, I believe, should be working on getting down to your dungeon full of first years.\" Severus bowed slightly to the Headmaster, and made his departure in a cloud of billowing robes.

Fawkes hopped off his perch and settled on Albus\' shoulder. \"Well, that went well, didn\'t it, Fawkes? It was certainly amusing, at very least.\" The bird crooned his agreement, leaning his head down to be stroked.

***

It was the second Gryffindor versus Slytherin match of the Quidditch season, and the game was alarmingly close. Gryffindor\'s undefeated Quidditch status was on the line. Harry and Draco were both flying high above the game, searching for the tiny flash of gold that would indicate the Snitch, and trying to avoid the zooming Bludgers. They circled in opposite figure eights, passing each other occasionally. Harry didn\'t bother to respond to Draco\'s sneers. In fact, he barely even saw them. All his powers of concentration were reserved only for the Snitch.

Another pleasant side effect of Harry\'s training was that his flying had improved, as had his talent for finding the Snitch. He never actually looked for threads while he was playing, though. It was tantamount to cheating. His ability to concentrate and his newly acquired patience, however, were assets he could, and did use.

Suddenly, Draco plunged into a dive. Harry paused for half a second, making sure that Malfroy wasn\'t faking, before he dove too. The Snitch abruptly shot up and between both the boys, and they zoomed after it. They raced over the pitch broom to broom, green robes tangled in red ones, flashes of silver blond speeding by next to flashes of ebony. Two gloved hands reached, but the snitch thwarted both as it changed direction yet again.

The crowd was totally devoted to their race for the Snitch. So devoted, in fact, that no one was watching as a Bludger flew out of seeming nowhere and smashed directly into the head of one of the Slytherin chasers. She fell without a sound, and it was only at the distinct thump of body meeting grass that anyone realized what happened.

Harry heard the thud, and glanced at the girl as he and Malfroy raced by. She was hurt badly, but that was all he could tell from the blurred image he got as he shot by her. Dark robes were racing across the field towards the fallen Slytherin. The snitch flew ahead of him, just out of his reach. Looking down, he could see blood. Looking to the side, he saw Malfroy, unaware of his teammate\'s injury, aware only of the Golden Snitch. Somewhere behind him, the Gryffindor team, expecting him to lead them to victory. Which would it be? Blood, rivalry, or victory? Harry made a midair decision.

Harry dove for the ground, abandoning the fight for the Snitch, abandoning Draco Malfroy, and abandoning his team. Only the latter stung a little, but the girl\'s life was more important. Harry didn\'t even know her, only that she was a second year named Kathryn Brownwing, but he knew that he could and should help. \'Yes,\' he thought, \'I have a duty to help her. More than my duty as a Seeker, more than my duty to my house. If she dies...\' He didn\'t bother to finish the thought. He touched down and ran to the periphery of the crowd that had gathered around the fallen girl.

\"Excuse me! Let me through!\" Harry tried to elbow his way to the girl, but the crowd wasn\'t moving for him.

\"MOVE!\" The voice that came from Harry Potter\'s mouth was not his own. His hair flew wildly around his head, his Quidditch robes billowing in a wind that didn\'t exist, his eyes positively glowing with their own inner light. Somethin hin him seemed to darken and lighten at the same time, deepening his shadows while making his skin glow. The people around him parted, dumbstruck and a little afraid.

And suddenly he was just Harry Potter again, just a disheveled Gryffindor Seeker. He ran to the fallen girl, dropping to his knees at her head. He placed his hands gently on the sides of her head and assessed the damage. The area around her right temple was caved slightly in, the gash in her forehead bled profusely, her face was pale as parchment, and her breath was shallow. \"Get away from her,\" he ordered without looking up from the girl, whose eyes opened and rolled glassily up to look at him. He wasn\'t sure that she was actually seeing him, just feeling him there, feeling his energy flowing through her. \"All of you, stop touching her right now. Get away. Madam Pomfrey, please get them away.\" Poppy Pomfrey took one look at Harry and, knowing what he was about to do, ordered everyone else to back away. She looked penetratingly up at the Headmaster, and caught that Snape was bestowing him with a similar glare. The Potions Master had elbowed his way through the panicked crowds in the stands and on the pitch to get to them. They were the only three who remained close to Harry and the fallen girl.

Harry began humming the deep tuneless note of Sanos. Holding his hands close over her broken skull, he plunged into her, his energy flowing through her entire body, searching and comforting. The girl was somewhat conscious, but entirely incoherent. Harry sang through her Schema, stroking threads and tweaking threads until she calmed, stopped fighting him and accepted his presence. Only then could he begin to actually heal her.

As they watched, the sunken place in the girl\'s skull popped back into its proper shape. Her breathing became deeper and clearer, and the skin of her temple closed and healed.

The tricky part was up in her brain, where it bee been caved. Repairing the skull itself had been easy, but repairing the brain was hard, and Harry had never done it before, so he had no idea of what to expect, or even what to look for. His body broke out in a sweat, but the Sanos note remained steady. He explored the whole area carefully, comparing healthy tissue to damaged. Most of her brain didn\'t appear to be damaged, but there seemed to be a barrier of some sort in one area that his magic just couldn\'t touch. One area appeared to control two functions, and he could only repair one. They were tied together, but he was having trouble recognizing what exactly they were. One seemed magical, the other seemed physical, and both were tied to her right ear. He had to choose, and he didn\'t know what he was choosing. Harry was baffled. It didn\'t seem right, that she should have to lose one thing or the other, and that the choice would be made by a total stranger. He struggled to come slightly out of his deep trance.

Harry\'s dreamy voice came to Albus, Severus and Poppy as if from far away. \"I don\'t know what to do. Help me.\"

Madam Pomfrey startled. She had seen this before, and understood the question that Harry had not voiced. Which one to keep? But she had never been forced to choose. Albus remained silent. She took a deep breath.

Snape spoke first. His voice was dulcet as he bent close to Harry\'s head, speaking directly into his ear without touching the boy.\" What do you see?\"

\"Connection--right ear. Something magic, something physical. Threads purple, green, red. Connected--bit down-mouth--also--left ear.\" The boy\'s voice was still dreamy and calm, but his eyes were squinched shut, and sweat dripped down his face.

\"No frustration, Mr. Potter. We will fix this.\" Snape looked up at Madam Pomfrey, who came and knelt at Harry\'s other side.

\"Now, Harry, where\'s the break? What doesn\'t fit?\" She also spoke calmly into his ear, her voice carefully modulated to conceal her fear. Albus simply looked on, his eyes blue as the sky and infinitely calculating.

\"Red thread broken--both sides. Wall. Can\'t weave the break both ways. Threads darkening. Help now.\"

\"What do the magic threads show you?\" Snape\'s voice again.

Harry\'s eyes squinched further, his brow furrowing, and then his whole face relaxed. When he spoke, his words were more coherent. \"Between ear and mouth--that\'s the break. Magic between ear and mouth. Language--magic? Spell speaking?\" His brow tensed again, then relaxed. They felt the ripple of his enforced calm as he fought his emotions down. \"Spell speaking?\"

\"And the physical?\" Snape prompted him.

\"All twists within itself--to brain--not mouth. Strong to left ear, combine...\" He trailed off, swaying with his efforts. Severus and Poppy each experienced a moment of panic, terrified to touch the boy and also terrified that he would fall, severing the connection and possibly killing the girl. \"Hearing?\" he guessed softly. Severus and Poppy exchanged a look. They could only hope that the boy was right.

\"Harry, you\'re telling us that the connection is between the physical hearing in her right ear and her ability to cast spells?\" Madam Pomfrey prompted.

\"I think--hard to tell. I don\'t understand--so confusing.\" His face was squinching up again, and he was getting whiter and whiter. rus rus and Poppy feared his collapse more with every passing moment, but the decision they were making would affect the rest of Kathryn Brownwing\'s life.

\"Harry.\" Snape\'s voice was shockingly gentle. This was one of his students, a girl from an old wizarding family. Either loss would leave her devastated, but were she unable to speak spells anymore, she would be a disgrace to her entire family. \"Make the connection for spell speaking.\" He closed his eyes, pinching his nose. Poppy Pomfrey looked near ready to collapse. They could both feel the pull of the magic Harry was gathering to himself to finish the repair.

\"Right then.\" A few moments more, and the hum stopped. He opened his eyes and looked at each of them in turn: Poppy Pomfrey, Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore. His eyes were glassy, filled with pain. His voice was faint and his skin so pale that his veins stood out blue-black. He swayed slightly.

\"There you have it, folks. Harry Potter saves the girl but loses the Snitch.\" With a gentle smile at his own uncharacteristic sarcasm, he collapsed gently onto the grass. Draco Malfroy walked up to the distracted referee and handed her the Snitch, all joy of beating Potter absolutely lost.

***

Ron Weasley was positively furious. Harry had thrown the game to go play hero to a Slytherin, of all things. And then, in true hero style, he\'d been rushed to the Hospital wing, where no one had been admitted. Madam Pomfrey had actually been the closest he\'d ever seen to angry when he demanded entrance. All Ron could see through the door was Harry lying in bed, his head lolling to the side, the Slytherin girl in the next bed, and Dumbledore sitting between them, talking softly to Harry. Hermione was positively frantic with worry, which annoyed him even more. The way Harry had crumpled on the Quidditch pitch and had to be carried off to the Hospital wing looking even worse than the girl who had fallen terrified her. Harry was always the one who got all the attention. Dumbledore allowed him bizarre familiarity, and even that git Snape, who hated Harry, had run to him when he went to play hero. Hermione tried to explain to him why Harry had done what he\'d done, and, indeed, what he\'d done, but Ron wasn\'t hearing it. He didn\'t care about Sanos, or what a \'gift\' Harry had. He didn\'t want to hear her talk about him at all. Gryffindor had lost the match, and it was entirely Harry\'s fault.

Harry returned right before curfew, pale and with dark circles under his eyes. He looked a little better, but not much. His face was pinched around the eyes and mouth. Hermione\'s hug nearly bowled him over, but the smile he bestowed on her and the way he stroked her face gently nearly gave Ron an aneurysm. He ran over and yanked her away from him, utterly unbelieving that they would put on such a display right in front of him. Hermione looked at him furiously, her hands on her hips.

\"Ron...\" Harry tried. He was swaying on his feet. Hermione made to take his arm and steady him, but Ron pushed her hand away.

\"Oh, there\'s no need, Harry Potter. Absolutely none,\" Ron snapped. \"I\'ll thank you not to paw my girlfriend, you bloody git!\"

\"But Ron, it\'s...\" Harry tried again, only to be thwarted again.

\"I told you, Potter, I don\'t want to hear it.\" Ron dragged Hermione away from Harry, who was too exhausted to do anyg exg except stand there defeated for a moment, and walk slowly up to bed.

\"Ronald Weasley, how could you?\" Hermione screeched at him. Ron\'s face somehow managed to get even more purple.

\"He threw the game and ruined our undefeated record for some Slytherin chit!\" Ron wanted so badly for her to understand. \"He could have just lost us the House Cup, Hermione. All for the sake of showing off how special he is!\"

\"He wasn\'t showing off! She might\'ve died! And maybe there are more important things than the House Cup, Ron!\" Hermione stormed away from him and up to the girl\'s dormitory, where she knew he couldn\'t follow her. Ron flopped onto a couch, nursing a flame of anger that wouldn\'t extinguish. Harry always got everything, and now Harry had gotten Hermione mad at him.

a/n
ten of staves-responsibilities and obligations can be oppressive and stressful. distinctions between exploiting and being exploited need to be examined. slavery and/or servitude to society, family, or work.