she looked around and saw that she and harry had arrived in dumbledore's office.

everything seemed to have repaired itself during the headmaster's absence. the delicate silver instruments stood again upon the spindle-legged tables, puffing and whirring serenely. the portraits of the headmasters and headmistresses were snoozing in their frames, heads lolling back in armchairs or against the edge of their pictures. elara looked through the window. there was a cool line of pale green along the horizon: dawn was approaching.

"lara. . . . ?" said harry quietly.

"i know," she said, wrapping her arms around his middle tightly.

the silence and the stillness, broken only by the occasional grunt or snuffle of a sleeping portrait, seemed almost unbearable to her. if her surroundings could have reflected the feelings inside her, the pictures would have been screaming in pain. she tried not to think, she only wanted to focus on harry, how warm he was, and how safe she felt.

"i'm so sorry," mumbled harry into her hair, "its all my fault."

elara pulled away from him, but her arms were still wrapped loosely around his middle.

"hey, no," said elara in the softest voice she could manage, "its not your fault."

"but — "

"i want you to say it."

harry shook his head.

"but if i hadn't been so stupid, if i had just listened to hermione — "

"i also didn't listen to hermione. harry, its not your fault," said elara, gently emphasizing every word.

"do you think its your fault?" said harry, and elara looked down at her feet.

"we're talking about you, harry."

"it's not your fault, lara," he said, pulling her back into his embrace.

"its not yours, either," mumbled elara into the crook of his neck.

it was unbearable, she would not think about it, she could not stand it. . . . there was a terrible hollow inside her she did not want to feel or examine, a dark hole where sirius had been, where sirius had vanished.

"if you want to leave, i understand," said harry, his voice shaking.

"what? why would i want to leave — "

"ever since you've started hanging around me, you just get hurt, or — or thrown into danger, and i can't — i can't believe i just didn't fight it."

"i told you that i'd never leave you; i'm not going anywhere," said elara gently, bewildered as to where this is coming from.

"i don't want me to be the only reason you're here," said harry shakily. "you're much stronger than i am, much more powerful, you'd just be wasting your talent helping a screw-up."

"we are not going back to square one with this mentality," said elara firmly. "harry, what color did my hair turn when we first kissed?"

harry smiled, "pink."

"you are not a screw-up. i love you. but, i'm also doing this because when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. and maybe because it's dangerous."

harry cracked a small smile, and elara's heart skipped a beat. it was working, she was cheering him up.

"but your hair is white," said harry, his face falling again.

"harry, listen to me. i'm not going anywhere. i told you in the beginning that i was going to be with you until the very end, and i keep my promises. i'm not going anywhere."

a picture behind them gave a particularly loud grunting snore, and a cool voice said, "ah . . . my great-great-great granddaughter . . . and harry potter."

phineas nigellus gave a long yawn, stretching his arms as he watched elara and harry with shrewd, narrow eyes.

"and what brings you here in the early hours of the morning?" said phineas. "this office is supposed to be barred to all but the rightful headmaster. or has dumbledore sent you here? oh, don't tell me . . ." he gave another shuddering yawn. "another message for my worthless great-great-grandson?"

elara glared at phineas. phineas nigellus did not know that sirius was dead, but elara could not tell him. to say it aloud would be to make it final, absolute, irretrievable.

a few more of the portraits had stirred now. harry strode across the room and seized the doorknob.

it would not turn. they were shut in.

"i hope this means," said the corpulent, red-nosed wizard who hung on the wall behind dumbledore's desk, "that dumbledore will soon be back with us?"

the wizard was eyeing them with great interest. elara nodded and forced a smile, wondering why harry was tugging on the doorknob.

"oh good," said the wizard. "it has been very dull without him, very dull indeed."

he settled himself on the throne-like chair on which he had been painted and smiled benignly upon elara and harry.

"dumbledore thinks very highly of you two, as i am sure you know," he said comfortably. "oh yes. holds you in great esteem."

elara nodded and forced another smile. if dumbledore thought very highly of them, why have they gone an entire year without answers? why had he avoided them?

the empty fireplace burst into emerald-green flame, making harry leap away from the door, and elara turn to stare at the man spinning inside the grate. as dumbledore's tall form unfolded itself from the fire, the wizards and witches on the surrounding walls jerked awake. many of them gave cries of welcome.

"thank you," said dumbledore softly.

he did not look at elara and harry at first, but walked over to the perch beside the door and withdrew, from an inside pocket of his robes, the tiny, ugly, featherless fawkes, whom he placed gently on the tray of soft ashes beneath the golden post where the full-grown fawkes usually stood.

"well," said dumbledore, finally turning away from the baby bird, "you will be pleased to hear that none of your fellow students are going to suffer lasting damage from the night's events."

dumbledore was for once looking at them directly, and though his expression was kindly rather than accusatory, elara could not bear to meet his eyes.

"madam pomfrey is patching everybody up now," said dumbledore. "nymphadora tonks may need to spend a little time in st. mungo's, but it seems that she will make a full recovery."

"oh, thank merlin," said elara, sliding into a chair after feeling a huge rush of relief that made her head spin.

she was sure that all the portraits around the room were listening eagerly to every word dumbledore spoke, wondering where dumbledore, elara, and harry had been and why there had been injuries.

"i am going to ask that you, elara, do not interfere or try to calm harry down during the first part of our conversation," said dumbledore. "harry, i ask that you try to refrain from yelling."

"what are you talking — ?"

"it is my fault that sirius died," said dumbledore clearly. "or i should say almost entirely my fault — i will not be so arrogant as to claim responsibility for the whole. sirius was a brave, clever, and energetic man, and such men are not usually content to sit at home in hiding while they believe others to be in danger. nevertheless, you should never have believed for an instant that there was any necessity for you to go to the department of mysteries tonight. if i had been open with you, harry, as i should have been, you would have known a long time ago that voldemort might try and lure you to the department of mysteries, and you would never have been tricked into going there tonight. and sirius would not have had to come after you. that blame lies with me, and with me alone."

"am i to understand," said phineas nigellus slowly from elara's left, "that my great-great-grandson — the last of the blacks — is dead?"

"yes, phineas," said dumbledore.

"i don't believe it," said phineas brusquely.

elara turned her head in time to see phineas marching out of his portrait and knew that he had gone to visit his other painting in grimmauld place. he would walk, perhaps, from portrait to portrait, calling for sirius through the house. . . .

"see, i owe you an explanation," said dumbledore. "an explanation of an old man's mistakes. for i see now that what i have done, and not done, with regard to you, bears all the hallmarks of the failings of age. youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. but old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young . . . and i seem to have forgotten lately. . . ."

the sun was rising properly now. there was a rim of dazzling orange visible over the mountains and the sky above it was colorless and bright. the light fell upon dumbledore, upon the silver of his eyebrows and beard, upon the lines gouged deeply into his face.

"i guessed, fifteen years ago," said dumbledore, "when i saw the scar upon your forehead, what it might mean. i guessed that it might be the sign of a connection forged between you and voldemort."

"you've told me this before, professor," said harry bluntly. elara reached for his hand and intertwined their fingers, sensing harry needed to sort of physical reassurance.

"yes," said dumbledore apologetically. "yes, but you see — it is necessary to start with your scar. for it became apparent, shortly after you rejoined the magical world, that i was correct, and that your scar was giving you warnings when voldemort was close to you, or else feeling powerful emotion."

"i know," said harry wearily.

"and this ability of yours — to detect voldemort's presence, even when he is disguised, and to know what he is feeling when his emotions are roused — has become more and more pronounced since voldemort returned to his own body and his full powers.

"more recently," said dumbledore, "i became concerned that voldemort might realize that this connection between you exists. sure enough, there came a time when you entered so far into his mind and thoughts that he sensed your presence. i am speaking, of course, of the night when you witnessed the attack on mr. weasley."

"yeah, snape told me," harry muttered.

"professor snape, harry," dumbledore corrected him quietly. "but did you not wonder why it was not i who explained this to you? why i did not teach you occlumency? why i had not so much as looked at you for months?"

elara could see now that dumbledore looked sad and tired.

"yeah," harry mumbled. "yeah, lara and i wondered."

"you see," continued dumbledore heavily "i believed it could not be long before voldemort attempted to force his way into your mind, to manipulate and misdirect your thoughts, and i was not eager to give him more incentives to do so. i was sure that if he realized that our relationship was — or had ever been — closer than that of headmaster and pupil, he would seize his chance to use you as a means to spy on me. i feared the uses to which he would put you, the possibility that he might try and possess you. harry, i believe i was right to think that voldemort would have made use of you in such a way. on those rare occasions when we had close contact, i thought i saw a shadow of him stir behind your eyes. . . . i was trying, in distancing myself from you, to protect you. an old man's mistake . . .

"voldemort's aim in possessing you, as he demonstrated tonight, would not have been my destruction. it would have been yours. he hoped, when he possessed you briefly a short while ago, that i would sacrifice you in the hope of killing him."

he sighed deeply. the images of voldemort speaking through harry and harry screaming in our agony was almost overbearing. elara's eyes watered again and she whipped them away quickly.

"sirius told me that you felt voldemort awake inside you the very night that you had the vision of arthur weasley's attack. i knew at once that my worst fears were correct: voldemort from that point had realized he could use you. in an attempt to arm you against voldemort's assaults on your mind, i arranged occlumency lessons with professor snape."

he paused. elara watched the sunlight, which was sliding slowly across the polished surface of dumbledore's desk, illuminate a silver ink pot and a handsome scarlet quill. elara could tell that the portraits all around them were awake and listening raptly to dumbledore's explanation. he could hear the occasional rustle of robes, the slight clearing of a throat. phineas nigellus had still not returned. . . .

"professor snape discovered," dumbledore resumed, "that you had been dreaming about the door to the department of mysteries for months. voldemort, of course, had been obsessed with the possibility of hearing the prophecy ever since he regained his body, and as he dwelled on the door, so did you, though you did not know what it meant.

"and then you saw rookwood, who worked in the department of mysteries before his arrest, telling voldemort what we had known all along — that the prophecies held in the ministry of magic are heavily protected. only the people to whom they refer can lift them from the shelves without suffering madness. in this case, either voldemort himself would have to enter the ministry of magic and risk revealing himself at last — or else you and elara would have to take it for him. it became a matter of even greater urgency that you should master occlumency."

"but i didn't," muttered harry. "i didn't practice, i didn't bother, i didn't even ask elara for help, i could've stopped myself having those dreams, hermione kept telling me to do it, if i had he'd never have been able to show me where to go, and — sirius wouldn't — sirius wouldn't —

"i tried to check he'd really taken sirius, i went to umbridge's office, i spoke to kreacher in the fire, and he said sirius wasn't there, he said he'd gone!"

"kreacher lied," said dumbledore calmly. "you are not his master, he could lie to you without even needing to punish himself. kreacher intended you to go to the ministry of magic."

"he — he sent us on purpose?"

"oh yes. kreacher, i am afraid, has been serving more than one master for months."

"how?" said harry blankly. "he hasn't been out of grimmauld place for years."

"kreacher seized his opportunity shortly before christmas," said dumbledore, "when sirius, apparently, shouted at him to 'get out.' he took sirius at his word and interpreted this as an order to leave the house. he went to the only black family member for whom he had any respect left. . . . black's cousin narcissa, sister of bellatrix and wife of lucius malfoy."

"how do you know all this?" harry said. elara's heart was beating very fast. she felt sick. she remembered worrying about kreacher's odd absence over christmas, remembered him turning up again in the attic. . . .

"kreacher told me last night," said dumbledore. "you see, when you gave professor snape that cryptic warning, he realized that you had had a vision of sirius trapped in the bowels of the department of mysteries. he, like you, attempted to contact sirius at once. i should explain that members of the order of the phoenix have more reliable methods of communicating than the fire in dolores umbridge's office. professor snape found that sirius was alive and safe in grimmauld place.

"when, however, you did not return from your trip into the forest with dolores umbridge, professor snape grew worried that you still believed sirius to be a captive of lord voldemort's. he alerted certain order members at once."

dumbledore heaved a great sigh and then said, "alastor moody, nymphadora tonks, kingsley shacklebolt, and remus lupin were at headquarters when he made contact. all agreed to go to your aid at once. professor snape requested that sirius remain behind, as he needed somebody to remain at headquarters to tell me what had hapened, for I wias due there at any moment. in the meantime he, professor snape, intended to search the forest for you.

"but sirius did not wish to remain behind while the others went to search for you. he delegated to kreacher the task of telling me what had happened. and so it was that when i arrived in grimmauld place shortly after they had all left for the ministry, it was the elf who told me — laughing fit to burst — where sirius had gone."

"he was laughing?" said elara in a hollow voice.

"oh yes," said dumbledore. "you see, kreacher was not able to betray us totally. he is not secret-keeper for the order, he could not give the malfoys our whereabouts or tell them any of the order's confidential plans that he had been forbidden to reveal. he was bound by the enchantments of his kind, which is to say that he could not disobey a direct order from his master, sirius. but he gave narcissa information of the sort that is very valuable to voldemort, yet must have seemed much too trivial for sirius to think of banning him from repeating it."

"like what?" said harry.

"like the fact that the person sirius cared most about in the world was you," said dumbledore quietly. "like the fact that you were coming to regard sirius as a mixture of father and brother, or the fact that you were very close to elara. kreacher, by christmas, had already picked up that you cared for elara greatly. voldemort knew already, of course, that sirius and elara were in the order, that you knew where sirius was — but kreacher's information made him realize that the one person whom you would go to any lengths to rescue was sirius black. however, ideally, he would've wanted elara, but since you both cared about him, voldemort knew she would've come along."

"so . . . when i asked kreacher if sirius was there last night . . ."