Harry sat down with Dumbledore, feeling slightly out of sorts still, and wishing desperately that someone would offer him some chocolate.

“Harry,” Dumbledore said, eyes somber, “we think someone may have placed a dangerous spell on you.”

Harry gulped. A spell? What kind of spell?

“Yes Harry,” said Mrs. Weasley, “there’s only one we know of that can cause this kind of change.”

“I... What spell?”

“The Envigilotransit curse. It’s deep, dark magic.” Dumbledore paused briefly and patted a now pale Harry on the shoulder. “But it can be removed quiet easily if one knows it’s there. You see usually with this curse the castor casts it on someone who has the same color eyes as them so they don’t arose any suspicion. The curse enables you to see what the other person is seeing – invaluable for spying, but the receiver of the curse pays the price. The curse gradually spreads until – much like the Imperius – you are completely under the other’s command. But unlike Imperius, your mind is taken over as well and ‘you’ as you once were are gone.”

Harry, both eyes now huge with his mouth agape was panicking. The... curse hadn’t felt threatening to him, but if that’s the reason he’d been on the ground withering in pain... “How soon can you take it off?”

Dumbledore chuckled, a bit of twinkle creeping back into his pale blue eyes.

Harry found the reaction quite inappropriate, as did Mr. and Mrs. Weasley by the expression they wore.

“I can take it off right now, Harry.”

Harry nodded frantically, getting this new someone out of his head seemed like a very good idea.

Dumbledore held up his wand and pointed it at Harry, murmuring a quiet spell under his breath. A tingling sensation built up behind Harry’s new eye and he blinked once before it stopped.

Dumbledore frowned and tried again.

Blink.

Nothing. Harry looked up to meet the puzzled expressions of the three adults in the room. “What’s wrong?” he asked, rubbing at his eye.

“It seems...” Dumbledore said slowly, stroking his beard, “we were incorrect in our assumption. This eye... well, it’s legitimately yours.”

“I... How is that possible?”

Dumbledore shook his head. “I don’t know Harry.”

Now, much as Harry disliked Dumbledore the man had never been that straightforward with bad news before. Bloody hell, thought Harry, I’m going to die from something even Dumbledore can’t figure out.

Mrs. Weasley looked as worried as he felt. “Headmaster,” she said, “isn’t there anything we can do? Is there some way to tell?”

Dumbledore shrugged – an action Harry couldn’t recall him partaking in before, “I’m not sure Molly, all I can tell you is that this eye is not dangerous to his health as of yet. We must monitor it closely though, just in case.”

The Weasley’s nodded gravely and placed protective hands on Harry’s shoulders.

Pain.

“Stop!” Harry shrieked, falling to his knees again, “Off! Get OFF!” The Weasley’s stepped back quickly, trying to give their surrogate son some room as he tried to gain control over his body and his emotions. “Nobody,” he ground out through clenched teeth, “is allowed to touch me.”

The Weasley’s looked startled and Dumbledore looked intrigued. “When did you start to feel this way, Harry?” he asked carefully, trying not to agitate the boy more the he already was.

“I...” Harry blinked, when had he started feeling like no one should be touching him? “I think it was right after I passed out on my birthday.”

Dumbledore nodded slowly, thinking hard.

“What is it Headmaster?” asked Harry, rubbing his new eye again.

“There may be more to this then we originally thought. But for now that eye is no danger to you and we can leave it be.”

Harry nodded and stood, “May I go now Headmaster?”

Dumbledore smiled and nodded. “Of course Harry,” he said gesturing for the trio to make their way out of the kitchen, “I have some order business to take care of with Arthur and Molly anyway.”

Harry forced a smile and left the room, Ron and Hermione trailing after him. The order and his lack of membership in it was a sore spot for Harry. It seemed to him that Dumbledore had a bizarre penchant for lording it over him as well ever since the office incident at the end of fifth year.

It probably wasn’t the best idea to fight with the man who kept Voldemort at bay while Harry worked at improving his skills, but Harry was only a teenager.

Hermione and Ron each made to lay a hand on his shoulder, stopping when they realized that doing so could have grave consequences.

“Harry are you really alright?” asked Hermione, “Do you want me to try and find out what’ causing these reactions and your eye and tattoo to change?”

Harry nodded, remaining silent.

“Harry, m...” Ron stopped himself before he could say the ‘m’ word, “maybe you should go lie down for a bit. You’ve had a pretty rough time.”

Harry nodded, disappartaing to Ron’s room, leaving shocked friends staring at the place where he had once stood.

XoX

Draco lay in his bed staring at the silk, green canopy of his bed. He couldn’t sleep.

Sounds of the night filled his ears and with his newly discovered abilities he could hear an owl snatch a field mouse from the small courtyard outside his bedroom. Listening even harder he could here faint whispering from the Death Eater meeting that he knew was taking place tonight in the basement.

Tonight was the night his father had come to him and told him that, come Christmas, he would be a Death Eater.

“Merry Christmas, son.”

XoX

Many people will tell you that Narcissa Malfoy is a cold-hearted bitch, that she loves neither her husband nor her son, and that she’s a social climbing airhead. They’d be wrong on three accounts. Narcissa was caring – if you were worth it, and her son definitely was – and she’d gotten straight O’s on her NEWTS.

But, she hated her husband with a passion.

All of which led to her sitting here, in Dumbledore’s office, waiting for the Headmaster of Hogwarts to arrive.

The previous night she’d been woken by her son. He pleaded with her desperately to save him from Lucius.

Draco would not become Lucius. Draco, her Draco, would not become a Death Eater and if that meant that certain things needed to be sacrificed, so be it.

Dumbledore walked in and smiled at her, eyes twinkling.

“Narcissa,” he said gently, “what brings you here today?”

“My son.”

“And how is young Mr. Malfoy? Doing well I hope.”

“Draco is fine, thank you. Or at least, fine for now. Lucius wants him to become a Death Eater. His initiation is scheduled for Christmas.”

Dumbledore nodded gravely and, when he didn’t say anything, Narcissa nearly gave into the urge to strangle the old bat that she’d had since fifth year.

“I need your help,” she said after a moment of silence from him.

“With what, Narcissa?”

Patience finally running out Narcissa leapt to her feet and slammed her fists onto his desk. “You old fool!” she shouted angrily, “What do you think I’m asking for?! Save my son!”

Dumbledore lifted one of her fists of the desk and patted it reassuringly. “I think,” he said, “you had best tell me the whole story.”

XoX

Harry sat alone in Ron’s room. He’d locked the door and it’d been almost a full twenty-four hours since the apparation incident.

He didn’t know why he was suddenly so sensitive towards his friends, didn’t know why it felt wrong when his friends touched him. Dumbledore’s initial explanation of a Dark Curse seemed so easy, somehow he didn’t think whatever was really happening would be as simple.

Sighing he flopped back onto his bed and stared at the slightly cracked ceiling.

His last year and Hogwarts was fast approaching. What would it be like? With Voldemort and the final battle on the horizon it was hard to imagine a happy ending for himself, and at this point he’d happy if he lived through his full seventh year.

What can I say, he thought, mouth twitching slightly, I dream big.

But still, with a Dark wizard after him – not to mention said wizard’s minions – shouldn’t he feel suspicious? Shouldn’t he be trying to claw his new grey eye out? Shouldn’t he have his newly transformed Thestral tattoo magically removed? Shouldn’t he feel even the slightest bit of fear?

But he didn’t.

The eye and tattoo were strangely comforting. His tattoo felt... warm almost. Like someone was pressing a hand to his back, touching him not to warn him of danger or to hold him back from something, but to touch him. Just to feel him, to soothe him, to make sure that he was there.

And it was nice. No, it was more then nice, the feeling was... was love. The feeling was what he wanted to feel so badly, but couldn’t.

After all, who could love an ideal? A figurehead? Someone who belonged to everyone?

And those feelings, that comfort, that was why he hadn’t told Dumbledore of the tattoo.

And, closing his mismatched eyes, Harry drifted to sleep.

XoX

Draco lay in his large bed and thought about the new revelation he had made.

His tattoo had changed. He no longer had a Thestral etched into the skin covering his right shoulder; it was now a proud Stag.

He’d made the discovery earlier that day when he’d gone to take a bath and had caught his reflection out of the corner of his eye.

Instead of being shocked or angry because of the violation of his privacy – and it was, the Thestral had been both a punishment and reward in it’s own way, but it had also been an extremely private thing – he’d felt a sense of warmth through the tattoo that made him smile.

His mother had left earlier that day and had yet to return so he’d filed the information away in his head and promised to tell her first thing in the morning.

Feeling another gust of warmth through the tattoo his eyes drifted close and he fell asleep.

XoX

Harry was walking through a dark hallway. The walls and floors were made of white marble and the ceiling opened to the night sky.

“Hello?” he called, shivering from the cold, “Hello, is anyone there?”

All he could here was his echo.

A gust of pine-scented wind blew through the long corridor and Harry turned to find where it had come from.

“Hello?” he called again, nervous.

“Hi,” said someone behind him.

He turned and met a pair of eyes that matched his own.

One grey, one green.