"You okay, mate?" Ron whispered as McGonagall waved her wand and repaired most of the damage to the classroom. She didn't try with his desk, Harry noticed. It was probably in too-small pieces. He moved over to share Ron and Hermione's. "I've never seen something like that happen, even with Seamus!"
Harry smiled weakly at him. "Yeah. I really don't know what caused it. I was just casting the spell like normal."
"Did something happen over the holidays?" Hermione asked, staring at him intently.
"Crouch's attack. I don't think I got hit by any of the spells he flung, though."
"Maybe something minor no one noticed at the time. It's good you're going to Madam Pomfrey to get checked out."
Harry nodded meekly. His family would say the same thing, not that he was going to bring that up to Hermione.
And not that he thought that was really it. A better idea had come to him, one that he couldn't share with anyone who hadn't been a part of the ritual to remove the Horcrux from him.
What effect would a Horcrux have on a child's magical development, if it had been with him from the time he was fifteen months old?
"Well, I can't find anything wrong, Mr. Malfoy. I would take it easy for a while, and perhaps practice some of the advanced spells before you use them in class."
Draco stood by with his arms folded as the mediwitch declared Henry "fine" and "cured." He wondered darkly what a proper Healer from St. Mungo's would say. They would be going there as soon as Mother heard about this, but for now, he kept silent as he and Henry walked out of the infirmary.
"What do you think is wrong?" Draco asked, when they were several corridors away.
Henry twisted his wand and raised a Privacy Charm around them. It expanded so rapidly and strongly that Draco's ears popped. He winced, and Henry winced back.
"Sorry. I think—I think my magic is overpowered because of the lack of a certain barrier that was in place."
Draco felt his eyes widen, his lips form the word Horcrux, but he bit it back. There were still portraits here—as there were in most places in Hogwarts—and for all he knew, some of them could read lips. "I—see."
"I don't know that for certain. But it's not like anything else has changed. And I told you that my mind seemed clearer, and I was able to see more sides of a question?"
Draco nodded. Henry had discussed how he could see Granger's and Weasley's point-of-view about their family more clearly. Draco hadn't been impressed by the idea that the removal of the Horcrux had made Henry less sympathetic to Mother and Father and their decisions, but he hadn't wanted to say anything.
"My mind is clearer in general. I think I'm retaining more spells from the books. Remembering them better. So that could have an effect, too."
Draco nodded again. It made as much sense as any other theory. And in the meantime, he would write to Mother and Father, who would make an appointment for Henry at St. Mungo's, and sneak him out through the Floo if they had to.
"So I'll just have to be careful." Henry rolled his eyes. "When I left Transfiguration, there were already people saying how I must have been training in secret to defeat Voldemort or something."
"Be careful." Draco hated that rumors were always spreading about Henry, but it seemed true that there was no way to really control them.
Henry gave him a strained smile. "Yeah, I'll have to."
Lucius was so deep in thought as he stepped into the library, wondering how to get Narcissa to agree to his plan, that he didn't notice the silence at first. Then he glanced up, and started at the ice coating the fireplace mantel. The fire itself had frozen into utter stillness, frosted over, so that it shone like a fairy light.
Narcissa sat at the library table with a piece of parchment clenched in front of her in shaking hands. Lucius knew that she had been performing Arithmantic calculations to try and locate Horcruxes other than the one in Grimmauld Place, but he couldn't think of any location she could have uncovered that would make her react like this.
Not when they had removed one from their son.
Lucius rushed over to her and gripped her hands. "Darling, what's wrong?" he whispered.
Narcissa stared at him with eyes as blank as a starry sky and turned the paper so that he could read it.
It was a letter. Her fingers were clenched atop part of the writing, so Lucius couldn't read the whole thing, but the signature was clear enough.
Regulus.
Lucius's breath went out of him, and he gathered his wife close. Narcissa was starting to shake. The ice atop the mantel and the fire had begun to shatter.
And then it truly broke, as Narcissa began a storm of weeping, and Lucius held her.
....
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