They found Theodore Nott levitating an unconscious and injured Cho Chang behind him, wandering around the forest blindly trying to find the camp without any eyes in his head. Lord Voldemort approached the tent where the two teenagers were being treated for their wounds, feelings of unease creeping up on him.

I know who did this, he thought. Never trust a Gryffindor. They lie more readily than Slytherins.

He slid through the entrance in the tent just in time to see the Elder Nott comforting his son.

"You two were very brave going after them like that...ah my Lord!"

Voldemort ignored the older Nott, knowing that he would be prone to overt shows of courtesy, and instead knelt down before the blinded boy, touching his empty eye sockets with one hand, and his wand (to the boy's head) in the other.

"Do not be afraid," he said. "I want to know what you know, and this is the easiest way to do it."

Theodore nodded and Voldemort could instantly see a sprawl of trees, just past the food tent. The Federation members and the young people aghast at the happenings, Snape and Harry entering the tent. And then Miss Chang pulling on the boy's shirt, pointing, the two of them running after a slunking figure leaving the area, headed towards the edge of camp.

"Cho had been suspicious of Wormtail," the boy was saying, as Voldemort watched his memories in time. "I didn't believe her when she said she thought he was the one who poisoned the food. I told her that being a creepy man and being guilty wasn't the same thing, but she has six senses that I don't understand. Sometimes I think she's a Seer or Occlumens, the way she can see into people. How she found out who Harry Potter was, and all that. She said she just knew the moment she saw him. I didn't believe her then either so she said she would prove it."

A brief flash of the duel with Cho and Harry, in which Lord Voldemort discovered that Cho had been rather unaware of just how many people had been at the duel, she had been too intent on unmasking Harry Potter for her boyfriend's favor.

"Well this time, since she had proven herself the first time, I gave her benefit of the doubt," Theodore continued. "We followed Wormtail out of the cook tent, to the edge of the forest, where we saw him meeting with Order Members. In disguise. When we ran back to camp to get help they attacked us, they sent Cho flying and broke her ankle and passed out. They then came after me and I turned them into trees," the sight of Wormtail turning from tiny and lumpy to tall and thin in Theodore's head was rather amusing to Voldemort. "After seeing this the rest of the Order ran for it, but only after one of their curses caught my eyes. I levitated Cho, but I was lost, couldn't find my way back, so I navigated by going from tree to tree."

Voldemort removed his wand from the boy's head and nodded at Liang Wu.

"The complete truth," he assurred the man, despite the elder Nott's protest that his son could lie. "I knew you were out of veritaserum so I improvised some occlumency. You can put that in your report."

The Chinese wizard sighed in relief.

"I would hate to have to not trust a young man's word because of a lack of potion. I'll have to bother Severus about it as soon as we have the potions making supplies restocked."

Theodore started shaking with crying, and Voldemort felt sympathy and concern fill his chest. He waved his wand and tried as best as he could to clean the youth's bleeding eye cavities.

"There's no restoring his eyes," said the healer sadly as she packed some sort of healing herbs into the empty sockets. "But he'll quickly learn to navigate by magic."

"Who can teach him to use magic while blind?" said his father despairingly. "How will he get around?"

"I'll teach him," said Voldemort faintly, not sure why he was promising such a thing, since he was only required to teach his own Apprentice. "In fact, I'll teach all the young people how to fight blind, since we cannot say what the future will hold. Severus will help me I'm sure."

"So my Lord," said Liang Wu smugly, approaching Voldemort with a slippery step. "Is it true then that you and Severus have plans to start your own school?"

Voldemort moaned, remembering that he had promised Severus that he would introduce a bill to the Federation requesting the resources to start their own school. Severus had been adamant that Recruiting was all well and good, but Dark Magic was mostly only taught during the Revel, and this duty usually fell to him. A school, to replace the general Apprenticeship, would assure that young people without Masters would still get education.

Now Liang Wu was grinning that cheeky grin at him. Severus could become quite stubborn about these things.

"We shall see, it certainly is a possibility," Voldemort admitted, not wanting to agree to anything the Chinese wizard suggested out of habit. "That'll be Severus' job. He has all those young people he's recruited. Top recruitment agent, up for an award I hear."

Liang Wu colored pointedly and Lord Voldemort turned to leave the tent in search of his Apprentice.

He needed some advice, and to prepare their Cores for tonight's Spell.

They would be doing a duet. He couldn't wait to hear the boy's reaction to the Federation's decision to make them both the Singers.

Severus Snape didn't move and inch when Liang Wu entered his tent. He was bent down over the map of the camp, pinpointing the various locations that the Harvest Spell could take place. Most people were in favor of the east clearing, but Severus had a feeling that their magic would be enough to fill a larger area, and that vegetables might start popping up in the darnedest places if the Harvest was too close to camp.

But keeping it in the East was more secure. A squeak of a chair told him that Liang Wu had sat down across from him, and was now looking at the maps.

"We now have to identity of the poisoner, and moreso have found the poor Chang girl and, young Nott. It wasn't them, by the by, but they did manage to turn their attacker into a tree."

"There, you see!" said Severus, ignoring his concern for the two young people for a moment. "Teaching them those spells IS useful!"

"Dangerous but useful yes. Now the Federation has to try and locate Peter Pettigrew from an entire forest of trees. Though we do have some information to go on, he may have already escaped by now."

Severus felt his stomach twist at the explanation that followed. He felt vindicated but hollow stomached. He had warned the Dark Lord many times about trusting Wormtail. But he was afraid the Dark Lord was still sketchy on telling the difference between obedience from fear versus loyalty. He pushed himself back as Liang Wu finished summarizing the injuries of the teenagers, intent to go to them and reassure them both that they weren't in trouble.

But Liang Wu rose from the chair to stop him, coming around the table and putting strong hands on the slighter man's shoulders.

"Severus...Don't leave yet."

Severus felt a shiver of apprehension fill him. His stomach twisted slightly, his breathing cut off and he felt warm arms pull him in for an embrace.

"Do not ever forget I am here. You hide your pain well," Wu commented quietly. "But you are still grieving your pains after all these years. You have never gotten used to treachery, the goals and plans of your life snuffed out by fear and mistrust. But I trust you, and I care. You will have your own school. I'm sure now. The Federation will have to see that your teachings have been useful, and saved two children's lives. You will be a teacher of the Dark Arts, my love."

Severus broke down immediately, burying himself into the comforting shoulder of his lover, smelling the flavors of jasmine tea and incense, tangling his fingers in the man's long dark gray hair.

His fetish for long haired men was going to kill him one day. But Wu's long trailing mustache tickled hils neck when they kissed. He loved it. He absolutely loved it.

"But I'm a teacher, not a leader," Severus complained, feeling something stirring inside him that had nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with intimacy. "Who will be the Headmaster of my school?"

"Ah," said Wu, dutifully unbuttoning the other man's jacket. "That is a riddle that will be revealed soon, my darling. We shall know soon enough."

Harry moaned as he watched Draco and Pansy practicing the tree spell together. Voldemort was having Snape teach all the young people the spell that had saved Theodore Nott and Cho Chang's life. And Harry wanted to be desperately down there with them.

But instead he was up here learning how to sing.

"Its not that hard Harry," said Voldemort, hands on his lap. "You have all the ingredients in here," he pressed his hand flat against Harry's stomach. "Let the air belt from your chest."

Harry was a tenor, or so he was told, and was singing in high registers that made him sound vaguely like a girl.

Hate this hate this...

But then, when Harry struggled over a verse of the song he was being taught, Voldemort joined him in baritone, and together they did a soft duet that caused the duelers in the arena to pause.

"Oh!" said Harry, interrupting their duet abruptly. "So these notes are sort of a step above what you're singing."

"Thats right. Now try it again, on your own."

It came more easily this time, and once Voldemort was satisfied that Harry would not entirely mess up the Harvest, he send Harry down to join the young people in the arena for some lunch, which was being served to them on a makeshift picnic blanket.

Brought to him now by the less hostile and more amiable Felby, who greeted Harry with a friendly bow.

I will never understand house elves, Harry said, then blushed when he realized he'd also said it out loud.

Draco seemed to blush slightly, then leaned over a bit.

"I asked Felby to treat you more nicely," Draco admitted, though it was with much strain. "My parents are still upset about Jonathan, but thats my Aunt and Uncle's fault not yours."

"He's one of us now," said Pansy, and she got up to sit next to Harry as if they were warm and buxom friends. "So, you get to sing the spell, how exciting!"

"Yeah, I suppose," Harry said nervously, feeling Pansy snuggling up next to him as if she were Rita Skeeter digging for information. "But I don't understand why I have to!"

"Soul core bonds are interesting things," said Severus Snape, startling Harry from behind. "A bit of magic from one can affect the other in strange ways. The Harvest Song acts to pull magic from a group and direct it to a course of action. A second man or woman sits between the Singer and the assembled volunteers to keep the Song from taking more magic than people can easily give. But if the Singer is core bonded to another then there is a risk of the magic being directed into the other person rather than into the ground. So you Harry, get to sit a half step between me and Lord Voldemort, and you'll be drawing magic as a unit rather than two separates."

"Duets aren't common, but they can be stronger," Draco said, nibbling on his sandwich. "Which means more vegetables and fruit. We might even have have an orchard."

Snape chuckled and Harry put his head on his knees.

"So explain the brother Core to me again. I still don't quite understand it."

"Oh that," said Pansy, putting on a very Hermionesque tone of voice. "Its simple. If two people have a pre-existing magical attachment of some kind, and they are a defensive and offensive pair of wands, then that brother Cores occur in their wands."

"Which is like me and Pansy, we have a brother Core," Draco said, passing the pot of tinned tomato soup around the circle.

"Yeah, I'm the good defense to his bad offense," Pansy giggled.

"Hey!" said Draco, pinching her cheek. "Not nice."

"Which is why we agreed to our parents arranging our marriage for us," Pansy told Harry, astounding him. "We're practically destined to become Soul Mates the way we behave."

"Okay, now I'm lost again. How does having brother wands result in Soul Mates?" Harry grumbled.

"It doesn't," said Snape exasperatedly. "Soul mates and wand cars are seperate. The Magical core is bound to another by some magical occurrance, SUCH AS a wand Brotherhood. Its the magic of wizards that is pairing, nothing more. But in Soul Mates its the Spiritual part that matters. The Soul. Two Souls become Soul Mates only if there is enough bonding magic of any kind to bind the souls together."

"Its like Magnets," said Draco. "If you have just enough magic shared between you, and you love each other enough, then the Souls will pull together and then they can't be pulled apart, even after the magic is gone."

"Because magic is fleeting," said Snape pointedly. "But Souls are eternal. Once a soul connects to another, its all over, there's no way to separate it. There's a 'physical' attachment, so to speak, between the souls. You can't keep out of each other's heads."

"My dad said he spent most of his time in Azkaban talking to mom in his head," Draco said nervously. "Thats a Soul Mate. And with how close me and Pansy are its only a matter of time."

Pansy began acting nervous, picking at the edge of the picnic blanket and making Harry edgy. He looked up at the sky.

"Could Soul Mates occur between friends?"

Snape surprisingly nodded.

"Thats how it starts. The Souls begin drawing together, attracted by the magical bonds between two people. And when the Souls starts forming little physical bonds, the two persons may start forming emotional bonds. The final Soul Bond occurs, to be bluntly, with pure and complete openess between both Souls. When there is nothing hidden. When all the secrets are revealed. You COULD be close friends with a Soul Mate, and not be lovers or married, but I have never heard of it."

"You said there is no way to split Soul Mates. But is there, really no way?"

The young people all started shifting nervously.

"There is one way, very very hard to prove that it truly is. When two Souls want to be together nothing the Soul's owners can do can seperate them. But when something outside puts a block between them that can transcend even death..."

"Like?"

Snape sighed, and looked down at his hands, and turned to look at Draco Malfoy for a moment, avoiding Harry's eyes.

"The Avada Kedavra," he said quietly.

Harry stared, and Snape crossed his legs.

"When one of a pair of Soul Mates dies, they stay in this world, and don't move on, wherever souls move onto. They stay until their other half has also died. We know this because the surviving partner of a Soul Mate pair can still communicate with their partner through death. Many times the partner remains on Earth as a ghost. But..."

"But the Avada Kedavra prevents that?"

"Souls move on with the killing curse," Snape said. "Though its only conjecture to say that the soul cannot decide to stay behind because of the curse. But we've seen Soul Mated pairs where one has died of the killing curse, and the survivor cannot feel or speak to their Soul Mate. Those persons...quickly suicide. Its rare that they live on."

"But its happened?" Draco asked now, keenly wanting to know this as much as Harry did."

"I knew one..." Snape admitted. "I know of one man who survived long after his Soul Mate was killed by the curse. That man, just happened to be a squib, so that may be why he survived so long. Having no magic himself, the magical bonds were too faint to allow them to speak in one another's minds. Too faint to allow him to know or understand that magical bond that wizarding Soul Mates share, the reason why a Soul Mate would suicide at that loss."

"Oh thats horrible!" said Pansy. "Is he still alive?"

"Yes," Snape admitted. "But he suffers still. He won't speak to anybody, he won't look at anybody. He sits in a muggle hospital most of his days, just staring into space. He's lost."

Harry stared at Snape, whose eyes were wet, with tears that he couldn't believe existed. Snape was not really crying in front of all these teenagers! He couldn't be!

"Who?"

It was Pansy who spoke this, so quietly, and Snape's voice was just as quiet, and quite hollow.

"My brother."

Abruptly Snape stood up, straightened his robes, and turned to leave the arena.

"Keep practicing when you're done eating...I just remembered someplace I have to be."

Harry and the other young people watched Snape leaved the arena at such a fast pace that Pansy started crying immediately in response. Harry suddenly felt deeply ashamed that he'd even asked the question. Ollie Gindelwald looked up at Harry.

"Harry," said Olie quietly. "We are not angry that you asked all these questions. Snape has told that story to my grandfather many times, though he has never broken down like this. And I think I know why you would ask."

"Oh," said Harry, slightly annoyed with the Bulgarian boy. "You do?"

"Yah," said Ollie. "My grandfather, and a lot of other people in the camp, think you might already be Lord Voldemort's Soul Mate. That is why you have to do the duet. He may not be able to sing without you anymore. A Soul Mate can hamper certain types of magic from being cast by the other, the Harvest Spell is one of those."

"How?" said Harry, more angry at this than at the idea of having a Soul Mate. "How is the Harvest Spell any different than any other magic?"

Pansy pursed her lips.

"Well, with Soul Mates, its simple; the Harvest Spell has the potential to harm other people. And without the magical consent of a Soul Mate to perform such a spell, the magic will not come. Soul Mates can control and stop one another's magic without knowing it, and in the case of a spell that hurts somebody, that usually happens. Especially if one person has strong morals like you do."

"Oh," said Harry, blushing. "So how does the Harvest Spell hurt others then?"

"Its stealing," Draco said through clenched teeth. "Its taking magic from other people by force to use it yourself. But with Harvest you can't do it any other way. Its too large a spell casting to do with ones own magic, you need to take from others or you'll risk draining yourself past the point of recovery."

"Unless we all sang the spell," Pansy decided. "But then our spells would have the chance of dispelling or effecting others, and we'd run the risk of all of us taking magic from each other."

"Which is why Snape will be needed to act as a stopper should too much magic be pulled in," Draco continued. "A wizard can DIE if they lose more magic than they can regenerate. Or turn into a squib."

"Thats what happened to Snape's brother," said Ollie Grindelwald with an embarrassed flush. "And thats why my father says Snape won't sing, unless he has to. Its a punishment to himself for not being able to stop it."

"Oh Ollie don't talk about it anymore," Pansy squeaked. "Its too sad!"

"Why not? Everybody knows," Ollie turned to look at Harry squarely. "Snape accidentally made his brother a squib when they were trying to grow food for their sick mother. They were too young to understand what they were doing. He didn't know how to stop singing, with the magic flowing into him, and took magic from his brother to the point where he couldn't do magic anymore."

"Oh."

"And thats why Snape's a teacher," said Draco, giving the Bulgarian an angry quelling look. "He refuses to let any young people try Dark Magic without understanding the consequences. Thats why he wanted to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Oh my god," said Harry, covering his face. "Thats why he didn't want me using his spell! Why he was practically ready to murder me for using the Sectumsempra. I didn't know what it was, or what it could do!"

"Yeah," said Draco, and he got up to sit on Harry's other side to put a comforting arm around him. "It wasn't that he hated you for injuring me, though he was probably quite angry with you for trying. He hated himself for letting you find his spell, without any notes as to what it could do to another person. You never should have gotten your hands on it. Dark Magic needs to be taught by someone with a great deal of experience and the ability to reverse the spells in quest, not experimented with the way magic is taught at Hogwarts. Only Snape knew how to heal my injuries, Madam Pomfrey would not have been able to save me."

Harry nodded, and felt his eyes turn wet.

"I'm so sorry for that Draco, so so sorry. I know now, not to just use magic I find. I know better now."

Draco nodded.

"I know."

"So," said Pansy, getting to her feet. "Do you want to practice the tree spell with us? Though you might want to find your Master and practice the Harvest Spell some more."

"Not sure I want to face him just yet," Harry thought, his stomach squirming. "I know everyone thinks we're Soul Mates, but until we're sure, I'd be grateful if people didn't talk about it. I'm still not used to the idea of being in the Federation, or his Apprentice. Or what tonight's spell will be like. A lifetime stuck with another soul just seems so far away right now."

Pansy hugged him, and he hugged her back. He knew now that these people were his friends now, trustworthy, because they had been willing to trust him with so much too.

And he knew now that it was possible his old friends could have betrayed him. They had never really trusted him, had only ever begrudgingly told him anything, and had turned their backs on him when it seemed like he had done wrong.

"I've decided to join the Federation," Harry told them, to their amazement.

"Then you'd better tell Liang Wu today," said Pansy with a happy squeal. "Then the Harvest Spell can be your initiation. Though you've proven yourself with plenty of Dark Magic already."

Harry grinned, and they all went back to practicing the tree spell. He was so happy with his casting that he almost completely forgot about being Voldemort's Soul Mate.

Right now being adept at Dark Magic, and learning what Snape taught him, seemed like one of the most important things in the world.