Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

This picture was done for this story by the incomparable RandomAssRaven. Words cannot express my gratitude. It is perfect in every way. Thank you, thank you, thank you for this utterly lovely gift!

July 31st

“Morning,” Hagrid greeted the goblin teller. “We’ve come to take some money out of Mr. Potter’s vault.”

“And does Mr. Potter have his key?” the goblin asked rather tersely.

“Got it here somewhere,” Hagrid said and he began emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering moldy dog biscuits over the pristine book of numbers and causing the Goblin’s scowl to deepen considerably.

“Got it!” Hagrid announced at last, holding up a small gold key, then placing it on the counter for the goblin to examine while Hagrid went about sweeping all the bits and bobs back into his coat pockets.

The goblin examined the key very carefully, as though expecting a forgery, then finally nodded. “Well, that seems to be in order. Before he goes to his vault, there is a matter Mr. Potter must attend to.”

“What’s that?” Hagrid asked with a frown. 

“That is Gringotts’ business with Mr. Potter, sir. Private business. He will visit his vault and return to the lobby when he is finished. Follow me, Mr. Potter.”

And before Harry could even wonder what to do, the goblin was striding away. He cast a quick look at Hagrid, but the man seemed equally as stumped, so Harry hurried after the goblin.

He was led through a large door and down a long corridor into a lounge sort of room with a fountain trickling down one wall and several lounge chairs around a low table. The goblin waited for Harry to take one of the offered seats, then tapped on the top of the fancy box on the table. After a moment, he opened the lid of the box and extracted a thick letter, which he placed on the table in front of Harry.

Written across the front in an elegant script, it said Harald James Potter.

“I don’t understand,” Harry frowned as he picked up the letter. “Is this for me? Why is it at a bank?”

“That letter, Mr. Potter, was left in our trust ten years ago, to be delivered to you today or the soonest following. Feel free to take your time. Tap the bell if you need anything. Merely open the door when you are finished.”

Harry watched the goblin go and looked at the letter again. Harald. Was that his proper first name? And the middle. Was that for his father? Hagrid had said his name was James.

His fingers trembled a bit as he carefully pried loose the wax seal holding the heavy paper shut. The whole envelope came unfolded then and he set it aside to focus on the paper inside, filled with small, neat lines of the same elegant writing. He flipped the paper over and his breath caught at the sign off at the bottom. “Love Mum”.

My Darling Harry, 

As I write this, you are playing on the floor in front of me, enjoying the new toys you got for your first birthday. I hope so very much that I will be there for your eleventh birthday that I might burn this letter and explain its contents face to face as it should be done. Unfortunately, I know there is the possibility that your father and I will not be there.

There is a war on, Harry, and your father and I are targets. If we don’t make it, there are some things you must understand. Things that only James and myself know. It is for that reason that I put ink to page this night.

First off, if you are not alone, read no further. The information contained in this missive is for you and you alone. The parchment is charmed to ingrain everything about this letter permanently into your mind and then to dissolve into dust, for the contents are far too dangerous to risk their discovery.

Now, on to the point of this letter. I realize that this may not be easy to hear and there is no good way to tell you, but you must know. Some time before you were born, your father and I had a terrible fight. I was furious with him and I went into the muggle world to forget the war and our fight and everything for just one night. I did not intend to do more that night than dance and drink, but I met a man there. He was very charming, beautiful, confident, intelligent… Please don’t blame him, Harry. The fault for that night is entirely my own. The man did not know I was married, only that I was angry and looking to find some small measure of peace before returning to my life.

I used a discreet contraception spell and he used muggle contraception that night, yet nine months later, you were born. It is rare, but magic sometimes does that.

We did not know at first if the child was his or James’, but we decided to test you after you were born. Just to be sure. Please understand that the result didn’t matter to myself or to James. We’d already worked through the issues with our fight and my infidelity. We just needed to know your true parentage to clear up matters of inheritance.

The heritage test we used was meant to display the official name and any magical titles or positions. Take a moment to look at the last page of this letter where I’ve attached a copy of the results.

With shaking hands, Harry flipped to the last page. Across the top of the page was written, “Harald James Potter.” Beneath that, “Biological mother, Lily Rosalin Potter nee Evans, Lady Wife to Lord Potter.” 

His eyes fell to the next line with reluctance and his heart sank, though he’d honestly expected it, when he found a name that was not James Potter there. Then his brow furrowed as he read the words several times. “Biological Father, Lucifer, Sovereign King of the realm of Hell, Warden of the Damned.”

He was shaking so badly that he had to smooth the pages out on the table to go back to reading the letter.

First, I would like to say that James fully adopted you after learning that you weren’t his by blood. He is legally your father and he is the man who loves you as much as any father ever could. You are a Potter, Harry, despite also being more.

I hate to drop all of this on you so young, but there are reasons you cannot go any longer without understanding your situation. I had a very difficult pregnancy and it is when we began to suspect that something was very unique about you. I don’t know how long we’ve been gone or how you’ve grown up, so I shall assume you know nothing.

Ordinarily, children begin exhibiting signs of accidental magic — that is, magic driven by a child’s emotions or desires — when they are anywhere from three to ten years old. The very strongest have been known to begin just before their first year.

Your first bouts of accidental magic started nearly four months before your birth. There is, to my knowledge, no other recorded case of this happening. The magical outbursts were so strong that I spent those last four months on bed rest, surrounded by charms to keep you calm and my magic set on protecting me and not fighting against you. 

None of this is your fault, Harry. You are just extremely powerful.

Your accidental magic continued after your birth. For months, you routinely destroyed your crib each time you became upset and changing diapers was somewhat dangerous, actually. But then you began to calm down and your magic settled with you. Since about five months, you’ve been a delightful baby. You are very intelligent. Very clever.

Age eleven is when wizards and witches begin coming into their power, but you need to understand that you may experience things very differently from your peers. I can’t say for certain what it will mean, having a father that is essentially a deity. Christianity paints the man as the sum of all evil on Earth and in the hearts of men, but that was not the man I met that night. I hope that my estimation of him was right and theirs is wrong. What I can tell you is that you are a very sweet little boy and I have no fear that you will grow to be anything less than a very honorable man.

You are incredibly magically powerful. Enough to cause alarm should it become well known in the wizarding world. Last month, for example, you found a dead bird in the garden and, before I could stop you, you’d lain a hand on it. The bird then got up and flew away. This is an ability that Wizarding Britain would both fear and covet. You may develop other abilities, in time, that would be even worse to expose. And so, Harry, I fear that I have no choice but to urge you to conceal these things, even from those you consider your closest friends. 

Christians and Satanists would call you the antichrist, Harry. Devout Christians would want to kill you for that. Devout Satanists would want to force you to be their champion to rule the world. I cannot say what the wizarding world would make of your parentage, but you should strive to not find out. It is imperative that you conceal this from everyone lest the wrong person learn of it.

Worse, I cannot for certain say that some of these people don’t already know. There are meant to be omens to tell of your birth, so the Christian texts lead me to believe. I haven’t been able to find them, but others may have.

Trust, my son, is not something you can take for granted. Not about this. Not to your best friend or the people who raised you in our stead. Not to Albus Dumbledore or the Minister for Magic. Not to the Queen herself. This must be your secret alone or shared only under air tight magical bindings. I implore you, share with no one until you are much older. Even then, get oaths first. The wrong person learning of this secret could utterly destroy you.

I wish I had better advice to offer, my dear. More encouraging words or infallible plans. I feel that no mother should ever teach her child to shy away from trust and to keep secrets at all costs, but I have no choice. To remain safe, you must keep the secret. Perhaps when you are an adult, when your powers have fully come in, you may be strong enough to weather my fears, but I hope desperately that you never find out.

I will say that you needn’t stop living your life for this. You may still have friends and fun. Don’t shy from love and companionship. Let yourself be open in other ways. Safe ways. Follow your dreams. Your secret needn’t consume your life. Try to put it from your mind most days, if you can. Only think on it when something unusual happens. Something others should not learn.

I wish I knew what powers you may discover. Will you grow wings? I don’t know. Lucifer had them, in the bible. But then he was cast from heaven and I don’t know if they remained. Will you grow horns? I don’t think so, but again, I don’t know. Lucifer as I met him certainly had no horns, but altering shape is something rather simple for skilled witches and wizards, so I should think the devil would manage easily enough.

I am sorry that I don’t have more answers for you. Just be on guard for people who would use you. Those who go out of their way to court your favor. Those that are not close to you, but act as though they are.

Please be careful, my son. You are so powerful and the next seven years while you attend Hogwarts, people will begin to see the depth of that power. They will seek to use you for their own gain or to destroy you if they cannot gain your favor.

Even at only one year old, I can see how very clever you are, Harry. I have faith that you will use that cleverness to stay safe. 

Love, 

Mum

P.S. When you turn fifteen, the family artifacts vault will open to you. Inside, you will find a collection of my journals. I hope you can find some understanding in them. For everything. In my more recent journals, I’ve included everything I can remember about your birth father and everything that’s happened since then. 

Before Harry could even start reading the letter again, it disintegrated into dust in his fingers, just as she’d said it would, heritage page and all. Trying to think about the specific parts of the letter though, he realized that she’d been right in saying he’d remember. Every detail was crisp and clear in his mind, from the words to the handwriting to the exact shade of the paper.

The goblin had said he could take his time, so he pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them while he just thought about what he’d read. His mum had an affair. He didn’t know how to feel about that. He’d never known much about his parents, so there wasn’t much of a mental picture to be messed up. But she said they’d fought, then after they’d made up, even though she’d done what she did. James not only forgave her, he decided to raise Harry like his own son.

Even knowing that Harry's real dad was…

Finding out about magic had been strange enough, but to learn that Christianity was real? God and the devil and angels and all that. And the devil was his dad. It scared him. He didn’t know a lot about religion, but he knew the Devil was supposed to be evil.

Then again, they said witchcraft was evil and he was about to go to a school that would teach him how to use the powers he was born with. Were all witches and wizards really evil? Did they have a school to teach children to use evil magic? He couldn’t see it.

Maybe he really couldn’t trust popular opinion to tell him the truth on anything.

/ * o * \

**

\ .. o .. /

October 31st

The first two months of school, Harry took his mum’s advice to put the whole issue of his dad to the back of his mind and ignore it. When he was Sorted, the Hat wanted to put him in Slytherin, but he’d begged for anything else and had ended up in Gryffindor. Everything he’d heard about Slytherin suggested that people saw it as the House for people more likely to end up evil. He couldn’t afford for anyone to think that about him. If the truth ever did come out, maybe the fact that he’d been a Gryffindor would at least instill doubt.

Ignoring his heritage wasn’t overly difficult in the beginning. Nothing all that strange happened except that he was usually one of the first ones to get a spell right in class. Hermione usually got things to work quickly because she had perfect execution of the incantation and wand movements. Harry’s magic just seemed to make things work based on his intent even when he didn’t have the other bits quite right. Sometimes the spells came off so powerful that they went a little overboard on whatever they were trying to do. Like when he made his matchstick a needle and McGonagall couldn’t make it a matchstick again no matter what spell she tried.

People whispered about him and that Boy-Who-Lived nonsense, but Harry tried to just ignore it. After all, if they were convinced that anything extraordinary that he did was because of that, then they weren’t looking for other reasons.

Halloween though… That day reminded him that his secret didn’t go away just because he was ignoring it really hard. His mum had said that wizards start coming into their power at eleven, and things were certainly changing.

Halloween had never been very remarkable for him. Dudley would put on ridiculous costumes like cowboys and astronauts and bring home huge amounts of candy, most of it probably stolen from smaller kids rather than earned by proper door-to-door begging. Harry was usually shut in his cupboard for the night. 

This Halloween was different.

For starters, he woke to the sound of tortured screams. They’d been distant and followed by gleeful cackling. They’d faded after he’d woken so he’d thought it was a lingering dream.

Only they’d come back on and off all day. It always sounded far away. Like maybe if he went around the corner and up the staircase, he could catch a glimpse of it happening outside the window, but there was never anything there when he did try to follow it.

The veil between the living and the dead was meant to be thinnest on this day, he remembered. Was he actually hearing hell?

He’d hoped, briefly, that it was just a wizard thing. Like seeing ghosts. Unfortunately, he was sure the muggleborns would have reacted and asked questions if they were hearing tortured screams and mad cackling that they couldn’t explain. And no one said a word. 

When they heard that Hermione was in a bathroom crying her eyes out because Ron had snapped at her for her really rude attempts to teach him the levitation charm, Ron had looked really guilty. Harry had felt slightly guilty too, if he was honest. It was hardly his fault that he always got the spells down way before Ron, and the other boy had just watched Harry send his own feather slamming into the ceiling when Hermione had started in on Ron. It probably wasn’t only Ron’s fault that he’d snapped at her. 

She was really annoying, but it didn’t mean they should hurt her feelings this badly. Harry resolved to try to get Ron to be a bit nicer to her in the future and that was the end of it for the night.

Or, it should have been.

Then Quirrell announced a Troll was in the dungeons and they were all sent back to their common rooms and Hermione wouldn’t even know there was any danger.

He and Ron barely had to trade a look to know that they were going to go after her. The troll was in the dungeons, after all. How dangerous could it really be?

Pretty dangerous, it turned out.

Ron finally managed the levitation charm to knock out the troll with it’s own club while Harry got Hermione out of harm’s way.

So it worked out. And they got a new friend out of it. He just hoped he could temper her more annoying bits or the friendship might not last too long.

/ * o * \

**

\ .. o .. /

June 8th

“As for the Stone, it has been destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” Harry asked blankly. “But your friend.  Nicholas Flamel…”

“Oh, you know about Nicholas?” Dumbledore sounded quite delighted. “You did do the thing properly, didn’t you? Well, Nicholas and I have had a little chat and agreed it’s all for the best.”

“But that means he and his wife will die, won’t they?” Harry protested, quite unable to fathom them having a calm chat with Dumbledore and just deciding to die.

“They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and then, yes, they will die.”

Harry could only stare in disbelief.

Dumbledore just smiled at him. “To one as young as you, I’m sure it seems incredible, but to Nicholas and Perenell, it really is like going to bed after a very, very long day. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”

Harry thought of the sound of tortured screams and doubted that.

“You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing,” Dumbledore went on without seeming to notice Harry’s doubt. “As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all — the trouble is, humans do have a knack for choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.”

Harry didn’t think it was possible for “life” to be something bad for you. It was kind of the definition of good for you, wasn’t it? He also thought that someone who went to so much trouble as to create the Philosopher’s Stone just to live forever wouldn’t be so casual about dying. Then again, it occurred to him, an alternative to destroying the Stone would be to let the world believe it destroyed until Voldemort was gone in a few years or decades. They could claim leftover serum in the meantime and the Stone would be safe.

With that in mind, Harry decided not to question it any further. He understood the importance of keeping Secrets, and if this was theirs, even Dumbledore might not know the truth. Pressing the point certainly wouldn’t help anyone.

“Sir, I’ve been thinking,” he started instead. “Even if the Stone’s gone, Vol-“ he stopped himself, remembering how everyone kept chastising him for using the name. “I mean You-Know-Who-“

“Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”

“Right,” Harry sighed. “Well, Voldemort’s going to try other ways of coming back, isn’t he? I mean, he hasn’t gone, has he?”

“No, Harry, he has not,” Dumbledore confirmed. “He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share… not being truly alive, he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die. He shows as little mercy to his followers as his enemies. Nevertheless, Harry, while you may have only delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time — and if he is delayed again, why, he may never return to power.”

Harry began to nod but quickly stopped as it sent his head to throbbing. “There are some other things I’d like to know, sir. If you can tell me… Things I want to know the truth about…”

“The truth,” Dumbledore sighed, “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. However, I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you’ll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie.”

Harry considered that carefully. It was an important thing to know about Dumbledore, he thought. It meant that he had Secrets, too, and understood the importance of keeping them. “Well… Voldemort said that he only killed my mother because she tried to stop him from killing me. But why would he want to kill me in the first place?”

Dumbledore sighed very deeply this time. “Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will know, one day… Put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older… I know you hate to hear this… when you are ready, you will know.”

Harry frowned heavily. It was one thing to know Dumbledore had Secrets. It was something else entirely to realize that he was keeping Secrets that directly involved Harry’s life. He told Harry to put it from his mind. It was similar to the advice his mother had given him, but she’d given him facts and told him not to let them consume him. Dumbledore was giving him mysteries that directly impacted his life and telling him to ignore them. There was a large difference.

He’d been just a baby. Why would Voldemort have wanted him dead? Did he know who Harry’s true father was and fear the power he would have? Did Dumbledore know as well and think to shield him from a harsh truth?

He didn’t like not knowing and he knew that putting it from his mind was not something he would be capable of doing.

He decided to try another question and inquired as to the reason Quirrell couldn’t touch him. He’d thought maybe it had to do with his heritage, but Dumbledore seemed totally convinced that it was caused by his mother dying to save him. Apparently Voldemort didn’t understand love. And that Quirrell was so consumed with negative emotions that he literally couldn’t touch someone marked by the kind of love his mother had for him.

It was a nice thought, but a little hinky. Of course, he didn’t know what magic could do yet, but it seemed that someone as scary as Voldemort should have been aware of that love magic thing if it was real. Just because he couldn’t understand love didn’t mean he shouldn’t have heard stories about other evil people felled by killing families, right?

As long as the man was being chatty, Harry pressed on with a question about where his Invisibility Cloak came from. Apparently it was from the headmaster himself. He suggested that James had used the cloak for sneaking off to the kitchens to steal food when he was a student. It almost seemed he was encouraging Harry to follow in those footsteps and use it for frivolous reasons.

“Is it true that Snape hates me because he hated my father?”

“ Professor Snape, Harry,” Dumbledore corrected and Harry very carefully didn’t roll his eyes. “Professor” was clearly very loosely defined in this school. Snape was the kind of man that would probably be one of them laughing like mad in hell while others screamed in agony. And they let him alone with children.

Now he thought of it, that was probably reason enough to question Dumbledore’s motives.

“Well, they did rather detest each other,” Dumbledore answered after a moment. “Not unlike yourself and Mr. Malfoy. And then, your father did something Snape could never forgive.”

“What?” he prompted warily.

“He saved his life.”

Harry blinked and demanded again, “ What ?”

“Yes…” Dumbledore said dreamily. “Funny, the way people’s minds work, isn’t it? Professor Snape couldn’t bear being in your father’s debt… I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year because he felt that would make him and your father even. Then he could go back to hating your father’s memory in peace…”

As much as Harry wanted to loathe everything about Snape and believe he’d lived his entire life as irredeemably loathsome as he was now… Harry had grown up with Dudley Dursley. He knew when he was hearing only one side of the story, carefully crafted to make it appear a certain way. What Dumbledore was saying was true, he thought, but there was a lot of explanation left out. It almost felt like he was deliberately trying to prevent any chance of Harry having a single kind thought about Snape the way he said the only reason Snape protected him was so he could hate James in peace.

It hurt his head to try to contemplate the headmaster’s motives. He insisted Harry call Snape “professor”, then told him that Snape was just an ungrateful bastard and anything good he ever did was only for selfish purposes. Did he want Harry to respect Snape or to go on loathing him?

He decided he’d need more information to form a theory on that, and pressed on instead.

“How did I get the stone out of the mirror?”

And as he listened to Dumbledore congratulate himself on his own genius, Harry had the horrible realization that the Stone was never in real danger. Voldemort would not have been able to get the Stone from the mirror without Harry there. He’d walked the key right down to him.

And instead of chastising him, Dumbledore was joking about candy and smiling at Harry like they were dear friends.

-- Just be on the watch for people who would use you. Those who go out of their way to court your favor. Those that are not close to you, but act as though they are.--

He tried his best not to let Dumbledore see how uneasy he was feeling.

When his friends showed up later, he told them the whole story.

“So the Stone’s gone?” Ron said finally. “Flamel’s just going to die?”

“I guess,” Harry shrugged, because he didn’t know if his theory was right and especially if it was, having it get around would be really bad. As was obvious from the rumors apparently flying about their little adventure to try to protect the Stone, word spread fast.

“Do you think he meant you to do it?” Ron wondered. “Sending you your father’s cloak and everything?”

“Well,” Hermione exploded, “if he did — I mean to say — that’s terrible ! You could have been killed.”

“Maybe…” Harry allowed, because it did seem awfully coincidental. He’d found the mirror, so he knew how it worked. Dumbledore had even taken the time to explain it to him. Then he’d given him the invisibility cloak. And yeah, Hermione was smart and Harry was powerful and Ron was wicked good at chess, but if three first years could get through those challenges… It almost had to be staged, didn’t it? “Just wish I knew why,” he admitted.

Ron just declared Dumbledore crazy in a tone that suggested he hoped to grow up to be just like him, then changed the subject to the upcoming leaving feast.

Madam Pomfrey soon shooed them both out of her domain and Harry spent a long time lying in bed and thinking on Albus Dumbledore and his mother’s advice.

Chapter Text

August 19th

“D-Dia-gon Alley,” Harry coughed through a mouthful of ash.

It felt as though he was being sucked down a giant drain. Harry felt his magic rise up inside him like a tide ready to wash away his problems, but he had no idea what he was doing or what his magic should be doing to help, so it was as helpless as the rest of him as he tumbled through the floo network, hoping and praying that it would end soon and he’d be in the right place.

It did end eventually, with him falling face-first onto a cold stone floor and snapping the bridge of his glasses.

Dizzy, bruised, and covered in soot, he cautiously climbed to his feet, holding his broken glasses to his face. His agitated magic latched onto this one thing with a simple solution and the glasses snapped back into one piece as neatly as any properly cast reparo could manage. He couldn’t do that on purpose no matter how hard he tried, not without his wand.

Lowering his hands, Harry examined his surroundings even as his magic seemed to heave a great sigh and settle down like it was planning a contented nap.

There was no sign of Fred and George, so he was definitely not in the right place. He seemed to be in a large, dimly-lit magical shop quite unlike any he’d ever seen before.

A glass case nearby held a withered hand on a cushion, a bloodstained pack of cards, and a staring glass eye. Malevolent-looking masks stared down from the walls, an assortment of what appeared to be human bones lay on the counter, and rusty, spiked instruments hung from the ceiling. A momentary wonder at rust in the magical world struck him — wasn’t there a spell to prevent that or clean them up? — but he shook it off as monumentally beside the point.

Most distressingly, the narrow, shadowed street beyond the windows was definitely not Diagon Alley.

Harry found himself uncomfortably stuck between being quite alarmed at his location and also kind of wanting to curl up and never leave because he’d never felt his magic this relaxed before.

With a mental glare at his confused magic, Harry started toward the door as quickly and quietly as he could manage. He really hoped that he’d not ended up on the wrong side of the country or something. Before he could make good his escape though, a pair of figures paused outside the shop windows and Harry was alarmed to realize the shorter of the pair was Draco Malfoy. He could well imagine what the prat would have to say about running into Harry lost and covered in soot, Harry did the only thing he rightly could.

He darted into a nearby wardrobe and hid.

Only after he was inside did he remember that he was in the magical world and something as innocuous as a wardrobe could actually be quite dangerous, but a quick glance around the interior convinced him that it really was just an empty cupboard. Cracking open the door just enough to see what was happening in the shop, Harry realized that the man with Malfoy had to be his father. He had the same complexion, hair color, and cold, gray eyes as well as a more refined version of Malfoy’s haughty bearing.

“You touch nothing, Draco,” the man warned before touching a bell on the counter.

Draco quickly withdrew his hand from where he’d been reaching for the glass eye and complained to his father, “I thought you were going to buy me a present.”

“I said I would buy you a racing broom,” he father corrected, drumming his fingers on the counter.

“What’s the good of that if I’m not on the House team?” Malfoy pouted. “Harry Potter got a Numbus Two Thousand last year. Special permission from Dumbledore so he could play for Gryffindor. He’s not even that good, it’s just because he’s famous… famous for having a stupid scar on his forehead… Everyone thinks he’s so smart and powerful and wonderful Potter with his scar and his broomstick…”

“You have told me this at least a dozen times already,” the elder Malfoy said with a quelling look at his son. “And I would remind you that it is not… prudent… to appear less than fond of Harry Potter, not when most of our kind regard him as the hero who made the Dark Lord disappear. Ah, Mr. Borgin.”

Harry frowned as the owner, Borgin, apparently, all but kissed Mr. Malfoy’s boots. Harry really hated that very mentality Mr. Malfoy just mentioned. Everyone should at least pretend to bow and scrape for Harry because the wizarding world had decided he was a hero for doing something when he was so young he couldn’t even remember it.

Harry tried to stay still and silent as he bided his time until he could make his escape. Apparently Mr. Malfoy was looking to sell some items that might embarrass him if the Ministry were to raid his house. Dark objects, Harry suspected. He frowned deeply when Mr. Malfoy began disparaging Mr. Weasley, who was about the nicest man Harry had ever met. Certainly the only one that Harry didn’t feel deserved any suspicion of trying to curry favor with Harry.

Draco tried to get his father to buy him the Hand of Glory, which was apparently the shriveled hand, which would hold a candle for you and then only you could use the light. Yeah, it seemed useful, but also really gross. Why couldn’t they charm a candle-holder to do that instead of some old dead hand?

Then Mr. Malfoy began chastising Draco for his grades and Harry almost wanted to laugh, especially when Draco started whining.

“It’s not my fault. The teachers all have favorites. That Hermione Granger…”

“I would have thought you’d be ashamed that a girl of no wizarding family beat you in every exam,” Mr. Malfoy snapped.

“Potter’s even worse!” Draco said defensively. “The teachers treat him like the second coming of Merlin. Like he can do no wrong!”

“They have since he was a year old, Draco,” his father replied coolly. “Making excuses will not improve your standing. If the favoritism works against you, then you must work harder,” he said with finality, then turned back to Borgin to resume their negotiations.

As they talked, Draco grew bored and started wandering around. He’d nearly opened the wardrobe in which Harry hid before his father called him away as their business was concluded.

Breathing a silent sigh of relief, Harry waited until they were gone and Borgin back into the back room, then he crept cautiously out of the wardrobe, through the cluttered shop, and out into the alley beyond.

As he looked around the dim alley, he realized all the storefronts he could see looked to be devoted to the Dark Arts. Nearby shop windows displayed a collection of shrunken heads and a large cage swarming with giant black spiders.

Two shabby-looking wizards were watching him from the shadow of a doorway, muttering to each other, and Harry felt a might uneasy as he set off in search of an exit to this alley. Was he near Diagon Alley? Or somewhere else entirely?

An old wooden street sign hanging over a shop selling poisonous candles told him he was in Knockturn Alley, but that wasn’t much help as he’d never heard of it before.

Trying to stay calm, he moved slowly down the alley. An old woman moved to approach him at one point, but he felt his magic give a massive sort of lazy stretch and the woman suddenly diverted as though she’d not meant to approach him at all. He was never sure, when his magic did something like that, if others could really feel it or if they just got like a bad feeling or something, but it had worked wonders with the Dursleys this summer before Dobby showed up.

He didn’t think anything would have improved their treatment of him after Dobby had ruined their dinner party so fantastically.

It wasn’t long before Hagrid found him and all but dragged him away from the dim, narrow alley onto the wide, brightly lit path that was Diagon Alley. Almost instantly, Harry’s relaxed magic tensed and grew agitated, which made Harry feel rather agitated as he defended his presence down that Alley to Hagrid. Apparently it was a dangerous place, which wasn’t at all surprising, but it was hardly Harry’s fault he’d ended up there.

They very shortly found Hermione near Gringotts and the Weasleys met them right after. The rest of the day, as Harry shopped and then headed back to the Weasleys, his magic never calmed again like it had when he was in that Alley.

October 31st

Harry ran after the voice talking about killing. It was Halloween and he’d been hearing the screaming and laughing on and off all day, this time accompanied by a smell that it had taken him a little while to realize must be sulfur . Despite that, he was sure that this voice was real. As in really here on this side of the veil. Even if no one else could hear it.

When it led them right to a creepy message written on the wall in blood, Harry felt at least a little bit vindicated that he was not, in fact, crazy.

Below the words, Mrs. Norris was hanging by her tail from a torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring.

“I wonder what happened to her,” Harry whispered. “Petrification spell, you think?”

“I think she’s dead,” Hermione whispered back, hand coming to her mouth in horror.

“She’s alive,” Harry said with certainty.

“How do you know?” Hermione wondered.

“Well…” Harry frowned. He honestly didn’t know. She just didn’t feel dead, but he realized now that that was probably not something normal witches and wizards could feel.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ron interrupted before Harry had to come up with an answer.

Unfortunately, the rest of the school turned up before they could.

December 17th

“What’s bad?” Harry complained, running an irritable hand through his hair. “What’s wrong with everyone? Listen, if I hadn’t told that snake not to attack Justin—“

“Oh, that’s what you said to it?”

“What d’you mean? You were there. You heard me.”

“I heard you speaking Parseltongue. Snake language,” Ron corrected. “You could have said anything. No wonder Justin panicked, you sounded like you were egging the snake on or something. It was creepy, you know—“

“Creepy?” Harry gaped at him. “Even if you couldn’t understand me, the snake was ready to strike Justin, then I said something and it laid down like a scolded terrier! How did that seem like I was egging it on?!”

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look and both seemed like someone had died.

Harry felt his stomach turn uneasily. He knew all about dangerous secrets and it seemed like he’d just exposed one in front of the whole school. Fuck, he should have just left it alone. So what if it bit Justin? Madam Pomfrey probably could have had him fixed up with a flick of her wand or a disgusting potion.

“Being able to talk to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin was famous for, Harry,” Hermione said at last. “That’s why the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent.”

Harry shook his head. He didn’t get why that made it so bad.

“And now the whole school is going to think you’re his great-great-great-great-grandson or something,” Ron put in.

And the Heir of Slytherin was attacking students in the halls… Shit.

“But I’m not,” Harry complained, because he was sure of that. His mum was muggleborn and his dad was born — or whatever — way before Salazar Slytherin. Not that he could tell anyone that.

“You’ll find that hard to prove,” Hermione abetted his gloomy thoughts. “He lived about a thousand years ago. For all we know, you could be.”

Harry just shook his head again because even Ron and Hermione couldn’t know why he was so sure he wasn’t related to Slytherin.

Harry spent the night agonizing over his newly understood ability. He didn’t know a terrible lot about the bible as the Dursleys had never been religious outside Christmas and Easter mass when attending was the “normal” thing -- he obviously hadn’t been invited along as Freaks had no business in church. 

In hindsight, that might have been true in his case.

He’d stopped outside the church in his neighborhood a few times, but he’d never been brave enough to risk going inside. According to the bible, God wasn’t someone who would look kindly on him.

He did know that Lucifer was linked pretty heavily with serpents. It was entirely possible that that’s where he got this ability.

And, he had to remember, if everyone found out who his dad was, he’d undoubtedly wish they still thought he was a descendant of Slytherin. The truth was much worse.

The next day, Harry tried to track down Justin to explain that he was only trying to help. Unfortunately, he instead ended up finding a bunch of Hufflepuffs in the library gossiping about Harry being the evil descendent of Slytherin. About how Voldemort probably only went after him because he was worried about competition from another powerful Dark wizard.

The worst part was how much truth could be in that. If Voldemort somehow found out about Harry’s father, that might be exactly why he’d gone after Harry.

Then they started worrying about what other Dark powers Harry might have been hiding and this was like all his worst nightmares come to life.

He tried to set the record straight, but they’d already made up their minds. Nothing he said made a dent.

He was left feeling both very angry at their stupidity and very frightened of anyone actually discovering his Secret.

May 29th

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

“You see? It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy muggle father’s name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother’s side? I, keep the name of a foul, common muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born. Just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry — I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world.”

“Still working on that last bit, I guess, huh?” Harry asked with more bravado than bravery.

“What?” Riddle demanded dangerously.

“Well, last time I saw you, you were stuck on the back of some bloke’s head. And then the chap died, so you don’t even have that now. You’re just a floating spirit. I don’t know. Doesn’t sound like the greatest sorcerer in the world to me,” Harry decided that faking it would just have to do since he was really freaked out and at a loss as to what to do next.

Riddle looked enraged, but he didn’t explode. Instead, he said with quiet intensity, “Twice — in your past, in my future — we have met. And twice I failed to kill you. How did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk, the longer you stay alive.”

Well, that wasn’t a very good incentive, Harry thought almost desperately. Die now or die later was not the sort of choice he wanted to make at all. Ginny was dying a little more every second, so sitting here chatting to keep himself alive didn’t seem like a good idea. Especially because, he realized, Riddle looked to be growing more solid each second as well. He was getting stronger and if it had to come to a fight between them, Harry’d rather it was while he was weaker.

“My mum gave her life to save me, Riddle,” Harry decided to go with Dumbledore’s alleged theory because even if he was certain they were alone and certain Riddle wasn’t getting out of here alive, he still wasn’t telling his real theory. “Just a twenty-one-year-old muggleborn witch, and she took you down. Honestly, it’s embarrassing.”

Rather than growing more angry, Riddle smiled in satisfaction. “Your mother died to save you. Yes, that’s a powerful counter-charm. I can see now.  There is nothing special about you, after all.” 

And he clearly meant it as an insult, but it was something Harry had wished for most of his life. To just be normal. Since learning of his true parentage and the Boy-Who-Lived bit, he’d only wished harder. Riddle probably considered it a grave insult though. To be average.

“I wondered, you see,” Riddle went on, “Because there is a strange likeness between us, Harry Potter. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by muggles. Probably the only two parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike… But after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That’s all I wanted to know.”

Harry tensed, waiting for Riddle to raise his wand and wondering if tackling him would work. He didn’t seem quite solid yet, but he was able to hold Harry’s wand, so…

“Now, Harry, I’m going to teach you a little lesson. Let’s match the powers of Lord Voldemort, heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter…”

Then Riddle approached the statue of Slytherin and hissed, “Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.”

And something was coming out of the statue’s mouth. Something huge and slithering and Harry clamped his eyes closed and desperately wondered how he was supposed to fight a giant serpent with his eyes closed and no wand.

The floor trembled with the weight of the beast landing on it and Harry’s whole body followed suit. He was powerful. His magic was writhing inside him. Surely he could do this. He was, apparently, the freaking Antichrist. He couldn’t die this way.

He focused as hard as he could and he could sense it. He could almost see it despite his eyes being firmly closed. The basilisk coiling on the floor in front of the statue. Then he heard Riddle hiss, “Kill him.”

The basilisk was moving toward Harry. He could hear it’s heavy body slithering across the dusty floor. Eyes still tightly shut, Harry began to run blindly, trying to remember the exact layout of the room and the direction he was facing. His hands were outstretched, trying to feel his way — or at least stop him from running into a wall or pillar.

Riddle was laughing.

Harry tripped and fell hard onto the stone. He tasted blood. The serpent was barely feet from him. He could hear it coming. He rolled his body so that he was facing it and his eyes opened instinctively.

He found himself staring right into a pair of vibrant yellow eyes, and he froze, expecting to die.

The basilisk seemed to be waiting for it as well, reared up, but not striking. Venom dripped from one fang into a smoking puddle on the stone near Harry’s foot.

Seconds passed.

Harry swallowed and for the first time in his life, he was truly grateful to be his father’s son because it was the only explanation for why he was still alive looking into the killing gaze of a basilisk.

As the moment dragged on, Harry decided to try his luck on reasoning with the beast, “Don’t kill me,” he hissed at it desperately.

The basilisk drew back in what seemed surprise when he spoke. It eased out of its striking pose and peered at him.

Harry swallowed again and took a deep breath, “Look, I’ve no quarrel with you. Just go back to your den and don’t hurt any more students, okay?”

The snake hesitated a long moment, then bowed its head, “I will do as Serpent Master wishes.”

Harry watched in disbelief as the basilisk just turned and went right back into the statue, totally ignoring Riddle’s hissed orders to the contrary.

Harry climbed back to his feet and dusted himself off nervously. Serpent Master. Yeah, he was pretty sure where that came from and it basically confirmed his theory about where he got the parseltongue gift.

Riddle stared after the departing basilisk a long moment, then turned on Harry with a look of irritated confusion. “You were lying about your mother’s sacrifice. You had to be. You just looked into a basilisk’s eyes and lived.”

“I did,” Harry agreed. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just immune to death.” Scarily, he wasn’t sure if that was actually impossible given his parentage. Surely everything could die… right? A Killing Curse and a basilisk’s gaze… Maybe it was just instant death magic that he thwarted? Or was this caused by the Serpent Master, thing? Maybe snakes couldn’t hurt him?

“Impossible,” Riddle scowled. “A necromantic ritual to protect you against death magic? That could have been powered by your mother’s sacrifice,” he seemed to be mostly talking to himself now.

While Riddle mused, Harry approached Ginny again. It was occurring to him now that Riddle had attacked him with a basilisk when he was holding a wand and Harry was unarmed. That seemed awfully like overkill unless he wasn’t as powerful as he wanted Harry to believe in his current state. Could he even cast a spell stronger than that flagrante?

Harry reached Ginny with no interference from Riddle, who was still demanding answers. He bent to pick up the diary and Riddle didn’t attack him or even tell him not to.

“Your mother dabbled in very Black magic, Potter,” Riddle concluded. “Fucking hypocrites,” he spat. “Black magic is fine to protect their own, but they’ll fight to have even Dark magic outlawed.”

“Don’t ask me, Riddle. I remember nothing about my parents,” Harry grumbled as he began flipping through the blank pages. The book felt strange in his hands, in a way he couldn’t quite define. He’d noticed that when he’d first found it as well. It had made him incredibly curious. Now he suspected it had to do with the Dark magic in it that was making Riddle possible.

“And Dumbledore never told you? No, I guess he wouldn’t. You’re not an ally to him. You’re nothing but a weapon, Potter.” He shook his head, looking incredibly frustrated. “But what is it about you that makes you a weapon worth wielding?”

While Riddle pondered on that, Harry realized he could still hear the faint hissing of the basilisk venom that had dripped onto the floor as it continued to eat away at the stone. Surely if anything could destroy the diary… He tried to move toward it without intent. Like he was just pacing from nerves rather than to reach a specific destination.

“What do you think you’re doing with that?” Riddle finally asked, sounding more annoyed than alarmed.

“Trying to decide if ripping the pages would hurt you,” Harry offered. He was close. He only needed a few more seconds.

Riddle laughed derisively. “You’re wandless, Potter. In other words, utterly helpless. Even if you had your wand you wouldn’t be able to hurt me. I am far beyond your meager skills.”

“Maybe,” Harry allowed as he stopped before the bubbling puddle, which already looked to have etched the stone. “Maybe not,” he said, and dropped the diary into the venom.

Riddle screamed.

Ginny woke once the diary was reduced to a soggy lump in the puddle of venom, and Harry retrieved his wand. He couldn’t quite decide how to feel about all of this. At least there were no witnesses to his surviving the basilisk’s gaze. On the one hand, he felt a bit like he’d just killed someone. Riddle had definitely been sapient, after all. Then again, part of him was still alive, so did that count?

There was also the fact that it was self defense and defense of Ginny. And Riddle killed Harry’s mum and James, so did that justify it?

He wasn’t really sure how all of this morality stuff was supposed to work. He normally relied on Ron and Hermione to know that sort of thing. Maybe he’d ask them later. The Dursleys had never given him a reliable sense of right and wrong. The identity of his father made Harry a bit sensitive on the issue, not comfortable trusting his own instincts to be right.

By the time he and Ginny made it back to the collapse, Ron had made a hole just large enough for them to squeeze through. Ginny seemed to be mostly in shock. Or maybe just closed up in shame. She let Ron hug her, but she didn’t really hug back.

Crawling back up the tunnel was a nightmare. Luckily Ginny was fully capable of doing that even if she still wasn’t talking. Harry cast a mild sticking charm on all of their hands and feet, then petrified the brain addled Lockhart and levitated him up behind them.

It was a long and exhausting climb, but they managed to make it back to the bathroom where Myrtle was quite disappointed to see Harry had survived, but she went to get the teachers anyway, while the three of them collapsed on the bathroom floor, heedless of the water soaking it.

Myrtle returned rather quickly, thankfully, with Professor Sprout in tow and they were taken directly to the hospital wing. All four of them were looked over despite Harry and Ron’s protestations of being fine. Ginny was diagnosed with magical exhaustion and, after a few quick spells to clean her up and change her into infirmary issue pajamas, tucked into a bed with a couple potions.

Harry, thankfully, did not seem to be showing any sign that he’d gazed into the eyes of a basilisk tonight. He and Ron both ended up with mild healing potions for scrapes and bruises Harry hadn’t noticed. Ron probably got them shifting rocks. Or possibly going up and down that pipe.

When she finally got to Lockhart, she appeared quite alarmed by his condition. Harry gave a quick explanation of a backfiring memory charm, which alarmed her even more. She led Lockhart into her office and Harry heard her call out for St. Mungo’s in the floo.

That’s when Professor Sprout returned with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, McGonagall, and Dumbledore.

While the Weasley parents clung to their daughter, Harry carefully told the tale of the night’s events. An edited version, that is, leaving out the basilisk trying to attack him completely. Instead, he made it sound like he’d immediately tried to reason with the basilisk when it emerged and it simply listened to him over Riddle. “Because I’m alive and he wasn’t,” he theorized because it did make some sense, even if he doubted it was the real reason, if only because of what the basilisk had called him.

Ginny mostly explained her involvement without aid and Harry told them of the diary’s fate. Dumbledore concluded that Ginny was merely a victim of Voldemort and would not be punished, though it sounded like she had many long lectures from her dad in her future.

Personally, Harry decided to take to heart Mr. Weasley’s admonition to Ginny that she should never trust anything that could think for itself if she couldn’t see where it kept it’s brain. He wasn’t raised in the magical world, so he’d never heard such a thing. Why didn’t they teach things like that at Hogwarts? And did that mean he shouldn’t trust portraits and magical mirrors? Or were there exceptions?

Merlin, talk about confusing.

Dumbledore then informed Harry and Ron that they both would receive special awards for services to the school and two hundred points each for Gryffindor. Then the headmaster encouraged Ron to wait in the infirmary for Hermione would be waking any minute as Madam Pomfrey had been giving them the potions to revive them just before they all had shown up.

Harry, Dumbledore invited to join him in his office for a chat.

The moment they entered the office, Harry got just a brief glimpse of brightly colored feathers before it turned into a ball of flame and vanished.

“Hm,” Dumbledore frowned at the empty perch. “I suppose Fawkes had somewhere else to be.” Then he shook it off and moved to sit behind his desk.

Harry nervously took a seat in front of it.

“So you met Tom Riddle,” Dumbledore began. “I imagine he was most interested in you…”

“Yes, sir,” Harry agreed. “He… he said he thought we were alike… Orphans, raised by muggles, parselmouths…”

“Did he, now?” Dumbledore murmured thoughtfully, “And what do you think, Harry?”

Harry swallowed nervously and stammered, “Well, I don’t… I’m not really… I mean, I’m- I’m in Gryffindor!” He faltered then, because it was the only glaring difference, and he wasn’t even meant to be there. “Everyone thought I was the heir of Slytherin this year though. And I can speak parseltongue, so maybe I am.” He didn’t really believe that, but the truth was worse. This was as close as he could get to voicing his fears.

“You can speak parseltongue, Harry,” Dumbledore said calmly, “because Lord Voldemort — who is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin — can speak parseltongue. Unless I’m much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I’m sure…”

“Voldemort put a bit of himself in me,” Harry parroted numbly, his mind turning as he tried to figure out if that made sense if one factored in his Secret. “Like the bit he put in the diary?” he sought with growing alarm.

“Nothing quite so vital, I think,” Dumbledore placated. “A smaller bit. Dormant, I think. It’s been there a long time and it hasn’t harmed you.”

Harry’s stomach turned. “Can we get it out?”

Dumbledore hummed thoughtfully, then nodded a bit. “In time, I think. For now, Harry, you should put it from your mind.”

Harry was coming to hate those words. As though he could just forget these things and go play exploding snap without a care in the world. Still, he knew arguing would do no good. He’d just have to try to look up how it was possible to put a bit of yourself into someone else and if one could get it back out.

Dumbledore then suggested Harry go and get some dinner and head to bed with a very “all will look brighter in the morning” air about him. It was really frustrating, but Harry just sighed and headed for the door.

Lucius Malfoy came storming in before Harry could leave, Dobby the house-elf at his feet, apparently trying to finish polishing his shoes. He snarled at Dumbledore a bit and Dumbledore informed him that the school governors had apparently begged Dumbledore to return once they heard a student had maybe died. They’d also, evidently, insinuated that they’d felt threatened to agree with Lucius, or else.

Lucius dismissed it easily even as Dumbledore sort of low-key accused Lucius of being responsible for the happenings in the school that year. It didn’t help the man’s case that his house-elf was standing behind him performing some kind of charades that indicated Lucius was, indeed, quite guilty. The elf was intermittently punishing himself for doing so, all silently enough that Malfoy never noticed a thing.

When Malfoy left the office, taking his anger out on Dobby and literally kicking him through the doorway, Harry couldn’t help but follow.

“Leave him alone!” Harry spat when Lucius sent another kick at the elf.

The older man spun on him, looking both haughty and furious. “What was that, Potter?”

“Don’t you know how petty and vile you look, beating on a creature that can’t defend itself from you? I thought you cared about appearances!” he tried the only avenue he could think of that might work. And even then, he knew it would only work until he was in the privacy of his home.

Lucius sneered at him, “Don’t pretend that you understand anything, you foolish little boy. You’ll let that arrogant hypocrite lead you by your nose to the ruin of us all.” The man then spun again and aimed a very hard kick at the elf.

Harry’s magic, which had been agitated for hours at this point without much of an outlet, just snapped. A huge wave of it left his body with enough force that his ears popped and Malfoy stumbled and missed his target. He rounded on Harry with his wand drawn and Harry lifted his hands helplessly. “Accidental magic,” he defended, because he’d heard other students mention that accidental magic was legally without fault, even if it killed someone. The third-year Gryffindors had been discussing how they’d hoped their magic would attack Lockhart one lesson when he was extra-boring.

Lucius sneered hatefully at him. “You’ll meet the same sticky end as your parents one of these days, Harry Potter. They were meddlesome fools, too.” He turned to go and called, “Come, Dobby,” though Harry noticed he didn’t aim another kick at him.

But Dobby didn’t move. The elf was staring at his own hands like he’d never seen them before. “Dobby says no,” he said quietly.

“What did you say?” Lucius demanded.

“Dobby says no,” the elf repeated, then grinned widely. “Dobby can say no! Dobby is not your house-elf anymore!”

Lucius just stared at the elf for several long seconds, then turned on Harry with a sort of bewildered fury. “You lost me my servant,” he bit out and then took a threatening step toward Harry.

Before he could even get very close, Malfoy bounced off something invisible and stumbled back.

“You shall not harm Harry Potter,” Dobby shouted at his former master, and with a bang, the man was thrown backward. He crashed down the stairs, three at a time, landing in a crumpled heap on the landing below. He rolled to his feet, his face livid, and drew his wand.

Before he could do anything though, Dobby raised a long, threatening finger. “You shall go now,” he said fiercely, pointing at Lucius. “You shall not touch Harry Potter. You shall go now.”

With a last, incensed stare at the pair of them, Lucius left.

Once the man was out of sight, Harry turned to the elf, who faced him with a broad grin.

“What does Master Harry Potter be wishing of Dobby?” he asked with a deep bow.

Harry flinched a little, “What? I… I freed you, didn’t I?”

Dobby shook his head hard enough his ears flapped, “No, master. Harry Potter took Dobby’s bond for himself. Dobby belongs to Harry Potter now.”

“Er…” Harry tried to wrap his mind around that. He was sure he’d only wanted to protect Dobby… Then again, how better to protect him than to take his bond for himself? “Well, I don’t want to own you, Dobby,” he tried, only to stumble to a halt when large tears began to well in Dobby’s eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that!” he assured. “I just meant that I’d like to be your friend, not your master. I can… I can free you if you want…” he trailed off hopefully.

Dobby shook his head sharply again, his tears drying in moments, “House-elves be getting their powers from their masters, Harry Potter, sir. Free elves is being weak and dying young. Dobby wants to be bonded to good Master Harry Potter, sir.”

“Oh. Okay,” Harry frowned. “Well, that’s great, but I live with muggles. And I don’t think I’m allowed to keep you here…”

Dobby nodded this time, “Dobby is knowing. Dobby will ask Dumblydoor if Dobby can be working at Hogwarts until Master Harry Potter gets a house. Other elves be saying that Hogwarts is good place to work.”

“All right, then,” Harry nodded. “That’ll work, I guess.”

“Does Master Harry Potter be having any orders for Dobby?” the elf asked with a hopeful shine to his eyes.

“Er…” Harry considered. “Well, I guess I’d rather you just called me Harry. Or Master Harry if you’re more comfortable with that. And, er… You shouldn’t ever punish yourself, especially not hurt yourself, okay? And… If you ever find out any secrets about me, don’t tell anyone, okay? Not even my best friends or other elves. No one, right?”

Dobby nodded very firmly, “Dobby will keep Master Harry’s secrets and not hurt himself, Master Harry. Dobby promises.”

Harry grinned then, “Thanks, Dobby.”

Chapter Text

Marge

“Proud of your parents, are you, boy? They go and get themselves killed in a car crash, drunk, I expect-“

“They didn’t die in a car crash!” Harry snapped, his anger boiling over as his magic thrashed inside him like a caged beast.

“They died in a car crash, you nasty little liar, and left you to be a burden on their decent, hardworking relatives!” Marge screamed, then raised her glass for a hefty gulp, only to sputter and spit it back out as the glass slipped from her fingers to shatter on the tile floor.

Harry noticed with satisfaction that the liquid staining her lips and running down her chin looked rather like blood, bright red and slightly thick.

Marge wiped at her mouth and looked at the red on her hand, then looked back up to meet Harry’s eyes.

And she started screaming in terror, stumbling away from Harry. She tripped into the patio doors and her great weight had them smashing open with a shattering of glass.

Harry blinked as his anger calmed enough for him to take a good look at what he’d done. He didn’t honestly know what had made Marge hysterical, but the liquid spilled all over the kitchen actually did appear to be blood. It occurred to him then that he was going to be in more trouble than he’d ever been in in his whole life once Vernon stopped panicking.

Harry turned and fled the kitchen. The cupboard door burst open as Harry neared it, wood splintering as it overcame the lock and Harry hauled the trunk free of the space. He sprinted upstairs and gathered up all of the possessions he’d managed to get out of the trunk for the summer. Hedwig was out hunting, so he just snatched up her cage and took it back down the stairs. He shoved his things into the trunk, slammed it closed, then picked up one end and headed for the door.

Sadly, Vernon intercepted him before he could get out of the house.

“You get back in there! You put her right again or so help me!” Vernon bellowed.

Harry’s magic was still writhing, but he wrestled it to inaction as best he could, even as he snatched his wand from his trunk and leveled it at his uncle. Threats were all well and good, but he wasn’t sure what his magic might get up to if he let it have any more rein. Accidental magic might not be his fault, legally speaking, but he didn’t want to push his luck. He still wasn’t sure what all he’d done to Marge. She hadn’t seemed to panic at the brandy to blood bit, but then she’d looked at him and gone hysterical.

“She deserved it!” he snapped at his uncle. “She deserved what she got! You stay away from me!”

Luckily, his uncle was too intimidated by his show of magic against Marge to risk pointing out that Harry couldn’t use his wand out of school.

“I’ve had enough,” Harry growled at his foul uncle as he fumbled the door open behind him. “I’m going.”

And his uncle did nothing but watch, red-faced and sputtering, as Harry maneuvered himself out of the house with his trunk and his owl cage.

August

After a trip on the Knight Bus and a meeting with the Minister for Magic, Harry was given leave to stay the rest of the summer at the Leaky Cauldron, which was kind of the best thing ever.

He could get up when he wanted and go to sleep when he wanted and eat what he wanted. The first few days, he just wandered around Diagon Alley and purchased the things he’d need for the coming school year. He explored various cafes and ate more ice cream than was probably entirely healthy.

Every time he walked near the entrance to Knockturn Alley though, he contemplated a trip down there. His magic almost seemed to be nudging him toward it.

Finally, on his fourth day down the Alley, he decided to venture back down the allegedly Dark and Evil alley.

As before, as soon as he entered the Alley, his magic seemed to sigh comfortably and settle right down. Shaking his head slightly in bewilderment, Harry began to wander down the Alley. Knowing now that he wasn’t lost, he was able to look at the shops with interest.

Though the denizens of the Alley did eye him, the few who tried to approach were scared off by his magic flexing at them, or whatever it thought it was doing. As it was working, he wasn’t about to complain. If only Marge had been so easily cowed. The horrible woman had clearly been too stupid to recognize danger when it was breathing down her neck.

According to Cornelius Fudge, the ministry people had gone to Privet Drive after he’d left and they’d fixed Marge right up with a few simple healing spells on her cuts and a memory charm to take away the whole incident. Harry had to admit that he was a little disappointed. The woman had deserved what she’d gotten and she definitely hadn’t deserved to forget the whole thing.

Knockturn Alley, he soon discovered, wasn’t all that different from Diagon. It was narrower and darker, sure, and the people all looked a lot more wary of each other. It was quieter in general as people discussed their business in undertones rather than boisterous exclamations. Still, there were shops and cafes. Even a bakery. The biggest difference seemed to be that everything looked more rundown. Like this wasn’t the “evil” side of town so much as the “poor” side of town.

He spotted a tattoo place, which made him really curious. He wondered what magic was involved in tattoos. Did they create them the same way? Did they move like other wizarding pictures?

Feeling more calm the longer he was in the Alley, he entered the first bookshop he found. Inside was not terribly different from Flourish and Blott’s, though there was no cannibalistic display of monstrous books, which was a bonus. The quiet inside was deep and peaceful, like a library. The smell was of leather and parchment above anything else. Lanterns spaced evenly about the place kept it bright enough to comfortably read in every single corner he could see. There were even arm chairs tucked between shelves here and there as though to invite patrons to sit and read a bit before buying.

The man behind the sales counter was a bit odd. He had a heavy brow and small, dark eyes beneath a worn, brimmed hat. His shoulders were very broad and his knuckles quite hairy where they held a book open in front of him. Harry wondered if he had creature blood. The man eyed him suspiciously but Harry just smiled at him and wandered into the shelves. In his limited experience, everyone in this alley eyed everyone else suspiciously all the time, so he wasn’t worried.

He wandered the shelves interestedly. Most of the books looked aged, often scuffed and worn, a far sight removed from Flourish and Blotts, which sold only new books. The shelves were neatly organized by topic. A whole wall and the shelf facing it was fiction books. He couldn’t remember the Hogwarts library actually having a fiction section. He’d have to ask Hermione, but all he’d ever seen in there was reference books.

By the time he’d wandered down the fiction aisle, he’d collected five books he wanted to read. They were all fiction books about Hogwarts-age kids and he was really curious to get an idea what it might have all been like for someone raised in the magical world.

Beyond the fiction section, he found a shelf dedicated to religion, then household spells, kitchen magic, and childcare. In a back corner of the shop, he even found a section dedicated to Dark Arts.

He sucked in a startled breath to see it. The very subject was so taboo that he’d not have expected to find it even in this alley. He also found himself incredibly curious. Piling the books he’d already picked out onto a chair, Harry began pulling books from the shelves and scanning the contents. When he found a book entitled “Dark Magic: A Guide”, he moved his books to the floor and curled up in the comfortable chair to try to get a grasp on what Dark Magic actually was. To say he’d gained a pretty biased opinion of it at Hogwarts was a grave understatement.

Given popular opinion about the devil and the prophesied fate of his son, Harry was not big on believing that something was true just because everyone seemed to know and believe it.

He was pulled from his reading by the approach of the man that had been behind the counter. He stopped a fair distance from Harry when their eyes met. Harry felt his magic sort of perk up in wariness, but it made no other action.

The man adjusted his hat and shifted his weight before speaking, “This ain’t no library, kid. You can sit and read as long as you like, but you’d better buy something before you leave, you hear? If you ain’t buyin’, you get out now.”

“Oh,” Harry frowned. “Sorry. Yes, I’m buying.” He gathered up the books he’d picked out before and added the book he’d been reading, then followed the man back to the counter.

The books were tallied up without a word and slipped into a cloth sack. Harry found a few galleons to cover the price and accepted the change with a small smile.

He felt the man’s eyes on his back as he left, but it didn’t feel threatening. Just curious.

He made his way back to the Cauldron then, because he was eager to continue reading his Dark Arts book.

It wasn’t until he was closed in his room that he stopped to wonder whether it might be a bad idea to study this. Morality wasn’t his strong suit and this was a topic that – from what he understood – had little use for it. He’d have to be extra careful to weigh things, he supposed. This wasn’t a subject that he could query Ron or Hermione about. They’d undoubtedly both tell him that everything about the Dark Arts was evil and he should stay away from it entirely.

Then again, from the way they’d reacted, he suspected they’d have said the same thing about Parseltongue before learning that he had such a gift. They’d heard things were evil – Hermione from books, and Ron from his family – and so they were.

Harry was beginning to question their reliability as morality meters.

Deciding that he’d just have to be careful and not jump into anything without serious consideration – and possibly a pro/con list – he sat down to read his book.

The Dark Arts, according to his new book, were not “evil” magic. They were just a different form of magic. Apparently there were such things as Dark magical cores, which the book insinuated usually ran in families. Those with a Dark core would innately feel more comfortable in places heavy with Dark magic, whereas those with Light cores would feel uneasy there. It apparently worked in reverse as well. 

He suspected that he now had his answer for why his magic had only ever truly relaxed in Knockturn Alley. The place had to be drenched in Dark magic. And it somehow didn’t surprise him that his magic was Dark if it was an inherited trait. His mum had more than likely had a Light core, but his dad was Satan, so…

According to the book, all magical humans were born with a neutrally aligned magical core unless they were conceived or healed by strongly aligned magic before birth, which could swing it one way or another. No one’s core really settled on an affinity until they turned 17 though, after which point it rarely changed much.

Overall, he found, unless the book was really biased, which wasn’t impossible, he didn’t understand why the aurors were called dark wizard catchers. It really seemed quite prejudiced that “dark” was synonymous with criminal. Even if there were more Dark spells for doing criminal things than Light, being Dark didn’t seem to indicate that one was actually bad.

Then again, Lucius Malfoy was quite prominent in Magical Britain. He apparently had the ear of the Minster and was on the Hogwarts board of governors. And there’s no question he was Dark.

Harry’s entire view of the wizarding world kind of shifted as it occurred to him that the public in general did not seem to have a problem with the likes of Lucius Malfoy. It was mostly the Gryffindors who did. And Ron especially, but then Ron had admitted that their families had hated each other for a long time.

Harry set his book aside and leaned back against the headboard of his bed. Since entering the wizarding world, Harry had been taking a lot of what Ron and Hermione believed to be representative of the wizarding world in general. Ron because he’d grown up there and Hermione because she read so many books.

Problem was that Ron’s family was probably rather biased, being a long line of Gryffindors. And Hermione only read books from the Hogwarts library or from Flourish and Blotts. He doubted that she’d even be okay with reading the Dark Arts guidebook that he was reading. Which meant that she was biased, too. She’d been intent on Gryffindor before they even got to Hogwarts the first time and she’d been singing Dumbledore’s praises before ever having lain eyes on the man.

Harry rubbed his forehead and gazed moodily at the ceiling for a long moment, then heaved a heavy sigh. Ron and Hermione were lucky to have parents to help them figure things out, because the world was a confusing place and a little advice from an adult would have gone a long way. At the same time, he was glad to know that his conclusions were his own and not just adopted from his elders.

With a shake of his head, Harry picked up the book again and found the page he’d been on. If he was going to figure things out on his own, he needed as much information as he could get.

August – Part 2

After that first day down Knockturn Alley, Harry took to going down there every day. The bookkeeper truly didn’t seem to mind if he sat and read for hours once he knew that he’d buy something on his way out. Harry could have gone back to his room to read his books, but the Leaky Cauldron had nothing on the calming presence of the Dark alley. When he graduated, he thought he might get a flat down there.

The denizens of the alley mostly seemed to get used to seeing him and they’d taken to ignoring him. Or at least giving the pretense of ignoring him. They never tried to approach him. 

He found more than books down the alley as well. He found a book that could securely contain all of his Dark Arts books. A tap of the wand and a password and opening the cover showed an expanded space instead of a book. Then you just had to close it and tap it again while saying the title of any book you’d put inside. The whole thing would then grow or shrink to the exact size of that book and take on its appearance inside and out. So he put all of his Dark Arts books inside as well as his history text. Then he could just make it look like his history text whenever he wasn’t actively using it to read something else.

It would ensure that no one stumbled upon his growing collection of “alternative” reading.

He also found a wand sheath unlike anything he’d ever seen before. It was a band of dragonhide leather that fit on his arm just over his wrist. There was a loop on one side into which the wand slid. The space inside the band was expanded, so the wand just seemed to disappear into the two-centimeters-wide band, with just the tip sticking out. He wore it on his right wrist and, with a little practice, could simply will the wand to slide out of the sheath and right into his hand. It did take a bit of practice to catch the wand consistently so it didn’t just slide out and land on the floor, but it was so much better than trying to search around in a pocket for it. It would help him to draw so much faster.

Two weeks into his stay at the Leaky Cauldron, he finally got the nerve to enter the tattoo place he’d noticed the first day. The door was tucked back into a bit of an alcove, and there was a carved wooden sign above the door that read simply, “Tattoos”. The front window was painted beautifully with all kinds of animals and symbols and runes and such, so you couldn’t see inside at all.

With a deep breath, Harry let himself inside. The door opened easily on silent hinges and he blinked a little against the brighter lighting inside. Knockturn Alley seemed to exist in a permanent state of twilight, perhaps by design. This shop was lit similarly to the Great Hall at Hogwarts, with a mess of tall candles floating high above. Like at Hogwarts, the candles never seemed to grow shorter or drip wax. Rather than all being white, these candles were a mix of colors, mostly darker, with amber being the lightest.

The shop was a medium sized room with the walls covered in pictures, presumably of the tattoos they could provide. A few small, elbow-height tables had more examples of the art one could get. The back wall of the room was occupied by a counter and a door that led further back.

The place didn’t feel nearly as scary as Harry had feared. He didn’t know a lot about tattoos. In the muggle world it seemed mostly like tough, possibly criminal, guys wore them, and like college girls. Neither Vernon or Petunia had ever had anything nice to say about people who got tattoos, which, admittedly, had increased Harry’s interest in them. 

Relaxing, he began perusing the artwork. It was all pretty amazing. There were designs with runes, some as simple as a single rune and others an intricate symbol with dozens or hundreds of runes worked into it. These had notations underneath like, “Protection against possession”, “Promotes a calm mind”, and “Concealment”.

Those all looked pretty interesting. Given his life so far, he could use all the extra protection he could get. Also, was possession something likely to happen? Should he be worried about that?

He wandered on after a bit. There were a lot of normal-looking tattoos, such as flowers and butterflies and abstract lines and such. They were all very nice-looking, but they didn’t capture his interest.

Near one end of the counter was a display of animals that looked so real it was nearly impossible to believe they weren’t actually there, ready to climb out of the picture and stand in the room with him. There was a snarling tiger and a swooping falcon and a hissing cobra among many others. The snake drew his eyes particularly just for the fact that he almost wanted to talk to it. It looked so real he felt sure it would talk back. Artfully woven through the pictures was a ribbon of words that read, “Find Your Spirit Animal”.

After a few minutes of studying the remarkable detail of the animals, he became aware that he was no longer alone in the room. With a start, he turned to find that a middle-aged woman had joined him. She had tawny brown skin and nearly black eyes. Her long, wavy hair was stark white. She wore a sleeveless tunic that showed off arms and hands artfully decorated with a dizzying array of pictures and symbols and runes, all the shapes and colors woven together masterfully.

It took him a moment to realize that he was staring and then he blinked and quickly met her eyes again.

She looked mildly amused, but not upset as she smiled at him, “Welcome. You seemed quite intrigued by the spirit animals,” she nodded at the display.

“Er, yeah,” Harry admitted uncomfortably, rubbing at the back of his neck as he glanced back at the pictures. “What does that mean? Spirit animals?” In the muggle world, it would have just been a catchy slogan with maybe some religious or mythological story. In the magical world, he’d learned, it was best to assume there was more to it.

“Anyone can find their spirit animal. Sometimes it’s as innocuous as a butterfly or a bumblebee,” she gestured to a few of the smaller drawings that depicted insects and spiders. “For others it’s a great predator or a majestic herbivore, a proud raptor or a cunning skink. The spirit animal must be searched out, but once you’ve met it, it will watch over you always, even if you cannot perceive it.

“My art employs a ritual that will bind your spirit animal into your skin so that it will be with you always. This is no mere parlor trick, however. The very soul of your spirit animal will reside without your skin and with a spell you will be able to draw out a real, flesh and blood animal. It bonds to you as a familiar. Even if the physical animal is slain, the soul will remain within your skin and can be drawn out again after a little time. You can return it to your skin when it is convenient.”

Harry looked at the animals again. It was… very tempting. He loved Hedwig dearly, but he didn’t see her much during the school year unless he wanted to trek all the way up to the owlery. This would be an animal that he could always keep with him. And one that couldn’t die. With the mess that was his life, having a more durable familiar sounded really good.

“You said people have to find their spirit animal. You don’t get to pick what kind?” He wondered.

She shook her head, “No. The animal comes to you when you seek. It will be a creature that matches your soul. Not a familiar you pick out in a pet shop but one that chooses you.”

He blew out a breath and looked at the pictures again. “How much does it cost?” he asked shyly.

“It’s expensive,” she smiled in a way that suggested she didn’t think he’d actually be interested. “The magic is difficult and the artwork, as you can see, is very detailed. The size of the art is also unique to the spirit animal. When I call it, it will spread itself across your skin as it wishes. I will just follow that pattern, so some end up very small. Others, very large. The size will affect the price quite a bit.”

“Oh,” Harry frowned. Maybe he shouldn’t splurge. He looked at the animals again though. He really wanted one.

After a moment of silence, she offered, “The ritual to find your spirit animal is ten galleons. If you have that much, you can at least find out what your spirit animal is and I can tell you how much the rest would cost.”

Harry grinned at that and nodded quickly. He found the galleons in his pocket and passed them over without hesitation. “You said that once I found my spirit animal it would always be with me, right? Even if I don’t get the tattoo?”

“That’s right,” she agreed as she dropped the coins into a lock box behind the counter. “You may see it in dreams or transes, if you ever find yourself indulging in one. There are rituals you can learn to speak to it, though that usually means that you gather impressions of what it is trying to tell you, not actual words.” She gestured for him to follow and led the way through a door behind the counter. It led into a corridor, but they took the first right through another door into a smallish room with rune circles drawn on the floor.

Harry was glad he’d taken Ancient Runes as an elective. Ron had wanted him to take Divination with him because it was supposed to be really easy, but Harry hadn’t been interested in spending the next three years taking a class with a teacher that might be able to See things about him he wanted to keep hidden. Ron had considered taking Ancient Runes until he’d overheard some older students talking about how much reading the class involved.

At the time, Harry had only taken it because Arithmancy had sounded even harder and he wasn’t going to sit through a class all about muggles when he’d grown up thinking he was one. It sounded dead boring. Now, however, he was actually beginning to get excited about Ancient Runes.

“Switch into these,” she drew his attention from the rune circle and he realized that she was indicating some clothes hung over a screen in one corner of the little room. “They’re self-sizing, so don’t be alarmed. I need them to fit close to your skin so I can see just how the animal wants to sit on your skin.”

Harry hesitantly stepped behind the screen to do as she’d asked. He hadn’t thought about this part, though he should have. How would it work if he was wearing baggy robes, anyway? He blushed the entire time he was changing, able to hear her moving around just on the other side of the screen. 

He blushed even more when he had the clothes on and glanced down at himself. They weren’t quite a second skin, but close enough given that he’d only ever worn Dudley’s baggy clothes and then baggy robes. He had to give himself a little pep talk to even walk out for her to see. He reminded himself that she must do this often enough and she’d doubtlessly seen plenty of people in these kinds of clothes. A skinny thirteen-year-old wasn’t likely to be remarkable.

And, indeed, she only gave him a smile and her eyes didn’t stray toward his body at all. 

“Stand in the middle of the circle. I’m going to perform a small ritual. It’ll only take a few minutes. All you have to do is stand there and don’t move around too much. Don’t worry if you have an itch, just don’t bend over if you can help it.”

Harry nodded and moved into the circle while she filled a bowl with what looked like mostly basic herbs, though he might have spotted a few potion ingredients in the mix.  She picked up a small handful of what he thought might be flax seed and held it over the bowl, then she began to chant. As she spoke in a tongue he did not recognize, she let just a few seeds slip through her fingers every few seconds. Each seed seemed to spark into flame in midair and the contents of the bowl had soon begun to smoke softly, filling the room with a fragrant, nearly overwhelming smoke that did not burn his eyes.

This went on for several minutes as the contents of the bowl were slowly reduced to smoke and ash. When her hand was empty, she set the bowl on the floor and spread her arms at her sides, facing toward Harry in the circle. Her chant continued, picking up a bit in pace and the smoke in the room began to curl about in an entirely unnatural manner.

Harry had been feeling the magic gathering in the room from the start, but it was becoming rather stifling now. It was Dark, he thought. He wasn’t really good at understanding the magic he felt yet, but by the way his magic seemed to be comfortable with it surrounding him, he was certain that it must be Dark.

Then she reached one hand forward and pressed the palm flat against his chest at the same moment that her chant ended.

For a long moment, the room rang in the sudden silence, but the smoke just seemed to roil faster, the magic growing to a fever pitch.

Harry began to smell sulfur and he had just a second to wonder if that was normal before there was a blur of motion from the smoke. It seemed to coalesce into a form he couldn’t make out and then it launched itself at him with a hiss that sounded distinctly like, Mine .

And he could swear he felt his magic respond in kind.

He blinked as he realized that all the smoke in the room was gone. He looked at the woman, wondering if something had gone wrong, only to find her examining him with interest. Not his face, but his body now. She flicked her wand at a blank section of wall and Harry startled when it suddenly became as reflective as a mirror.

He looked at it in surprise, only to stare in shock at the sight of himself. The clothing she’d put him in was impressed with a gray silhouette that was unmistakably a snake.

And not just any snake. A massive snake. He twisted in front of the mirror to see it better. It started on his right hip with its tail all coiled up in that messy way that snakes had that seemed like they would get stuck that way, but they never did. That continued across the small of his back and all the way up his left side to his shoulder. A few coils twisted around his shoulder and then down his left arm, wrapping around it all the way down until the… very large, diamond-shaped head came to rest just above his left wrist.

“Intricate,” the woman pronounced. “And large,” she frowned a bit at that. “It would take me at least three four-hour sessions.” She shook her head sadly, “I couldn’t do it for less than three hundred gallons.”

Harry furrowed his brow as he continued to study the impression of the snake that had chosen him. He suspected the title the basilisk had used for him, Serpent Master, had something to do with this. Even though he knew Ron would freak out about it being a snake, he was kind of really pleased about it. Having a familiar that he could actually talk to would be really wicked.

The woman was still staring at the snake, too, looking kind of bummed. “I’ve never felt a spirit animal that powerful before. It’s no wonder he needs so much skin. I’d have loved to paint him though.”

“I’m going to do it,” Harry announced suddenly.

She blinked at him in surprise.

“I just need to run to Gringotts,” he admitted.

She looked thoroughly surprised, but quickly countered, “I have bank drafts, if you’d like.”

“Er… I don’t know what that is,” Harry admitted, blushing again.

She smirked a bit and held up a finger. “Just a moment.”

She disappeared out the door and Harry turned to look at the snake again. The price was crazy, but he’d never wanted anything so much. He didn’t even want a firebolt as much as he wanted this. A companion matched to his very soul. One that couldn’t die. That he could carry with him always.

He didn’t have much more time to consider before the woman returned with a small card, a bit smaller than a postcard. There was a blank space to write a vault number. Another blank space for the amount he wanted to withdraw, and the name Andira Redwater Tattoos printed neatly across the top. He flipped it over and saw Gringotts printed across the center.

He blew out a quick, excited breath and smiled at her, “Quill?”

She grinned excitedly and it made her look half her age as he gestured this time for him to follow her out. “Don’t worry. I’ve closed up shop for the moment, so we won’t be disturbed,” she assured.

He hadn’t really thought about it until she mentioned it, but he’d have been humiliated if some random person had walked in to see him in this immodestly tight outfit. Or worse, someone he knew from school.

At the front counter, he found quill and ink waiting. He scribbled down his vault number and asked, “Three hundred galleons?”

“That’s right,” she assured.

He filled in the amount, then put down the quill and looked back at her.

“Just press any finger against the card. It’ll verify your identity, then pop over to Gringotts. They’ll verify the funds and if you have enough in that vault, they’ll withdraw it and send it over.”

“That’s handy,” Harry noted as he pressed his index finger against the card in a corner not likely to smear the ink. There was the hint of a sting and he jerked his finger away in surprise. He’d honestly been thinking fingerprints, but obviously they wouldn’t have his on record as he’d never given them. He supposed it was blood, he noted as he saw the tiny red spot on his finger that didn’t even leak any blood.

“It’s just a tiny amount,” she assured.

“Why don’t all the stores use these?” he wondered.

“Most of them probably do,” she replied, “but the goblins charge for them. Each card has to be received by a goblin and evaluated, then sent back declined or the galleons gathered in a sack and sent back instead. They charge two galleons per card, so they’re only used for more expensive purchases,” she admitted.

“Huh,” he muttered. So much he still didn’t know about this world.

That’s when a bag that clinked with gold popped into being right in front of him and he jumped.

She smiled at him and shook her head in what looked like amazement at the bag of galleons. “All right,” she concluded. “I’ve the afternoon free, so we can start now if you like. Soon as I get my wayward apprentice in here to man the front. We can start tomorrow, too, if you’d rather. I can do a session this afternoon, one tomorrow morning, and one Thursday afternoon. I think that should be enough.”

Harry nodded excitedly. “Now is good!”

“Excellent,” she smiled. She led him into a different back room. This one had a comfortable-looking leather chair and an equally leather-covered sort-of bed. It was just big enough for an adult to lay down on, and there was a pillow at the head with a folded sheet on top of it.

“Quick disclaimer before we start,” she announced as they stepped inside. “Magical tattoos, in general, are permanent, never fade, and will grow and shrink with your skin as you age, grain weight, or lose weight. They can be removed relatively easily with a potion applied over the ink, though it is fairly expensive – about fifty galleons per bottle.

“That said, this is not an ordinary magical tattoo. Spirit Guide tattoos are impossible to remove or relocate once they are complete. The soul of the animal bonds permanently with the skin it occupies and will refuse removal or relocation. As with any other tattoo, it will grow with you and never fade. It will also resist any scarring that tries to mar it, though some Dark spells might manage it. It shouldn’t disrupt the magic, but if it ever does, I will touch it up for a small fee. Still interested?”

Harry didn’t hesitate to agree. Honestly, that whole bit about it being impossible to remove just sweetened the deal for him. The greatest pull of this whole thing was that he couldn’t lose this familiar. It couldn’t even die, though he supposed it would when he did.

If he did.

Andira then instructed him to undress from the waist down. She would be starting on his hip and lower back today. He would lie on the bed and use the sheet for modesty while she uncovered just the necessary areas.

It wasn’t until he was undressing alone in the room that he wondered at the fact a thirteen-year-old could apparently get tattoos without parental consent in the magical world. Maybe because they were normally removed without too much difficulty. He did wonder at this particular procedure being one that didn’t need consent, but maybe that was just the magical world.

Or maybe because this was Knockturn Alley.

The actual tattooing process turned out to be much more embarrassing than the ritual. He’d thought the tight clothes were bad. The tail ran down his hip and the coils on his lower back dipped just about as low as his crack, which had him burying his face in the pillow and trying not to think about the gentle, cold licks of the paintbrush on such a… private part of his body.

Happily, magical tattoos didn’t involve needles at all. Just magical paint and then a spell at the end to sink it into the skin permanently.

She used that spell each day when she finished her work so there was no risk of the finished parts getting messed up or washing off or anything. It didn’t need bandaging or special cream or anything like he thought muggle tattoos did. Again, no needles.

When she’d sunk the last bit into the skin, she did a short chant, then sharply tapped her wand against his left wrist where the snake’s head rested.

Harry felt the strangest sensation. Like magic sort of rippled from the head, all the way down the length of the snake’s body. His breath caught at the strange feeling. His magic sort of poked at the new addition, then relaxed again and Harry followed suit with a relieved sigh.

He’d not stopped to wonder what might happen if his magic didn’t like their new tag-along, but maybe the nature of the spell ensured that the spirit animal would get along with his magic.

Andira taught him the spell to call out the spirit animal, but Harry chose not to do it in the shop. He didn’t expect he’d be able to help talking parseltongue to it and he’d rather not show off the skill.

August 31st

It was the last day before returning to Hogwarts when Ron and Hermione finally arrived at Diagon Alley. Harry had been having a blast by himself, what with spending most of his days down Knockturn Alley and then chatting with his new familiar when that was finally done, but he had been looking for them for weeks, expecting them to turn up any day to get their school supplies. He had no idea why they waited so late. At least until they’d explained that they planned to all stay the night at the Leaky Cauldron and go to the train station together in the morning.

Harry retired to his room that night, grateful for the privacy. After overhearing Mr. and Mrs. Weasley’s argument, he was left feeling rather conflicted. He heartily agreed with Mr. Weasley that forewarned was forearmed. Experience told him that Hogwarts was not, as Mrs. Weasley said, totally safe.

Personally, he didn’t feel overly alarmed by the news, though he did feel that it was news he deserved to know. He couldn’t believe she really thought he would be terrified that Sirius Black wanted him dead when he’d known Lord Voldemort himself was gunning for him for years. The woman was barmy.

He was more upset that his last hope of seeing Hogsmeade this year was shot than he was at knowing he had one more person out to see him dead. He’d wanted to go so badly he’d even tried to play nice with Marge. Yes, unfortunately he’d failed terribly, but he’d first wasted days of swallowing all of her bile before he’d snapped. Would have been better if he’d lost it the first day. He’d have gotten longer in the magical world then.

After double-checking to make sure his room was locked, he took off his shirt and stood in front of the mirror, admiring the beautiful tattoo. As always, it brought a smile to his face. He’d never in his life have thought he’d get a tattoo so huge and elaborate, but he didn’t regret it a bit. Not even the exorbitant price.

His new familiar had informed him that he didn’t have a name. After some thought, Harry had decided to call him Kaa, after the snake in The Jungle Book. He’d read it in primary school and he’d loved it so much that he’d gone back to the library every day for weeks to read it again until he knew every word by heart.

He’d dreamed of being adopted by a kind family of wolves for a long time after that.

Now, Harry pressed his fingers over the diamond-shaped head of his familiar and hissed, “ Come to me, Kaa. ” He’d been instructed to use his wand but had found almost instantly that it wasn’t needed. His magic had no hesitation in calling out his beloved new friend. Parseltongue also wasn’t needed, but he used it anyway because he was talking to a snake and it just happened that way.

As he moved his hand away, the head of the snake wriggled a bit and he felt his magic urging at the magic of the snake that was now a part of him. The snake stirred magically as well as physically and then there was the very strange sensation of the snake pushing its way into the physical world. The head emerged first and the body followed. He could feel it all across the tattoo as the body moved beneath his skin. It was a strange sort of feeling. Not really physical at all, but rather the brush of Kaa’s magic as it separated from his own.

When enough of his body was free, Kaa began to wind himself over Harry’s shoulders. The widest part of his body was nearly wide enough to fill both of Harry’s hands when he tried to wrap them around it, and he was, to Harry’s eye, a little longer than a normal snake that thick would be. He wasn’t an expert on snakes and he had no name for the snake’s breed, though his body scales were pure, sparkling obsidian while he had the purest blue scales that ran across his belly. Andira had called them cobalt. His eyes, on the other hand, were an incredibly pale white-blue with a slit pupil that nearly disappeared in bright light.

When the snake had fully emerged from his skin, the ink of the tattoo remained, but it was somehow a little flatter. He couldn’t decide if it was a visual effect or just his sense of the magic that changed. It was subtle but distinct. Harry turned under the heavy weight and moved to sit on the bed so that his familiar could drape himself across his lap.

From the wardrobe across the room, Hedwig ruffled her feathers and clacked her beak mistrustfully at the snake. Harry’s first familiar did not care for her new, scaled brother. Not that Harry blamed her. The snake was undoubtedly large enough to eat Hedwig whole, but Andira had assured Harry that Kaa would never need to eat. He was sustained entirely from Harry’s magic. 

Harry had also had a very firm discussion with the snake about not eating Hedwig, as she was part of their family. Just in case he wanted to eat, even though he didn’t need to.

The snake seemed generally disinterested in the owl whereas Hedwig never had less than a nasty look for the snake. The drama made Harry smile every time, though he’d made sure to pick up extra owl treats for Hedwig to appease her.

“ Hello, Kaa, ” Harry greeted warmly when both he and the snake were comfortably reclined.

“ Greetings, Master ,” Kaa responded, as he worked to burrow under one of Harry’s knees.

Harry grinned a bit at the snake as he worked diligently to entwine his entire body around Harry’s legs. He was probably enjoying the warmth, though Harry also noted that he’d have a heck of a time getting up in a hurry if he needed to. He decided that he didn’t mind. They were safe enough in his locked room.

“ My friends finally showed up today, ” he began, and proceeded to fill Kaa in on his day with Ron and Hermione, Hermione’s new cat and its grudge against Scabbers, the twins’ mischief with Percy, and finally the argument he’d heard between Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. He’d taken to doing this every night. Just talking about his day with Kaa. It was soothing.

“ I know that Mrs. Weasley only means well,” Harry concluded with a sigh, “ but she’s just so naive and misguided sometimes that I want to scream at her. I know that she just thinks that adults should always keep children safe, and that’s great in a perfect world. In the real world, keeping children safe from even knowing that dangers exist only leads to kids getting killed!”

Kaa hissed soothingly, “ It does seem foolish,” he agreed. “ Hatchlings must learn to protect themselves or they will perish as soon as they leave the nest. ”

“ Or sooner if the nest gets attacked,” Harry added sourly. Mrs. Weasley’s deluded belief that nothing bad could ever happen to a child at Hogwarts while Albus Dumbledore was there was just about the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard an adult say. And he’d grown up with Petunia and Vernon Dursley. “ The woman has evidence !” he ranted to his familiar. “ Just last year, she was sat in Dumbledore’s office, crying her eyes out because she thought her daughter had been killed during her first year at Hogwarts! Now, months later, she’s absolutely certain that I’ll be fine so long as Dumbledore’s headmaster? I mean, sure, Dumbledore had been kicked out of the school for a bit when that happened, but it wasn’t like he’d done anything to ensure the petrifications weren’t deaths earlier in the year. That was pure luck! And he certainly didn’t do anything to help Ginny. That was me ! ”

Kaa uncoiled himself a bit from Harry’s legs so that he could wrap himself around Harry’s neck and nudge his head sharply into Harry’s chin. “ Yes, master. The woman is a fool and you are a hero. ”

Harry tilted his head so that he could eye the snake suspiciously. That had sounded a lot like a placation. “ Are you mocking me? ” he wondered.

“ I am comforting you, ” Kaa pronounced without room for debate. “ If this woman is so stupid, why do you give her your time?”

Harry frowned, “ I didn’t say she was stupid. ”

“ Not the word, just the definition, ” Kaa reasoned.

Harry sighed heavily, “ She’s treated me more like a son than anyone ever has. At least that I can remember. And she does care about me. I did say she was naive and misguided. She means well. ”

“ Will that comfort you when her coddling gets you killed?” Kaa inquired mercilessly.

One thing Harry had very quickly learned about his new familiar, he wasn’t big on understanding the squishier emotions, so he wasn’t surprised by the cold approach to his situation. Harry hadn’t spent enough time talking to snakes to know if it was just the way snakes were or just the way this particular snake was. “ Look, I get what you’re saying, but you have to take the good with the bad with people, otherwise you’ll just spend your whole life alone,” Harry grumbled.

“ You are not a hatchling, Master. You have proven that you can protect yourself. You’ve no need of a mother. Find yourself a strong mate and leave the rest of them behind, ” Kaa advised.

Harry sighed, “ Humans like connections with other humans, Kaa, ” he tried to explain and it wasn’t the first time. “ How we interact changes as we age, but we like to hold onto the connections our whole lives if we can. That includes friends and siblings and parents and children .”

Kaa drooped a little in apparent disappointment, “ So you will always be followed by these humans that treat you poorly? How tedious. ”

“ They don’t all treat me poorly, ” Harry corrected firmly. “ Ron and Hermione are great friends. And Mr. and Mrs. Weasley try to do their best by me. Mr. Weasley, especially. He was arguing to tell me, remember? ”

“ He should not have argued at all ,” Kaa countered. “ He should have just told you. The fact that he argued suggests that he may be swayed against his decision .”

“ It didn’t sound like he was by the end ,” Harry disagreed.

“ Because she couldn’t make good enough arguments, but he still gave her the chance to try. ”

Harry huffed a little laugh. “ I think I’m starting to understand Slytherin self-preservation ,” he decided. “ It seems like it would be very lonely to live that way, even if it is safer.”

Chapter Text

September 1st

“Quiet!” a hoarse voice called suddenly, silencing the now-crowded compartment. It seemed that Professor Lupin had woken at last.

Only the sounds of breathing could be heard following that word and then, with a crackling of flame, light bloomed out of the darkness. The professor seemed to be holding a handful of flames now, which was cool and Harry wanted to learn how to do that.

Those thoughts promptly fled as Harry became aware of a growing Darkness settling over the train. It was difficult to describe, but it was definitely Dark and his magic definitely didn’t find it comforting. Indeed, his magic seemed to be on high alert now as the Dark… whatever it was, grew closer.

“Stay where you are,” the professor ordered as he slowly got to his feet.

Before Lupin could reach the door, however, it began to slowly creak open and Harry watched with apprehension as the concentration of Darkness outside the door seemed to be coming inside.

Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the dancing flames Lupin still held, was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling. It’s face was completely hidden beneath its hood. There was a hand protruding from the cloak and it was glistening, grayish, slimy-looking, and scabbed, like something dead that had decayed in water…

The figure quickly retracted its hand, as though realizing that it had been seen, and then whatever it was drew a long, slow, rattling breath, like it was trying to catch some scent. 

Harry felt an intense cold sweep over him and then his magic lunged at the creature. There was no other way to describe it. Like a tiger swatting away a hissing housecat. Both predators, but one hilariously outmatching the other.

Harry’s magic almost seemed to contact it physically for the cloaked figure jerked backward and slammed into the opposite wall of the corridor with a ghastly, inhuman screech. Then it turned and fled away from their compartment.

Harry was left breathing heavily and he wasn’t sure if it was adrenaline or the actual exertion of his magic. Though he’d felt it threaten people before, he’d never felt his magic actually attack someone with no sayso from him. He hadn’t time to begin to sort out how he felt about everything that had just happened before Lupin muttered “ expecto patronum”   and a bright, silvery dog or wolf leapt out of his wand.

Harry lifted a hand to shield himself from the sudden light and shivered a little at the strange feeling the conjured animal seemed to emit. Like condensed happiness or something. It felt unnatural and made him wary.

Lupin wasted no time in sending the creature out of the compartment. He then followed it into the corridor, closing the compartment door behind him.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Hermione grumbled as their compartment was returned to darkness. “Lumos.”

Her wand tip began to glow and soon they could all see again.

“What on Earth was that thing?” Ron demanded.

“I don’t know,” Hermione admitted and she looked both miffed about that fact and still as freaked out as the rest of them.

“ You don’t know?” Ron cried in disbelief.

Hermione sighed impatiently, “I don’t know everything, Ronald! I read all the time, but I’m still new to this world!”

“Dementors.”

Thankfully, that derailed the fight and everyone looked to Neville, who was supporting Ginny in the corner of the compartment. She looked rather worse for wear.

“What?” Hermione asked in that bossy way that she had when there was information she didn’t know at hand.

“It was a dementor,” Neville explained a little louder, though he still looked quite haunted. “They guard Azkaban prison.”

“You mean that horrible thing works for the Ministry?” Harry asked in disbelief. The same Ministry that outlawed so much Dark magic and treated Dark creatures like scum, they employed those things that felt Darker and nastier than anything Harry had ever encountered before? Talk about hypocrites!

Neville swallowed and nodded, “They don’t leave the island often. Usually just to find fugitives or perform executions.”

Harry’s stomach turned at the thought of the Ministry legally feeding people to those things.

“Executions?” Hermione gasped. “They let those things kill prisoners?”

“Not kill,” Neville said grimly. “Worse than that. Dementors can live by feeding on human emotions. They suck out all your happiness to sustain themselves. That’s not all they can do though. They also suck out your soul given the chance. The body keeps living for a while, but usually the first illness takes them out once the soul is gone. It’s called the Kiss.”

Harry’s magic sort of… shivered at the thought of things that ate your soul.

Thankfully, the lights chose that moment to flash back on and the train rumbled back into motion. It broke the tension in the compartment nicely.

Hermione put out the light on her wand and they all sat in silence for a moment before Hermione posed, “What happened to it? Why did it run away like that?”

“It looked like something shoved it out,” Ron nodded, “Could it have been Lupin?”

“He hadn’t cast anything,” Hermione dismissed.

“Could it have been a silent spell?” Neville wondered.

“Maybe,” Hermione frowned doubtfully.

“The guards from Azkaban,” Harry realized with horror.

“What?” Ron asked.

“Your dad, he said the guards from Azkaban were going to be guarding the entrances to Hogwarts this year. To keep everyone safe. He was talking about the dementors!”

Everyone exchanged uneasy looks.

“All year?” Ginny asked fearfully. “They’ll be at Hogwarts all year?”

Neville awkwardly patted Ginny’s shoulder in comfort and she mustered a sickly-looking smile for him.

Lupin returned to the compartment then and announced they’d be arriving at Hogwarts in ten minutes.

The professor handed out chocolate to each of them as it was supposed to help with exposure to the dementors, and they nibbled on it quietly the rest of the ride.

September 9th

Divination turned out to be first thing on Monday morning. Hermione also, apparently, had Arithmancy and Muggle Studies to attend during the same period. She was very evasive when questioned about it and Harry could recognize a Secret when he saw one. Knowing the value of Secrets, he didn’t push, though he did wonder if she was taking the other classes like correspondence courses, cramming in her dorm at night, or if there was actually some kind of time magic that made it possible. Or maybe a spell to split her into copies so she could be in more than one place at a time?

Harry was just glad to have a free period first thing. He was even more glad when it came out in Transfiguration that the Divination professor apparently chose one of her students each year and predicted their death. Poor Neville had received that honor and the boy looked terrified. Between her and Snape, he was going to have a rotten year. 

Sadly, Hermione and Ron ended up getting into a fight about it. Ron thought believing in things like the grim was only rational and Hermione thought they and the entire branch of Divination was woolly and “a lot of guesswork”.

Divination really made Harry a bit uncomfortable, to be honest. According to one prophecy, after all, he was destined to bring about the End of Days, become King of Earth or something of the sort, and then name himself God… Maybe. It was all a little vague from what he could tell, but he was pretty sure it all ended with him spending eternity in Hell with his father. Or maybe God would just wipe out him and his father in the end.

Hagrid turned out to be a bit scary as a teacher. Really, with his estimation of just what constituted a dangerous beast and what was a fun pet, Harry wasn’t sure Care was the best class for him to be teaching. Honestly, he’d sent them to talk to Aragog last year and it was only dumb luck that had kept them from being killed. If they hadn’t taken the flying car to school, if it hadn’t gone rogue in the Forbidden Forest. If it hadn’t been close when they’d wandered into the spider’s nest. If it hadn’t decided to rescue them.

Their very first day in Hagrid’s class was Hippogriffs, which were obviously way too dangerous for immature thirteen-year-olds to be around. Malfoy made that abundantly clear when he started showing off and got his arm bitten.

Granted, Harry’s flight with Buckbeak had been thrilling, unlike any flying he’d ever done on a broom, and he’d rather love to do it again. Then again, he was a natural flyer and used to near-death experiences. He doubted the flight would have gone as well with any other student.

Draco milked his injury for all it was worth, the little sod, and liked to brag about how his father was going to make sure Hagrid got fired. It was enough to make Harry wish his magic took Draco and Snape more seriously, but it had never flared at them the way it did with people on Knockturn and even with the Dursleys. He supposed that he’d never been in real danger from either of them and it must have known that. They were annoying – infuriating – but not threatening.

Their first Defense lesson was… a bit harrowing. Professor Lupin brought them all to the staff lounge and had them face a boggart.

Many of the students’ fears were rather simple – spiders or clowns, or Professor Snape – but Harry couldn’t guess what his worst fear would be. He didn’t have any handy phobias.

His greatest fear might be to wake up one day and find everything since his first Hogwarts letter had been a dream and magic wasn’t real and he was still at the Dursleys.

But that was a rather complex fear and he didn’t know how the boggart would turn into that.

Then he thought… maybe his father. The idea that he might come for him one day, to put Harry at the head of his armies or maybe to kill him because he didn’t want to share power. It was something he tried not to think about. Or maybe his greatest fear was what he might one day become. That he might actually be the beast spoken of in the bible. Would the boggart come out looking like Harry with horns and bat wings or something?

It was altogether too likely that his fear may reveal things about himself, about his Secret, that needed to stay hidden.

For that reason, Harry remained at the back of the group and hoped the class period would end before he got his chance.

It didn’t. Not quite. But Lupin stepped in front of him before he could properly face the boggart and the professor sent it back into its cupboard on his own.

Harry wasn’t quite sure what to make of the intervention. Despite being grateful to have missed his turn, Harry couldn’t help but wonder.

October 31st

Harry watched Ron and Hermione head out for Hogsmeade with a deep sigh. It just wasn’t fair. First he had to have the Dursleys as guardians to begin with, and now he was suffering even at Hogwarts because of them. He thought maybe McGonagall would have been convinced to take pity on him if not for Sirius Black.

He growled in frustration as he started back toward Gryffindor Tower. If they seriously meant to keep him on house arrest whenever someone was trying to kill him, he’d never see the outdoors again!

He’d survived Voldemort more than once. He’d survived a basilisk. He’d survived insane Defense teachers! But he wouldn’t survive a trip to Hogsmeade with the rest of the school? How could they let anyone go if they were that worried an escaped maniac might show up there?

“Harry?”

Harry blinked and turned to see Professor Lupin looking at him around his office door. He’d not even realized that he’d wandered past it.

“What are you doing?” Lupin inquired. “Where are Ron and Hermione?”

Harry wasn’t sure what to do with the implication that he never went anywhere without them, but he shrugged it off. “Hogsmeade,” he said with an attempt at a smile.

“Ah,” Lupin nodded rather knowingly. He considered Harry a moment. “Why don’t you come in? I’ve just taken delivery of a grindylow for our next lesson.”

“A what?”

He followed Lupin back into his office where a very large tank of water had been set up. A sickly green creature with sharp little horns had its face pressed against the glass, pulling faces and flexing its long, spindly fingers.

“Water demon,” Lupin explained.

“Demon?” Harry started, looking between his professor and the little beast with alarm. It felt a bit Dark, but a demon ? Lupin felt as Dark as the grindylow, which Harry thought was probably just what happened when you studied Defense Against the Dark Arts. Or maybe he was a Dark wizard. Harry wasn’t sure he could tell the difference. He wasn’t very good at making sense of everything he felt. He could only tell that much because they’d been alone together awhile.

Sensing magical energies had become pretty easy to him in the last year. Understanding them, especially when he was surrounded by a bunch of them, that was hard.

Lupin blinked at him, then laughed a little, “That’s just a word we tend to use to describe some non-human Dark creatures, Harry. It’s nothing to do with Hell.”

“Oh,” Harry relaxed considerably.

“We shouldn’t have much difficulty with him,” Lupin went on. “Not after the kappas. The trick is to break his grip. You notice the abnormally long fingers? Strong, but very brittle.”

The grindylow bared its green teeth and then buried itself in a tangle of weeds in a corner.

“Cup of tea?” Lupin offered. “I was just thinking of making one.”

“All right,” Harry agreed

Lupin tapped the kettle with his wand and a burst of steam gushed from the spout.

Harry’s brow rose in appreciative surprise. For whatever reason, they never seemed to learn simple, useful spells like that at Hogwarts. It sort of made him forget all the practical, everyday ways magic made life easier.

“So, Harry,” Lupin said once they were seated with a cup of tea for each of them, “How are you finding your classes this year?”

Harry frowned a little and tried to figure out Lupin’s motive here. He’d never had a teacher just pull him aside for a friendly chat about how his life was going. It felt overly familiar given they’d just met, and that put Harry on edge. “They’re okay,” he offered noncommittally.

Lupin just smiled a little at his evasiveness. “You seemed alarmed when I used the word demon before. Is your family very religious?”

“Sort of,” Harry hedged, because the Dursleys really weren’t except on major holidays, but it would be a convenient way of explaining his total belief in the Devil and likely the rest of that religion had at least some truth to it as well.

Lupin waited a moment, but when Harry didn’t offer anything else, he gave a little smile and continued, “I know Christianity has a rather poor view on witchcraft and wizardry. Has that been worrying you at all?”

“Not really,” Harry admitted, because it was kind of the least of his worries. The religion had to be right to some extent because the Devil existed, but witchcraft wasn’t evil and hopefully the Devil wasn’t either. And if the Antichrist wasn’t really destined for all that horribleness, that would be good.

“That’s good,” Lupin said with a bit of humor sparkling in his eyes. “How did your family take it?”

Harry shrugged, unsure what to say about that. “They knew mum was a witch, so I think they were expecting it,” he offered as neutrally as he could. He didn’t want to actually say anything good about the Dursleys, but neither did he want to make a big deal of their real feelings about him. He’d tried that with Dumbledore first year and it had proven pointless.

Thankfully, a knock on the door interrupted the conversation. When Snape was the one to enter, Harry second-guessed his gratefulness. He had for Lupin a potion that was literally smoking. It looked rather alarming to Harry, but Lupin seemed quite grateful for it.

Snape said little and soon left, as grim as ever and extra watchful.

Harry watched as Lupin gulped down the potion, which tasted rather awful by the face he made. He did wonder a bit at just what it was and what it was for. Lupin had said that he’d been feeling a bit off color, but Harry had been at Hogwarts long enough to know what potions were used for simple ailments and none of them were all that hard to brew as he’d said this one was.

Harry suspected that Lupin had a Secret and he wasn’t going to pry, but considering the last two Defense professors had tried to kill him and wipe his memory, respectively… Well, he wasn’t assuming that just because the man was nice, it automatically meant he was good. Not when he seemed too interested in Harry.

“Disgusting,” Lupin pronounced with a smile as he put down the still smoking goblet. “Well, Harry. I’d better get back to work. I’ll see you at the feast later.”

Soundly dismissed, Harry didn’t linger. He didn’t return to Gryffindor Tower either, as that didn’t sound like it would hold much interest for him with Ron and Hermione gone.

He did pause a moment and wonder at that thought. Maybe Lupin hadn’t been so far off when he’d wondered at their absence from Harry’s immediate vicinity. Thinking about it, they were almost always around when he was outside the common room. It worried him a bit. That he might be too attached to them. He cared about them a lot, of course. He just worried if he’d be all right without them. Relying on others hadn’t worked out really well for him growing up.

Those thoughts sent him to a small room in the lower part of the north tower. He’d found it last year, but this year he’d been using it when he wanted some privacy to talk to Kaa without fear of someone stumbling upon him. He put up the spells he’d learned this year for this very purpose. Locking spell, ward to warn him if anyone came within a few meters of the door, and a silencing ward to ensure no one could eavesdrop. Then he rolled back his left sleeve and called for his snake.

later

With Halloween came the usual lingering darkness and distant screams. Harry was actually getting used to it by this point. The scent of sulfur, he noticed, was near constant all day, though stronger when he could hear the screams. It wasn’t the most pleasant scent, but he got used to it.

The screams very often seemed to be accompanied by vicious laughter from a different voice. The torturers and the tortured, he thought. He tried to console himself that the tortured souls he was hearing were more than likely very evil people who very much deserved it.

It was those sounds that had woken him that morning, and it was those sounds that kept him awake in the Great Hall while he was surrounded by snoring students.

Sirius Black had apparently tried to force his way into Gryffindor Tower, which is why they were all now on the floor of the Great Hall. The professors wanted them all where they could see them.

Harry wasn’t quite sure how he felt about this man apparently trying to kill him because Harry had supposedly defeated Voldemort when he was a baby. He supposed it wasn’t impossible that his magic had done something when the Dark Lord tried to kill him, but it seemed far-fetched to him. In his mum’s letter, she’d said that wizards came into their magic when they were 11. It’s why she’d wanted him to know about his differences at that time. It was hard to believe that his magic could have been that strong when he was barely more than a year old.

But Sirius Black seemed to think the same thing as everyone else. While many hailed him for his alleged heroics, others wanted him dead for it. It was rather distressing for Harry, who wasn’t so sure he’d done anything at all. Didn’t it make more sense that Voldemort had just done something wrong? Attempted to use some magic that was dangerous to the caster? Or even that James and Lily had done something that finished him off. Maybe some sacrificial magic empowered by their deaths?

He didn’t know much on the subject, but he’d read about it over the summer. It seemed to make more sense than a baby miraculously surviving the unsurvivable and then defeating a powerful Dark Lord before he was old enough to form permanent memories.

But the Light seemed to want to have a hero they could worship. It was ironic that he was far from Light. He didn’t think they’d react well if they ever learned that.

November 16th

The weather was absolutely foul on the day of the first Gryffindor Quidditch match of the year. With heavy rain and high winds and frequent lightning, it probably wasn’t actually all that safe to be flying. He wasn’t sure if there was some kind of magic in place keeping them safe from lightning bolts or if wizards in general were just crazy enough that they didn’t care. He was trying not to think about it.

He could have sworn he saw a grim in the back of one of the stands, but it was gone a moment later. Honestly, he’d have rather it hadn’t just vanished because that would have made it more likely that it was just a stray dog that had wandered up in search of any food the students might drop.

He tried not to think about the dog he’d seen on Privet Drive after traumatizing Marge. Surely it had to be a coincidence. How many big black dogs were there in Britain? Must be a lot, surely.

“Harry!” the sudden shout rang out in a moment of decreased wind. “Harry, behind you!”

Shaking off his thoughts, Harry spun to see Diggory was pelting up the field, a tiny gold speck shimmering in the rain-filled air between them.

With a jolt of panic, Harry threw himself flat to the broom-handle and zoomed toward the snitch.

“Come on!” he growled at his Nimbus as the rain whipped his face. “ Faster !”

Amazingly, the broom did seem to gain a sudden burst of speed and the next thing he knew, the icy gold ball was safe within his grip.

He had no time to celebrate, however, because his broom didn’t respond right as he tried to swerve before colliding with Diggory. Instead, it spun entirely around once, then again. He tried to regain control, but it didn’t seem to be responding to his commands properly anymore.

Moments later, he collided with the front of one of the stands.

Everything went dark for a moment before he realized that he was falling. As he blinked spots from his eyes, he saw that he was falling straight toward a massive hoard of dementors. What the Hell were they doing on the pitch?

His magic flared in alarm and the creatures made a hole for him to fall through. His last thought was to hope the rain-sodden ground wouldn’t kill him.

December 19th

Harry had a hard time knowing how he was supposed to feel about Black after overhearing the teachers talking about it with Fudge and Madam Rosmerta. Honestly, he should be used to it by now, everyone knowing more about his life than he did, but he really wasn’t. He almost hated everyone who knew the truth and never told him. How dare they decide he was better off living in ignorance? It was his damn life. It was his parents. 

Their damn all-knowing attitude about how hard it would be for him to know these things was infuriating. Like it was only right that he be wrapped in swaddling and kept away from anything bad because he was just a poor child. Well where the fuck had they all been when Dudley and his friends were beating him? When Petunia was going after him with the frying pan? When Vernon dislocated his shoulder, again , while throwing him into his fucking cupboard ! How dare they pretend they had any right to make decisions for him!

His feelings about Black were more confused. Especially what Hagrid had said about when a wizard goes dark, there’s nothing and no one that matters to him anymore.

Harry didn’t think that was right. He was dark. Or his magic was. And he cared about plenty of things! And there were a lot of dark witches and wizards down Knockturn that seemed normal enough. Heck, even Lupin was dark. He felt like it, anyway.

The fact that Hagrid seemed to believe that and no one at the table had challenged the assertion at all... Would they all think him totally irredeemable if they learned that his magic was dark?

When he stumbled downstairs the next day to find Ron and Hermione alone in the common room, he still had no idea how he was supposed to feel about everything. He was angry and hurt and then more angry because he was hurt.

“You really don’t look well, Harry,” Hermione fretted as Harry dropped himself into a chair. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, his mind unable to settle down.

“I’m fine,” he dismissed.

“Harry, listen,” Hermione said, exchanging a look with Ron. “You must be really upset about what we heard yesterday. But the thing is, you mustn’t do anything stupid.”

Harry felt his temper flare bright at both her insinuation that she knew how he was feeling better than he did and that she immediately thought he’d do something “stupid”. He swallowed back as much of it as he could, knowing that she meant well and his temper probably wasn’t being very fair. He was just exhausted and confused and brassed off and he had no outlet for any of it. “Like what?” he bit out.

“Like trying to go after Black,” Ron said sharply.

Harry easily turned his anger on Ron with a dark glare.

“You won’t, will you, Harry?” Hermione probed.

“Because Black’s not worth dying for,” Ron added.

Harry looked at them both. Of course, they wouldn’t understand. Harry wasn’t even sure he understood where his head was at in all of this. If he was fighting Black, he wouldn’t pull his punches and probably even hope he killed the man, but was he going to go looking for him?

For a moment, he entertained the idea. It didn’t last long though. Because his magic was powerful and even rather proactive this year, but that didn’t mean that he was going to have any chance going head-to-head with a skilled adult. He’d learned some interesting Dark spells that summer, but he was sure Black knew more.

“‘Course I’m not,” he sighed angrily. “That really would be stupid.”

His friends didn’t look like they fully believed him.

With an annoyed growl, he pushed himself out of his seat. “I’m going for a walk,” he announced, which caused both of them to rise. “Alone,” he added sharply and quickly left the common room.

He wasn’t going to put too much faith in those two actually respecting his wish to be alone when he knew they were worried that he was going to go looking for Black, so he wasted no time in getting out of sight of the common room. He headed for the tower room where he normally talked to Kaa.

Maybe his snake could shed some light on what the Hell he was feeling. Trying to work it out in his own head didn’t seem to be going too well.

December 25th

“ I don’t know how to forgive her for this ,” Harry admitted to his snake. He’d sat and listened to Ron rant for a while after McGonagall had taken his firebolt. Eventually, he’d said that he wanted to be alone and left Ron fuming in the common room by himself.

“She didn’t even tell me her theory and give me the chance to decide if I wanted to tell a teacher. It’s… She betrayed me ,” Harry said, barely more than a whisper. He was sitting on the dirty floor of the dimly lit tower room, positioned behind where the door would open to give himself maximum time to recall his massive serpentine familiar before being spotted if his proximity ward went off. This was not a well-trodden part of the castle, so he thought it was pretty unlikely anyone would wander this way unless they were looking for him, but better to be safe than get caught with a snake familiar tattooed into his skin. Considering that the spell had summoned an actual snake’s soul, he suspected it could be considered necromancy, which would be just great to get caught with. Not to mention how Ron thought about snakes in general.

“ You should not forgive her, ” Kaa said, less than helpfully. “ These humans that you call friends should not have your trust. You see how easily they turn from you.”

Harry sighed. Sometimes talking to Kaa wasn’t greatly helpful. “ I don’t want to be alone, Kaa. They are normally good friends. Hermione just thought she was protecting me. ”

“ She broke your trust,” the snake said forcefully. “ If she will betray you whenever she thinks it is for your own good, then she cannot be trusted. What if she saw your books about Dark Arts? Would she feel the need to report you for your own good? ”

“ Yes,” Harry realized with a sigh. “ She definitely would .”

“ Then you cannot trust her ever again,” Kaa declared rather triumphantly.

Harry rolled his eyes, “You won’t be happy until I’m all alone in the world, will you?”

“ That will never happen, Master. I will never leave you. ”

Harry smiled, “ I know that, but humans need other humans.” Kaa didn’t respond and Harry sighed again as he thought on Hermione. “ You’re right,” he acknowledged. “ I can’t ever trust her again. Not with anything important. Not now that I know she’ll go running to an authority figure without even trying to get me to understand her perspective first.”

“You should not trust the orange one either,” Kaa urged. “ You give your trust blindly and only take it away when it is broken. They should earn your trust before it is given. Once you are betrayed, it is too late.”

“Ron has been a good friend for the last two and a half years now,” Harry argued firmly. “ I’m not going to stop trusting him without a good reason. ” He ran a finger over Kaa’s large, diamond-shaped head and down around his neck as he considered. “ Maybe you’re right though. I’ll be more careful about giving my trust in the future. Ron has more than earned it by this point, but they’ll have to earn it first next time.”

Chapter Text

June 9th

“I thought you’d come to help your friend,” Sirius Black said hoarsely. “Your father would have done the same for me. Brave of you, not to run for a teacher. I’m grateful… It will make everything much easier…”

And all of Harry’s confused thoughts about Sirius Black suddenly became crystal clear. This monster had been friends with his father. He’d been best man at his parents’ wedding. And he’d given their location to Voldemort. He’d handed them over for slaughter. Harry had no way of knowing if it had been an easy choice for him or a hard one, but he didn’t honestly care. Because of this man, he’d learned of his true parentage through a letter rather than from his mum’s own lips. He’d never heard James tell him that he truly loved him like his own. 

That had been stolen from him, and it was this man’s fault.

He made to lunge at the man in blind rage, but Ron and Hermione both grabbed his arms, their grip restraining. “No, Harry!” Hermione gasped desperately.

“If you want to kill Harry, you’ll have to kill us too!” Ron said fiercely and Harry had a brief thought that he’d have to tell Kaa about this. Maybe the snake wouldn’t tell Harry to stop being his friend anymore.

Something flickered in Black’s eyes and he frowned at Ron, “Lie down. You will damage that leg even more.”

“Did you hear me?” Ron said weakly. “You’ll have to kill all three of us,” and he stayed at Harry’s side even though it was clearly agony.

“There’ll be only one murder here tonight,” Black declared and his grin widened. 

“Why’s that?” Harry spat, struggling to free himself from Ron and Hermione as his magic roiled like a storm cloud around him, “Didn’t care last time, did you? Or is that what gets you off? Kill me and make them watch, then go on with their lives with the memory?”

“Harry! Be quiet!” Hermione whimpered.

Somehow, knowing that he was going to die and that he meant to let Ron and Hermione live, well, it made everything very simple for Harry. He’d nothing left to lose at this point. Fighting back was only likely to quicken a painful end.

“You murdering TRAITOR!” he all but screamed and broke free of Ron and Hermione to lunge across the distance separating him from his parents’ betrayer.

Perhaps it was the shock of Harry’s sudden attack or perhaps Azkaban had done him more damage than Fudge had credited, but Black did not get a wand up in time. One of Harry’s hands fastened over his boney wrist, forcing the wand tips away. The knuckles of Harry’s other hand collided with the side of Black’s skull and they fell backward into the wall.

Hermione was screaming and Ron was yelling. There was a blinding flash as the wands in Black’s hand sent a jet of sparks into the side of Harry’s face. He felt heat and smelled burning hair, but thankfully it wasn’t painful. His magic was rushing through his body like his very lifeblood. Harry felt the shrunken arm under his fingers twisting madly but he clung on, his other hand punching as hard as he could at any part of Black it could reach.

But Black’s free hand had found Harry’s throat.

“No! I’ve waited too long-” Black hissed.

The fingers tightened and Harry choked, his glasses askew so he couldn’t quite see properly.

Then he saw Hermione’s foot swing out of nowhere and collide with the side of Black’s head. Black let go of Harry with a grunt of pain. Ron had thrown himself on Black’s wand hand and Harry heard a faint clatter as the wands flew free.

He saw his own wand rolling across the floor and threw himself at it, but Crookshanks dug his claws into Harry’s arm, bringing him up short. The cat then darted toward Harry’s wand and he quickly aimed a kick at it that made it leap aside, spitting. 

“Get out of the way!” he shouted at Ron and Hermione.

They moved quickly, Hermione gasping for breath, her lip bleeding. She snatched up her wand and Ron’s while Ron collapsed onto the bed, his face bloodless.

Black was sprawled against the wall, his thin chest heaving.

“Going to kill me, Harry?” he whispered.

“I’ve every right!” Harry spat at him. “You’ve hurt all three of us, threatened to kill me, you broke out of Azkaban, you BETRAYED YOUR FRIENDS AND GOT THEM KILLED! You disgusting, traitorous piece of shit!”

“I don’t deny that I got them killed,” Black said very quietly, “but if you knew the whole story-”

“The whole story!” Harry spat and he felt his magic snarl at the man. “You think you can justify what you did?” His body trembled in fury, but his wand was steady. In his mind, he flipped through the spells he could use to finish this traitor. Several ideal Dark spells came to mind, but he knew that he couldn’t. No one would mourn Black and no one would question whether it was self-defense, but they would undoubtedly notice if he was killed with Dark magic, and Harry couldn’t explain that to the aurors. Or to Ron and Hermione, who were watching the whole thing.

Would they forgive him for this, he wondered, even as he settled on a cutting hex to the neck. If he used enough force, he could probably take his head right off. Prevent any last-minute revenge while he bled out.

He took a breath and his lips quivered with the need to say the word that would end this betrayer. In that moment, he wanted him dead far more than he’d ever wanted Voldemort gone. Voldemort was a beast and thus did beastly things. This was a man who’d treated his father as a friend for so long and so convincingly, that he’d trusted him with his life.

“You’ve got to listen to me,” Black tried again, a note of urgency entering his voice now. “You’ll regret it if you don’t. You don’t understand.”

Harry felt a moment of doubt and he clenched his jaw. “No? What is it that I don’t understand? Were you loyal to Voldemort from the start or did you join up later? Was it a hard choice? Your precious lord or your loyal friends? Did you even miss a single night of SLEEP OVER IT?” He grew louder and angrier the more he said, his grip on his wand tightening until it was nearly painful.

Before either of them could say more, Crookshanks streaked past Harry and leapt onto Black’s chest, settling himself right over Black’s heart.

The filthy man looked down at the cat with a blink and tried to push him off. “Get off,” he demanded.

The cat just sank his claws into Black’s robes and wouldn’t be moved. He turned his squashed face to Harry and looked up at him with those yellow eyes.

Hermione let out a dry sob.

Was the cat bewitched to protect Black or had he really bonded that much with his dog form? This wasn’t normal cat behavior. He’d been around enough of them with Mrs. Figg to know.

He shifted his grip slightly on his wand, then cast a quick stinging hex at the cat, which yowled and darted back to the bed where it proceeded to growl angrily. With only Black in front of his wand again, Harry brought to mind the spell he’d intended to use. He felt his magic rise within him, eager to end this threat.

He opened his mouth, then closed it as they all heard the sounds of someone moving around downstairs.

“We’re up here!” Hermione immediately shouted and Harry just hoped it wasn’t an accomplice of Black’s as she went on shouting about Sirius Black.

Harry gave a moment of thought to just casting the spell right now. Then he remembered Hermione bringing McGonagall to take his Firebolt. It had worked out in the end, and he’d resumed their friendship, but she couldn’t be trusted. What if she thought he was touched in the head and, in some attempt to get him the help he needed, told Dumbledore that Harry had killed Black when he was down and helpless?

No, he couldn’t.

His shoulders sagged slightly, though whether it was disappointment or relief he felt, he wasn’t sure.

Then the door burst open in a shower of red sparks and Professor Lupin came hurtling into the room, his face bloodless, his wand raised and ready. His eyes flicked over Ron, lying on the floor, over Hermione, cowering next to the door, to Harry, standing there with his wand covering Black, and then to Black himself, crumpled and bleeding at Harry’s feet.

Lupin waved his wand in a silent expelliarmus and Harry’s wand flew out of his hand again, along with the two Hermione was holding. Lupin caught them all deftly, then moved into the room, staring at Black.

Harry felt a swell of anger and a tendril of fear spread through him at having his wand taken. He trusted Lupin to an extent, but why take their wands? Wouldn’t they be safer if they were holding them? What if Black managed to try something?

Then Lupin spoke in an odd voice, which trembled with an emotion too suppressed for Harry to guess.

“Where is he, Sirius?”

Harry looked at Lupin uncertainly. This wasn’t going how he’d have thought and it was making him increasingly uncomfortable.

For a long moment, Black didn’t move and didn’t speak, his expression blank. Then, slowly, he raised one hand and pointed right at Ron.

“But then…” Lupin muttered, staring intently at Black, “...why hasn’t he shown himself before now? Unless-” Lupin’s eyes suddenly widened, “unless he was the one… Unless you switched… without telling me?”

Very slowly, Black nodded.

“Professor…” Harry said cautiously, wishing desperately that he still had his wand, “what…”

But then Lupin was lowering his wand, gazing fixedly at Black. The professor walked to Black’s side, seized his hand, pulled him to his feet, and embraced Black like a brother.

Harry felt his blood run cold.

“I don’t believe it!” Hermione screamed, her voice as thick with betrayal as Harry felt.

He was also beginning to feel afraid again because if Lupin was siding with Black, then Harry had no hope of beating them both. Black was skin and bone, which had given Harry a chance against him in a physical fight, especially with Ron and Hermione, but they’d have no chance against the two of them. Not without their wands.

Lupin let go of Black and turned to her. She had raised herself off the floor and was pointing at Lupin, wild-eyed.

“Hermione-”

“You and him!” she gasped out.

“Hermione, calm down,” Lupin tried to placate and Harry’s blood boiled with rage and his magic swelled within him again. How fucking dare he try the trusted professor tone right now!

“I didn’t tell anyone!” Hermione shrieked. “I’ve been covering up for you-”

“Hermione, listen to me, please!” Lupin shouted. “I can explain-”

“I suppose you’ll have to kill us all now,” Harry ground out, looking between the two men. “Black’s already a fugitive, but you can’t have Ron and Hermione telling everyone that you helped him kill me, can you?” Bitterness and fury and betrayal burned through him. He’d never properly trusted Lupin, but he’d liked him. He’d thought he was a great teacher.

“No!” Lupin said, sounding honestly startled. “Harry, I-”

“NO!” Hermione screamed. “Harry, don’t trust him, he’s been helping Black get into the castle, he wants you dead, too – he’s a werewolf !”

And… oh. That did make sense, didn’t it?

Lupin still looked calm, though quite pale. “Not at all up to your usual standard, Hermione. Only one out of three, I’m afraid. I have not been helping Sirius get into the castle and I certainly don’t want Harry dead…” an odd shiver passed over his face, “But I won’t deny that I am a werewolf.”

Ron made a valiant effort to get up again, but he fell back with a whimper of pain. Lupin made toward him, looking concerned, but Ron gasped, “ Get away from me, werewolf!”

Lupin stopped dead. Then, with an obvious effort, he turned to Hermione and said, “How long have you known?”

“Ages. Since I did Professor Snape’s essay,” Hermione whispered.

“He’ll be delighted,” Lupin said coolly. “He assigned that essay hoping someone would realize what my symptoms meant… Did you check the lunar chart and realize that I was always ill at the full moon? Or did you realize that the boggart turned into the moon when it saw me?”

“Both,” Hermione said quietly.

Harry’s mind was racing, because this was all well and good that Lupin was curious, and he did seem to mean that he didn’t want Harry dead and hadn’t been helping Black, but none of that meant that he wasn’t helping him now and that he wasn’t going to let him kill Harry.

He needed to do something. Change the odds somehow, or they were all going to die. Well, it was possible that Lupin would obliviate Ron and Hermione rather than kill them, he supposed. The man didn’t seem overly eager to start killing. Maybe that was why he was asking when Hermione had figured it out. So he’d know how far back he had to obliviate her. And blame it on Black, of course, once the man was safely away.

“You truly are the cleverist witch of your age I’ve ever met, Hermione,” Lupin congratulated and Harry thought he meant it.

“I’m not,” Hermione whispered. “If I’d been a bit cleverer, I’d have told everyone what you are!”

“But they already know. At least the staff do,” Lupin admitted.

“Dumbledore knew that you were a werewolf?” Ron gaped. “Is he mad?”

Harry spared a glance toward his friend. He seemed uncomfortably focused on the werewolf bit rather than the buddy-buddy with the man that wanted to kill Harry bit.

“Some of the staff thought so,” Lupin said, “He had to work very hard to convince certain teachers that I’m trustworthy-”

“And he was wrong,” Harry bit out furiously. “If you’ve not been helping him all this time, then why the sudden change of heart?” he demanded.

Black moved suddenly to the bed and sank onto it, his face hidden in one shaking hand. Crookshanks immediately stepped onto his lap, purring.

Ron edged away from both of them, dragging his wounded leg with obvious pain.

“I have not been helping Sirius,” Lupin reiterated. “If you’ll give me a chance, I’ll explain. Look-”

He separated out their wands and threw each back to its owner.

Harry caught his, confused and suspicious, even as he gripped it and lifted it to point between the two men, trying to keep his focus on them both. “Explain, then!” Harry demanded.

Lupin sighed, “I was afraid that you would sneak down to Hagrid’s hut because of the appeal tonight, so I was watching you on the map-”

“How’d you know about that?” Ron demanded.

“I helped create it. I would be Moony. Anyway, I was watching you heading back toward the school, but while you were in the hut, you’d acquired a fourth…”

“No, we didn’t,” Ron insisted.

“You did,” Lupin said firmly. “Do you think I could have a look at the rat?”

“What? What’s scabbers got to do with this?”

“Everything,” Lupin said evenly. “Could I see him? Please?”

Ron hesitated, then put a hand inside his robes. Scabbers emerged thrashing desperately. Ron had to seize his long tail to stop him escaping. Crookshanks rose on Black’s lap to hiss at the rat.

Lupin moved closer and stared intently at the rat.

“What?” Ron asked again.

“That’s not a rat,” Black croaked suddenly.

“Of course he’s a rat!” Ron protested.

“No, he’s not. He’s a wizard,” Lupin said quietly. “An animagus by the name of Peter Pettigrew.”

Harry stared at the rat while Ron and Hermione voiced their disbelief. He was sure that both men absolutely believed what they were saying. That somehow, the rat that had been a household pet at the Weasley house for more than three years – Ron had said Percy had it as a pet, first – was actually a wizard in disguise. A wizard that Sirius Black was meant to have killed.

“No,” Harry said warily to Black. “You killed Peter Pettigrew.”

The dirty man’s face twitched convulsively, “I meant to,” he growled, baring yellowed teeth. “But little Peter got the better of me. Not this time, though!”

And Crookshanks was thrown to the floor as Black lunged at Scabbers. Ron yelled with pain as Black’s weight fell on his broken leg.

“Sirius, no!” Lupin yelled, launching himself forward and dragging Black away from Ron again. “Wait! You can’t do it just like that – they need to understand – you’ve got to explain-”

“We can explain afterward!” snarled Black, trying to throw Lupin off. One hand was still clawing the air as it tried to reach Scabbers, who was squealing like a piglet, scratching Ron’s face and neck as he tried to escape.

“They’ve got a right to know everything!” Lupin panted, still trying to restrain Black. “Ron’s kept him as a pet! There are parts even I don’t understand! And Harry – you owe Harry the truth, Sirius!”

And things began to line up in Harry’s head. This was all about the rat. Black hadn’t come to Hogwarts for him. He’d come after Pettigrew. He’d been breaking into Gryffindor Tower in search of the rat. He’d dragged them here to get to the rat. He’d broken Ron’s leg, bloodied Hermione's face, and tried to strangle Harry just to get the rat.

Black finally stopped struggling, but his eyes remained fixed on the rat, who was clutched tightly under Ron’s bleeding hands.

“All right, then,” Black said without taking his eyes off the rat, “Tell them whatever you like, but make it quick, Remus. I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for.”

Harry felt a chill run down his spine at the sheer murderous hatred rolling off the man. He’d been feeling it a minute ago, but not quite on this level. He thought Black would literally rip the rat limb from limb given the chance.

“You’re nutters, both of you,” Ron said decidedly, his voice shaking. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m off,” he declared, looking to Hermione and Harry for support. He tried to heave himself up on his good leg, but Lupin raised his wand again, pointing it at Scabbers.

“You’re going to hear me out, Ron,” he said quietly. “Just keep a tight hold on Peter while you listen.”

Harry moved to stand between Ron and the two men because he was sick and tired of them hurting and threatening his friends.

“He’s not Peter, he’s Scabbers!” Ron yelled, and Harry thought he wanted it to be true more than he actually believed it to be.

The rat began struggling wildly again and Harry turned his wand from Lupin onto the rat, “Stop that now or I will do more than stun you!” he warned the rat sharply.

And the rat froze in place at the threat. A very not rat thing to do.

Harry kept his wand pointed at the rat even as he turned his gaze back to Lupin. He remained standing between the men and Ron though. “There were witnesses when Pettigrew died,” he reasoned.

“They didn’t see what they thought they saw!” Black spat savagely, still watching Scabbers intently.

“Everyone thought Sirius killed Peter,” Lupin explained. “I thought it myself until I saw the map tonight. Because the Marauders Map never lies… Peter’s alive. Ron’s holding him, Harry.”

Hermione tried to reason with Lupin that it couldn’t be true because if Peter was an animagus, his name would be on the registry at the Ministry, which apparently had only seven entries in the last century.

Lupin countered that the Ministry had never known about the three animagi at Hogwarts while he was a student.

“If you’re going to tell them the story, get a move on, Remus,” snarled Black, who was still watching Scabbers’ intently. “I’ve waited twelve years, I’m not going to wait much longer.”

“All right… but you’ll need to help me, Sirius,” said Lupin. “I only know how it began…”

The door creaked open then, as if by its own accord. Lupin stepped out and looked around but saw nothing. Ron said it was the ghosts, but Lupin said there had never been any ghosts here. The villagers had heard him howling because he’d come here to transform every month.

Lupin then went on to tell a story of how he was turned as a young boy and his condition was hidden by his parents. His parents hadn’t thought he could come to Hogwarts, but Dumbledore was sympathetic and allowed it in secret, planting the Whomping Willow to keep other students away from the tunnel entrance.

Harry listened, but he also kept glancing at the open door. There was no breeze and Lupin said there were no ghosts, so how had that door opened?

Lupin went on to explain the horror of his transformations, the pain and how he would attack himself since had no humans to hunt. He made friends with Sirius and Peter and James, Harry’s adoptive father, though Lupin obviously believed that James had been his real father.

Lupin went on to explain that his three best friends became animagi for him, even though it took them nearly three years to manage, only accomplishing it in their fifth year. Apparently, werewolves only went after humans and not animals, so in their animal forms, they were able to keep him company while he was transformed.

He explained how they’d gone exploring on the full moon nights, all through Hogsmeade and around Hogwarts grounds. How there had been many close calls of him attacking someone, but they’d laughed it off afterward. Like it was a game. He said they were young and stupid, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione were younger than that now and he didn’t think they’d be that stupid. It wasn’t worth anyone’s life.

Lupin admitted that he’d not told Dumbledore that Sirius was an animagus this year despite believing that he was trying to kill Harry, because he didn’t want to admit to the man that they had broken the rules when they were children, throwing the man’s generosity back in his face.

Harry could only shake his head in disbelief. Some Gryffindor he turned out to be.

Also, thank Merlin that he’d never actually put his trust in Lupin because that betrayal would have hurt. The man had valued a twenty-year-old secret over Harry’s life. Dumbledore’s disappointment over Harry’s life .

Harry felt very clear on how important he was to this man.

He then explained that Snape apparently was in the same year as them in school and that he’d fought very hard against Dumbledore’s decision to give him the Defense job this year. He didn’t trust Lupin, apparently because of a trick Sirius had played on him that nearly got him killed.

“It served him right,” Black sneered. “Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to… Hoping he could get us expelled…”

“Severus was very interested in where I went every month,” Lupin told them. “We were in the same year, you know, and we – er – didn’t like each other very much.”

And that was the first thing Lupin had said in a while that Harry found himself not quite believing. He figured “didn’t like each other very much” was probably a grave enough underestimation to almost be a lie.

“He especially didn’t like James,” Lupin continued. “Jealous, I think, of James’ talent on the Quidditch field.”

Harry almost winced at that because that was a lie. He was sure of it. Snape definitely didn’t like James, but not for that reason. He shifted a bit, but listened as Lupin continued without pause.

“Anyway. Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be – er – amusing to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he’d be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it – if he’d got as far as this house, he’d have met a fully grown werewolf – but your father, who’d heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life… Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on, he knew what I was…”

“So you…” Harry interrupted, a little flabbergasted, “You tried to kill him,” he said to Black, “and you didn’t get expelled? And he couldn’t tell anyone. You tried to kill him!” Because the man was an arse, but what the Hell?

“He’d have deserved it,” Sirius sneered without looking away from the rat.

And Harry was sure he honestly believed that. Harry truly hated Malfoy sometimes, like when he gloated about getting Buckbeak sentenced to death because of something stupid Malfoy had done, but he’d not try to kill him. What could Snape have possibly done before getting out of Hogwarts that made him deserve that?

“I guess I can understand why he hates you, then,” Harry admitted.

Sirius made a face without looking at him.

Lupin sighed.

“Yes, I do have cause,” sneered a cold voice from the wall behind Lupin.

Severus Snape was pulling off the Invisibility Cloak that Harry only then realized he’d dropped and never picked up before they’d chased Ron down the tunnel to the shack.

Hermione screamed. Black leapt to his feet. Harry startled, realizing now why the fucking door had opened by itself. He had an invisibility cloak. He should know better. His eyes followed the cloak as it was dropped on the ground and silently berated himself for his carelessness.

“I found this at the base of the Whomping Willow,” Snape explained as he dropped the cloak. “Very useful, Potter, thank you,” he said almost civilly as he leveled his wand at Lupin’s chest.

Snape was slightly breathless and looked half crazed, his face full of suppressed triumph. He explained that he’d gone to Lupin’s office to give him his potion and found the office empty but for the map that he’d never deactivated.

“Severus,” Lupin began, but Snape overrode him.

“I’ve told the headmaster again and again that you’re helping your old friend Black into the castle, Lupin, and here’s the proof. Not even I dreamed you would have the nerve to use this old place as your hideout-”

“Severus, you’re making a mistake,” said Lupin urgently. “You haven’t heard everything – I can explain. Sirius is not here to kill Harry-”

“Two more for Azkaban tonight,” said Snape with a finatical glint to his eyes. “I shall be interested to see how Albus takes this… He was quite convinced you were harmless, you know, Lupin.  A tame werewolf-”

“You fool,” said Lupin softly. “Is a schoolboy grudge worth putting an innocent man back inside Azkaban?”

Privately Harry thought attempted murder made it more than a schoolyard grudge, particularly when Sirius, even now, felt not a single shred of remorse for anything but failing in his attempt. It was possible that Sirius had deserved to be in Azkaban, if not for the specific crime that sent him there.

With a flick of Snape’s wand, snakelike cords burst from the end of his wand and twisted themselves around Lupin’s mouth, wrists, and ankles. He promptly fell down, unable to move.

With a roar of rage, Black started toward Snape, but Snape pointed his wand straight between Black’s eyes.

“Give me a reason,” he whispered. “Give me a reason to do it and I swear I will.”

Harry shivered as Black froze. Snape meant that. He would kill him without hesitation.

Definitely more than a schoolyard grudge going on here.

“Professor Snape,” Hermione spoke up nervously. “It… It wouldn’t hurt to hear what they’ve got to say, w-would it?”

“Miss Granger, you are already facing suspension from this school,” Snape spat. “You, Potter, and Weasley are out of bounds in the company of a convicted murderer and a werewolf. For once in your life, hold your tongue .”

“But if- If there was a mistake-”

“Keep quiet, you stupid girl!” he shouted, looking rather deranged. “Don’t talk about what you don’t understand!” A few sparks shot out of the end of his wand, which was still pointed at Black’s face.

Hermione fell silent.

“Vengeance is sweet,” Snape breathed at Black and Harry felt himself falter. That was certainly a concept that he understood, but…

“How I hoped I would be the one to catch you…” Snape continued.

“The joke’s on you again, Severus,” Black snarled. “As long as this boy brings his rat up to the castle, I’ll come quietly…”

“Up to the castle?” Snape questioned silkily. “I don’t think we need to go that far. All I have to do is call the dementors once we get out of the willow. They’ll be very pleased to see you, Black. Pleased enough to give you a little Kiss , I daresay…”

Harry shivered at the thought. He’d been horrified when he’d learned of the Kiss and he’d not started feeling any better about it since. Nothing should be able to devour a soul. Did that mean no afterlife? Nothing? That was wrong on a level that honestly made Harry want to commit genocide. People worried about werewolves when there were dementors in the world?

“You- you’ve got to hear me out,” Black croaked out, now looking truly terrified. “The rat- look at the rat-”

But Snape was clearly beyond any reason. His eyes were lit with a mad glint that looked rather like when Black was going after Pettigrew earlier.

“Come on. All of you,” he demanded, clicking his fingers and the end of the ropes holding Lupin leapt into his grasp. “I’ll drag the werewolf. Perhaps the dementors will have a Kiss for him, too-” Harry didn’t think he really meant that last bit, but he wasn’t honestly sure. Neither was he sure Snape wouldn’t get away with it if he could prove Lupin was a werewolf.

He didn’t know what to believe at this point but that these men obviously hated each other a lot. He thought they should go to Dumbledore and let him sort them out, but Snape didn’t plan to do that.

He hesitated a second, but when Snape moved toward the door, Harry moved to block it. “Get out of the way, Potter. You’re in enough trouble already,” snarled Snape. “If I hadn’t been here to save your skin-”

“I know, but what they were saying did make some sense,” Harry argued, though there was a sliver of doubt. Lupin had spent a long time talking about his entire history without ever coming to a point about why Black wasn’t the bad guy. Had he been stalling? “We should take them to Dumbledore and let him sort them out,” Harry reasoned, and he felt his magic swell around him like it meant to help him bar the way.

“Do not question me, Potter. Get out of my way!” Snape insisted.

“Not until you agree to go to Dumbledore! You’re not exactly unbiased here!”

“Do not speak to me like that, Potter!” Snape shrieked, looking madder than ever. “Like father, like son!” Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes. That line was getting old, particularly as Snape was comparing him to a man that he had no blood relation to. “I have just saved your neck; you should be thanking me on bended knee! You would have been well served if he’d killed you! You’d have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in Black. Now get out of the way, or I will make you!”

“If they’re guilty, they’ll still get what’s coming to them!” Harry shouted back. “The only reason for feeding them to the dementors is because you’re afraid they’re not!”

Snape snarled and lifted his wand.

“Expelliarmus!” Harry snapped out at the same time that Ron and Hermione both cast the spell from behind him. Snape’s wand went flying to land on the bed and Snape was blasted into a wall, where he collapsed, utterly unconscious.

“Oh, shit!” Harry breathed and rushed to check the man’s pulse while Black moved to untie Lupin. Harry didn’t breathe again until he detected a strong beat under the man’s jaw. Thank goodness.

“Thank you, Harry,” Lupin said as he stood and reclaimed his wand.

Hermione, meanwhile, was chanting in despair about them having attacked a teacher. Under the circumstances, with Lupin to testify in their defense, Harry thought Dumbledore would probably excuse it.

That’s assuming that Black turned out to be innocent because if he was truly aiding a guilty man and the three of them had truly just knocked out their only actual defender, expulsion was probably the least of their worries. Curse Snape and his inability to be a rational adult!

“Okay, that’s enough backstory,” Harry said impatiently. “Tell me what’s going on! Even if that is Peter, it doesn’t explain anything.”

“Harry, don’t you see?” Lupin said hurriedly. “All this time we’ve thought Sirius betrayed your parents, and Peter tracked him down – but it was the other way around, don’t you see? Peter betrayed your mother and father. Sirius tracked Peter down-”

“ He killed my parents! He said so himself before you got here!” Harry demanded.

“Harry… I as good as killed them,” he croaked. “I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment; persuaded them to use him as Secret Keeper instead of me… I’m to blame, I know it… The night they died, I’d arranged to check on Peter to make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he’d gone. Yet there was no sign of a struggle. It didn’t feel right. I was scared. I set out for your parents’ house straight away. And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies… I realized what Peter must’ve done… what I’d done…”

His voice broke and he turned away.

Harry was getting whiplash with this guy. One moment he’s slavering for murder and the next he’s tearing up talking about past mistakes. Harry’s magic was writhing irritably, still incredibly agitated, but now lacking an obvious danger.

“Enough of this,” Lupin said firmly. “There’s one certain way to prove what really happened. Ron, give me that rat.”

Ron twitched and clutched the rat closer. “What are you going to do with him?”

“Force him to show himself. If he really is a rat, it won’t hurt him,” Lupin promised.

Ron hesitated, then held out Scabbers for Lupin to take.

Scabbers began to squeak without stopping, twisting and turning, his tiny black eyes bulging in his head.

Lupin held the rat up, and with a silent spell and a flash of blue-white light, Scabbers dropped to the floor and rapidly grew from a rat into a man. He was quite short, with a shrunken appearance, as though he’d been rather plump and suddenly lost a lot of weight. His skin looked grubby and something of the rat lingered around his pointed nose and small, watery eyes.

He looked around at them all, breathing fast and shallow. His eyes darted between them and the door.

“Well, hello, Peter,” Lupin said, almost pleasantly. “Long time, no see.”

“S-sirius… R-remus,” his voice verily squeaked. “My friends. My old friends.”

Black’s wand rose, but Lupin seized him around the wrist, giving him a warning look.

“We’ve been having a little chat, Peter, about what happened the night Lily and James died. You might have missed the finer points while you were squeaking around down there on the bed-”

“Remus,” gasped Pettigrew, “you don’t believe him, do you…? He tried to kill me, Remus…”

“So we’ve heard,” Lupin said coldly. “I’d like to clear up one or two little matters with you, Peter, if you’d be so-”

“He’s come to try and kill me again!” Pettigrew squeaked suddenly, pointing at Black with his middle finger as he was missing the index digit. “He killed Lily and James and now he’s going to kill me, too!”

And Harry was certain that he was lying about Sirius being the culprit.

“No one’s going to try and kill you until we’ve sorted a few things out,” said Lupin.

“I knew he’d come after me! I knew he’d be back for me! I’ve been waiting for this for twelve years!” Peter insisted.

“You knew Sirius was going to break out of Azkaban?” Remus asked doubtfully. “When nobody has ever done it before?”

“He’s got Dark powers the rest of us can only dream of!”

Lie.

“How else did he get out of there? I suppose He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named taught him a few tricks.”

Lie.

“Voldemort teach me tricks?” Sirius laughed.

Pettigrew flinched from the name.

“What, scared to hear your old master’s name?” said Black. “I don’t blame you, Peter. His lot aren’t very happy with you, are they?”

“Don’t know what you mean, Sirius-” Pettigrew muttered nervously.

Lie.

“You haven’t been hiding from me for twelve years. You’ve been hiding from Voldemort’s old supporters. I heard things in Azkaban, Peter. They all think you’re dead, or you’d have to answer to them. I’ve heard them screaming all sorts of things. Sounds like they think the double-crosser double-crossed them. Voldemort went to the Potters’ on your information, and Voldemort met his downfall there. And not all Voldemort’s supporters ended up in Azkaban, did they? There are still plenty out there, biding their time, pretending they’ve seen the error of their ways. If they ever got wind that you were still alive, Peter-”

All true, as far as Harry could tell, and he was starting to think he really could tell. More than just a sense for truth that he’d always had. This was different. This was a stark difference. Like every lie was an off-tune note, ringing oddly in his ears.

His father was sometimes called the Prince of Lies. Did this come back to that?

“Don’t know… what you’re talking about…” Peter muttered, now sweating profusely.

Harry heard the lie, but it was obvious even without that.

“You don’t believe this- this madness, Remus-”

“I must admit, I'm having a difficult time imagining why an innocent man would want to spend twelve years as a rat,” said Lupin evenly.

“Innocent, but scared!”

Harry grimaced at the lie, so loud it almost hurt his ears – the first bit, at least.

“If Voldemort’s supporters were after me, it was because I put one of their best men in Azkaban- the spy, Sirius Black.”

Lie.

“How dare you,” Sirius growled. “Me, a spy for Voldemort? When did I ever sneak around people who were stronger and more powerful than myself? But you, Peter- I’ll never understand why I didn’t see you were the spy from the start. You always liked big friends who’d look after you, didn’t you? It used to be us… Me and Remus. And James.”

Peter muttered almost incoherently in his defense.

“Lily and James only made you Secret-Keeper because I suggested it,” Black hissed, so venomously that Pettigrew took a step backward. “I thought it was the perfect plan… a bluff. Voldemort would be sure to come after me, would never dream they’d use a weak, talentless thing like you. It must have been the finest moment of your miserable life, telling Voldemort you could hand him the Potters.”

Hermione interrupted to ask why Pettigrew hadn’t killed Harry in the three years they shared a dorm if he was the villain.

Sirius answered that as Pettigrew never would have risked something like that unless he was absolutely certain that he could get protection from Voldemort afterward. Pettigrew didn’t contest it, so Harry supposed it was the truth.

Hermione then probed into how Black escaped Azkaban if not with some grand Dark magical talent.

Black replied that he’d used his animagus form, which the dementors don’t track the way they do humans. Then he just slipped through the bars since his dog form was so emaciated.

Black explained that, after seeing Pettigrew with Ron in the paper, he’d known that he had to break out to get to him before he could get to Harry. As soon as he got a hint that the Dark was gathering strength, he’d have grabbed Harry and taken him to Voldemort to assure that no one questioned his loyalties.

“So you see, I was the only one who knew Peter was alive. I had to do something… It was as if someone lit a fire in my head, and the dementors couldn’t destroy it. It wasn’t a happy feeling. It was an obsession. But it gave me strength, it cleared my mind. So one night, when they opened my door to bring food, I slipped past them as a dog. It’s so much harder for them to sense animal emotions that they were confused. I slipped through the bars and swam as a dog back to the mainland. I journeyed north and slipped into the Hogwarts grounds as a dog. I’ve been living in the forest ever since, except when I came to watch the Quidditch, of course. You fly as well as your father did, Harry.”

Harry stared at him and Black watched him intently.

“Believe me. Believe me, Harry. I never betrayed James and Lily. I would have died before I betrayed them.”

He was telling the truth, Harry was sure. And yet…

“When I first got here, when I attacked you,” he said very carefully. “You wrapped your hand around my throat and you choked me. I thought you’d betrayed my parents, but you were under no misapprehensions.” He kept his wand directed at Black with one hand and touched the tender skin of his neck with the other. It was bruising, he could feel it. “You were prepared to hurt, maybe kill me, to get to him. That doesn’t sound like someone who was coming after him in order to protect me.”

Remus frowned at Harry’s neck, then turned his frown on Black.

The man actually whined, reminiscent of a dog, “Harry, I… I was confused. I just… I was obsessed, Harry. It’s what’s kept me going since I saw that article. It’s what was driving me… I. I got confused when you tried to stop me. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

It all sounded true.

Harry hesitated a moment before admitting, “I believe you.”

Pettigrew immediately began to panic, fighting to get someone to believe him innocent. Black just kicked at him when he tried to appeal to his “old friend”. He turned on Lupin next. “You don’t believe this, Remus! Wouldn’t Sirius have told you they’d changed the plan?”

“Not if he thought I was the spy, Peter,” said Lupin coolly, then looked to Sirius over Pettigrew’s head. “I assume that’s why you didn’t tell me, Sirius?”

“Forgive me, Remus,” said Black.

“Not at all, Padfoot, old friend,” Lupin said, calmly rolling up his sleeves. “And will you, in turn, forgive me for believing you were the spy?”

“Of course,” Black responded with the ghost of a grin as he too began rolling up his sleeves. “Shall we kill him together?”

“Yes, I think so,” Lupin agreed.

And what a lovely bonding moment this was to witness. Personally, Harry wasn’t ready to forgive anyone. Nor was he sure he was ready to watch these two like physically gut the man, as they seemed to be getting ready to do.

Pettigrew tried to appeal to Ron’s love for Scabbers as a last resort and got only utmost revulsion in return. Honestly, the man was truly desperate to hope for help from that quarter. He tried Hermione next, but she only backed away in horror.

Then Pettigrew dared to turn his pleas on Harry. “Harry. Harry, you look just like your father. Just like him.”

Harry almost laughed at that platitude because James wasn’t even his biological father, though he was glad to see that even these men – James’ best friends in life – seemed to have no clue that he’d been adopted by James rather than sired. Surely if they hadn’t been told, absolutely no one had. Harry didn’t think he looked all that much like the pictures of James that he’d seen, beyond superficially. People just seemed to see what they expected to see. He did wonder what his real father looked like, and if he bore him any resemblance.

Black screamed at Pettigrew for daring to even speak to Harry, much less about his parents, but Pettigrew clearly knew he was running out of hope as he kept on. “Harry. Harry, James wouldn’t have wanted me killed. James would have understood, Harry. He would have shown me mercy.”

“You sold Lily and James to Voldemort,” Black accused. “Do you deny it?”

Pettigrew burst into tears. It was horrible to watch. He looked like an oversized, balding baby, cowering on the floor. Somehow this was not as satisfying as killing Black would have felt, had he been guilty. Angry and insane and fighting back was much less pathetic.

“Sirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord… You have no idea… He has weapons you can’t imagine. I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me-”

Lie.

“Don’t Lie!” Black clearly heard it as well. “You’d been passing information to him for a year before Lily and James died! You were his spy!”

“He was taking over everywhere! What was there to be gained by refusing him?”

Truth.

“What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives, Peter!”

“You don’t understand! He would have killed me, Sirius!”

“Then you should have DIED!” Black roared. “Died rather than betray your friends, as WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!”

Lupin and Black raised their wands, ready to finish Pettigrew off and for a moment, Harry awaited it eagerly even as Hermione hid her face in her hands.

But then no one would ever know.

“Wait!” he called sharply, hurrying to stand between them and the disgusting traitor of a man.

“Harry, this piece of vermin is the reason you have no parents,” Black snarled. “This cringing bit of filth would have seen you die too, without turning a hair. You heard him. His own stinking skin meant more to him than your whole family.”

“I know,” Harry said firmly. “That’s why I want him turned over to the Ministry. Otherwise, he gets to keep his Order of the Merlin First Class and everyone goes on thinking he was a hero .”

Pettigrew flung his arms around Harry’s knees and began blubbering his thanks.

“Get off me!” Harry spat and his magic snarled. Pettigrew must have felt it on some level, because he did shrink back from Harry.  “I’m only doing this because death is too good for you. You’re going to go on trial and everyone will know what you did. Then you’re going to go to Azkaban with the dementors until they drive you mad and you die in shame. Then, you’ll go to Hell and burn for all eternity.”

Black looked a little conflicted, but Lupin nodded. “Very well. Stand aside, Harry.”

Cautiously, Harry did so, and Lupin used a silent spell to bind Pettigrew in ropes.

Lupin, very logically, decided not to wake Snape until they were back in the castle. Ron’s leg was bound with a spell that conjured a splint, and he was okay to sort of hobble after that. 

Lupin reached for Harry’s invisibility cloak, but Harry snatched it up first and tucked it into his pocket.

Black conjured heavy iron manacles and chained him to Lupin on one side and Ron on the other when the redhead volunteered. He seemed to have taken Scabbers true identity as a personal insult and Harry didn’t blame him. Ron had shared a bed with that scum for years.

They all made their way back to the tunnel and toward the school single-file. They made for an odd sort of precession, but Harry hardly noticed. He’d discovered a rather considerable new power tonight, and he was still trying to reconcile it in his mind.

“You know what this means?” Black said to Harry abruptly as they walked through the tunnel. “Turning Pettigrew in?”

Harry nodded, because it had occurred to him. “You’ll be exonerated.”

“Yes…” Black agreed. “But I’m also… I don’t know if anyone ever told you. I’m your godfather.”

“No,” Harry admitted with a touch of bitterness. “No one did, but I overheard someone talking about it.”

“Well… your parents appointed me your guardian,” Sirius said stiffly. “If anything happened to them…”

“They were hoping you’d run off after revenge and leave me alone?” he posed conversationally, his wand still in hand and ready to defend himself if Black went crazy on him again.

He saw Black swallow and the man said nothing for a long moment. Eventually he said quietly, “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I know,” Harry said stiffly, because he could hear that the man was telling the truth. Didn’t mean he was going to forgive him for it.

“I’ll understand, of course,” Black said after a moment, “if you want to stay with your aunt and uncle. But… well… think about it. Once my name’s cleared… if you wanted a… a different home…”

The thought of living with Black was scary, but the reality of living with the Dursleys was awful. “Live with you?” Harry asked, just to be sure he was understanding.

“Of course. I don’t know if you’d want to… I know I fucked up, so I understand. I just thought…”

The man had had his hand around Harry’s throat half an hour ago. He was sure the bruise was visible by now.

“Will you… Would you take a wand oath that you’d never hurt me again? Physically or magically?” Harry posed cautiously.

Black looked like he’d been slapped and he nodded immediately, “Of course, Harry. Merlin, I didn’t mean to hurt you! I wouldn’t ever do that again. I’m so sorry.”

Harry nodded. “If you took an oath then… Yeah. I’d stay with you.” If he couldn’t hurt Harry, then he’d be way better than the Dursleys, even if he was kind of crazy from Azkaban. Or possibly just crazy, since he’d tried to kill a classmate when he was a teenager.

“You want to? You mean it?” Black asked excitedly.

Harry nodded, giving a faint smile in response to Black’s ebullience.

They all made it out of the tunnel and started toward the school. Everything seemed to be working out.

Until the clouds shifted.

“Run,” Black whispered as Lupin began to change. “Run, now!”

But Harry and Hermione couldn’t flee while Ron was chained to what was rapidly becoming a werewolf.

Then Black flowed smoothly into the big black dog and leapt to confront the angry werewolf to try to keep it away from them.

Then Pettigrew made his escape, diving for Lupin’s dropped wand. There was a bang and a flash of light and Ron went down, hopefully just stunned.

“Expelliarmus!” Harry bellowed, a second too late to protect Ron. Lupin’s wand went flying, but Pettigrew was already transforming. Even with the light of the full moon, the gray rat blended into the grass and tree roots. Harry sent a couple quick stunners toward him, but none found the mark and then the rat was gone.

Harry had only a moment to watch in horrified disbelief as the traitor escaped before his attention was drawn back to the fight, where the werewolf let out a rumbling groan and then it turned and fled into the forest.

“He’s gone,” Harry gasped out. “Pettigrew, he got away!” and he pointed in the right direction, hoping desperately that Black’s canine nose could track him.

Black, thankfully, wasted no time in taking up pursuit.

Now alone but for the still-unconscious Snape, Harry and Hermione hurried to check on Ron.

Ron was still alive, but neither Harry nor Hermione were sure what had been done to him. His eyes were half open and his jaw was lolling, but he seemed totally insensate.

Without knowing how to help, they decided to get Ron and Snape up to the castle and look for help there. Before they could even begin though, there was a sharp yelp the way Black had gone, a dog crying out in pain.

Harry and Hermione both turned worried eyes toward the noise.

Black cried out again and continued to do so, clearly in serious distress.

Harry hesitated, but he figured Ron and Snape would be safe enough here for the moment, and Black sounded like he was in real trouble. Was it Lupin? Or had Pettigrew fought back. The man was clearly a coward, but even cowards could be dangerous when they could no longer run away.

After only a moment of hesitation, Harry began running toward the noise and he heard Hermione take up right after him.

They found Black on the lakeshore, just transformed back into a man and now moaning and begging with his hands clutched over his head.

And then Harry saw them. Dementors. There must have been more than a hundred of them, a gliding black mass approaching around the lake.

The dementors hadn’t ever seemed very interested in Harry. In fact, they mostly seemed to avoid him in general. He didn’t think they liked his magic very much, though he wasn’t sure how safe he was given their numbers.

Gathering his courage and resolve, Harry moved to stand over Black as the hoarde neared, and raised his wand defiantly even though he didn’t know any spells likely to effect them all that much.

His magic, at least, seemed up to the challenge. It had been agitated for ages now, with nothing much to do. As the dementors’ chill began to fall over Harry, his magic rose within him and chased the cold and the encroaching despair away.

He heard Hermione struggling to cast the dementor-repelling spell that Lupin had used on the train, but she wasn’t having much luck, getting nothing more than faint silvery whisps as she seemed to struggle to remain conscious.

Harry swallowed and gripped his wand tightly though he had no idea what spell he might cast. He’d never even read up on the patronus charm like Hermione. He hadn’t felt the need since the dementors seemed happy enough to leave him alone.

Hermione collapsed and the horrible creatures swarmed all around. Harry still wasn’t feeling the effects, but they were getting braver. Coming closer. He was straddling Black’s unconscious body, so they couldn’t get to him without going through Harry.

He was beginning to question the wisdom of this particular course of action despite knowing it was the only way Black had a chance of surviving.

Harry’s magic lashed out when the dementors drew too near, but it only seemed to push them back momentarily. He was starting to get scared, and that was making his magic even more volatile.

“Stay back!” he warned, with more bravado than confidence. Unfortunately, it was like the dementors could sense that.

They were suddenly surrounding him on all sides. He felt the cold seep through, just a little and his fear grew. This had definitely been a stupid idea.

Then he saw one of them hover over Hermione, one disgusting hand turning her face toward its own. It was very clearly going to Kiss her.

Trusted or not, Hermione was his friend and a good person. She did not deserve to lose her soul.

“No!” he shouted, and he did something that he’d never done before. Instead of casting magic with his wand or letting his magic do as it would, he actively pulled on the writhing mass of power that lived within him. He pushed every bit of his will into protecting the three of them – into destroying the creatures that threatened them.

It was like someone had lit a fire within him. It was so hot, he feared it would destroy him. Then, with a strong scent of sulfur, it poured out of him, and the dementors screamed .

It seemed to last an eternity and his whole body shook with the force of it.

As though all of his strength had gone with the magic, his body sagged with sudden and extreme fatigue. He found himself on his knees as he opened his eyes, never having intentionally closed them. The dementors were gone. He saw only a handful in the distance, fleeing. Had he actually, literally destroyed the rest?

He hoped so. Those things had no business existing at all.

His vision swam and he felt the smallest twist of his magic curling up deep within him, like it wanted a nap.

A nap didn’t sound like a bad idea, he couldn’t help but think as he gave in and let himself fall the rest of the way to the damp ground. He hoped the danger was gone because he was rather certain that he was going to sleep whether he liked it or not.

Then he knew no more.

Chapter Text

Summer

The summer between Harry’s third and fourth years at Hogwarts was notably less awful than previous summers. He was still stuck with the Dursleys, in Dudley’s second bedroom, squished in with piles of broken toys that Dudley refused to bin. In fact, when he’d first arrived home, he’d been quite alarmed by just how furious Vernon seemed to be over the incident with Marge. Fudge had told Harry that she’d been healed and obliviated, but according to Vernon, she had not recovered. Though she didn’t remember the incident, she now suffered such horrible nightmares that she could hardly sleep without medication.

Harry had to admit that he was pleased to hear that she’d not so easily recovered. The woman deserved it. He had, however, had to think quickly to keep Vernon from attacking him when he admitted that he couldn’t fix her. 

That had led to him explaining to them about how the fearsome escaped convict, Sirius Black, was actually a wizard, and his godfather. A terrifying lunatic who nevertheless loved Harry very much and would be sure to kill all three of the Dursleys most painfully should he learn they were mistreating his beloved godson.

Harry wasn’t honestly sure how much he was stretching things there. Black hadn’t seemed overly concerned about whether Harry was happy at home since he’d fled ahead of the dementors in June, but he was also undeniably unhinged and had been happy enough to murder a classmate when he was sixteen. If Harry were to send him a letter describing the way he’d been treated all his life, he did wonder if Black would show up looking for vengeance.

Fear that he wouldn’t care was a big part of the reason he’d not dared to mention it.

Harry was getting three meals a day now – albeit, small ones heavy on veggies and burnt bits – and no chores or scathing lectures on his lacking everything. They’d mostly been trying to ignore him, thankfully.

That treatment had given him the chance to make several trips into London since the holiday began. Train tickets were cheap enough. The first one had been free thanks to his invisibility cloak, but after that he’d gotten some galleons switched to muggle money. He’d stolen things when he was younger because it was the only way he had anything to call his own. Now that he had money, he didn’t want to be a thief.

Mostly, Harry had used his trips to London just to go sit in that bookshop down Knockturn and do some reading, in addition to buying some new books. 

He’d found a book on the animagus transformation and he’d started working toward it. The book made it out to be really hard and Hermione had said that only seven people had registered as animagi at the ministry in the last hundred years.

Of course, he’d also learned that there were three fifteen-year-old animagi at Hogwarts twenty years ago and the Ministry had known nothing about it. If three kids can do it, even if it takes years, Harry couldn’t help but think that they weren’t as rare as you’d think. Certainly not as rare as the ministry register would suggest.

Then again, that made sense. What was the incentive for registering, exactly? Not to break a law and risk going to jail? Well, sure, but it didn’t seem there were many ways of detecting an animagus. Hogwarts was supposed to be the most secure building in Britain, next to maybe Gringotts, and it had no wards to protect against them. So the only way to get caught seemed to be if they knew an animal was an animagus, then they could cast that reversal spell on you.

But since everyone thought it was so extremely rare, who would even check? How many people would really bother even learning that spell?

Harry could see a lot of valuable uses for being an animagus, not least because Voldemort wanted him dead and turning into an animal might allow him to hide or flee an otherwise hopeless situation.

Even the prison didn’t protect against animagi for Merlin’s sake! It was a ridiculously powerful ability.

He suspected it would take a while, but he was going to learn.

He’d gone back and forth on the idea of telling Ron and Hermione when he got back to school. Problem was, he couldn’t trust Hermione. Studying the transformation without qualified oversight was supposed to be pretty dangerous. Harry wasn’t sure if that was true, or just an attempt to make people work with an instructor who would force them to register if they succeeded. Either way, he suspected Hermione just might tell McGonagall for their own good.

Ron, he trusted more, but he didn’t want Ron to find out that he’d been reading books from down Knockturn Alley. Ron was incredibly prejudiced against anything Dark. Harry wasn’t sure what he would do if he found out that Harry got the book from the Dark Alley.

It was midway through August when Harry woke in the middle of the night from a dream he could barely remember. He knew that Voldemort had been in it and a giant snake. Voldemort and another man had been talking about killing Harry, but he didn’t remember much else. He would have brushed it off as just a weird dream except that he’d woken up to a sharp burning in his scar. 

He was sat on his bed now, trying to figure out what, if anything, he should do about it. He felt like he wanted to write someone about it, but he couldn’t think of anything productive coming of it. Hermione would just tell him to tell Dumbledore and then try to research it. Ron would probably just shrug about curse scars being weird and maybe ask his dad. He could write to Dumbledore, of course, but the idea of complaining to the headmaster about dreams and twinges in his scar seemed very silly.

Then he thought of Black – Sirius, the man asked to be called. He was difficult to pin down. He got very upset sometimes about things that Harry thought insignificant, and other times brushed off things Harry thought important. It was hard to predict what he might do, but maybe that was a good reason to write him about it.

Sirius wanted Harry to trust him. To look to him as a godfather, like an adult that could be trusted. The letters they’d exchanged so far hadn’t really made much of an impact on that.

Maybe he should see how Sirius responded to this.

With that in mind, he moved over to this desk. For the first time, Harry’s school things were scattered freely around the room. The Dursleys were too frightened to try to lock them up for the summer.

Harry found some parchment and a quill, then shifted to the bottom of his trunk where the ink jars always ended up. When he had his supplies assembled, he sat a moment in thought before putting ink to page.

He didn’t want to make the whole letter about his scar. That seemed like it would give it too much weight. Though it was driving him to distraction, he didn’t really want anyone to know that. So instead, he started out with usual bits of conversation about the Dursleys and how things were going. He mentioned Dudley’s diet and his constant attempts to sabotage it.

Then he mentioned that his scar had hurt again for the first time since Voldemort was actually near. He didn’t mention the dream because he really couldn’t remember much, and maybe he’d just dreamed it because his scar was hurting and that reminded his unconscious mind of Voldemort. He asked if Sirius knew anything about curse scars maybe hurting years later and if there was a reason or if it just happened.

Then he closed with a short paragraph mentioning that he hoped Sirius was still well and a request to say hello to Buckbeak for him.

He read it over again as the morning sun was beginning to creep into his room, then sent it off with Hedwig.

Quidditch Cup

Harry startled awake, panting with adrenaline and having no idea what had woken him. He sat up quickly and shoved his glasses onto his face. He was just beginning to realize that the sounds outside the tent had changed drastically from boisterous merrymaking to frightened screams and whimpers and feet frantically pounding the earth as they ran.

Before he could begin to wonder what to do, Mr. Weasley came bursting into their little room in the tent.  “Get up, Ron! Harry- Oh, good, you’re awake. Come on now, Ron! Hurry! This is urgent!”

Harry quickly swung himself down from the top bunk and reached for his clothes.

“No time, Harry. Just grab a jacket and get outside. Quickly!” Mr. Weasley ordered, already turning back out of their room. Ron followed, but Harry hesitated a few moments more in order to drag his invisibility cloak out of his bag. He hadn’t expected to really use it on this trip unless there was spying that needed done. After that whole business with learning about his godfather only via spying last year, he’d come to understand that sometimes, it was necessary.

He quickly stuffed the cloak up under his shirt, using one arm to hold it in place, then rushed out of the tent, where Mr. Weasley was looking very relieved to see him join them.

It was difficult to make sense of the scene in the dark at first, but there were enough fires still burning in the massive camp that he was able to piece it together after a few moments. 

There was a group of wizards all packed close together. They were wearing hooded robes with pale-colored masks. It was from them that most people seemed to be fleeing, as the group overturned tents and set others on fire. Above that group, four figures were floating, their bodies spinning and contorting in ways that must have been painful. When they moved near one of the fires, Harry could make out one of the figures to be Mr. Roberts, the campsite manager that had been repeatedly obliviated as they’d arrived.

With him was a woman and two children, one of them very small.

Harry’s stomach turned as he watched the smallest child lolling limply in the magic’s hold as he was spun around over and over again at dizzying speed.

Amidst this scene of horror came raucous laughter and loud jeering.

Disturbingly, the group of sadistic wizards was growing as they moved along, like-minded individuals obviously feeling comfortable to add themselves to the crowd.

It reminded Harry of the time he’d seen Dudley and his group torturing to death a kitten they’d found, laughing and jeering while they brought pain to a helpless creature for their own amusement.

These men were no less pathetic and disgusting. More, even, for these were children, not just a kitten.

Bill, Charlie, and Percy emerged from the tent then, fully dressed and with their wands in hand. Harry felt a moment of frustration. Surely he’d have had time to pull on some clothes as well. Facing this in the ratty clothes he wore as pajamas wasn’t thrilling.

“We’re going to help the Ministry,” Mr. Weasley shouted over all the noise, rolling up his own sleeves. “You lot – get into the woods. And stick together . I’ll come and fetch you when we’ve sorted this out!”

The elder boys were already sprinting toward the commotion and Mr. Weasley rushed after them.

“C’mon,” Fred said, grabbing Ginny’s hand and starting to pull her toward the wood. Harry and the rest quickly moved to follow them. They were part of a great many people threading their way into the trees. Their group stopped once they were under the shade of the trees, to look back at the scene.

The crowd of sadists was larger than ever. There was a growing gathering of wizards and witches trying to challenge them, but they weren’t making much progress. They seemed to be afraid to do anything too aggressive lest the muggles fall to their deaths. The large gathering around the masked wizards was not helping matters.

Around them, people continued to run into the shelter of the trees, panicked voices and crying children.

Harry had been in some dangerous situations since starting Hogwarts, but nothing on this scale. It was horrible. So much fear.

And for what? So a handful of sadists could torture some helpless muggles for their own sick pleasure?

They turned to move further into the trees after the others, but Ron cried out in pain and Hermione cast a lumos to find Ron had tripped on a tree root in the dark.

Harry eyed the lit wand tip. He supposed the Ministry wasn’t likely to be tracking underage magic in all this mess.

“Well, with feet that size, it’s hard not to,” the familiar, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy caused them all to spin to see the blond ponce leaning comfortably against a tree, his arms folded. He seemed to have been watching the scene at the campsite through a gap in the trees.

“Go fuck yourself, Malfoy,” Ron snarled as he pulled himself back to his feet.

“Language, Weasley,” Malfoy drawled, his pale eyes glittering. “Hadn’t you better be hurrying along now? You wouldn’t like her spotted, would you?”

He nodded at Hermione just as a very loud sound – almost like a bomb detonating – came from the campsite accompanied by a harsh blast of green light.

Harry noticed the smallest flinch from Malfoy and a tightening of his expression in response. He was nowhere near as calm about all of this as he wanted them to think, Harry realized.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hermione demanded defiantly despite them all knowing exactly what it meant.

“Granger, they’re after muggles, ” said Malfoy. “D’you want to be showing off your knickers in midair?”

Harry felt his brow draw down as he stared at Malfoy. He wasn’t lying, per se, but he wasn’t telling the truth either. 

“Because if you do, hang around… They’re moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh.”

There ! That was a lie. The last bit. No, Malfoy wouldn’t laugh if Hermione was up there. He actually did want her to get out of here before she was spotted.

Harry glanced back at the mass of wizards laughing as the family was tortured over their heads. Malfoy was a dick, but maybe not a sadist, after all. Not to this extent.

“Come on,” Hermione said, voice quavering as she started further into the trees.

Ron followed and Harry started after them as well. The twins and Ginny were well beyond sight by this point.

Harry glanced back at Malfoy and found him looking toward the campsite again.

Without stopping to really think about it, Harry pulled his cloak from beneath his shirt and swung it around his shoulders, flipping up the hood as quickly as he could. He gave another quick look around, but no one seemed to have noticed his disappearing act.

He watched after Ron and Hermione a moment as they continued on without him. He hoped they wouldn’t do anything stupid when they realized he wasn’t with them anymore, but there was nothing for it. He did not want to go and hide in the woods.

He cast a silencing spell on his feet and moved back toward the campsite. Now that Malfoy thought himself unobserved, Harry noticed that his cavalier superiority had fallen into a vaguely disturbed frown.

Good. Maybe the git wasn’t irredeemable after all.

The flood of people fleeing into the trees was tapering down to a trickle as Harry moved back into the clearing. His agitated magic was on high alert, pulsing within him in time with his pounding heart. 

The crowd of sadists was twice the size of the group challenging them. Harry supposed it wasn’t that surprising. It didn’t take much courage to torture the helpless. 

The noise level grew as he neared the concentration of people. The challengers still didn’t seem to be throwing anything too strong lest they hurt the muggles.

Harry frowned as he looked up at the floating quartet. The youngest child was completely limp. Harry wasn’t sure if the spinning had been enough to kill the kid or if the trauma was just so great that he’d gone catatonic.

He studied the sadists as he drew near. Most of them were doing nothing more than shielding. Most had covered their faces with something, even if they didn’t seem to have the robes and masks of the central group. Some wore hoods while others just a makeshift mask of cloth over their upper and lower faces. Still others had their appearance obscured with some kind of spell that made their features impossible to focus on.

They continued to laugh and have a good time as the family suffered.

These men weren’t frightening, Harry realized. They were pathetic. Though, Harry supposed, there was a certain terror in knowing that these men were so lacking in morality that they wouldn’t hesitate to take a life.

Well, Harry thought grimly, perhaps they deserved the same lack of consideration. He took a deep breath and felt his magic mantling around him as he let the tip of his wand protrude from the seam of the cloak.

He hesitated only a moment before his resolve firmed. It was sort of the golden rule in reverse, right? Why shouldn’t he treat them the way they treated others?

With that in mind, he set his stance, ready to run if necessary. Then he cast one of the spells he’d learned from the Dark Arts books he’d bought the previous summer. It was a Dark severing curse. He sent it carefully through a gap between the challengers and a scream went up among the sadists.

Harry felt a rush of both satisfaction and horror at knowing he’d scored a hit. He’d been aiming at leg height, looking more to incapacitate and maim than kill. He quickly jogged a bit further along, to the side where the challengers were thinner, then mentally prepared himself and cast another spell. This one was a blasting curse, and he aimed as deep as he could between the bodies of the sadists. He figured the central figures were the instigators, thus the most likely to be the properly evil of the lot.

There was another scream and Harry had to glance up at the family again to convince himself to keep going. It was probably a good thing that he wasn’t having fun. He didn’t want to be like these arseholes. He didn’t get his jollies from hurting people. 

Considering his father, it was a comfort to know that he didn’t enjoy it, even when the victims so richly deserved it.

Seeing the woman sobbing in despair and reaching uselessly for the smallest child, Harry’s resolve hardened into icy rage and he moved a bit further along before casting another blasting curse, and then another severing curse, followed by a flaying curse, because fucking child killers deserved nothing less than having their skin ripped from their bodies.

A few of his spells bounced off shields, but he was careful in his aiming and timing, sending them as soon as a shield dropped and before it was cast again. Most of his spells made it through.

It didn’t take long with the real curses coming at them before the sadists began to break ranks. The strident cracks of apparition began a few at a time, then became an all-out rout, sounding like nothing so much as a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

Adrenaline pumping, Harry turned and sprinted back toward the trees before the challengers could begin searching for stragglers to round up.

He glanced back when he reached the trees and he saw the family begin to fall only for someone to catch them with a spell and lower them slowly.

Hoping that the little boy survived, Harry ran in the general direction the others had gone. When questioned, he needed it to be believable that he’d just gotten lost.

He’d barely started into the woods when a sickly green light suddenly erupted above the tree tops and didn’t go out again.

Harry looked at it warily, and veered to the left of it a good ways before cautiously circling back. As he drew closer, he heard raised voices and he was able to make out the green light above the trees. It was in the shape of a massive skull with a snake coming out of its mouth.

Harry shivered as he recognized the symbol. It was Voldemort’s calling card. He’d seen a picture of it in a modern history book he’d read last summer. It had told him a lot more about his own history and the war that had left him an orphan than any adult had ever bothered.

As he drew closer, he began to recognize the voices and he quickly slipped out of his cloak and tucked it back under his shirt.

He could hear Mr. Weasley and Ron and Hermione as well as several other voices he didn’t know. He paused cautiously on the edge of the little clearing directly below the Dark Mark in the sky.

He could only stare in disbelief as they seemed to be accusing a house-elf of casting the Dark Mark. And of breaking some code of wand use that stated only humans could carry or use wands.

Which was astonishingly prejudiced and authoritarian. Wands were just a magical focus. Every creature with magic should be allowed to use them. Restricting it to humans made no sense but to give them more power to remain in control while oppressing magical creatures.

He was so intent on his inner diatribe that he missed quite a bit of the argument going on, only tuning back in when the elf began sobbing hysterically as she pleaded her innocence.

Ron suddenly cried out that the wand the elf was accused of using was his. That he must have dropped it. Diggory tried to pin the whole thing on Ron until Mr. Weasley hotly protested him accusing his son.

Diggory backed off then, seeming a bit embarrassed.

Harry couldn’t help but think that if it had been anyone other than Ron or someone with a parent in the Ministry… If it had been a Slytherin, for example, one without a powerful dad like Malfoy, they’d probably be on their way to Ministry custody.

Overall, he was astonishingly unimpressed with the Ministry tonight. First, they, as a group, were unable to stop the sadists with their careful, Light spells. Now they were accusing anyone handy of this. There were like twenty of them and they hadn’t even spread out to properly search the area. Just one bloke walked over to check the exact direction Hermione had suggested.

Diggory then tried to pin it on the elf, using a spell to determine the last spell cast by the wand. It was the Dark Mark, which, in his mind, meant that the elf had cast it despite Ron and Hermione just testifying that it had been a deep, human voice. The elf only got off because Crouch made a fuss about anyone thinking an elf in his employ could learn such a spell. Again, it was only her affiliations that saved her, not her innocence.

Crouch then informed the elf that she was going to get clothes for disobeying him and leaving the tent. That was rich considering that pretty much everyone in the campsite had fled, but he’d expected his poor elf to remain in a tent where those wizards were starting them on fire.

What a fucking prick!

The elf’s sobs were painful to observe and Mr. Weasley soon cleared his throat and announced that he was going to take his lot home.

That’s when Hermione suddenly cried out that they’d lost Harry somewhere.

Before anyone could begin to panic, Harry made himself known, explaining that he’d just gotten turned around, but he’d noticed the mark and come to see what was happening.

No one seemed willing to question his story and they were soon on their way.

They met up with the rest of their original group in the tent and had a brief discussion about Death Eaters and the Dark Mark. Then Mr. Weasley ushered them all off to bed to try to get a few more hours’ sleep before they took an early portkey back to the Burrow.

Harry lay in bed as the snores of the others began one by one. Mr. Weasley had said that there were a few deaths among the group with the Death Eaters. There was too much confusion to be sure just yet, but the deaths all seemed to be caused by Dark spells, which made the aurors believe they’d probably been attacks within their own number. People looking to settle scores anonymously in the confusion.

A few deaths. Caused by Dark spells. They could all have been done by Harry. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He’d killed Quirrell but it had quite literally been in defense of his own life. And he’d killed Riddle in the Chamber, though whether he was alive enough to qualify, Harry still hadn’t been able to work out. That had also been the only way to save Ginny.

This was different. They were all enjoying and supporting the torture of innocents – children even! – but they’d not killed anyone tonight. According to Mr. Weasley, all the muggles survived, though Harry wasn’t sure if that meant they wouldn’t have any permanent brain damage or anything. When the Ministry had said they fixed Marge last summer, they’d not known that she would suffer debilitating nightmares, after all.

Did they deserve to die? Had Harry had a right to attack them with lethal spells?

The questions followed him into sleep long after the others in the tent.

Hogwarts

On September 1st, Mrs. Weasley suggested hiring muggle taxis to take them to King’s Cross. Luckily, Harry managed to convince her to use the Knight bus. It would actually be a lot cheaper that way and had the added bonus of not risking the statute of secrecy.

Fred and George were still rather cool toward their mum despite her regret over yelling at them when she wasn’t sure if they were killed. She seemed determined to destroy their dream of opening a joke shop so they’d go and get nice, respectable jobs at the Ministry of Magic like Percy.

Harry strongly suspected the pair of them would go abroad like Bill and Charlie before they ever worked for the Ministry. It kind of made him wonder if that’s not why Bill and Charlie moved abroad. Surely Mrs. Weasley wasn’t any happier with Bill’s interest in Dark Curses and Charlie’s love of dragons than she was the twins’ fascination with pranks.

Harry had always loved how much she cared about her family, but he was starting to see that her children didn’t appreciate it all that much. Even Percy, despite following exactly what his mother wanted for him, seemed to seriously disdain a lot of things about their family.

The discord in the family that he’d always loved made him uncomfortable, so he tried to ignore it as much as he could.

As they boarded the train, all of the adult Weasleys had to chip in with cryptic hints about something exciting happening at Hogwarts this year. Something that they’d recently changed the rules for in a way that Mrs. Weasley approved of. Charlie mentioned that it was classified ministry information. Bill said he might stop by to watch a bit.

Frustratingly, none of them would just say what it was even though they would supposedly hear all about it at Hogwarts that evening.

So it was with much exasperation that they went in search of a compartment.

They overheard Malfoy moaning on about the tragedy that he didn’t get to go to Durmstrang, which was apparently a northern European school that didn’t permit muggleborns and put a lot of emphasis on the Dark Arts in their lessons.

Harry kind of tuned out at that point. He just didn’t understand the prejudice against the Dark Arts. It was ridiculous. Yes, they could be dangerous, but so could giving an eleven-year-old a wand but they did that without blinking.

Ron and Hermoine both seemed to take it at face value that Dark Arts were Evil. Yet a whole school taught them to children… A major school, too. One of the three largest schools in Europe for magic, and they thought Dark Arts were okay for children to learn.

Like a whole school was just teaching kids, from eleven years old, to use evil magic and no one in Northern Europe had a problem with that…

It just didn’t make sense. Harry was used to that with wizards sometimes, but Hermione should be able to think things through logically.

Maybe she just read too many biased books. They all said the same thing, so she just assumed they couldn’t be wrong.

Merlin, it was frustrating.

He couldn’t help but think that his best mates would turn on him if they ever learned how Dark his magic actually was. And not because of anything he’d done or wanted to do, but just because of an accident of birth.

Like, “Oh, wait, you were born evil? And you didn’t ever tell us that? How could you deceive us for so long!”

That was prejudice, and neither of them saw it.

When they finally arrived at the castle, they made their way inside amid an epic downpour that left them all sopping wet. Thankfully, a basic drying spell was one they’d all learned pretty early on. Harry and Hermione both cast it on themselves, then Hermione added one for Ron as he always complained that he could never get it quite right. It either left him damp or so dry he was itchy.

The sorting began and Harry watched with mild interest. The second student to be sorted went to Slytherin and Harry glanced over at that table to see Malfoy looking even more smug than normal. Of course, the twat knew whatever was supposed to be happening at Hogwarts this year that none of the Weasleys had been willing to tell them about.

Harry’s eyes trailed to the boy next to Malfoy then. Blaise, Harry recognized. He was smirking in amusement at Malfoy and Harry swallowed hard before looking away to clap for the first Gryffindor sorted. Dennis Creevy, Colin’s little brother.

Dennis was absolutely sopping wet and clearly just as exuberant as his brother as he immediately began loudly going on about how he’d fallen into the lake and been scooped out by something in the water, which Colin postulated was the giant squid, which just made Dennis even more excited. The two continued to go on as Colin cast a drying spell on his little brother that left his hair standing straight up. He’d clearly overdone it, but Dennis just laughed joyfully at the feeling.

Then Nick mentioned the house-elves of Hogwarts and Hermione nearly lost her mind.

“But they get paid?” she demanded. “They get holidays, don’t they? And sick leave and pensions and everything?”

Harry stared at her in a bit of disbelief. What on Earth would a house-elf do with a pension? Retire to a flat on Diagon Alley? They were only welcome in society as servants. They probably worked until they keeled over. Of course, it wasn’t right , but a lot of things about Wizarding Britain wasn’t right and she mostly seemed keen enough to ignore it.

“Slave labor,” Hermione decided. “That’s what made this dinner. Slave labor.”

And she refused to eat another bite.

Harry sighed and kept eating. Hermione was weird. Was she really going to starve herself all year long? Or insist that her parents owl her food everyday?

Then Dumbledore announced the Twi-Wizard Tournament would be taking place at Hogwarts that year, which meant no Quidditch all year. Only those of age would be able to compete. And Hogwarts would be hosting representatives from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang starting in November.

Ron was furious that he wouldn’t be able to compete, as were the twins, though it was a little more understandable for them. They were less than half a year off from being old enough, and other students from their year would be able to put their names forward. Seemed like it would make more sense to say “just seventh years” or “six and seventh years”, because their likelihood to live or die would seem to have more to do with their schooling than their age.

Fred and George decided that they were going to try to trick the impartial judge and Ron decided that he’d put his name in too, if they could manage it. 

Harry never said whether he would want to partake or not, if he could, but when he crawled into bed that night, he gave a moment’s thought to what it would be like to win this famed tournament.

He’d have a thousand galleons and adoration from everyone…

Yeah, but he already had money and the adoration would probably only last until someone accused him of something again, like in second year. And the adults would still think he was too young to know anything.

It would be nice if Ron won though. He’d likely spend the money in a week, but he’d probably love the fame. At least for a while.

Chapter Text

Moody

Monday morning brought Herbology followed by Care of Magical Creatures. In Herbology, they were squeezing puss out of Bobtubers. Apparently it was very valuable, but irritating to the skin when undiluted. It was gross, but kind of fun. Care of Magical Creatures, on the other hand, was also a bit gross but not at all fun. 

Hagrid’s Blast-ended skrewts were disgusting shell-less lobster creatures that smelled like rotted fish. Also, they shot sparks out of their butts. Sadly, when Malfoy wanted to know what use there was in raising the creatures, Hagrid had nothing.

When Hagrid explained that the males had stingers and the females sucked blood, Malfoy had to be an arse, of course.

“Well, I can certainly see why we’re trying to keep them alive,” he said sarcastically. “Who wouldn’t want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?”

Hagrid pointed out that dragons were extremely useful for their blood and parts even though you wouldn’t want one as a pet.

“They’d make for good security, too,” Harry pointed out. “Once they get bigger.”

Draco rolled his eyes very expressively, but Harry noticed that Blaise just lifted an amused eyebrow at him.

Harry looked away quickly to focus on trying to feed the skrewts before he ended up stung.

One of them did manage to get its teeth around a bit of his finger, but it didn’t seem to have a very hard bite. At least not this young.

When lunch was finished, Harry waved Ron off with encouragement to enjoy the double divination lesson.

He laughed to himself at the look on Ron’s face as he made his way back outside. He was going to enjoy the weather while it was nice and find a secluded spot near the forest to let Kaa out for a bit. Anyway, he knew Ron would get him back for that comment on Wednesday afternoon when he and Hermione had to go to double Ancient Runes while Ron had hours to relax.

When he found a secluded clearing just on the edge of the forest near the lake, hidden by some bushes and a boulder, Harry called out his snake, then settled down with his Book Vault to read more about the next steps of the animagus transformation. So far, it was mostly getting good at meditating. Once he had that down, he’d be able to do a simple ritual to identify his animal. After that, there was a lot of meditating on the animal until he understood it, though he wasn’t exactly clear on how meditating would help him to understand an animal, so that’s what he was studying now.

Kaa mostly just sunbathed and explored the area while Harry learned that the animal, once identified, would become a part of his mind and he would have to meditate on it and it would reveal itself to him.

He wasn’t sure that he fully understood, but hopefully it would make more sense after the ritual.

He also wondered if this was like with Kaa. Would his form be a double of his familiar? Or was it a different animal companion sort of thing?

When he made his way inside for dinner, Malfoy confronted him and Ron and Hermione in the great hall in order to mock Mr. Weasley for the way that Skeeter bitch had portrayed him. Then the prick started in on Mrs. Weasley for being overweight. Like she wasn’t entirely due after six pregnancies.

Harry retaliated about Mrs. Malfoy and Draco very quickly acted like speaking bad about someone’s mother was unconscionable. 

Then Harry tried to walk away and the fucking ponce tried to curse him in the back. Fortunately, Harry’s magic rose up and deflected it before it could do him any harm.

Then Professor Moody went mad – or may be proved how mad he already was – and turned Malfoy into a ferret and bounced him around the entry hall until McGonagall intervened.

Ron and many other Gryffindors thought it was hilarious, but Harry was not so keen. What Moody had done to Malfoy was not all that different from what those Death Eaters had done to the muggles. Had Malfoy been in human form, Harry didn’t think most of them would have found it as funny, but he doubted it had been any different to Malfoy.

When they sat down in the great hall for dinner, Ron looked almost orgasmic at what had just happened and mentioned his desire to fix it in his memory forever.

Even Hermione laughed at that.

Harry just frowned and focused on his food. Yeah, it was shitty that Malfoy tried to hex him in the back, but he hadn’t used a really dangerous spell. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it hadn’t been anything that would have made him in danger of his life. He could tell that just by how his magic had reacted. It had deflected the spell just enough so it missed, but it hadn’t turned on Malfoy with any real intent.

Hermione, at least, did put in a token complaint that Malfoy could have been seriously hurt, even if she pushed no further.

Harry chose not to comment at all. He knew Ron wouldn’t be convinced and Hermione might be upset. She did have more reason than most to hate Malfoy.

It wasn’t until Thursday they had their first lesson with Professor Moody. Though many other students talked of his lessons with awe, Harry wasn’t so sure he was ready to embrace this Defense teacher.

The last three hadn’t been so great, after all. Quirrell tried to kill him. Lockhart tried to obliviate him. Lupin tried to eat him – albeit, not intentionally. Lupin had at least known his subject and taught it in a manner that was engaging and easily followed. Harry had no idea what to expect from Moody.

By the time they made it to their first Defense class, everyone was almost vibrating with anticipation. Harry, naturally, was more reserved. Teachers for this class tended to try to kill him at some point and Moody was an extremely dangerous former auror from all he’d heard.

Moody called roll, then announced that he was going to be teaching them curses, rather than just countercurses as the Ministry seemed to think appropriate for any students under sixth year. Apparently Dumbledore thought them ready to learn how to cast the Unforgivable Curses, which was somewhat alarming.

He started with the Imperius Curse, which was used to control. He cast it on a spider to demonstrate. Harry didn’t laugh with everyone else because he’d read about these curses and the things they’d been used to do. The Imperius was easily the worst, he thought. At least for those who couldn’t fight it. What was pain or instant death against the ability to make someone follow your every whim? The very worst of crimes could be committed in such a way.

He could also feel the Dark Magic in that curse. It sang like a chorus of tortured screams and Harry struggled not to hunch in on himself as his own magic reacted by doing the thing where it seemed to mantle around him protectively.

The next was the Cruciatus, the torture curse. Moody seemed to get a little lost in that curse, using it considerably longer than the demonstration merited and actually only stopping when Hermione shouted at him.

Poor Neville was pale and trembling from watching that demonstration.

Then, finally, “The last and worst. Avada Kedavra… the Killing Curse.”

Harry firmly disagreed about the order Moody seemed to be putting these in. The Killing Curse was believed to be painless. Instant death. No pain. Not enough time for much fear. Just a merciful end. Compared to being tortured with infinite pain or played with like a puppet on strings, Harry rather thought this was the lesser of the three.

Then he set loose a spider and cast, “Avada Kedavra!”

There was a swell of pure Dark magic and it did not scream this time. It was more of a whispered breath. The last exhale, perhaps.

And the spider died.

Harry wondered if there was any sense in putting those three spells into the same group. The first two felt similar enough. The Killing Curse was totally different.

Or maybe it was just different to him. He’d survived it once, after all. He wasn’t eager to test if he could survive it again, but it was a decent theory. Perhaps his parentage made him immune to that particular spell?

“Not nice,” Moody said abruptly, rather countering Harry’s own thought process on the spell. “Not pleasant. And there’s no countercurse. There’s no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he’s sitting right in front of me.”

And both of Moody’s eyes focused on Harry intently.

Harry swallowed uncomfortably as he felt every set of eyes in the room sweep to him.

After the lesson, Harry wasn’t horrified so much as deeply pensive. It was a mercy. How his parents had died. Not that they’d had to die at all, because surely they’d not, but the way Voldemort had done it.

Instant. Painless. Peaceful.

He couldn’t stop remembering how it had felt when that magic had taken the life of the spider.

A peaceful end and then they’d surely gone to heaven, having just sacrificed themselves that their son might live. He didn’t know anything about heaven. He didn’t expect that he was ever going to get to go there. He knew something of Hell though. The screams. The sadistic laughter. 

Maybe there was a way to just live forever. Then he’d never have to find out if Hell would be as bad for him as those he heard screaming. Would his Father welcome him, or lock him up in the worst part of Hell for fear of a challenge to his throne?

Flamel had made that Stone, right? That had kept him alive some nearly 700 years. Maybe Harry could invent something like that.

Assuming he was even mortal. But he dreaded to find that answer the hard way. Not when he knew that no afterlife of his would ever end surrounded by loved ones.

That evening in the common room found Neville’s spirits much improved by a book on water plants from Professor Moody, who’d apparently heard from Professor Sprout that he was great at Herbology.

Ron settled down to make up tragic predictions for his future while Harry got his Runes books and settled down to outline his essay. Runes was undoubtedly a challenge, but Harry was loving it more all the time. It was a lot of work. There were so many runes and about a million ways to combine them to different effects. Choosing the right runes to pair to get the best result on whatever you were trying to accomplish was as much intuition as it was understanding. That’s the part Harry loved most, though Hermione complained all the time about the lack of quantifiable answers. 

She wanted the books to tell her what to do. Harry liked that the books only gave guidelines to follow.

Then Hermione returned from the library with a box and began her recruitment speech for her new… Well, labeling it less than a Calling would probably be disingenuous.

Harry watched uneasily as Hermione began arguing with Ron about whether or not house-elves wanted to be enslaved. He happened to know the answer, but he really wasn’t sure whether or not he should say. He didn’t want Hermione to find out that he had a bonded house-elf. At least not while they were still in school and the elf wasn’t even actually working for him. Seemed a bit mental to invoke her wrath when he wasn’t even using the elf for anything.

Harry just watched Hermione in some degree of disbelief as she informed Ron that he would be treasurer and apparently in charge of holding a tin and collecting money for their cause. Harry was informed that he was secretary and was therefore expected to do the work of a dictaquill for their meetings, of which this was evidently the first.

Thankfully, Harry was saved figuring out how to handle this by the arrival of Hedwig, whom he’d not seen since sending her off to Sirius with instructions to wait for a reply.

He’d mentioned to Ron and Hermione that he was waiting on a letter from Sirius, but he hadn’t told them about his scar hurting. He figured there was a good chance that it was nothing important. It had hurt all of first year, after all, on and off.

Yes, Voldemort was near during that time, but he was trying to hope for the best. Also, he didn’t want to hear Hermione tell him to tell Dumbledore. He did not and could not properly trust the old man as Hermione seemed to have since before ever laying eyes on him.

When he opened the letter though, Ron and Hermione were poised to read over his shoulders before he even had it open and he figured prevaricating would be worse than just letting them read it.

Harry –

I’m flying north immediately. This news about your scar is the latest in a series of strange rumors that have reached me here. If it hurts again, go straight to Dumbledore – they’re saying he’s got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means he’s reading the signs, even if no one else is.

I’ll be in touch soon. My best to Ron and Hermione. Keep your eyes open, Harry.

Sirius

“What news about your scar?” Hermione asked immediately, her voice at least lowered to keep the subject confidential.

Harry grit his teeth as he balled up the letter and tossed it in the nearest fire. This was very far from the response he was hoping for. No real advice or theories. Just, “this is a weird thing among other weird things, I’m coming back to see if I can get my soul sucked out!”

“It’s nothing. My scar hurt one night this summer. Like an idiot, I told Sirius,” Harry bit out.

“And now he’s coming back,” Hermione said in horror.

“Dumbledore’s reading what signs?” Ron wondered.

Harry stood abruptly and gathered his things.

“Harry?” Ron questioned.

“We risked our lives and went back in time to keep him from losing his soul last time, and now he’s coming back!” he hissed furiously. “What the Hell good does he think he can do here as a wanted criminal? He’s going to get himself killed!”

He couldn’t talk about it anymore, so he hurried up to the dorm. He switched into his pajamas before closing himself into his bed and sealing and silencing the curtains.

He wasted no time before calling out Kaa. When the snake was comfortably situated on the bed and wound through his limbs, Harry explained what had happened.

“ So you tested him and he failed,” the snake concluded.

Harry frowned, unable to refute that. He’d hoped that Sirius would react like a parent and give him advice. Explain things or comfort him or something . Instead he’d not even gotten platitudes. Just more mysteries and a reminder to rely on someone else. Someone that had done nothing substantial for Harry in his whole life. Dumbledore had left him with the Dursleys and refused to tell Harry important facts about his life. Harry was certain that if he did tell Dumbledore if his scar hurt again, he’d just get a pat on the head and maybe more restrictions. “You can’t leave the castle if your scar is hurting, my boy. Much too dangerous. Why is it dangerous? Don’t worry your pretty head about that. Leave it to the adults to protect you.” He could picture it all too well.

“ Yes,” he sighed. “ He failed. ” 

“ Then you will not trust him,” Kaa demanded.

“ No, ” Harry agreed. “ That would be stupid.” 

Kaa, of course, would only really be happy when Harry completely isolated himself from everyone but Kaa and perhaps a trusted mate. Though he had no idea how this hypothetical mate would ever actually manage to be trustworthy enough to please the suspicious snake.

Harry didn’t argue the point with his snake, but he lay awake for a long time that night trying to reason out the pit of dread in his stomach. As much as he didn’t really know or trust Sirius, there was a part of him that really liked the idea of Sirius. Problem was, he didn’t seem willing or able to live up to that.

Harry wasn’t sure if he was being unfair to Sirius. He didn’t know how to handle having a godfather. He’d never had an adult he could trust and Sirius hadn’t made a great first impression.

Then again, maybe Sirius didn’t know how to be a godfather since he’d only ever done it for a little bit when Harry was a baby and had two parents.

Somewhere before falling asleep, he concluded that he wouldn’t totally write the man off, but he wouldn’t forget this disappointment either.

Imperius

The morning after Sirius’ letter, Harry sent a return letter assuring Sirius that what he’d felt was not at all serious enough that he should come back. Indeed, in hindsight, it had very likely been a part of his dream and Sirius should really stay away where he was safe.

He doubted it would actually work to turn Sirius back, but he felt like he had to try. Even though Sirius had mentioned other reasons added to this that was making him come back, Harry couldn’t quite shake the feeling that, if the man died as a result of this, it would be, in part, Harry’s fault for sending that letter.

He hated that feeling and resented Sirius for making him feel it.

He spent the next couple of weeks trying not to dwell on it, even as he tensed a bit every morning before the mail arrived, fearful that the headline story would be celebrating his godfather’s execution.

The workload in his classes was helping a bit with the distraction as the teachers used the excuse of the OWLs being next year to heap them with extra reading and longer essays. It made him dread what the following year would bring. Practicals were always easy enough for Harry – had been since first year. He didn’t focus so much on the theory behind a spell and instead just concentrated on the effect it was supposed to have and making it happen. And it tended to work, but the teachers still wanted him to learn all the theory anyway.

The fact he could do the magic without the theory just made the theory that much more tedious.

And then there was Defense, in which Moody could always be counted upon to focus on the practical. To a rather alarming degree, actually, evidenced when he announced that he would be putting each of them under the Imperius curse so that they’d know what it felt like.

It was supposed to be really hard to resist, so Harry wasn’t actually sure what the point was in letting them feel it in a safe atmosphere if the odds of them learning to resist it was so very slim.

Personally, he hated even being in the same room as that spell when it was cast. The magic felt absolutely vile. Like being doused in sewage.

While eating dinner.

Hermione, of course, complained on principle of the legality, but when Moody offered her the chance to leave if she didn’t like it, she subsided quickly.

And so Moody began to go through the students one at a time, putting them under the curse and making them do silly, humorous things, like jumping or gymnastics or singing or acting like an animal.

Harry didn’t laugh with the rest of the class. He couldn’t. Not when he could feel the oily permeance of that spell. Not a single one of them had been able to put up any noticeable resistance, only highlighting Harry’s belief in the pointlessness of this particular lesson.

When it was his turn, Harry found himself shaking and his magic was mantling around him, focused on Moody as a threat. He swallowed and tried to restrain his magic. It was allowed to be on high alert, but he didn’t need it acting up. Accidental magic got less believable every year older he became.

He moved to stand in the center of the cleared area, clenching his hands into fists to keep the shaking from being so noticeable – and to keep himself from drawing his wand.

Harry’s magic tensed as Moody pointed his wand at Harry, and he found himself picturing a pissed off dog snapping and snarling in warning.

Moody must have felt something of it because he frowned and hesitated a moment before casting the spell.

“ Imperio !”

He felt a sort of hazy happiness begin to settle over him, brushing away all his worries and concerns, but before it could fully settle, his agitated magic flooded his body, forcing the foreign magic and its floating happiness away.

The tension that had been ebbing away from his muscles returned abruptly with a sort of full-body flinch and it was over.

“That’s more like it!” Moody declared. “Potter threw the curse right off! We’ll try that again, Potter. Everyone else, watch closely.”

And he put Harry through the curse another four times, by the end of which, he no longer even felt the curse beginning to settle in before his magic had shoved it off. By the time he left the class, Harry felt saturated in that foul magic and desperately wanted a bath.

Goblet of Fire

The foreign schools’ representatives arrived at Hogwarts on the thirtieth of October with much fanfare. Victor Krum, the famous seeker from the Quidditch World Cup seemed to be the favorite from Durmstrang, while a part veela drew the most attention from the Beauxbatons group.

Personally, Harry wasn’t sure what was so enthralling about veela. Yes, they were pretty, but was that really a reason to make such a spectacle of himself as the other boys seemed to be doing?

Though not all the boys were reacting the same way. Whereas Ron turned into a drooling, heart-eyed fool the moment he looked at her, Harry noticed a number of other boys that managed to handle it much more respectably.

Harry found himself more interested in the Durmstrang group. Their school taught them Dark Magic and they all seemed normal enough. Perhaps a bit more like the Slytherins than the other houses, but only inasmuch as they were more reserved in composure and sharp of eye. Like they’d learned or been taught not to trust as default. To keep their secrets and make friends with caution.

It wasn’t anything bad. Harry couldn’t help but think that these were people who were much more likely to not hate him on sight than the Gryffindors, if they found out how Dark he was.

Zabini looked up from his place near Malfoy while Harry was observing them and their eyes met. Rather than looking suspicious or scowling, the dark-skinned boy sent Harry a smirk and a wink.

Harry looked away quickly, not at all sure how to take that. It actually wasn’t the first time he’d done it this year and Harry no more understood this one than the last.

Then the girl who looked rather veela-like came by their table to request one of the french dishes that was among the food there.

Ron immediately turned purple and forgot how to speak.

Harry assured her that she was fine to take the dish. As soon as she was gone, Hermione began scolding Ron for being an idiot. Harry couldn’t help but laugh a little at the red-head as he leaned to one side to keep his eyes on the girl as long as possible. “Don’t put your elbow in the butter dish, Ron,” he said quietly, because it really had to be genetic, didn’t it?

It took Ron a good dozen seconds to register what Harry had even said, at which point he jerked and glared blackly at Harry before turning his attention back to his food, with frequent glances toward the Ravenclaw table.

When everyone had eaten and the food gone away – presumably to the house-elves in the kitchens – Dumbledore presented the Goblet of Fire and explained how names would be entered and count as a binding magical contract. He would draw an age line around the cup when it was placed so that no one under seventeen could enter their names.

It was George, this time, who asked Harry if he planned to put his name in if they managed it. Harry didn’t reply and the conversation moved on before anyone could press him on it.

Harry honestly didn’t want to put his name in. He hated being in the spotlight and being Hogwarts Champion would only make it worse. Especially with being fourteen when only seventeen-year-olds were meant to compete.

And his magic was getting so proactive these days, that he really worried that it would expose far too much if his life was in danger again. The idea of being in danger with a whole crowd of onlookers was not a pleasant one.

Still, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to admit his feelings if he could avoid it. They’d probably think him a coward, which was enough to make you a social pariah in Gryffindor. Just look at poor Neville. He definitely had his moments of bravery, but his general displays of fear were enough to make him disdained.

With any luck, the twins would fail to get their names in and Harry would never actually be called upon to admit his reservations.

They rose early the next morning, along with many other students, to watch the older students go and put their names into the goblet. The Durmstrang group all put their names in first thing.

Fred and George both tried to cross the age line, having taken the aging potion. To Harry’s relief, they got spat right back out with long, white beards to show for their trouble, so the question of whether or not he would put his name in wouldn’t be coming up. Dumbledore cheerfully sent them to the hospital wing to be put right.

The Beauxbatons group put their names in just as Harry, Hermione, and Ron were leaving breakfast.

They went down to visit Hagrid, who stoutly refused Hermione’s SPEW pitch. Hagrid, Harry thought, had the right of it in pointing out that the elves wanted to work. And pay apparently insulted them.

Hermione used Dobby to say otherwise and Harry decided to look rather fixedly out the window lest he give himself away. He did wonder if Dobby was asking for payment because he was working for someone that wasn’t his master, though Harry honestly wasn’t all that sure whether Dobby had told Dumbledore that he belonged to Harry or if he’d claimed to be free as Harry had let Hermione think. He hadn’t lied to her about it. She’d just made assumptions when he’d mentioned how his magic had just reacted and removed the bond between Dobby and Mr. Malfoy. He’d not seen any point in correcting her assumption at the time. It wasn’t like Dobby was going to be actually doing work for him anytime soon.

When it grew late, they headed back up to the castle for dinner, after which they would find out who the Champions would be.

The meal seemed to last forever with the anticipation singing heavily in the air.

The time came at last and the hall fell silent as they waited out the final seconds.

The first name was Viktor Krum, which surprised approximately no one, it seemed. Even the other students from Durmstrang didn’t seem all that disappointed. Next was Fleur Delacour for Beauxbatons, the part-veela that Ron kept drooling over. And then Cedric Diggory from Hufflepuff for the Hogwarts champion, which seemed to irritate a lot of Gryffindor house. Probably wasn’t surprising given their reputation for courage and such that they’d thought it was almost their right to be Champion for Hogwarts.

At least it hadn’t been a Slytherin. The Gryffindors probably would have put their support behind one of the other schools before cheering on a Slytherin and that would have looked ridiculous to the other schools.

Then, in the middle of Dumbledore giving a closing speech, the goblet spat out another name.

The hall fell silent in confused anticipation as Dumbledore caught the slip of paper and looked at it. Indeed, he stared far longer than seemed necessary to read it. Finally, he cleared his throat and called out, “Harry Potter.”

There was a sort of collective gasp that Harry barely registered as all of his blood seemed to trickle into his feet and his ears began to ring loudly. Surely, it couldn’t mean…

A chorus of whispers began to take up among the students, like the buzzing of angry bees, as McGonagall got up to whisper to Dumbledore.

“I… I didn’t put my name in,” Harry said blankly to Ron and Hermione, both of whom just stared back at him with shocked faces. “You lot know I didn’t.”

“Harry Potter! Up here, Harry, if you please!” Dumbledore called, startling Harry badly.

For a moment, Harry wondered if he could even stand for how numb he felt. Even his magic seemed to have gone quiet and still, as though responding to his shock.

Clenching his fists and determined not to make a fool of himself, Harry stood and approached the headmaster. The distance seemed far greater than it ever had before and the walk took an eternity, each step scrutinized by hundreds of staring, judging eyes.

It was a relief when Dumbledore sent him into the same room as the other champions. At least he was getting away from all those eyes.

As he moved beyond the scrutiny of the hall, his brain finally began doing productive things again. How the Hell had his name come out of the Goblet? He certainly hadn’t put it in, unless someone had possessed him like what happened with Ginny last year.

He shook off that uncomfortable thought with an effort as he stepped into the room with the other champions. He hadn’t been playing with strange magical objects.

Delacour immediately asked if he was there to give them instructions to go back out. Harry opened his mouth, then let it close again when he realized that he had no idea what to say.

They stood there staring at each other and Harry marveled a bit at how messed up his life was. Possessed professors, basilisks, escaped convicts, and now a tournament infamous for how many people it had killed in the past… And somehow he ended up being embroiled in every single one of them.

Were other magical schools this perilous? Had Hogwarts always been? Why did no one make a fuss about it? Students nearly got killed every year and no one ever complained. No one even seemed to notice anything all too strange, or they forgot it as soon as the danger was past.

Then Bagman came in and proceeded to make a spectacle of Harry, introducing him as the fourth Triwizard Champion, like it was some great feat and not clear sabotage and likely cheating.

The heads of the other schools quickly made their feelings known on the fairness of Hogwarts getting two champions.

Harry only caught bits of it as his head continued to spin. Everything had happened so quickly. He had not guessed in a million years that this would happen to him. Even after the last three years, this just had not registered as a possibility.

“It’s no one’s fault but Potter’s, Karkaroff. Don’t go blaming Dumbledore for Potter’s determination to break rules. He has been crossing lines ever since he arrived here-”

Snape’s vitriolic denunciation of Harry’s character finally drew his attention and Harry’s jaw clenched in annoyance. The horrible man seemed to really believe all that crap.

“Thank you, Severus,” Dumbledore cut the man off with a firm tone.

Harry had to look away to hide his anger. Not one public chastisement of Snape for his public words against Harry. Not one. How was anyone else in the room supposed to think Snape’s words were wrong? Surely, to them, it just sounded like Dumbledore was saying “this isn’t the time” rather than, “that’s not really a fair estimation of Harry”.

Come to think of it, that’s what it sounded like to Harry, too. His heart chilled a little further toward the headmaster who so often showed him warmth and favor and yet had never provided any real support.

When Harry schooled his expression enough to look back, Dumbledore was studying him. “Did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire, Harry?” he asked calmly.

“No,” Harry said as firmly as he possibly could. Snape made an impatient sort of disbelieving scoff and Harry’s magic finally began to stir. It turned toward Snape first, then seemed to decide everyone in the room was worthy of scrutiny. It felt like a cornered animal, hunched down and waiting to see where the attack would come from first.

It was not a feeling he cared for.

“Did you ask an older student to put it into the Goblet of Fire for you?” Dumbledore pressed on.

“No,” Harry said with irritation. And if that was all it took to beat Dumbledore’s measures, then anyone in the school that was at least seventeen could have done it. Wonderful.

“Ah, but of course he is lying!” Madam Maxime immediately complained.

Harry’s magic all but hissed at her and he quickly closed his eyes and concentrated on keeping it under control. It generally did not lash out at people who weren’t threatening to do him real harm, but it seemed as out of sorts as he was at the moment. Fittingly, perhaps.

At fourteen, he wasn’t sure how well “accidental magic” would work as a defense if his magic got proactive with the visiting headmistress.

He just really hated being called a liar. The Dursleys had done it often enough when he was growing up, and Snape, since Harry had started at Hogwarts, but since he’d truly begun to hear the difference between lies and truth, Harry had found lies particularly distasteful.

He managed to tune back into the conversation around him to hear McGonagall exclaiming that, since Dumbledore believed Harry had not persuaded an older student to put his name in, that should be enough questioning. She was putting clear trust in Dumbledore, he noticed, and not at all in Harry.

Glancing around, Harry realized that the only one paying him direct attention was Snape, whose eyes were narrowed with suspicion.

Harry tried to split his attention between following the conversation and keeping his magic civil, but it wasn’t easy given the context of the conversation. Crouch was insisting that the rules stated that everyone whose names came out of the Goblet had to compete.

The Durmstrang head argued that they should just redraw the names, which apparently wouldn’t work as the Goblet wouldn’t light again until the start of the next tournament.

Karkaroff was on the point of threatening to leave without letting his champion compete when Moody stumped his way into the room to point out that all the champions were bound by the magical contract to compete. 

“Convenient, eh?” Moody posed.

“Convenient?” Karkaroff sighed irritably. “I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Moody.”

It was more than obvious that these two men hated each other on a level that seemed to require more than distant acquaintanceship.

Moody pointed out that whoever put Harry’s name in the Goblet did it knowing that he would then be forced to compete.

Karkaroff and Maxime agreed that it had obviously been done to give Hogwarts a victory.

“If anyone’s got reason to complain, it’s Potter,” Moody growled. “But I don’t hear him saying a thing.”

Harry privately thought that was mostly because no one seemed to care what he thought once he’d answered Dumbledore’s questions. In fact, they’d immediately called him a liar, so there seemed little point in trying to speak in his own defense.

“Why should he complain?” Fleur burst out with a petulant stomp of her foot. “He has a chance to compete, hasn’t he? We have all been hoping to be chosen for weeks and weeks! The honor for our schools! A thousand galleons in prize money! This is a chance many would die for!”

Harry couldn’t help but send a sneer at the idiotic girl. A thousand galleons wasn’t all that much money and winning a tournament wasn’t going to make him more famous than surviving a Killing Curse while Voldemort mysteriously “died”. What kind of idiot would die for that?

“Maybe someone’s hoping Potter is going to die for it,” Moody said ominously.

Tense silence fell, though Harry noticed that Fleur looked more irritated than somber at the suggestion.

Harry gave himself permission to loathe the girl from then on. She was like a much prettier, much girlier version of Dudley. A spoiled brat throwing a fit because she didn’t get her way.

The adults continued to argue. Karkaroff tried to make a joke of the idea that anyone would try to kill Harry, a mere student.

Harry wondered how much of that was bluster and how much stupidity. Because, seriously? People had been trying to kill Harry since he was a year old. And more recently on a more or less annual basis.

Harry started tuning them out. He knew he wasn’t getting out of this. He was going to have to compete as Hogwarts’ second champion. He just felt exhausted and the year had barely begun.

He was drawn back to the conversation when the adults stopped arguing and began talking about instructions for the first task. Apparently, it was to be a surprise as to test their courage in the face of the unknown.

After an explanation of the rules for the first task, Crouch announced that champions would be exempted from end of year tests, which made Harry wonder about the students in their NEWTs year, which he thought both foreign champions were. Surely they couldn’t skip NEWTs and hope to get a job on the basis of having been a champion. Maybe they would study over the summer and take them in the fall?

After that, they were swiftly dismissed. Dumbledore pointed out that their Houses were likely waiting to celebrate with them.

Harry nearly groaned at the thought. He didn’t want to celebrate. He wanted to mope and whine to Kaa. Then he was going to have to start thinking about a strategy to get through this without either dying or letting any secrets get exposed.

Once they were alone in the deserted Hall, Cedric turned to Harry with a slight smile, “So, we’re playing against each other again!”

“I guess…” Harry sighed somewhat despondently.

“So, tell me…” Cedric probed as they reached the Entrance Hall. “How did you get your name in?”

Harry heaved an aggrieved sigh and exclaimed with some feeling, “I didn’t put my name in. I was telling the truth.” He was getting heartily sick of being called a liar. He was realizing with some annoyance that this would likely go on all year.

“Ah. Okay,” Cedric replied and Harry could tell that he didn’t believe him. “Well, see you, then.”

Harry stared at Cedric’s back as he started down the stairs, and he felt his magic glaring after him as well. He’d always thought Cedric was pretty nice, but he wasn’t feeling any too charitable toward him anymore.

Would anyone besides Ron and Hermione believe him?

Would everyone really think that he’d want to compete against people with two or three years more magical training than him? And in front of an audience of his peers that would never forget what an idiot he made of himself? Surely they had to know that the Potters weren’t paupers. He didn’t need the money. And to think he’d want more fame than he already had was utterly absurd. It was one thing for people raised in other countries to not understand, but people who’d grown up knowing more about him than he did?

Moody’s theory of someone hoping he would die in the tournament seemed much more reasonable.

Harry made it up to Gryffindor tower almost without noticing the trip. Annoyingly, even the bloody portraits were pressing him for gossip. He gave the password and thankfully got into the common room without answering any of their questions.

Then, unfortunately, the celebration Dumbledore had predicted swallowed him. He was yanked into the common room and jostled about between dozens of people. Everyone was shouting and whistling and applauding.

“You should have told us you’d entered!” Fred bellowed, looking both impressed and somewhat annoyed.

“How did you do it without getting a beard? Brilliant!” George roared.

Harry tried to plead his innocence but no one wanted to hear it. He was passed from one congratulations to the next. No one seemed to notice that he wasn’t feeling victorious. His magic was doing its mantling thing, though everyone was too enthusiastic to notice a thing. Lee Jordan wrapped a Gryffindor banner around Harry like a cloak.

People continually asked him how he’d done it, then either didn’t listen to even hear his response, or ignored his denials utterly.

He’d have loved a quiet chat with Ron or Hermione, but neither seemed to be in the common room. With a monumental effort, Harry managed to shout about being tired and shove his way through to his dorm room.

He closed the door behind him with a sigh of relief and his spirits brightened when he noticed Ron lying on his bed.

“Avoiding the party too?” he asked, shrugging off the silly banner. He was eager to finally have the chance to talk about all this madness with someone that actually knew him.

“Oh, hello,” Ron greeted in a very odd tone of voice.

Harry turned his attention from divesting himself of the banner to look at his friend.

“So, congratulations,” Ron said in a very not congratulatory way.

“What are you talking about?” Harry asked, beginning to feel rather wary of what was happening.

“Well, no one else got across the age line,” Ron explained, still sounding very odd and smiling in a way that wasn’t at all happy. “Not even Fred and George. What did you use? The Invisibility Cloak?”

“Why would being invisible have gotten me over an age line?” Harry asked carefully.

“Oh, right,” Ron nodded. “I thought you might’ve told me if it was the Cloak. Because it would’ve covered both of us, wouldn’t it? But you found another way, did you?”

Harry flinched slightly and clenched his jaw a moment before stating firmly, “I didn’t put my name in, Ron. Someone else must’ve done it.”

Ron raised his eyebrows in mock inquiry. “Why would they have done that for?”

“I dunno,” Harry bit out, “Maybe hoping I would die?”

Ron just continued to stare, eyebrows higher than ever.

“It’s okay, you know, you can tell me the truth. If you don’t want everyone else to know, fine, but I don’t know why you’re bothering to lie. You didn’t get in trouble for it, did you? That friend of the Fat Lady’s, that Violet, she’s already told us all that Dumbledore’s letting you enter. A thousand galleons prize money, eh? And you don’t have to do the end of year tests either…”

“I’m not a lair!” Harry snapped irritably. Dumbledore “let” him enter. What a joke. Was forcing him to enter. And what the Hell did end of year tests matter when weighed against having to compete in these dangerous tasks?

“Yeah, okay,” Ron said, sounding just like Cedric had. “But if you’d gone last night, no one would have seen you. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“You’re doing a really good impression of it!” Harry snapped furiously.

“Yeah?” Ron said coldly. “You want to get to bed, Harry. I expect you’ll need to be up early tomorrow for a photo-call or something.”

And he shut himself behind the curtains of his bed.

Harry stood stock-still, staring at the hangings for a long time as he tried to wrap his mind around what had just happened. He’d been certain that Ron would believe him. Ron knew him. He knew how much Harry hated the fame. And now he suddenly thought Harry was eagerly awaiting photo-calls?

Harry took his pajamas into the bathroom to change. He’d never liked changing in front of his dormmates, but since he’d gotten the tattoo, it had become absolutely necessary. Even in the Quidditch locker rooms, he changed in a toilet stall. He’d gotten teased a bit for being shy, but everyone got used to it soon enough.

While he changed, his over-stressed mind slowly poked at what he was feeling. By the time he was crawling into his own bed and closing the curtains, he’d identified it as betrayed. This felt worse than when Hermione had gone behind his back to McGonagall about his firebolt. She’d been wrong to betray him, but at least he’d known she’d done it out of fear for him. She loved him more than she trusted him, which made her untrustworthy about important things, but still a cherished friend.

Ron was calling Harry a liar and treating him like dirt because he was jealous .

He didn’t call out Kaa as he laid down. He was too tired and too hurt to even want to talk to his best friend. He just wanted to sleep and dream that this day hadn’t happened.

Chapter Text

The First Task

Harry didn’t remember any dreams he may have had, and the morning brought the same nightmare back to life.

The stupid Gryffindors started applauding him in the common room when he went down on his way to breakfast. Thankfully, Hermione caught him with a stack of toast and they took it outside to talk rather than going to the great hall.

Hermione seemed to be trying to be on both his and Ron’s sides at the same time. She pointed out that Ron had grown up in the shadow of his brothers and then he put up with Harry overshadowing him all the time because he was famous.

“Then he’s probably better off not being my friend anymore, isn’t he?” Harry pointed out bitterly. It wasn’t like it was his fault that he was famous. And he knew it wasn’t Ron’s fault that he felt overshadowed by so many brothers and then by Harry, but maybe it just highlighted that they really were terribly suited as friends. Maybe this had truly been inevitable.

To make matters worse, he soon discovered that the rest of the school also believed that he had cheated to get his name into the Goblet. The Hufflepuffs were shunning the entirety of Gryffindor house, though with emphasis on him, of course. Even Professor Sprout was cool toward him.

The Slytherins, expectedly, were even worse. Malfoy showed up to their next Care of Magical Creatures class cracking jokes about Harry’s abysmally short life-expectancy.

Hagrid, at least, believed that Harry hadn’t entered his name, though he wasn’t clear whether that was because Harry said so or because Dumbledore said he believed him.

As the days continued to pass, Harry realized that he was feeling sad more often than not. Or maybe worse than sad. Like… resigned to misery. Everyone in the sodding school thought he was a liar. Including Ron, who had, last year, stood bravely in front of a man they’d all thought wanted to kill Harry and had insisted that he’d have to kill Ron, too. The same boy who’d been valiantly willing to die for him now glared at him and made snide comments about how much Harry loved his fame.

The Ravenclaws had decided to fully support Cedric and shun Harry as well, which was probably par for the course at this point. Even the ones that did support him – the Gryffindors in general – did so while insistently believing him to be a liar.

Sirius, totally not surprisingly, was once again failing to reply to the letter Harry had reluctantly sent off the first day at Hermione’s urging.

With his mood so dark, he’d been having trouble controlling his magic as well. He’d nearly brained himself in charms when the book he’d summoned had shot across the room like a bullet, much faster than anyone else’s summoned objects. He’d been lucky to have exceptionally fast reflexes as he’d managed to get a hand up before it could slam into his face.

Then the Slytherins debuted new badges, which supported Cedric and mocked Harry.

At the wand weighing ceremony, the horrible reporter had dragged him into a broom cupboard for a private interview and then just told him how he was feeling about everything rather than asking actual questions.

When the paper came out in the morning, Harry was the focus of the article, which all but ignored the foreigners and Cedric. She’d attributed long, sentimental quotes to him that were word-for-word utter fiction. She also outed Harry and Hermione’s romantic relationship, which would have been bad enough had it been remotely real.

The fact that three quarters of the school was constantly teasing him about things he hadn’t even said was enough to leave him in a constant state of agitation.

Even Kaa had no useable advice beyond letting him bite everyone, which didn’t seem like a long-term solution.

Hermione trying to convince Harry to make up with Ron was not helping him either. Like it was his responsibility to go begging Ron to forgive him for doing nothing wrong! The fact was that he did miss Ron’s friendship, but he wasn’t sure there was any getting it back at this point.

This was nothing like Hermione’s betrayal in an attempt to protect him. That had been bad, but she’d done it out of love. Ron was just being a hateful arsehole to Harry every single day because of something totally out of Harry’s control, and that was a completely different level of betrayal.

When Sirius finally wrote back, it was to tell him that it was too risky to speak via letter and make a plan to talk via the floo in the common room at one in the morning. He also mentioned that Harry was sure to be safe at the castle with Dumbledore and Moody despite the fact that Harry had been entered into a deadly tournament while in the castle with Dumbledore and Moody.

What a fucking joke.

Sirius had set the day of their floo meeting a fortnight out from when Harry received the letter, which gave him a lot of time to stew in the mountain of injustices heaped on his shoulders since he was forcibly entered into the damned tournament.

When not going to class, Harry had come to spend the majority of his time in the library with Hermione, trying to learn new spells as quickly as possible or in little traveled parts of the castle practicing said spells where he didn’t have to deal with Ron’s snide comments about him showing off or the well-meaning but ultimately insulting encouragement of the rest of the Gryffindors.

As always, he was learning spells quickly, though whether he’d be able to remember any of them when he was shoved into an unknown deadly situation for the amusement of all the people treating him like garbage… well, that was less certain. 

He had decided to take a break from reading any of his Dark Arts books during the tournament. He didn’t want any of those spells fresh in his mind during this. He couldn’t risk using one in desperation and then getting arrested or something.

When they were in the library, they often had to deal with the fact that Krum also spent a lot of time in the library, likely for the same reason that Harry did. Krum wasn’t actually the problem as he kept to himself and didn’t bother them. The problem was the gaggle of giggling girls that followed him everywhere in the castle.

Hermione made the distraction all the worse for the amount of time she spent complaining about the giggling girls. “He’s not even good-looking!” was her favorite argument. “They only like him because he’s famous! They wouldn’t look twice at him if he couldn’t do that Woky Faint thing-”

“Wronski Feint,” Harry corrected with a sigh. He honestly felt more sympathy for Krum than disgust for his groupies. Harry had dealt with enough people fawning over his fame to know how unpleasant it was. And Krum certainly didn’t look like he appreciated it, though he had an impressive ability to pretend like he didn’t notice them at all.

There was a Hogsmeade trip the weekend before the First Task. Harry decided to go under his invisibility cloak and was extremely glad that he had. He felt more relaxed than he had in weeks, just being able to be around people without feeling judged on every side. He decided that he should spend more time under the cloak. Life was just better when he was invisible.

And wasn’t that a really sad insight into his life…

At the Three Broomsticks, Moody caught sight of Harry. Apparently that magical eye of his allowed him to see through invisibility cloaks, which was good to know, really. He was with Hagrid, who used the opportunity to whisper to Harry to meet him at his hut at midnight wearing the cloak, which was strange and suspicious. Harry did wonder what it was all about though, and Hagrid had never intentionally steered him wrong before.

On the way out of the pub, they passed a table of the less loathsome Slytherins, namely Blaise, Daphne, and Tracy. Harry didn’t catch what they were talking about, but it must have been amusing. Just as Harry was passing the table, Blaise positively grinned at whatever was said and Harry couldn’t help but slow momentarily to appreciate how it transformed his face.

He shook himself and quickly forced the weird thought away. Less loathsome they may be, but they were still Slytherins, right?

Right.

Granted, with how hated he was at the moment, it probably wasn’t wise to appreciate anyone’s smiles.

Come midnight, Harry made it out to Hagrid’s hut, where he was apparently meant to follow Hagrid’s date into the Forbidden Forest where they found four full-grown dragons. Eavesdropping on Hagrid’s conversation with Charlie Weasley, Harry was able to learn that he and the other champions would each be facing one of the dragons, apparently to get past them for something.

Dragons. What the Hell were they thinking? He was sure he’d heard they were trying not to get anyone killed in this tournament.

He made it back to the common room just in time for his meeting with Sirius through the fire. When Sirius asked after how Harry was doing, he found himself giving a terribly exhausted sigh and sitting down in front of the fire.

“Not great,” he admitted grimly. He thought of all the drama with Ron and the rest of the school, but he couldn’t bring himself to unload such personal things on a man who honestly hadn’t really shown that he cared about Harry’s feelings in the past. Instead, Harry told him about the dragons he’d just been down to see. “I don’t feel very good about this,” he admitted, and his stomach turned just thinking of it.

Dragons.

Sirius did look compassionate for Harry’s situation, at least, which was more than Harry had really dared to expect.

“Dragons can be dealt with, Harry,” Sirius soothed, “but we’ll get to that in a minute. I haven’t got long here. I’ve broken into someone’s house to use the fire, but they could be back at any time. There are things I need to warn you about.”

“What?” Harry asked, slumping a bit at the idea of more problems than he was already aware of.

“Karkaroff. Harry, he was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don’t you?”

“I… Yeah,” Harry swallowed, flashing back to the mob at the World Cup. The Death Eaters and their supporters that Harry had attacked. That he had, quite probably, killed. 

He pushed the thought away with an effort.

“He was caught,” Sirius went on. “He was in Azkaban with me, but he got released. I’d bet everything that’s why Dumbledore wanted an auror at Hogwarts this year. To keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff. Put him into Azkaban in the first place.”

Harry processed that, finding that he didn’t feel that worried. He doubted the man was going to try anything at Hogwarts. At least nothing more than entering Harry into the tournament, if he was the one who did that. He couldn’t remember if the man had said anything that would definitely prove his innocence, and Harry knew he’d remember if he’d heard any lies that would have given him away.

People didn’t always have to lie though, he knew, to mislead.

“He did a deal with the Ministry of Magic,” Sirius continued after a few seconds of silence. “He said he’d seen the error of his ways, and then he named names. He put a load of other people into Azkaban in his place. He’s not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since he got out, from what I can tell, he’s been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well.”

Harry frowned uncertainly at that. “Watch out for him because he knows Dark Arts?” he sought to clarify.

“They warp your mind, Harry. You can’t trust any of them,” Sirius said very grimly.

Harry worked to keep his expression even as he nodded. It appeared that Sirius was just as biased against the Dark Arts as Hagrid. Wonderful.

“Okay,” Harry moved the conversation forward, “Do you think that means Karkaroff put my name in the goblet? Because he seemed really furious about it. He tried to stop me from competing.” He’d tried harder than anyone that was supposed to be on Harry’s side, actually.

“We know he’s a good actor,” Sirius dismissed, “because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to set him free, didn’t he?”

Harry didn’t think that probably took good acting skills. From what he’d seen of the Ministry, they seemed fairly incompetent and extremely corrupt. A sizeable donation or the right friends would have likely been more effective than the best acting skills. Or, as was obvious thanks to Sirius, even being actually innocent wasn’t as effective a defense as money or well-placed friends.

“Now, I’ve been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet,” Sirius went on. “And reading between the lines of that Skeeter woman’s article last month, Moody was attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts. Yes, I know she says it was another false alarm, but I don’t think so, somehow. I think someone tried to stop him from getting to Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around. And no one’s going to look into it too closely. Mad-Eye’s heard intruders a bit too often. But that doesn’t mean he can’t spot the real thing. Moody was the best auror the Ministry ever had.”

Harry suspected some bias in that account, but he wasn’t going to press the point. “So you think Karkaroff wants me dead,” Harry concluded. “Why, exactly?”

Sirius hesitated. “I’ve been hearing some very strange things,” he said slowly. “The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn’t they? Someone set off the Dark Mark. And then, did you hear about that Ministry of Magic witch who’s gone missing?”

“Bertha Jorkins?”

“Exactly. She disappeared in Albania, and that’s definitely where Voldemort was rumored to be last. And she would have known the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, wouldn’t she?”

“And you think she just happened to wander straight to where Voldemort was? He wasn’t in all that good of health last I saw him.”

“Listen, I knew Bertha Jorkins,” Sirius said grimly. “She was at Hogwarts when I was, a few years above your dad and me. And she was an idiot. Very nosy, but no brains, none at all. It’s not a good combination. I’d say she’d be very easy to lure into a trap.”

“So you think Voldemort found out about the tournament,” Harry struggled to follow. “And you think Karkaroff is here on his orders? Or at least taking his orders? If the man turned in so many Death Eaters, isn’t he kind of a traitor?”

“I don’t know,” Sirius admitted. “I just don’t know. Karkaroff doesn’t strike me as the type who’d go back to Voldemort unless he knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. But whoever put your name in that goblet did it for a reason, and I can’t help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident.”

Harry groaned in annoyance. Because he needed yet another thing to worry about. “Yeah, I don’t think they’ll have to work too hard to kill me. Not when I’m facing a bloody dragon.”

“Right,” Sirius switched tracks. “These dragons. There’s a way, Harry. Don’t be tempted to try a stunning spell. Dragons are strong and too powerfully magical to be knocked out by a single stunner. You need about half a dozen wizards at a time to overcome a dragon.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Harry admitted gloomily.

“But you can do it alone. There is a way. A simple spell’s all you need. Just-”

Harry jerked and held up a hand to silence Sirius as he heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Go!” he urged Sirius quickly. “Someone’s coming!”

He hurried to his feet as he heard Sirius disappear from the fire. Thank goodness. He did not need the uproar that would arise if it got around that Sirius Black’s head had been in the common room fire. Even worse, that Harry had been there at the time. He didn’t know if they’d suspect him of working with Sirius Black or think the man was trying to kill him again, but it wouldn’t be good.

And Harry loathed the lies he’d have to tell to get out of it.

Then Ron emerged from the stairs, dressed in his maroon pajamas. He looked around uncertainly and asked, “Who were you talking to?”

And Harry’s alarm turned into fury. Because of Ron’s fucking nosiness, Harry wasn’t going to get to hear about this very simple spell for defeating dragons. He might actually die because Ron had to butt his nose in where it wasn’t wanted.

“Why the Hell would you think it’s any of your fucking business?” Harry growled at his former best friend.

“I just wondered…” Ron trailed off, looking wary. “Nothing. I’m going back to bed.”

But it was too late. Harry couldn’t call Sirius back, being as he didn’t know where he’d been calling from. And Sirius wouldn’t call back, not knowing if it was safe. He could try to write to him, but given Sirius’ usual response time, he’d be lucky to get a letter before the second task.

Ron’s big nose had cost Harry the chance to figure out how to defeat the dragon.

He felt tears of rage and fear prick at his eyes and he lashed out at Ron, “Why can’t you just mind your own business, huh?” he snarled.

“Sorry about that,” Ron replied snidely. “I’ll let you get back to practicing your next interview in peace.”

And Harry wanted to hurt him. He wanted to hex him. He wanted to punch him! He was so sick of Ron’s bitter bullshit. He had to know that Harry didn’t like the fame. He’d known him for years. But he kept throwing that crap in his face anyway and combined with everything else that had happened that night, Harry was ready to explode. His magic was boiling around him like a storm cloud and he searched desperately for a release that wouldn’t get him in more trouble for maiming a classmate.

Instead of attacking, Harry snatched up one of the Potter Really Stinks badges that the Creevy brothers had been tinkering with and chucked it at Ron as hard as he could manage. It hit his forehead, hard, and Harry sneered at him. “You can wear that on Tuesday. Make sure everyone knows where your loyalties stand.”

And he stalked around Ron and up to the dorm. He’d half expected Ron to stop him, likely physically, but he hadn’t moved.

Harry changed for bed in a terrible mood and he lay awake behind his curtains for a very long time. He never heard Ron come upstairs and part of him wondered if he’d finally gotten through to him or if he was just afraid Harry would actually punch him if he came up.

Harry woke up the next morning with the realization that Sirius had wasted at least five minutes talking about the grave danger from the resident Death Eater and didn’t bother addressing the most imminent danger until after despite professing that he could be interrupted at any moment.

If it was such a simple spell, couldn’t he have told him that first, then talked about Karkaroff? He’d been in the castle with the man for a month and he’d seen no real threat from him yet. He couldn’t be the bigger danger.

Not that it mattered anymore. What was done was done.

It was Monday morning when Harry made a point of telling Cedric about the dragons, hexing his bag to drop all his things on the floor in order to separate him from his friends. All of them hated Harry from what he could tell and he didn’t think it would go over well if he asked to speak with Cedric alone.

“The first task. It’s dragons,” he explained. “I’ve seen them. There’s four. One for each of us.”

“Why would you tell me?” Cedric pressed suspiciously.

Harry gave an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes. “I didn’t enter the tournament, Cedric. I don’t care about winning. I just want all of us to live through this. Maxime and Karkaroff saw the dragons too, so I’m sure the other champions know. You were the only one who didn’t. Now you do. Make a plan, so you don’t die.”

Cedric just blinked at him in surprise. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, they were interrupted by Moody, who sent Cedric to class and pulled Harry into his office.

“So, found out about the dragons, have you?” Moody asked slyly.

Harry frowned and didn’t make eye contact. He probably looked shifty as Hell, but he wasn’t going to rat out Hagrid.

“It’s all right,” Moody said, sitting down with a groan. “Cheating’s a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament and always has been.”

“I didn’t cheat,” Harry snapped. “I just… It was sort of accidental.” Because he really couldn’t be accused of cheating when he’d had no idea what Hagrid was up to until well after he’d seen the dragons. Maybe that was why Hagrid had done it that way.

“I wasn’t accusing you, laddie,” Moody grinned. “I’ve been telling Dumbledore from the start. He can be as high-minded as he likes, but you can bet old Karkaroff and Maxime won’t be. They’ll have told their champions everything they can. They want to win. They want to beat Dumbledore. They’d like to prove he’s only human.”

Harry snorted at that, because too many people seemed to think the man was more than human.

“I know you didn’t enter the tournament by choice, Potter, but there’s no reason you can’t try to win,” he added after a moment. “Show all your detractors what you’re made of.”

Harry shrugged, “I really don’t care. I mean, I’m not going to try to lose or anything. I just care more about staying alive.”

Moody nodded, “So you got any ideas how you're going to get past your dragon yet?”

Harry heaved a heavy sigh and shook his head, “No.”

“Well, I’m not going to tell you,” Moody said gruffly. “I don’t show favoritism, me. I’m just going to give you some good, general advice. And the first bit is – play to your strengths.”

Harry frowned at that. Strengths. He didn’t dare do anything that would expose him too much.

“What are you best at?” Moody pressed.

“Quidditch,” Harry offered reflexively.

“That’s right. You’re a damn good flier from what I’ve heard.”

Harry nodded slowly. “Sure, but I’m not allowed anything but my wand.”

“My second piece of general advice,” Moody added, “is to use a nice, simple spell that will enable you to get what you need.”

Harry stared at him, but there didn’t seem to be more coming.

“Come on, boy. Put them together. It’s not that difficult,” Moody whispered.

And it clicked.

He could summon his broom. He thought about it all through Herbology and came to the conclusion that it was a good basis of a plan, but a bit hard to make it work by itself. Outflying a dragon sounded pretty tough by itself, even for him on his Firebolt. He had learned some other spells this year though, while preparing for the unknown task.

With luck, maybe he could put together a few spells that might get him past a dragon in one piece.

The morning of the first task, Harry decided to skip all of his morning classes in favor of doing some last minute studying in the library and then a couple hours in an empty classroom practicing the spells he planned to use.

He managed to eat half a slice of dry toast at lunchtime and congratulated himself on the herculean feat. Then McGonagall was ushering him out of the Great Hall to “get ready for the first task”, whatever that meant.

He vaguely heard encouragement from the Gryffindors around him as he followed McGonagall out, but he didn’t properly process any of it. His magic was sort of fluttering around him in a nervous manner that wasn’t helping him at all.

McGonagall hardly seemed herself either. She actually put a hand on his shoulder as they walked, which just seemed to rile up his magic even more. “Now, don’t panic,” she coached. “Just keep a cool head. We’ve got wizards standing by to control the situation if it gets out of hand. The main thing is just to do your best, and nobody will think the worse of you. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Harry said stiffly. He didn’t want to sit here listening to her tell him that he probably wouldn’t die since there were wizards standing by to put him out if the dragon lit him on fire. He didn’t want to hear her say no one would think less of him if he failed when three quarters of the school had been scorning him for weeks just for getting entered into the damn tournament against his will.

They arrived at a tent very near where the dragons had been kept a few days ago. She sent him in with a wish of good luck.

In the tent, he found the other three champions looking quite nervous, which somehow eased his nerves slightly. Being the youngest and most inexperienced of them, he’d somehow worried that they’d all have simple, foolproof plans and laugh at him for being so weak.

Bagman was there as well, his cheer almost palpable amid so much somberness. It felt out of place and disrespectful that he should be so excited to sit in the stands and watch them all try to survive.

It was almost perverse.

The man drew them together quickly and informed them that their task was to collect a golden egg and that they needed to draw a model of the variety of thing they would face, though he didn’t mention anything about dragons yet.

Fleur drew the Welsh Green with a number 2 around its neck. Krum got the Chinese Fireball with a number 3. Cedric came out with the Swedish Short-Snout and the number 1. None of them looked surprised at finding dragons, so he’d been right about them knowing.

Harry’s stomach turned at the realization that there was only one left. The Hungarian Horntail. The worst of the lot according to Charlie Weasley’s estimation. With a sense of growing dread, Harry drew out the model, exactly as he suspected.

“Well, there you are!” Bagman’s cheerful exclamation made Harry flinch a little and his magic seemed to growl at the man, who went on, utterly oblivious. “You have each pulled out the dragon you will face and the numbers refer to the order in which you are to take on the dragons, do you see?”

He told Cedric to go out when he heard the whistle, then, strangely, asked Harry to speak privately outside.

Harry could only stare at the man in disbelief as he was clearly trying to find an opening to give Harry tips, directly against the rules and probably still within hearing range of the other champions. They’d stepped outside a tent, after all, not a stone building.

“I didn’t cheat to get into this Tournament and I don’t mean to cheat to get through it,” he bit out irritably. “If you’re not asking all of us these questions, I don’t think you ought to be asking me.” And Harry stepped back into the tent while the man was still staring at him with his jaw hanging.

What a nit.

He got glances from the others when he reentered the tent, but they mostly remained focused on their own anxious thoughts.

Harry had the longest to wait. He took an empty stool and closed his eyes, running over his plan again even as he used the meditation techniques he’d been practicing to try to calm his agitated magic before it did something that would raise more questions than he was prepared to answer.

This needed to go well. If he got in real trouble, he wasn’t sure what his magic would do. Take what it had done to the dementors last year, for example. If his magic decided to tear apart a dragon the way it had those dementors… That wasn’t something people would forget or ignore.

He focused hard on calming his magic and going over his plan and he was only vaguely aware as the other champions left the tent, one at a time.

When at last the whistle came to call him out, all the nerves he’d been keeping at bay surged back with a vengeance, his heart immediately began to pound once more, and he swayed unsteadily as he stood.

“Fuck,” he breathed, and walked as steadily as he could manage into the arena set up beyond. He saw hundreds of faces turned toward him and tried not to think about how many must be hoping that he would fail. Everyone but the Gryffindors, presumably.

The spectators didn’t get much of his attention because it was rather difficult to focus on anything besides the dragon at the other end of the arena. It was… a massive beast. It actually seemed larger and more ferocious now than when he’d seen it the first time. Perhaps because he had to actually approach the thing now.

He lifted his wand and summoned his Firebolt. While he waited for it to reach him, he noticed that his near panic was receding. He was still running on large amounts of adrenaline, but he was hyper focused now rather than scatter-brained and terrified. He recognized the feeling. It’s how he usually felt when his life was in danger. He much preferred this to the anticipation he’d been feeling increasingly for weeks.

As the Firebolt soared into the arena and came to a patient halt, hovering at his side, Harry concentrated carefully, then cast a powerful serpensortia . Unlike when Malfoy had cast it in second year, this snake was massive. Thicker and slightly longer than Kaa, a poisonous green color. Concentrating carefully, he cast it two more times, getting two more snakes that appeared the same breed, though with slightly different scale patterns.

Though he was loath to remind everyone that he was a parselmouth, this had been his best idea for distracting the dragon.

The snakes all turned to him when he spoke, “ Distract the dragon so I can get to her nest.”

One of the snakes muttered something about wanting one of the eggs for himself, but they didn’t hesitate to begin slithering toward the dragon. From what he understood of the spell theory, the snakes were simple constructs. Very convincing, but not real animals. He hoped that was right.

Harry watched them a moment, then climbed onto his Firebolt and cast the other spell he’d been practicing that morning. A feeling of cold, raw egg running down his body gave him a small shudder, but a look at his body confirmed that it had worked. He was, effectively, invisible.

It wasn’t nearly as good as his cloak, but he wasn’t going to show that off in front of the whole school.

He hung back as the snakes got closer and began to draw the wary attention of the dragon increasingly. The dragon’s lips peeled back in a warning snarl, and the snakes spread out so they were all to her right, but far enough apart that she struggled to watch them at once.

Harry grinned as he drifted closer.

The dragon didn’t move far from her nest, but she began to inch off it as the snakes got too close for her comfort, putting herself between the snakes and her eggs.

Harry’s heart pounded as he flew close enough that he’d be in serious trouble if she suddenly noticed him, but her attention remained on the snakes.

With a terrifying burst of speed, the dragon lunged toward one of the snakes and Harry took his chance. The fire she let loose was hot enough that he felt it as he put on all the speed his Firebolt could handle to drive toward the momentarily uncovered nest.

Using only his legs to remain seated, he stretched out and snatched the golden egg from among the cement-colored fellows, and nearly tumbled from his broom in his haste to pull up without a hand on the broom. 

He was just tucking the egg into the crook of his arm and getting a hold on his broom again when the dragon’s tail came out of nowhere, swinging right for him.

He pulled away and spun but the dragon’s swinging tail still caught his ankle and sent him into a wild, uncontrolled spin. His ankle throbbed with pain even as his glasses flew right off his face.

He gasped, but they were well beyond his reach, even had he had an extra hand.

He looked around toward the now-blurry dragon in time to realize that she’d either got all the snakes already or noticed him at her nest because he seemed to have all of her focus. 

She opened her mouth and Harry swerved just as fire shot from her maw. He was still invisible, but she seemed to have a keen idea of where he was anyway.

Then he was far enough from her that the chain wouldn’t let her approach and he headed cautiously for the ground.

She struggled against the chain, but he warily dubbed himself safe enough for the moment and ended the disillusionment. It had only proven marginally useful in the end. She must have been tracking him by scent.

He shook his head at his stupidity in overlooking that even as he heard Bagman announce that Harry had the egg now they could see him properly. 

Then there was a terrible, metallic screech and a ring of metal. Harry looked back in time to see the chain containing the dragon snap apart, and the dragon launched herself right for him.

Harry dropped the egg and threw himself back onto his broom, rocketing to his right with all possible speed.

The dragon still managed to clip him with a claw and his broom was knocked from his grip. 

An instant later, he hit the ground, hard.

He rolled several times before he could get his feet under him. Half a glance back showed the dragon still determinedly pursuing, much too close, and he was sprinting away from her toward the nearest collection of rocks.

She sucked in a breath and Harry dove over the rocks, curling into himself tightly as fire blasted over his head in a roar of noise and intense heat beat against his body. 

As soon as the fire ceased, Harry put his feet under him again and bolted for the next obstacle that might keep him alive, an even taller stand of rocks.

He only made it three steps before her shadow fell on him and he turned his head in time to see her open mouth descending on him.

He marveled for a moment at the terribly sharp teeth and he wanted desperately to be away.

There was a sudden, crushing darkness all around him and he was sure he was dead. 

He began to fear for the afterlife and what it would mean for him even as he marveled at how painless it had been.

Then his eyes snapped open and he realized that he was in the tent where they’d waited their turns.

He looked around in shocked disbelief, then fell to his knees, his whole body trembling.

He must have apparated. At least he’d not ended up on the roof this time.

There was a great uproar going on outside. He couldn’t make out Bagman over the noise of the spectators, but then there was a great collision that made the ground tremble and he couldn’t hear the dragon’s angry roars anymore.

Cautiously, he crept back to the arena, only relaxing when he saw the dragon was unconscious, surrounded by the dragon handlers.

He approached slowly, looking around for the egg and his broom, hoping that his broom hadn’t been damaged and that he didn’t get marked down for dropping the egg. 

Then Bagman suddenly exclaimed, “There he is! Potter’s alive and well, folks! That was a close one!”

And the spectators became deafening, though Harry honestly couldn’t tell if they were cheering him on or crying out in dismay at the fact he’d not been eaten.

Madam Pomfrey was the first to reach him and he was swiftly escorted into the healing tent, where he found Cedric on another bed, though there were dividers in place so he couldn’t see if he was hurt. He was sitting up at least, so it couldn’t have been too bad.

Harry had begun to tremble uncontrollably and he tried to relax as he laid back on the bed. This wasn’t the first time he’d come down off so much adrenaline. He knew it would pass. He was mostly just trying to wrap his mind around everything that had just happened. How very close he’d just come to getting literally bitten in half.

The dragon had broken its chain. What were the odds of that happening? That the dragon handlers would be so careless as to use too weak a chain, or one with rusted links?

It seemed more likely that someone had tried to ensure he didn’t survive. Perhaps they’d weakened the link last night. Or maybe they’d even been quietly casting at it while the tasks were in progress.

He was going to have to be more careful the rest of this tournament. He didn’t just need to worry about surviving the tasks, but possible sabotage to make things even more dangerous for him.

Wonderful.

“Totally healthy,” Madam Pomfrey’s unimpressed voice drew his attention back to her. She was frowning heavily at him. “Mr. Potter, I appreciate that your points in this task depended, in part, on you coming out without injury, but I don’t appreciate my patients casting dangerous spells on themselves!” she snapped. “There is a reason medi-witches spend at least three years as apprentices, Potter, and it’s not so that their patients can heal themselves!”

“I didn’t…” Harry tried to defend himself.

“I was watching the task, Mr. Potter,” she reprimanded. “You’ve lost half a trouser leg when that tail clipped you. Your shirt sleeve is shredded from a claw, and you rolled around on the rocky ground more than once. That firebreath came close enough to blister at least once. You should be covered in cuts, bruises, and burns. Frankly, you’re lucky to be alive! Now I can’t report that you should be injured, so you’ve succeeded, Mr. Potter, but if you continue healing yourself, you could very well do more damage than you repair.”

And she tucked her wand away with an angry jab and bustled away before he could respond.

Slowly, it occurred to Harry that she wasn’t actually wrong. He should have been hurt.

And he wasn’t.

He’d certainly not healed himself, but he was going to make learning some healing spells top priority in case anyone decided to test him on the knowledge. Her assumption was definitely going to have to be his explanation because he hadn’t been hurt.

He’d felt his ankle throb when it was hit, but it didn’t hurt now and Madam Pomfrey definitely would have noticed if he was hurt at all.

He could think of only one explanation. His father wasn’t human. Harry had always been hurt just as easily as anyone else, but maybe that was changing. Or maybe it was just his magic taking on new roles when he was in great danger. He wasn’t eager to test it, but he should probably try. Tomorrow, maybe. See if he still resisted getting hurt or if he just healed faster.

Not waiting to stick around for any more lectures, Harry made his way back out of the tent.

Before he could reach the entrance, however, Hermione burst through the flap with Ron hot on her heels.

“Harry, you’re alive!” Hermione burst out, throwing her arms around him in a crushing hug. “Oh, you were brilliant, Harry, you really were!” she exclaimed as she drew back to look at him again. “You did so well, but then the chain broke and I thought you were dead!” There were fingernail marks on her face where she’d been clutching it in fear. “You must have apparated! That’s really incredible at your age, Harry! You’re rather old for accidental magic, but you haven’t learned to apparate yet, so what else could it be? Oh, but thank Merlin, you did. I thought you were dead when the dragon bit at you.”

“Thanks, Hermione,” Harry said, hoping to calm her panic-driven speed-talking. He focused most of his attention on Ron, though, feeling wary of his presence.

Ron was looking at him like he was a ghost. “Harry, whoever put your name in that goblet… I reckon they were trying to do you in!”

Harry stared at Ron, not sure what he was supposed to be feeling. On the one hand, he was so relieved that Ron was finally acting like his friend again. On the other hand, he’d spent a long time acting like his enemy and it wasn’t so easy let that go.

“I… I shouldn’t’ve-” Ron cut himself off like he’d run out of words.

“No, you shouldn’t,” Harry agreed firmly, a bit of bite leaking into his voice.

Ron winced, but then firmed with determination, “It won’t happen again.”

…and Harry found that he couldn’t trust him, no matter how much Ron obviously meant it right now.

“Okay,” Harry shook his head and sighed tiredly. It didn’t feel right to treat Ron like dirt, no matter that Ron had treated him that way since he became a champion. And he knew that he would never trust Ron again. That didn’t mean they couldn’t be friendly, he supposed. It would make things easier, at least.

That seemed to be it. Hermione hugged them both and then ran away in tears.

Ron called her mental, then began enthusiastically telling Harry all about what the other champions had done while they went back out to see Harry’s scores. He seemed to be trying really hard to pretend the last month hadn’t happened.

Through it all, Harry could only think that Ron had only changed his mind about the grudge when he’d stopped feeling jealous. When he’d seen that he’d truly not wish to be in Harry’s place in this tournament, then he’d changed his tune. How long would it really be before Ron got jealous again?

When the scores were tallied, Harry ended up tied for first with Krum, though only because Karkaroff had scored him incredibly unfairly to make it happen.

It wasn’t until they were leaving the arena that Ron mentioned Harry was missing his glasses and Harry realized he was right. Yet he could see perfectly.

He couldn’t say for certain when it had happened. At some point after the dragon broke its chain, but before he’d apparated. Somewhere in there, his vision had cleared and he could see everything perfectly.

Yet his glasses were gone.

Harry summoned them from the arena and fixed the broken lenses with a quick spell. When he put them on, he found that he couldn’t see at all. The world went completely blurry.

In desperation, Harry left Ron waiting for him while he ducked back into the hospital tent for a word with Madam Pomfrey. As he’d hoped, the tent was already empty and Harry used the privacy to transfigure a tissue into a replica of his glasses but with plain glass lenses. He put his old glasses in his pocket and replaced them with the replicas, through which he could see perfectly.

He wasn’t sure if his vision would go back to normal after a while or not, but he didn’t want anyone to know.

As he and Ron walked back up to the school, Harry let the other boy’s chatter wash over him as he thought on everything that had happened today. His magic was doing strange things. Luckily, this time, no one had seemed to notice anything untoward, but he couldn’t count on that luck lasting.

Two more tasks to survive. If he managed it with his Secret intact, he would count himself supremely lucky.

Chapter Text

Hindsight

The evening after the first task, Harry grudgingly wrote out a quick letter to Sirius. The man could probably get a better rendition of the whole thing in the morning’s paper. Harry hadn’t been overly descriptive. Mostly just told him that he’d survived it, against all odds, and manfully did not add in anything in the vein of “no thanks to you”.

He was rather proud of himself for that restraint.

Ron and Hermione were both getting on his nerves. They’d latched onto him unshakably since the task, with Ron trying to make up for a month of being a dick with overly enthusiastic praise of Harry’s performance and pointlessly dismissive comments on how the rest of the tasks must be much easier.

Hermione seemed to think Harry was in danger of believing that and was very pointedly countering that by insisting on how dangerous it was sure to still be.

Personally, Harry found neither of them at all comforting or helpful and just wished they’d leave him alone. He’d much rather talk the whole thing through with Kaa, who he could count on to be rational and who he could actually trust.

He sent off the letter to Sirius with Pig and they returned to the common room where a party was now in full swing to celebrate his performance.

Harry had no patience for any of it. He ate a little of the food, then claimed fatigue and headed for bed.

Once he was closed behind his curtains, he called out Kaa and settled back to tell his familiar all about the task and then about Ron and Hermione.

“ So you welcome back the betrayer ,” the snake observed flatly.

Harry sighed, because he’d known Kaa wouldn’t react favorably to that, “ Not exactly. I mean, I wouldn’t use the word ‘welcome’. It’s just… easier. I don’t want to fight with him the rest of my time at Hogwarts. ”

Kaa tasted the air a few times, then offered, “ He will betray you again. ”

“ I know ,” Harry said. He shook his head gravely and closed his eyes, “ I know that’s probably true .” He opened his eyes and looked at the snake again, “ but it won’t hurt so much next time. Because I’ll be expecting it. I’m not going to trust him again, Kaa. I’m not stupid. But we can still be friendly .”

“ Humans make these things more complicated than they need to be ,” Kaa eventually decided.

Harry laughed a little, “ Yeah. I think that’s something humans do a lot .”

“ Difficult creatures ,” Kaa said in a particularly long-suffering way.

“ Yes, we can be ,” Harry agreed readily enough. “ What concerns me is the way I healed. Or maybe I wasn’t hurt in the first place as much as I should have been. With how my clothes got ripped up, it does seem like I should have been bleeding. ”

“ What do you think it means?”

Harry rubbed a hand roughly over his face, “ Maybe my magic was just working overtime. Maybe it was so wound up and I’d pushed it away from any possible intervention so hard that it acted to heal me rather than protecting me to start with. Or maybe it did protect me from the cuts and burns and I was never hurt at all besides the bruising on my ankle, which did heal. ”

The snake rested his broad head on Harry’s raised knee and tasted the air. “ You smell of fear. ”

Harry grimaced but admitted, “ I’m changing. My mum said my magic would grow. She said that I would be incredibly powerful. I just… I get spells faster than even Hermione most of the time, and I can always cast them stronger than her. I can look a basilisk in the eyes and live, then tell it what to do and have it obey. I can hear when people lie… ” he swallowed bile. “ Now this, I just… It’s a lot .”

“ You are growing, ” Kaa offered, tightening his coils for a long moment, like a hug around Harry’s legs. “ You grow older, wiser, larger. Why should you not grow more powerful?”

“ It’s how much more powerful that worries me ,” Harry admitted. “ I don’t want to be some kind of God. ”

After a silent moment, Kaa pointed out, “ And yet that is what you are prophesied to become, is it not?”

“ I don’t want to ,” Harry whispered. “ I don’t want to conquer the world. I don’t want to challenge God for his throne or whatever it is I’m supposed to do. I just want to graduate and get a job and have a family some day. ”

“ Then that is what you should do .”

Harry met the snake’s eyes with wary hope. “ Can I, though?”

“ If the prophecy must happen, then nothing you do will change it. So you must do what you wish and hope. Spending your time in fear of what may be will not make it less likely to be. ”

That, Harry thought, was maybe the best advice he’d ever heard. He would focus on what he could control and try to ignore the rest. Drowning in anxiety wouldn’t fix anything.

He was so, so glad to have one friend that he could trust without reservation.

Dobby and Winky

Things settled down a bit after the first task, at least. He wasn’t receiving quite so much hate from the school in general now that he was tied for first place, and he had a little breathing room before the next time they tried to kill him. He spent as much time studying as he could manage, hoping to learn spells that would prove useful when he figured out that damn clue.

As of yet, he’d had no discernable luck in getting the egg to make any sense. It just screamed at him whenever he opened it. He wasn’t sure if that was meant to be the clue or the puzzle he had to decipher to find the clue. He’d considered feeding some of his magic into it and just seeing if that would fix it, but he was too afraid of damaging it.

Ron continued to pretend that the month he’d spent treating Harry like dirt hadn’t even happened and Harry mostly tried to play along, but their friendship wasn’t as easy as it had been. Things about Ron that he used to dismiss as just quirks were now becoming increasingly irritating. He found himself making excuses to be alone just to avoid the redhead.

Harry’s eyesight had not gone back to normal after the first task, though he continued to wear the transfigured glasses. He wasn’t sure what to make of it except that his magic had acted to keep him alive by giving him clear vision. It was kind of baffling, even to him. He wasn’t about to let anyone else know about it.

As to his general vulnerability, he’d waited two days after the task before performing a little test with a potions knife. He was able to cut himself, but not easily. Not nearly as easily as it should have done. 

So it wasn’t just when his magic was acting up. He was changing. On a fundamental level.

One evening, a couple weeks after the first task, Hermione dragged them down to the kitchens after dinner. She was so worked up she was hardly making any sense, just insisting that they had to see for themselves. Knowing that the house-elves worked in the kitchen, Harry was rather wary of where she was going with this. He was honestly getting sick of her crusade to force creatures into having freedom whether they liked it or not. It all sounded a bit contrary to him, but it didn’t matter how many people tried to tell her why she was wrong in trying to free them. She was convinced that she was right for reasons Harry didn’t fully understand, and she didn’t seem to even hear anything that challenged her conviction.

Then they were in the kitchen and before Harry could even properly take the place in, Dobby had latched onto him with a strength he wouldn’t have believed possible of the little creature. “Master Harry! Master Harry!” he gasped joyfully. “Dobby has been hoping and hoping to be seeing Master Harry, sir, and Master Harry is coming to see him!”

Dobby finally released him and stepped back to look up at him with his huge eyes. He was dressed in the same white, toga-like outfit that the rest of the elves wore, though Dobby’s was pure white, missing the Hogwarts crest. Harry supposed it was because he didn’t actually belong to the school. He was just glad that he didn’t have anything distinguishing him as Harry’s elf.

With luck, Hermione would just assume Dobby was being generally odd by calling Harry “master Harry”. They all knew Dobby had been ridiculously fond of him in their second year.

“How’s it going, Dobby?” Harry asked, feeling a little nervous that Dobby might say something that Hermione really couldn’t be convinced was harmless. He’d not specifically told Dobby to keep their bond a secret, but then he’d not expected to be seeing him often before he had a house for Dobby to keep, at which point he didn’t plan on trying to keep it a secret.

“Dumbledore is giving Dobby and Winky jobs, sir!” he elf announced proudly.

“Winky?” Harry wondered. “She’s here, too?”

Dobby excitedly led them through the kitchen to where Winky was sitting on a stool by the fire. Unlike Dobby, she was wearing a tiny blue blouse, skirt, and hat, the latter of which had holes cut in it for her ears. It was filthy with stains and even burn marks.

“Hello, Winky,” Harry said carefully.

Winky’s lip quivered a moment and then she burst into tears.

“Oh, dear,” Hermione gasped as she and Ron had followed Harry and Dobby to the end of the kitchen. “Winky, don’t cry, please don’t…”

But Winky cried even harder.

Dobby just beamed up at Harry. “Would Master Harry like a cup of tea?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over Winky’s wailing.

“Er… Yeah. Sure.”

Instantly, half a dozen house-elves were rushing to serve them each a cup of tea and every fixing imaginable.

“Good service!” Ron said, impressed, and the elves all looked delighted even as Hermione frowned in disapproval at Ron.

And they all sat down to drink their tea while Harry asked about how long Dobby had been at Hogwarts.

Dobby explained that he’d gotten a job there just after Harry had broken the bond with his bad former master. Just recently, he’d gone to visit his friend Winky and he’d found that she had been freed.

Winky flew into hysterics just hearing it spoken of, throwing herself onto the floor and beating her fists and screaming in misery.

Hermione instantly fell to the ground next to her and began trying to comfort her, but everything Hermione did just seemed to make it worse.

Dobby just raised his voice and continued his story of how he’d brought her to Hogwarts to get a job like he had. He explained how Dumbledore had offered him a reasonable wage and time off and Dobby had talked him down to something he felt more comfortable with, just one galleon a week and one day off a month instead of ten galleons a week and every weekend off.

Hermione asked Winky about how much she was making and that just made the elf furious instead of sad.

“Winky is a disgraced elf,” she spat at Hermione with a rather impressive glare, “but Winky is not yet getting paid! Winky is not sunk so low as that! Winky is properly ashamed of being freed!”

Hermione tried to reason with the elf to understand that what Crouch had done to her was wrong, but Winky just covered her ears and refused to hear a bad word about her former master.

“Winky is having trouble adjusting, Master Harry,” Dobby explained confidentially. “Winky forgets she is not bound to Mr. Crouch anymore. She is allowed to speak her mind now, but she won’t do it.”

Dobby then explained that House-elves were bound to keep their silence and the secrets of their masters, and he said it with a subtly significant look at Harry that he found a bit reassuring. The elf was doing his best to keep his secrets.

Winky then went on about her worry for her former master, whom she’d looked after for her whole life and her mother before her and her grandmother before that.

When they left the kitchen, the elves crowded around them and tried to get them to accept snacks to take back upstairs. Hermione refused, a pained look on her face at the way the elves kept bowing and curtseying.

Ron and Harry accepted many snacks, filling up their pockets with the wrapped bundles, though Harry noticed that he was the only one making sure to thank each elf that gave him anything.

After curfew that night, Harry snuck out of the common room in his cloak and made his way to one of the empty rooms he usually used to talk with Kaa during the day. He locked himself in and warded the door as best he knew how – and he was learning new spells for it all the time. 

Then he called Dobby.

The elf appeared before him almost instantly, smiling hugely at him. “Master Harry is calling Dobby!” the elf practically cheered, making Harry smile as he sat down on the floor to better look the elf in the face.

“Hello, Dobby. I wonder if I could ask you a few more questions about Winky.”

“Oh, of course, Master Harry, sir. Dobby is being happy to answer all Master Harry’s questions, sir!”

Harry smiled a bit at the excitable elf before he got down to his questions, “I was wondering why Winky hasn’t bonded with Hogwarts. That’s how it works, right? Because the elves all need a bond, yeah?”

“That is true, Master Harry, but Dumblydoor be saying Hogwarts is all full on elves and cannot be bonding anymore right now, so Dobby and Winky can work here, but not bond. Winky not be finding work anywhere else, so she is here.”

“That’s awful,” Harry frowned. “Surely she could find a family to work for, since she doesn’t want pay or anything. Wouldn’t there be lots of people who would like an elf?”

“Yes, Master Harry, but Winky was only ever bonded to Mr. Crouch. She does not know how to let go of the bond and she doesn’t want to try. She cannot bond to another master until she can let go of her last one. Dobby bes thinking she will die soon.”

“That’s the feeling I got, too,” Harry sighed. He gave it a moment of thought, then sighed heavily. “Can you bring her here to talk to me?”

“Dobby can,” was all he said before popping away.

He returned just seconds later with a disconsolate Winky staring blankly at the floor.

Harry took in her obvious depression and his resolve firmed. “Hello, Winky. I am very sorry that you were freed. You didn’t deserve that.”

Winky blinked and focused on him with mistrustful eyes, “Harry Potter is not telling Winky to be grateful?”

“No,” Harry said firmly. “My friend doesn’t want to understand how house-elf bonds work, but I do. You need a bond to be healthy and strong, right?”

Winky nodded slowly and silent tears fell from her eyes, “Winky is being weak and disgraced. Winky should die.”

“I disagree,” Harry corrected. “I don’t think you should die. I think you were a very loyal elf, and I would like you to bond with me.”

The elf’s breath caught and she stopped breathing for a long moment before she whispered, “Winky is broken. Winky cannot bond again.”

“I think I can fix that,” Harry admitted, because his magic had actually stolen Dobby’s bond from Lucius and if it could do that, surely it could fix a broken one.

The little elf trembled all over.

“Only with your permission though, Winky,” Harry pressed when she didn’t speak. “I won’t force it on you. Will you let me try?”

Winky’s chin trembled and her tiny fists clenched as she shifted.

The moment lengthened and Harry was afraid she would refuse, but then Dobby reached out and wrapped one of his hands around one of her bony wrists.

Winky looked at the point of connection, then up at Dobby with wide eyes.

Dobby nodded solemnly at whatever it was that was passing between them.

Finally, Winky looked back at Harry and gave a tremulous nod. “Winky will let you try,” she whispered and clenched her eyes shut.

Harry took a deep breath, and drew on his magic the way he had with the Dementors, pushing it to do what he needed.

He felt his magic rise within him and wrap itself around both elves before settling its focus on Winky. It seemed to inspect her, and Harry found himself picturing a friendly dog making a new friend.

He could feel something that felt wrong within the elf. A bit like the difference between lie and truth, it just wasn’t quite right.

Then his magic just seemed to soak right into her skin, and the feeling of wrong washed away like it had never been, leaving the elf feeling clean and healthy to his senses.

The elf jolted as her eyes snapped open and she collapsed to her knees.

Harry frowned and glanced at Dobby, but the elf was grinning.

“Winky is a Potter elf now, Master Harry, sir,” Dobby declared.

Winky continued to tremble and look rather dazed.

“Is she okay?”

“Winky is being wonderful, Master Harry,” Dobby assured. “She just be needing to rest and get used to the new bond.”

Harry nodded slowly, hoping that Dobby was right. The last thing he’d want is for her to be hurt. “Okay, Dobby. Can you explain the rules to her? And try not to let anyone know that you’re my elves, okay? Not until I get a house for us. Then you won’t have to hide anymore. I’m just afraid they’ll try to make me break the bonds if they find out sooner.”

“Dobby will, Master Harry. Winky will be a good elf, you will see.”

“I believe you, Dobby,” Harry assured the elf. Then Dobby grabbed Winky’s arm and they both popped away.

Harry sat alone in silence for a long moment before calling out Kaa and explaining to him what all had happened with the elves. “ So I have two elves and I don’t even have anywhere for us to live, ” Harry sighed.

He supposed that he’d have to start looking for a place as soon as he turned seventeen. And maybe even find a real estate agent – if the magical world had such a thing – to keep looking for places during his seventh year if he didn’t find anywhere over the summer. Once the students were seventeen, they were allowed to leave Hogwarts whenever they didn’t have classes as long as they were back by curfew.

Harry did wonder if Dumbledore would refuse to allow him that freedom. The man did like to control his life. He rather doubted the headmaster would get over that just because Harry became a legal adult. He really couldn’t picture Dumbledore letting him alone even when Harry had graduated and got a job and started his life as a proper adult.

Maybe he should consider leaving the U.K. Surely Dumbledore wouldn’t try to run his life from another country, right?

“ Perhaps your new elf was reacting to your magic ,” Kaa observed, drawing him from his wandering thoughts.

Harry considered that a moment. “ She seemed kind of dazed. ”

“ These elves draw their power from their master, yes? It seems likely they would feel your magic. ”

“ And my magic definitely isn’t normal ,” Harry nodded. “ Dobby didn’t react like that, though. ”

“ Your Dobby does not sound like a very sane elf. ”

Harry laughed, “ True .” He was quiet for a moment before adding, “ It is nice that they can’t betray me .”

“ Did not your Dobby betray his former master while he was bonded?”

That brought the frown back to Harry’s face. “ He did… But I think he could only do it because he really isn’t all that sane. And only because his life was Hell. I can’t see him doing that with me. Especially me, because he’s got a very strange opinion of me. ”

“ But he could. ”

Harry sighed, “ Yeah, I guess so. Maybe I’ll have to have a talk with them. Be really specific in what they are and are not allowed to do. I think that’s why Dobby could do what he did. He had never been specifically told that he couldn’t do it, so he could choose to believe it was allowed, even if skirting so close to the forbidden made him punish himself over and over again .” He grimaced at the memory of Dobby bashing himself into whatever was handy in a need to self-punish. And talk of ironing his hands of all things. He was glad, at least, that he’d forbidden that behavior immediately. He suspected it had become so ingrained that only a direct order against it would have stopped him.

“ Perhaps, if you can trust them, these elves could be your friends and you would not have to worry for betrayal as you do with the humans, ” Kaa suggested.

Harry barked a surprised laugh, “ I’m not sure either of them would be comfortable calling their master a ‘friend’, ” he admitted. “ Dobby might come around to it, but I think Winky would probably be insulted if I even suggested such a thing. ”

Harry tried to imagine what it would be like to have his own place with the elves there to cook and clean for him and he felt a bit cold at the thought. He knew that the elves needed masters, and he knew that they liked to cook and clean and serve people. He just hoped that he never started to take them for granted.

He really just wanted them to be happy and healthy. 

The Invitation

“Potter, a word if you please,” McGonagall called above the noise of students getting up to leave.

Harry frowned uncertainly, but waved Ron and Hermione off. “You don’t have to wait for me,” he warned in exasperation. He suspected it was his recent brush with death that had them clinging to him, but that didn’t mean he appreciated it. Especially as he was still rather cross with Ron.

Ron and Hermione shared a look, but didn’t complain as they filed out of the room last, closing the door behind them.

Harry hefted his bag and approached McGonagall where she was impatiently waiting at the front of the room.

“Potter, the champions and their partners-”

“What partners?” Harry asked in some alarm.

“Your partners for the Yule Ball, Potter,” she replied suspiciously. “Your dance partners.”

Harry blinked at her in growing dread, “I don’t dance, Professor,” he tried to reason. He also had no idea how to get a partner.

“Oh yes, you do,” McGonagall said irritably. “That’s what I’m telling you. Traditionally, the champions and their partners open the ball.”

“Tradition,” Harry latched onto the word, “That means it’s not compulsory, right? It’s not part of the magically binding contract…” he trailed off at the storm brewing on her stern features.

“You are a Hogwarts champion, and you will do what is expected of you as a representative of the school. So make sure you get yourself a partner, Potter.”

Harry could only stare at her rather numbly.

“You heard me, Potter,” she reiterated with finality.

As Harry turned and left the room, he felt his numb dread begin to bubble into anger and resentment. It wasn’t his fault he was in this bloody tournament. It was meant to be voluntary. It made sense that people who willingly signed up would do as they were told to honor their school. When, however, it was his school that had failed to protect him from being entered against his will, he wasn’t feeling all that gracious toward honoring their stupid traditions.

The anger grew and he dearly wanted to rebel, but he couldn’t refuse entirely. He wasn’t comfortable being that defiant. He wasn’t sure what they would do if he did that, but he kind of suspected that he’d end up looking stupid, showing up as the only champion without a partner. His luck, they’d make him dance anyway, holding his hands up to nothing like a fool. He didn’t entirely doubt McGonagall would do that. And if he refused, she’d deduct enough points to have all of Gryffindor hating him again.

Didn’t seem worth it.

“Hey, Potter!”

Harry looked toward the voice warily. He was in the corridor not far from the Transfiguration classroom, and the call seemed to have come from the group of Slytherin fourth years clustered nearby.

His wand hand flexed in trepidation, but he didn’t call out his wand just yet. He wasn’t entirely sure which of them had spoken, though he knew it hadn’t been Malfoy’s voice.

Then Zabini grinned at him and when he spoke, Harry knew he had been the one that called out, “Will you be my date to the ball, Potter?”

Harry blinked at him in surprise. The tone and the grin were inviting everyone watching to take it as a joke, but Harry could hear that the offer was more legitimate than not.

And then he thought of McGonagall’s face when he showed up with a Slytherin as his date. 

“You know what, Zabini, let’s do it,” Harry grinned back, amusement curling inside him when he saw Zabini’s grin falter in surprise while Malfoy gaped openly. Parkinson let out a sudden laugh that faded quickly as though she wasn’t sure whether it was funny.

Then Zabini laughed a little and his grin firmed again. “Just make sure you’ve got decent dress robes, Potter, or I’m dumping you at the door.”

And again, Harry heard truth, though he wasn’t sure if Zabini would really dump him at the door if he didn’t like his robes. That part was a little iffy, but he really did seem serious about the date. “Great. Should be a blast,” he smiled, rather bemused.

He didn’t stick around to see what the other Slytherins would have to say when they recovered, but headed straight for the common room.

Along the way, the reality of what he’d just done began to sink in more and more and his incredulity grew. He’d just agreed to go to the ball with Blaise Zabini. His face grew hot as he thought about it. He was certainly nice to look at. His face grew even hotter when he thought about what it would be like to dance with him.

Merlin, he hoped he didn’t end up looking like a tomato when the time came.

Thankfully, he’d managed to get his complexion under control by the time he made it to the common room. He sat in his usual place by the fire as his mind turned over the idea of going to the ball with a Slytherin. And a male Slytherin.

Thinking about it, he didn’t feel much one way or the other about going with a boy. He knew Vernon had always had plenty to say about sissy boys and faggots and such, but Harry hadn’t ever given much credence to anything Vernon Dursley said. The bible seemed to be against it as well, he thought, but he didn’t actually know why. It’s not like he’d actually read the book cover to cover or anything.

And anyway, his very existence seemed tailor-made to offend God, so dating boys probably couldn’t make things any worse.

Zabini was ridiculously fit, really, though Harry had no idea if he properly fancied him or not. He didn’t actually know him that well, but he was a Slytherin, so odds were good that he was a berk, right?

“Have you got any idea of who to ask?”

Ron’s question startled Harry out of his thoughts and he looked around to find both Hermione and Ron were sitting in chairs next to him. He’d not even noticed them approach.

“Oh,” Harry frowned, and he thought about prevaricating, but Zabini’s invitation hadn’t exactly been private, so the whole school would know soon enough. Plus, what with being accused of lying all the damn time, he was rather disinclined to be caught in a real one. “I’ve, er… already got a date.”

Ron gaped at him a moment, then sighed despairingly, “I should have expected that. So who is it?”

“Zabini asked me,” Harry shrugged.

It was hard not to laugh at the incomprehension that clung to both of his friends for long moments after his words.

“Wait, you mean Blaise Zabini?” Ron demanded, aghast, “That Slytherin bloke?”

“That’s the one,” Harry shrugged.

Ron continued to look disbelieving, his face slowly growing redder, and Harry thought it was more embarrassment than anger. “And you said yes ?” Ron managed to splutter out.

“I was kind of angry at McGonagall just then, so it seemed like a good idea,” Harry admitted.

“Harry,” Hermione said, moving to sit closer to him. Her tone was alarmingly gentle, like the one she used when trying to soothe Winky. “Does this mean…? Well, are you gay?”

“Not really,” Harry shrugged. “I mean, I like girls just fine.”

“So you’re bisexual,” Hermione concluded.

Harry grimaced a little and shook his head, “Do I have to be anything?” he complained. “Do you have to have a label for everything about me?”

“Of course not!” Hermione declared instantly. “You just do what makes you happy, Harry. I just want to be supportive.”

“It would be really supportive if you were a little less supportive,” Harry ventured.

Hermione blinked and her brow puckered in mild consternation before she managed a bit of a jerky nod. “If you don’t want to talk about it, then we won’t talk about it.” She finished with a more certain nod, then announced that she was going to get her homework and headed up to her dorm.

“But he’s a Slytherin ,” Ron muttered more to himself than Harry.

Harry sighed and found his Ancient Runes book in his bag. Maybe Ron would go away if he and Hermione both started their homework.

Chapter Text

Dance Partners

By breakfast, everyone seemed to have heard that Harry was going to the ball with Blaise Zabini. It was mildly surprising that no one seemed to even notice that they were both boys. It wasn’t just accepted. It was normal . The only one who mentioned it to him was Dean.

“I didn’t even know you were gay, Harry,” Dean said, somewhat uncertainly.

That earned him a number of strange looks and Seamus quickly leaned over to whisper in his ear. That started off some kind of whisper argument between them that had Dean looking more and more confused.

He didn’t ask any questions about Harry’s sexual orientation again after that, though.

All told, Harry found less drama about him going with a Slytherin than he’d have expected. People sent him looks that questioned his sanity, but he’d honestly expected worse, so he’d take it.

The following Monday, however, Harry received an owl at breakfast from McGonagall. It succinctly advised him to be in the Entry Hall at 7pm for dance lessons for the champions. She’d even gone so far as to warn him not to be late or there would be point deductions.

He suspected that she was actually worried about him not showing up at all after how he’d argued with her. There was a post script that advised him to bring his dance partner should he have found one already.

They had Care of Magical Creatures with the Slytherins that morning, so he hung back afterward to talk to Zabini, who thankfully noticed him immediately and shooed the others on ahead without him.

Harry just thrust the parchment from McGonagall at him.

With a raised eyebrow, Blaise accepted the parchment and unfolded it to read. His eyes ran over it as he read and then he nodded, “I’ll be there,” and handed the parchment back. He gave Harry a wink and walked away.

Harry looked after him, finding that he understood that wink no more than any of those from earlier in the year. He did not understand that boy’s fondness for ambiguous winking.

That evening, Harry arrived in the entry hall to find Blaise waiting for him, though he wasn’t alone. The other three champions were there as well, with people that he could only assume were their partners. Cho Chang seemed to be with Cedric and Fleur didn’t seem to have a date yet. Which left Krum’s date, who was…

“Hermione?” he blinked in surprise.

She startled as she turned toward him, then smiled, “Oh, Harry! Hi.”

“What…?” Harry trailed off as Krum stepped forward and placed a rather possessive hand on Hermione’s back.

Hermione blushed, but didn’t seem to mind at all, “Harry, I guess you’ve met Viktor,” she offered.

“Briefly,” Harry agreed. “You’re his date, I guess,” he tried to wrap his mind around this. He’d had no idea that she fancied Krum at all, and even less that he might feel that way for her. Was he seventeen or eighteen? Was that too big of an age difference? Two years didn’t seem so bad, but three felt a bit worrisome.

“Yes,” she blushed deeper and smiled with shy pleasure. “He asked me yesterday.”

“Well, congratulations,” Harry offered, because he had a lot of questions, but they could wait until he had her alone.

McGonagall arrived then, her eyes running over them briefly. Her mouth grew very tight when her eyes fell on Zabini and Harry felt a surge of vindication when she clearly made the connection of whose partner he must be.

Harry made sure his face was as innocent as possible when she looked at him.

She hesitated just a moment before ushering them all into a nearby room. It was large and open and Harry was sure he’d never seen it before. Had it been a blank stretch of wall where the door was or had there been a tapestry there? He wasn’t sure. He made a mental note to check the Map for it later.

“You are here,” McGonagall said crisply, “because Headmasters Dumbledore and Karkaroff and Headmistress Maxime have concurred that the champions and their partners will open the ball with a choreographed waltz. You and your partners will report here at seven each Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday evening until the ball in order to prepare. Ms. Delacour, I encourage you to find a date soon that your date may have time to learn the dance before the event.

“Now, Ms. Delacour, for today I will have you practice with a conjured specter.” She cast a silent spell and a billow of smoke poured out of her wand and formed itself into the shape of a man, looking very nearly solid. It held its hands in a classic leading dance pose.

Fleur blinked at it a few times, then cautiously stepped into its hold.

“Very well, assumes your positions, the rest of you,” McGonagall instructed and flicked her wand at a phonograph, which began playing a sort of fast instrumental beat. “Potter, you will lead to begin and switch to following when I tell you. As you are smaller, Mr. Zabini will be leading for the lift portions of the dance.”

Harry tightened his lips a bit at that, but he supposed it made sense. Zabini had a few inches of height on him and he wasn’t as skinny  since he probably hadn’t grown up starved.

Zabini just smirked at him and held out his hands to begin in the follower position.

With a sigh, Harry mentally braced himself as he stepped forward to take Zabini’s hand in one of his and place his other on the taller boy’s waist. His heart immediately began beating faster as Zabini settled his free hand on Harry’s shoulder, quite close to his neck. Harry could feel how hot his face was and he didn’t want to think about how badly he must be blushing. Blessedly, Zabini said nothing about it, only looking at Harry with a smirk and a strange look in his eyes that Harry couldn’t quite name. It didn’t look cruel though.

The next hour was… interesting. The dancing was actually easier than he’d feared it would be, and the fact he was touching Zabini almost constantly was… nice. Nicer than he’d expected.

Zabini seemed to find everything very amusing by the way he kept smirking and his eyes sparkling with humor. Every time Harry made a misstep in the dance, Zabini only seemed to find it funny, but he wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t laughing at Harry’s ineptitude, but rather just finding humor where Harry might have found only frustration on his own. The good humor helped Harry to laugh at himself instead of feeling humiliated, which was nice, if not at all what he’d have honestly expected from a Slytherin.

There wasn’t much time to talk as McGonagall was stepping in to give instructions and corrections every few seconds.

As soon as they were dismissed, Hermione latched onto Harry’s arm and practically dragged him out of the room and back toward Gryffindor tower. “Oh, Harry, I couldn’t believe it when Viktor asked me to the ball,” she gushed quietly at him.

“I can’t believe you said yes,” Harry admitted with a laugh. “I seem to remember that he wasn’t even good-looking and that people only liked him because of his Wonky Faint,” he couldn’t help but tease.

Her already rosy cheeks went darker as she lightly smacked his shoulder, “Don’t be cruel, Harry!” She bit her lip a moment before reluctantly admitting, “I mean… he’s a bit good-looking, really. I suppose I was just annoyed at everyone fawning over him, but Harry, he said the reason he’s been spending so much time in the library is because he wanted to talk to me . Can you believe it?”

It was clear that she was deeply flattered by the attention and Harry warmed a little toward his competitor for being rational enough to see something worth admiring in Hermione. She was a pretty girl, even more since the incident with the tooth-growing hex had resulted in her front teeth being shrunk to a more aesthetically pleasing size by the mediwitch. Harry didn’t personally feel any attraction toward her, in part because she’d kind of fallen into the bossy big-sister role since they’d become friends. And in part because she’d proven that she couldn’t be trusted and he didn’t think he could ever fancy someone that he knew he couldn’t trust.

He still cared about her though, and he wanted her to be happy.

“He looked so nervous when he asked me,” she was sighing in sappy remembrance. “It was really quite sweet.”

Harry just grinned at her and offered, “I’m happy for you, Hermione.”

She beamed in gratitude. “Oh, but Harry, you looked pretty comfortable with Zabini!”

Harry did his best to pretend like he couldn’t feel himself blushing. “Well, he is rather fit, isn’t he?”

Hermione giggled at him, which he couldn’t remember her doing since second year when she’d been crushing on Lockhart. “He is,” she admitted, “though not really my type. I can’t believe you’re going with a Slytherin. I mean, I support it, of course, but after how you’ve always fought with Malfoy…”

“Zabini isn’t Malfoy,” Harry pointed out. “Seems a bit childish to condemn the whole house because Malfoy’s such a berk and their Quidditch team’s full of cheaters. And their Head of House is awful. And most of the Death Eaters were Slytherins…”

“Harry!” Hermione chided.

He laughed, “Well, my point is that just because they’ve got more than their share of disreputable sorts doesn’t mean every one of them is equally bad. Zabini’s never done anything to me.”

“That’s very mature of you, Harry,” she decided.

“What about you, though?” Harry sort of half-teased, “Durmstrang teaches Dark Arts, you know?”

Hermione frowned at that and nibbled at her lip before responding, “Well, that’s true, but I don’t suppose that means everyone that goes there is a bad person. It’s a bit hard to believe such a large school could turn out nothing but Dark wizards.”

“Even if they learn Dark spells?” Harry pressed, even as he internally winced for the way she’d made “Dark wizards” synonymous with “bad people”.

That made her look rather thoughtful, “I… I suppose maybe it’s only higher forms of Dark Magic that twist the soul,” she reasoned. “Otherwise every Durmstrang student really would be evil, wouldn’t they?”

Well, Harry supposed it was progress toward actually rational thinking regarding Dark magic. If things with Viktor worked out, she might actually come around eventually.

“I think that’s true,” he agreed firmly. “And I think if they really were evil, Dumbledore wouldn’t have agreed to have them here at all.”

“That’s true,” Hermione smiled, reassured at the mention of Dumbledore.

They walked in silence until they’d nearly reached the Fat Lady’s portrait, where Hermione pulled him to a stop with a hand on his arm, “Oh, Harry, don’t tell Ron about Viktor,” she said with a worried frown. “I don’t want him to feel bad that we’ve both got dates so quickly. I’ll tell him after he’s found someone to go with.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Harry agreed, because Ron was making an effort to not be jealous, but Harry knew he was struggling with the entire concept of finding a date. Harry was well aware he was lucky that he hadn’t even had time to worry about it at all. And he’d been lucky enough to be asked instead of having to ask someone. Being able to hear Zabini’s sincerity in the invitation had made it a lot easier than trying to ask someone that he didn’t really know if they were interested in him at all.

So he did have sympathy for Ron’s situation, and knowing that Hermione was going with a champion while Harry was a champion… Well, he wasn’t sure he wanted to test Ron’s newfound goodwill just yet.

The rest of the week passed quickly after that. Wednesday was their second dance lesson. Ron obviously knew about the dance lessons and had waved Harry out of the common room with a “rather you than me, mate”, while Hermione had said she was going to the library, which hadn’t inspired Ron to want to join her.

The lesson went about as the previous, though Fleur was now accompanied by Roger Davies, who always seemed to start out the dance doing okay, and then end up stepping on her feet and stumbling after a bit of looking into her eyes.

Personally, Harry still didn’t understand what was so special about her. It had been confirmed – by highly reliable, wide-spread rumors – that she was part veela, but Harry just didn’t feel anything when he looked at her. At least, nothing beyond what he might feel with anyone else. There was no mind-numbing attraction or anything. He didn’t mention it to anyone since he worried that it might have to do with his heritage.

Thankfully, Zabini seemed to be deliberately ignoring her most of the time. Maybe that was his way of not getting sucked into her allure.

Krum, Harry noticed, spared the occasional glance for Fleur, but his eyes never lingered anywhere but Hermione, which earned him serious points with Harry. 

He also wondered if maybe people with Dark magic had more resistance than those with Light magic. It might make sense of Krum and Zabini’s more muted response to her, since Harry’s sense of their magic seemed to indicate both were Dark.

It was that Friday that Harry and Hermione found Ron in the common room after dinner. The boy had missed the meal entirely, which was virtually unheard of. He was just sitting on the couch, looking rather dazed. Ginny was seated beside him, patting his arm in comfort.

“That’s a bit what you looked like after Zabini asked you to the ball,” Hermione provided in an undertone as they cautiously approached Ron to ask why he wasn’t at dinner.

“He, er… He asked Fleur Delacour to go to the ball with him,” Ginny explained, fighting a smile even as she continued comforting Ron.

“I don’t know what made me do it,” Ron gasped out. “What was I playing at? There were people all around… I’ve gone mad! Everyone watching… I was just walking past her in the entrance hall. She was standing there talking to Diggory and it sort of came over me and I asked her!”

Ron moaned and put his face in his hands, continuing to speak, though now barely intelligible. “She looked at me like I was a sea slug or something. Didn’t even answer. And then, I dunno, I just sort of came to my senses and ran for it.”

Harry sighed sympathetically, “Not your fault. Veela are always alluring, but they can sort of turn it up when they want to. I think she was probably trying to charm Diggory and you just got too close.”

“This is mad,” Ron moaned. “I’m the only one left who hasn’t got anyone. Well, except Neville. He told me he asked you, Hermione,” he huffed a laugh. “But he said you were already going with someone. Good job getting out of that one. I mean, who’d want to go with Neville?”

Hermione rolled her eyes very hard, “Honestly, Ronald, there’s nothing wrong with Neville.” She firmed her expression a little before admitting, “As it happens, I really do have someone else to go with. He asked me the first weekend after it was announced.”

“Sure you do,” Ron laughed, not taking her seriously for a second. “Neville’s right though. You are  a girl. How about it, then? Let’s just go together, Hermione.”

“I’ve just told you I’ve already got a date,” she said very coldly, then turned and quickly made her way up to her dorm.

“She’s lying,” Ron said with conviction as he watched her go.

“She’s not,” Ginny said quietly.

“Who is it then?” Ron asked sharply.

“I’m not telling you. It’s her business,” Ginny dismissed.

“Right,” Ron said, unconvinced. “This is getting stupid. It’s not like I need Hermione if she’s going to be so proud. I’ll just go with…” and he looked around the common room with sinking hope.

Harry noticed Lavender and Parvati entering the common room just then and decided to help Ron out. “Wait here,” he said to Ron, then stood up and walked straight to Parvati. “Parvati, would you be interested in going to the ball with Ron?”

Parvati giggled a bit, then glanced around him at Ron, sizing him up a moment before nodding, “Yes, all right then.”

“Great!” Harry grinned at both of them before returning to Ron. “There you are. You’re going with Parvati.”

Ron sagged in relief. “Thanks, mate!”

He was glad for an end to that bit of drama, at least. Hopefully with a date of his own now, Ron would be able to handle Hermione going as Krum’s date. He wouldn’t be the one to tell Ron about it though. Not after how rude he’d been to Hermione about having a date at all.

During the third dance lesson, they had a bit more time to talk as McGonagall didn’t feel the need to instruct or correct every third second anymore.

“You’ve never danced before, have you, Potter?” Zabini asked quietly when they had a moment.

“Er, no,” Harry admitted, because there was no question he’d struggled more than anyone else in the room.

“Most purebloods get lessons before Hogwarts,” Zabini offered. “So we don’t embarrass our parents at balls.”

“This is the first time I’ve had to worry about it,” Harry said with a slight shrug. He wasn’t embarrassed that he hadn’t been raised going to balls. There was plenty about his upbringing to be embarrassed about, but he didn’t think that was part of it. To his mind, normal people didn’t grow up going to balls.

“Well, you’ve got decent rhythm,” Zabini allowed. “You’re picking it up pretty fast for a beginner.”

Harry huffed a laugh, “So glad you approve, Zabini.”

They didn’t speak for a bit as they moved through a more complicated bit of the dance. It was Zabini who spoke next.

“You know, under the circumstances, you can call me Blaise.”

Harry smiled a bit at that and nodded. “Fair enough. I suppose it would be all right if you called me Harry then.”

Blaise smirked at him again and then McGonagall pounced on them for not focusing.

Harry finally got another letter from Sirius the weekend before the ball.

Dear Harry,

Congratulations on getting past the horntail. Whoever put your name in that goblet shouldn’t be feeling too happy right now! I was going to suggest a Conjunctivius Curse, as a dragon’s eyes are its weakest point, but your way was better. I’m impressed. Disillusionment is above fourth year magic and if the pictures in the paper are to be believed, your Serpensortia produced absolutely massive snakes. I don’t know what spells you used for protection, but they must have been impressive to keep you from getting hurt.

Don’t get complacent, though, Harry. You’ve only done one task. Whoever put you in for the tournament’s got plenty more opportunity if they’re trying to hurt you. There’s no chance that chain breaking was really an accident, and it sounds like it was a pretty close call that got you out of that bind. Keep your eyes open – particularly when the person we discussed is around – and concentrate on keeping yourself out of trouble.

Keep in touch. I still want to hear about anything unusual.

Sirius

The letter, as was becoming custom, left Harry feeling worse than before he’d read it. The reminder that Sirius had wasted so much time talking about Karkaroff’s possible threat that he didn’t get around to telling Harry how to defeat the concrete threat just left him feeling angry again.

He scoffed as he shoved the letter back into his pocket. As though he was going to go out of his way to keep Sirius informed about every strange thing that happened in Harry’s life. Thus far, doing so had only resulted in Sirius putting himself in danger for no actual reason that Harry could see. How his being in Britain was going to help anything, he couldn’t understand. It’s not like he talked to Harry more often since he was in the country, after all. A month to send a letter? If he was in the tropics, that might make sense, but he had to be back in country now since he’d apparently started back in September if not earlier.

Anyway, it wasn’t as though Sirius was giving him any helpful advice. If he wanted to be told to go to Dumbledore, he could have just asked Hermione for advice.

During their fourth dance lesson, Zabini inquired about the color of Harry’s robes.

“Why?” Harry asked suspiciously.

“So I can make sure we don’t end up looking like holiday decorations, Harry,” Zabini – or Blaise , rather – said with exasperation.

Harry thought about that a moment and then imagined that they both wore their house colors. They’d end up in bright red and green, which would be festive, but not well-matched. “Mine’s black and white,” Harry admitted, because Mrs. Weasley had picked his up with zero input from him. Not that he was sure he would have known what input to give, but it would have been nice to be able to pick them out himself.

“Good enough,” Blaise shrugged.

“Well, what color are yours?” Harry prompted, figuring he should at least get to know.

“Black and dark green, mostly,” Blaise allowed with that amused sparkle in his eyes. “At least we can’t look as bad as Draco and Pansy. Draco went with Slytherin green and Pansy went for bright pink of all things, at least that’s what she’s claimed. Should be fairly hideous together.”

Harry smiled a little and tried to imagine it. The mental image had him huffing a laugh. He warmed toward Blaise a little more to hear him making fun of Malfoy. And Harry didn’t think he was just doing it to try to please Harry. He seemed earnest enough. 

After a few more minutes, Blaise spoke again, “You’re not a big talker, are you, Harry?”

Harry grinned wryly, “You noticed? No, I’m better at listening than talking.”

“Here I had the impression you lions were loud. Your table in the Great Hall is certainly the loudest of the lot.”

“Well, those among us who are loud tend to be very loud,” Harry offered.

“Ah, I see,” Blaise nodded, then went silent as they shifted so that Blaise was in the lead just in time for him to send Harry on a quick twirl before they came together again. They danced a couple beats more and then a quick lift. A couple more steps and Harry was leading once more. “You’re light on your feet for someone who's never had a dance lesson,” Blaise said with a shake of his head.

“I learned that running for my life,” Harry admitted wryly.

Blaise gave him a somewhat intrigued look, but didn’t press for details.

Their last dance lesson was just two days before the ball and it went pretty smoothly, even for Harry. Dancing wasn’t as hard as he’d thought it would be. At least not with a partner that was both a good dancer and very pleasant to hold onto. Learning both to lead and follow as well as to switch between the two had been interesting. Harry hadn’t really known how they would handle them both being male to start with, but apparently that was common in same sex couples in the wizarding world. At least for new couples. Established couples tended to settle on one in the lead and the other following, according to Hermione, who was apparently spending most of their dance lessons interrogating Krum on various wizarding customs. 

Amazingly, the man didn’t seem to mind her endless questions at all.

“Some couples,” Hermione had explained after their third lesson, “will always switch between lead and follow, and that’s not just for same sex couples, I guess. Mostly wizards lead and witches follow because of their size difference, but it’s not a hard and fast rule, especially with similarly sized couples, though of course, magic can allow the smallest woman to lift the largest man if they really want to. I think it’s more to do with it being visually pleasing for the larger partner to lift the smaller.”

Harry interrupted her then before she could get any further down that rabbit hole. They shifted to talking about Ancient Runes instead the rest of the way back to the common room. She and Ron still weren’t speaking, which left him in an annoyingly awkward place between them. He’d made it clear that he thought Ron was being stupid, persisting in believing that Hermione didn’t have a date just for the sake of his own pride, apparently.

Mostly, they just avoided the topic.

Blaise

Blaise paused a moment outside the common room to make sure his face was arranged into a lazy smirk and not a dopey grin. Dancing with Potter was far more enjoyable than it had any right to be.

When he was ready, he sauntered into the common room, quickly spotting his yearmates sprawled about the set of sofas in front of one of the fires where they usually congregated.

Tracey quickly made room when she saw him coming so he was able to drape himself in the corner of the sofa, stretching his long legs out in front of him and crossing his ankles. He glanced around at his friends and acquaintances, but said nothing. Most of them had some form of homework in front of them. In Theo’s case, it was a book on advanced arithmancy that probably wasn’t meant for any Hogwarts student. To Blaise’s great amusement, everyone besides Daphne and Greg was looking at him expectantly. He just offered an oblivious smirk and took a moment to study his fingernails. It didn’t appear that his manicure needed any work.

“Come on, you prick!” Tracey’s laughing reprimand drew his attention and he offered her a mischievous smirk. “How’d it go?”

“Same as always,” Blaise shrugged. “We danced, McGonagall found things to complain about.”

“That’s it?” Tracey asked in a very unimpressed tone.

Blaise’s smirk widened, “Afraid so. I’m not the sort to kiss and tell.”

“Liar,” Theo accused absently, his attention apparently turning back to his book.

“There’s no way you kissed him,” Draco asserted definitively.

“All in good time, Draco,” Blaise said with a dismissive wave. “Gryffindors need a bit of romance before you go snogging them.”

Draco rolled his eyes with his most disgusted sneer. “I have no idea what you see in that specky git.”

“You’re right,” Blaise sighed. “Gorgeous and powerful and famous and rich… Not much to recommend him, really.”

Pansy made a disgusted sound, “Please don’t tell me you’re actually sweet on the Golden Gryffindor.”

“Oh, Pansy,” Blaise gave her a pitying smile. “Don’t be jealous. We can’t all land our generation’s most eligible bachelor, after all.”

Pansy just sneered and very pointedly went back to her homework.

“But he’s actually civil with you? Or do you just not speak at all?” Daphne asked with an edge of true curiosity behind her cool gaze.

“He’s highly tolerable,” Blaise admitted.

“Tolerable,” Tracey repeated evenly, a fine sprinkling of skepticism overlaying the single word.

“Highly,” Blaise affirmed, his eyes hardening just a touch in warning not to press.

“Huh,” she surrendered gracefully and leaned toward her work spread on the sofa table in front of her.

Blaise drew his wand to summon his bag from the dorm, a spell he was getting quite skilled at, if he did say so himself. 

They all returned to their own activities when they realized they’d get nothing more from Blaise, though Draco continued to look surly and Pansy refused to even look at him the rest of the night. Greg continued playing chess against his enchanted board, apparently not having noticed the conversation at all.

It amused Blaise how very interested they all were in his date with Potter. Not at all surprising, but amusing, nonetheless. The Light’s Icon had always been a subject of some interest in the Slytherin common room, particularly among those in his year. Thanks to Draco, there was usually far more speculation on Potter than Blaise had ever appreciated. He’d accused Draco of a crush on the child hero in second year and it had been a running joke ever since, much to Draco’s disgust. It really was a perfectly reasonable explanation for how much time the blond spent talking about Potter.

Personally, Blaise suspected that Draco simply wished to always be the center of attention and since Potter’s fame put him in that coveted position, Draco pitted himself as the Official Rival™  to get as much residual attention as possible.

Blaise didn’t honestly care for such things. Potter had always been a curiosity for him, though. The boy had come to Hogwarts with a talent for magic unrivaled in their year, if not the whole school, yet rumor had it he’d been raised by muggles. And given how utterly ignorant the boy could be, Blaise suspected that was the truth. He was certainly growing into his looks though. Up close, when they were dancing, the glasses didn’t do as much to conceal the startling green of his eyes. Blaise was concerning himself a little with how much he liked those eyes, which contained a sharper wit than he’d have guessed.

His thoughts continued to turn around Potter and he accomplished very little in the next hour. He didn’t consider it a great loss. Potter was an enigma that deserves some consideration, particularly now that he’d agreed to a date with Blaise.

When he got up to head up to the dorm with plans for a leisurely shower and adding a bit to this week’s letter to his mother, Tracey got up as well.

He didn’t even bother going directly to his dorm, instead detouring to a quiet corner of the common room near the corridor to the dorms. Tracey immediately lifted a basic privacy ward, which would prevent any eavesdropping, be it physical or via spell.

He lifted his eyebrows expectantly in question and waited for her to begin.

“Tolerable?” she asked again, as though their conversation had not been interrupted.

Blaise huffed a small laugh at the tenacity of his closest friend. “He’s… likable,” he admitted.

She raised an intrigued eyebrow, “Is he, really? And not just visually.”

“Not just visually,” he rolled his eyes at her. “We haven’t had a lot of chance to talk, but he’s cleverer than I’d expected. And…” he shook his head, not sure how to put it into words. “Genuine,” he decided, “in a way I’m not used to.”

“Gryffindors,” Tracey teased.

Blaise grinned a bit, “I guess.”

“Interesting,” she allowed.

He just smirked at her. “Goodnight, Tracey.”

“Night, Blaise,” he heard her reply as he slipped down the corridor to his dorm.

He wanted his shower and he did need to add to his letter. His mother was a little overprotective when it came to his love life and she was demanding details. He’d never be married off the way she was, but she still worried, he knew, particularly since he’d told her that he was going to the Yule Ball with Harry Potter. He was very Light, very Gryffindor, and very powerful, all things that meant he could potentially hurt Blaise.

Personally, Blaise wasn’t worried. If Potter hadn’t put Malfoy in the hospital yet, he was hardly likely to harm Blaise. That was, however, cold comfort to a woman who’d been through what his mum had. Her last husband had been a piece of work. They’d been married in October last year and Blaise had attended the funeral during Yule break.

She hadn’t married again since then, thankfully. He was getting tired of going to funerals and having to pretend even general sadness.

Chapter Text

Christmas

Harry woke at a sort of nudge from his magic. There was no alarm at all, so he opened his eyes feeling quite calm. Which was probably the only reason that he reacted just with a small flinch at the pair of giant green eyes right in front of his face.

Immediately, the eyes jerked back and Harry was able to make out the face they belonged in. Dobby was wringing his hands nervously. “Dobby is sorry, sir!” he whispered quickly.

Harry put a hand to his chest and took a calming breath, then peeked out of his closed curtains to see that the rest of his dorm was still slumbering. “It’s okay, Dobby. Just maybe don’t be quite so close to my face when I wake up, yeah?”

“Dobby will remember, Master Harry, sir,” the elf nodded exuberantly.

“Did you need something?” Harry inquired, reaching for his glasses on reflex despite no longer needing them to see clearly. It wasn’t a habit he’d tried to break since he didn’t want to try to explain to anyone that his eyesight had just randomly fixed itself. Maybe after summer he’d claim to have gotten contacts or something and he wouldn’t have to wear the ugly things anymore.

“Can Dobby give Harry Potter his present?” Dobby asked hopefully.

Harry blinked at Dobby, then down at the presents piled at the foot of his bed. Because of course it was Christmas. And of course Harry hadn’t thought to buy a present for his house-elf.

In his defense, they’d not done this last year. But then Harry hadn’t visited him yet at that point.

“Of course,” he smiled, trying to think fast. “I, er, hadn’t got a chance to make your present yet, but it’ll only take a minute.” He quickly crawled out of his bed and made his way to his trunk. He dug through quietly until he came upon that sneakoscope that Ron had given him. It was pretty useless since the thing just went off nonstop. Maybe he had too many enemies to make use of it.

Either way, Harry took it back into his bed with him and pulled the curtains closed again.

Dobby was eyeing the sneakoscope with fascination.

Harry cleared his throat nervously and retrieved his wand from the little gap in the headboard where he usually kept it at night. He took a deep breath and concentrated hard, putting as much magic as he could into the transfiguration. He wanted it to last – be permanent if possible.

He pictured what he wanted in his mind carefully and watched as the sneakoscope transformed before his eyes, shrinking down into a pin in the shape of a lightning bolt styled in crystal. When it was fully formed, Harry closed his fist over it and pulled at his magic, willing it to fill the little pin with as much protection as he could manage. He knew elves weren’t helpless, but if – when – people learned that he belonged to Harry, he may become a target.

He felt his magic respond and waited for it to settle before he opened his eyes and his hand. The pin looked no different, but he could feel the magic in it. “There. It’ll protect you,” he smiled and offered it to the elf. “Happy Christmas.”

The elf took the pin with reverent hands, his large eyes misty with tears. “Dobby thanks Master Harry,” he said quietly as he fastened it to his uniform.

“Of course,” Harry dismissed. “I don’t suppose Winky would be comfortable getting a present from me just yet.”

Dobby shook his head sadly. “Winky is not approving of Dobby giving presents to our master.”

“Maybe next year,” Harry shrugged. He’d remember them both next year.

Dobby tearfully produced a small package wrapped in what might have been butcher paper, though it had been decorated with pictures of Christmas trees that looked to have been hand drawn, probably by Dobby himself. The artwork was surprisingly good.

Slightly touched at the effort the elf had put into just the wrapping, Harry carefully opened it, bemused to find two socks. Not a pair, really, since one was bright red with a pattern of broomsticks and the other was green with a pattern of snitches.

“Dobby is making them himself, sir!” Dobby announced proudly. “He is buying the wool out of his wages, sir!”

And suddenly the quirky gift became so much more. Harry felt his eyes heat as he ran his hands gently over the very soft wool. It must have been pretty expensive for someone who was making one galleon a week. He’d obviously invested some time in knitting them as well, and he had only one day off a month. Harry swallowed and said quietly, “Thank you, Dobby. They’re really great.”

Dobby positively beamed at him before announcing, “Dobby must go now, sir! We is already making Christmas dinner in the kitchens!” And he disappeared with a pop.

Harry heard the others beginning to stir, perhaps roused by his quiet conversation, and he got up to grab the day’s clothes and retreat to the bathroom. By the time he emerged, dressed for the day, the others were all investigating their own pile of gifts.

Harry sat down on his bed to look through his own presents. Hermione had given him a book about Quidditch. From Ron he’d gotten a bag of dungbombs. Harry wasn’t much for pranks, so he wasn’t sure what he’d do with it, but he supposed it was the thought that counted. Hagrid had sent him a large box of sweets. Mrs. Weasley had also sent him her usual gift of a new sweater. This one was green with a picture of a dragon on it. She’d also included a large number of homemade mince pies under preservation charms until opened.

Having grown up starved, Harry couldn’t help but find the pies the most appreciated. He wondered if they would keep until summer. Or maybe he should look in Hogsmeade to see if anyone sold something similar. Having a supply of food would make the summer so much better. He’d have to make sure the Dursleys didn’t find out about them though, or they’d be taken for sure.

Sirius had sent him a penknife with attachments to unlock any lock and undo any knot, which seemed handy enough. 

Harry had realized when he’d been trying to find a present for Sirius that he didn’t really know the man at all. He didn’t know his favorite foods, what he did for fun, where he was living… How did one shop for a random fugitive on the run? He’d ended up just buying him a warm cloak and imbuing it with a notice-me-not rune that he hoped would work decently. With luck, it would keep the man from ending up arrested.

“Harry, is this…?”

Harry looked up at Ron’s stunned face to see him lifting a set of basic black dress robes from the box Harry had given him. “I couldn’t let you go to the ball in those old rags,” Harry shrugged.

“Mate…” Ron breathed in awe. “They must have been so expensive…”

“Off the rack with some basic sizing charms,” Harry shrugged. “They weren’t that bad, but they’ll look leagues better than the ones your mum got you, I reckon.”

Ron nodded emphatically. “Thanks, mate,” he said with feeling.

Harry just waved dismissively. Honestly, they’d cost more than all of Ron’s previous presents combined, but they really were the cheapest set that came with sizing charms, and they’d only resize once, giving them a perfect fit for the ball. Though Harry wasn’t ever going to fully forgive Ron for treating him like dirt basically all of November, he liked him well enough to want him to avoid the ridicule those ugly robes would have incited.

After breakfast, Harry and his friends spent the morning in the common room. He and Hermione worked on their holiday homework while Ron solicited chess matches from anyone who would hold still long enough.

Harry found that he didn’t mind the work. The common room was lively, the fire was warm, and he was feeling pretty good. His magic was even more relaxed than normal. And it would be nice to have the work out of the way so he wasn’t rushing at the last minute like normal.

Hermione was happy with him, at least. Ron was just frustrated that Harry wouldn’t play chess or exploding snap with him, but he hadn’t fussed much.

After lunch a bunch of them trooped outside for an epic snowball fight. Fred and George kept charming their snowballs to seek out their targets while Ginny managed to spell hers so they broke into a dozen tiny snowballs as they flew, making it incredibly difficult to dodge them.

Harry didn’t want to risk trying his own spell lest the excitement overpower it and someone actually end up hurt. Instead, he transfigured the snow around him into strong fortifications that he used to avoid incoming missiles.

When it grew too dark to see, Fred and George cast lights to hover over the “battlefield” so that they could keep going. Eventually, though, with the Yule Ball looming closer, the boys reluctantly headed inside a full two hours after Hermione and an hour and a half after Ginny.

They changed into their dress robes and Harry actually took some time to fix his hair. It had grown out a bit this year and its tendency to curl was becoming more dramatic. He knew his mum had straight red hair, so he could only guess he’d gotten his hair from his father.

When he was ready, he looked at the final product in the mirror and gave a shrug. That was as good as it got, he supposed.

He was sort of strangely nervous-excited for the night ahead, which he really wouldn’t have expected when he’d first heard about it. He’d grown to know Blaise a bit during their dance lessons and he seemed pretty cool. And Harry knew that he liked dancing with him. The night was promising to be interesting. Maybe even fun.

“Mate, thank you ,” Ron said for the third time since they’d started getting ready. He was giving himself a looking-over in the mirror now he was fully dressed. He didn’t look too bad, really. “I threw the other ones in the fire,” he admitted. “Otherwise mum would probably find a reason to force me into them later. I’ll just tell her they fell apart. They’re old enough, it’s believable. Can’t tell her they were stolen. She’d never believe it.”

Parvati was waiting for Ron in the common room. She looked very pretty in her bright pink robes, her long hair braided with gold and gold bracelets. Harry didn’t often think about it with everyone wearing uniforms most of the time, but he wondered if Parvati’s family was very wealthy because everything she was wearing looked expensive.

Instead of paying his date any attention though, Ron was looking everywhere but at her. “Where’s Hermione?”

“Already down there, maybe,” Harry answered while Parvati raised irritated eyebrows at Ron. “You look very nice,” Harry offered to her since Ron obviously wasn’t going to.

She gave him a lukewarm smile, “Thanks. You, too.”

The three of them made their way down to the entrance hall, which was packed with students. Harry straightened his robes nervously as he looked around for Blaise.

“Where is Hermione?” Ron was asking again, ignoring the way Parvati now had her arms crossed and was staring at him with a look of fraying patience.

Harry was starting to feel a bit bad about being the one to ask her to go with Ron. It was painfully obvious that Ron couldn’t have cared less who his date was so long as he had one.

A group of Slytherins made their way into the room then, drawing Harry’s full attention. As Blaise had said, Malfoy and Parkinson were leading the way in bright green and bright pink respectively. They almost hurt the eye to look at together. Malfoy looked slightly put out with Parkinson, and Harry wondered if he was blaming her for the fashion disaster they’d turned out to be.

Then Blaise stepped out from behind Crabbe and Goyle and Harry's attention was fully captured. His robes were a nearly black green with vest and tie to match while his shirt and trousers were black. The elegant sweep and shiny lining of his robe made it clear that it was very expensive. He looked… very nice.

Then Blaise’s dark green eyes landed on him and Harry watched as they moved slowly down his body and then back up again, a smirk curling at his lips all the while.

“You look positively delicious,” he commented in a low voice as he came to a stop really quite a bit closer than polite company usually required. The comment sounded completely truthful.

Harry cleared his throat and cursed his pale skin as he felt blood rushing to his cheeks. “You look very nice, too,” he made himself respond, keeping his voice steady through sheer force of will.

Luckily for Harry’s peace of mind, they were interrupted by the front doors of the school opening to admit the Durmstrang students with Professor Karkaroff. Beyond them, Harry could see that the lawn just past the main steps had been turned into a sort of grotto of hedges of flowering rose bushes, the whole area lit with fairy lights.

Then McGonagall’s voice called, “Champions, over here, please!”

Harry looked to Ron to excuse himself, only to find him still trying to look over everyone’s head, presumably for Hermione. Parvati still looked annoyed.

“Right,” Harry muttered instead and started toward McGonagall. He slowed momentarily when he felt a hand on his arm and turned to see Blaise wrap his hand around Harry’s forearm with one of his amused smirks.

Harry just turned to focus on getting where he was going without running into anyone, though he didn’t try to shake off the hand. It was rather nice. And he was noticing now that Blaise also smelled really good. Like spices that he couldn’t identify and like a forest after a rain and maybe a bit like freshly cut lawn. It was absurdly appealing, even if he was really bad at defining it.

That line of thought occupied him until he stood before the deputy headmistress, who was dressed in red tartan with a wreath of thistles on the brim of her hat. He supposed the prickly plant was fitting for her, if not overly attractive.

They were instructed to wait near the doors until everyone else had taken their seats as they were to enter last. Because they weren’t going to be enough of a spectacle in the opening dance. They also had to walk in with everyone staring at them. Harry couldn’t help but grimace at the thought.

Fleur stationed herself and her date to enter first and Cedric took up the second position with Cho, who was looking very lovely in a traditional sort of robe with very long sleeves. Harry reluctantly stepped into the next position, Blaise still attached to his arm. He looked back then and finally set eyes on Herimione.

It was no wonder she’d needed so long to get ready. She’d apparently improved every single feature that she had with delicately applied makeup, expertly manicured and painted fingernails, and hair that looked nothing at all like her own. It was sleek and smooth with a few spiral curls framing her face and dangling down her neck while the rest was curled into itself in a way that looked lovely but must have been incredibly difficult to manage if she hadn’t used magic.

“Hi, Harry! Hi, Blaise,” she greeted with a smile that consumed her entire face.

“Yes, hello,” Krum greeted as well.

“Good evening,” Blaise responded a bit coolly as he let go of Harry’s arm.

Harry started to glance at him in confusion, but then he felt Blaise’s arm curl around his middle a moment before Blaise stepped into him so his front was pressed to Harry’s back. His stomach did a somersault at how amazing that felt. He cleared his throat and tried to smile normally at Hermione, who’d gained a knowing glint in her eye. “Hello, Hermione. Krum.”

“You can call me Viktor,” the Bulgarian nodded, “both of you.”

Harry reciprocated the offer of his first name and Blaise followed suit.

They waited while everyone else filed in and Blaise did not change their position. A few curious looks were sent their way, but most people seemed focused on Hermione’s transformation. Or perhaps the mere fact that she was with Krum. 

Ron marched past them both without so much as glancing in their direction, which Harry found worrying. Was he that mad that he’d been wrong about Hermione having a date, or was it that her date was Krum? Thankfully, Hermione was so wrapped up in her date that she didn’t notice Ron at all.

When they were at last alone in the entrance hall, McGonagall had them line up and they entered the great hall two at a time to heavy applause.

Harry did his best to keep a bland smile on his face rather than the grimace that kept trying to form. Merlin, he really hated being paraded around like a performing monkey. His magic felt tense and wary, like it wasn’t fully expecting an attack, but was ready for anything regardless.

Blaise just kept his amused smirk on his face and kept his chin up like a king deigning to look upon his fawning subjects. It would have been thoroughly disgusting if he hadn’t been able to see the laughter in his eyes. Malfoy, in that position, would have truly believed himself superior to everyone watching. Blaise seemed more like he was playing a game, even if no one else knew it. 

The seats for the champions and their dates were at the same table where the judges sat. Percy Weasley was there even though Mr. Crouch didn’t seem to be.

“I’ve been promoted,” Percy bragged as soon as Harry had sat down. “I’m now Mr. Crouch’s personal assistant. I’m here representing him.”

“Congratulations,” Harry offered. He wondered briefly why Mr. Crouch hadn’t come, but then decided that the man probably hadn’t been all that excited to attend a dance for school children.

“Mr. Crouch isn’t feeling well, I’m afraid,” Percy offered despite Harry not having asked. “He’s not well at all. Hasn’t been since the World Cup. Hardly surprising. Overwork. He’s not as young as he was, though still quite brilliant, of course. The mind remains as great as it ever was.”

Harry glanced at Blaise as Percy went on about Mr. Crouch at length. You’d think his next promotion relied solely on how much he could praise the man, but Harry didn’t think it likely that anything he said now would get back to him. Maybe Percy was just practicing. Or maybe he was just getting really into his character and not wanting to slip up. Surely he couldn’t really believe all of that. Harry didn’t think Merlin’s personal assistant had spoken half as well of him as Percy did of Crouch. 

Who on Earth really wanted a sycophantic yes-man like that following him around telling him how great he was, anyway?

Blaise gave him a look of bland amusement and Harry had to stifle a laugh.

Harry did find a little amusement in the idea that Crouch had been suffering for lack of help around his house after he’d dismissed Winky for no reason at all beyond making himself look better. Not that Harry found it particularly laudable to ignore all evidence in order to persecute a totally innocent person. Elf. Whatever.

Dumbledore then demonstrated how to order their meals with the menus and the rest of them began ordering their own food.

Krum, Harry noticed, was deep into conversation with Hermione, telling her all about where he went to school. Durmstrang was apparently also a castle, but with only four floors and the fires only lit for magical purposes – Merlin, no wonder their robes had so much fur - and hopefully warming charms built in. 

Karkaroff eventually interrupted to chide his student on giving away all their secrets.

“All this secrecy, Igor,” Dumbledore chided. “One would almost think you didn’t want visitors.”

“Well, Dumbledore,” Karkaroff sort of sneered but seemed like maybe he was trying to turn it into a smile, “we are all protective of our private domains, are we not? Do we not jealously guard the halls of learning that have been entrusted to us? Are we not right to be proud that we alone know our school’s secrets, and right to protect them?”

“Oh I would never dream of assuming I know all of Hogwarts’ secrets, Igor,” Dumbledore said with amused self-deprecation. “Only this morning, I took a wrong turning on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I have never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamber pots. When I went back to investigate more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished. But I must keep an eye out for it.” He went on to posit the possible triggers that may bring the room back.

Fluer, meanwhile, was casting disdainful eyes around the hall and talking nonstop about how much better Beauxbatons was than Hogwarts in every single way imaginable, from the decorations to the food to the choirs of freaking wood nymphs serenading them while they ate.

Harry rolled his eyes hard, incredibly annoyed at the girl’s utterly lacking manners. Honestly, who went as a guest into someone else’s prized establishment and did nothing but deride it in the loudest tone she could manage?

Harry glanced at Blaise and commented, loudly enough to be heard, “I never realized how deprived we really were. We don’t even have choirs serenading us while we eat, much less wood nymph choirs. Do you suppose we can complain to the board of governors about that?”

Blaise snorted slightly into his food before he managed to compose himself again, but he turned dancing eyes on Harry. The rest of his face remained serious as he nodded, “I suppose we’ll have to. We can’t very well go on like this.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Fleur glaring at them, which just made his smile bigger as he turned his attention to his food.

At least it appeared that Fleur’s date wasn’t working out much better than Parvati’s. Davies was managing not to drool, but that was about as much as could be said as he stared at his date and blandly agreed to everything she said in a tone that suggested he wasn’t even absorbing most of it.

Maybe her attitude made sense if everyone had treated her like that her whole life, but it didn’t mean Harry was going to excuse her rudeness or childishness. What a brat.

Harry did notice with some amusement that Hermione was trying to teach Krum to say her name, sounding it out one syllable at a time.

“Her-my-oh-nee.” To which she got back, “Herm-own-ninny,” from Viktor, who really did seem to be trying.

“Close enough,” she concluded with a fond smile, meeting Harry’s eyes to share it before focusing back on her date.

Viktor certainly seemed entirely taken with Hermione, which made him okay in Harry’s book.

“You realize it’s rude to stare at someone else quite so long while your date is right next to you,” Blaise said blandly.

Harry blinked and looked at him. It was nearly impossible to read his expression. He didn’t seem upset or particularly amused, though Harry suspected he might be verging on annoyed, given the actual words he’d used. Sadly, the way he’d phrased it didn’t allow Harry’s sense of truth from lie to give him any insight.

“Hermione’s like my sister, really,” Harry admitted cautiously. “I just want to make sure Krum’s treating her right.”

Blaise’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully and he glanced at Hermione again, but after a moment, whatever intensity he was harboring seemed to melt away and he gave Harry a small smile, “Fair enough.” He gestured with his chin to another table to their left. “Tracey came with Theo tonight or I’d probably be doing the same. Theo knows what I’ll do to him if he tries anything that upsets her,” he smirked.

Harry followed his gaze to two of the other Slytherins in their year that he didn’t know very well. Honestly, Malfoy seemed to always be in the way when the Slytherins were around so it was rather difficult to pay attention to any of them but him and sometimes Parkinson, who was also particularly unlikeable. Tracey had honey blond hair in an elegant updo. She was thin and pretty in a robe that left one shoulder and arm totally bare while a long cape draped over her opposite arm. Theo had light brown hair and an angular face, tall and thin in black on black robes. They were leaning close together, speaking softly, but Harry couldn’t tell if they were dating or just friends by their posture or expressions.

Harry met Blaise’s eyes again and smiled. For some reason, he liked knowing that Blaise was protective of his friends, too.

When the meal ended, Dumbledore rose and asked all the students to do the same. When everyone was standing, he waved his wand and all the tables zoomed back along the walls, leaving the floor clear, and then he conjured a raised platform along the right wall. A set of drums, several guitars, a lute, a cello, and some bagpipes were set upon it.

The band, apparently called the Weird Sisters, trooped onto the stage to wildly enthusiastic applause. 

A gentle tug on his hand reminded Harry that they were to open the dancing. With a bracing breath, Harry followed Blaise into the middle of the dance floor with the rest of the champions and their dates. They took up the familiar position from their lessons, and then Blaise leaned in a few centimeters closer. Harry looked up to meet his eyes, which looked greatly entertained.

Harry couldn’t help but smile a bit in return. Blaise seemed to have a way of just smiling at a situation that made Harry want to melt through the floor, and suddenly it wasn’t quite so bad. He rather liked that about him.

And then the music began and the four sets of dancers swept into motion. They were well practiced, and it showed, allowing them to flow smoothly through the steps, switching lead position and the lifts and twirls. Blaise grinned at him most of the time, which had Harry somewhat helplessly grinning back, and forgetting almost entirely that there was an audience at all.

Finally, after a couple minutes, other couples began joining around them on the dance floor and the pressure on them let up a little.

When the waltz ended, faster paced songs followed. Harry moved to return to their table, but Blaise didn’t release his hand, instead pulling him back in close. “Let me teach you more dances?” he asked hopefully.

“All right,” Harry smiled, admittedly a bit charmed.

Triumphantly, Blaise slipped into the lead position and began a faster step that matched the beat of the song.

Moody danced by not long after and commented on Harry’s socks, which was maybe the creepiest thing Harry could think of. Moody really shouldn’t be commenting on the clothing students wore underneath their clothes. Sure, it was just socks, but it just reminded Harry that the man could as easily examine his underwear. Or look beneath them.

Harry gave a half-hearted, “Thanks,” and then Moody was away, thank Merlin.

“That was disturbing,” Blaise grimaced. He glanced down between their bodies then and admitted, “Though I am curious what socks you’re wearing to make him comment.”

Harry laughed a little. His trousers concealed his socks just fine, so he’d seen no harm in wearing Dobby’s Christmas present. “Maybe I’ll show you when we sit down,” he allowed.

“I’m holding you to that,” Blaise promised with one of his more appealing smirks.

They ended up going through several more dances, all rather fast-paced, the steps Blaise led them through were always easy enough for him to pick up. He had to admit, he was having a lot more fun than he’d expected to have. Blaise was a lot of fun to dance with.

Eventually, however, Harry’s throat was absolutely parched and they took a break to get drinks. Blaise offered to get them both drinks, so Harry sought out Ron and Hermione. Hermione was still on the dance floor with Krum, looking like she was having the time of her life. Ron, however, was sitting down. By himself, actually. And glaring at the dance floor.

Harry took a cautious seat next to Ron, “How’s it going?’ he probed gently. “Where’s Parvati?”

Ron gave an expressive shrug.

“O-kay…” Harry frowned. He had no idea what had put Ron in such a foul mood. Before he could figure out a more probing way to ask that wouldn’t brass Ron off any more than he already was, Hermione practically skipped over to them and dropped herself on Harry’s other side.

“It’s hot, isn’t it?” she asked, fanning herself with her hand.

With a smirk, Harry drew his wand and cast a mild cooling charm on her. He was pretty sure his magic had been doing that for him so far, as he’d yet to feel too warm despite the layers of fabric he was wearing.

“Oh, thank you!” Hermione beamed. “Viktor’s just gone to get some drinks.”

“Viktor?” Ron asked with a withering look. “Hasn’t he asked you to call him Vicky yet?”

And Harry recognized this particular tone from Ron. It’s the one he’d used on him after the champions were chosen. Harry wasn’t sure if Ron wished he was Hermione’s date or Krum’s, but he was really jealous.

“What’s up with you?” Hermione asked with only mild concern.

“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you,” Ron said scathingly.

Hermione looked at Harry then, who could only shake his head in exasperation.

“He’s from Durmstrang!” Ron suddenly burst out. “He’s competing against Harry! Against Hogwarts! You… You’re- fraternizing with the enemy ! That’s what you’re doing!”

It was in that entirely inopportune moment that Blaise returned with an easy grin and two cups of punch.

“And you’re not better, Harry!” Ron added suddenly. “You’re with a slimy snake! How can you stand to let him touch you!?”

“Okay,” Harry said forcefully as his magic began to rise with irritation. “Let’s talk privately, Ron.” And without waiting for Ron to respond, Harry latched onto his upper arm and all but dragged him to a quiet corner of the entrance hall.

“What the bloody hell?” Ron protested when Harry finally let him go.

“No, that’s my line,” Harry snapped. “Explain to me why you’re being an arsehole?”

“What?” Ron protested. “I wasn’t,” he complained, clearly on the defensive.

“You were,” Harry said firmly. “Look, I’m sorry that you’re not happy with your date. I’m sorry that you don’t like my date or Hermione’s. Does that mean that you get to treat us like shit? I shouldn’t have bothered to buy you those robes because you seem determined to be miserable tonight anyway. Well you are not going to drag Hermione and me with you. So shut up and behave or just go back to the dorm, Ron. Because if you ruin this for Hermione, I won’t be so quick to forgive you again.”

Harry didn’t wait for a response, just turning around and returning to the great hall.

Blaise had not waited for him at the table, but was instead waiting just inside, probably not close enough to eavesdrop. He looked Harry over assessingly, then offered a cup of punch.

With a sigh, Harry accepted the drink and downed it quickly, thankful for the cool relief on his throat. He was also pleased to find that it tasted of nothing but punch. It made him wonder if the punch bowls were charmed to nullify any extra additions Fred and George would undoubtedly like to add.

“I should find Hermione,” Harry sighed when he’d finished his drink. He left the glass on the nearest table, where it almost instantly vanished. Blaise followed along, sipping his drink more sedately.

She was still sitting at the table where he’d left her, though Viktor had joined her. She looked stressed as they approached.

“What happened?” she worried.

“I advised him to stop treating us like crap if he wanted us to keep being his friends, and suggested that he just go to bed. I don’t know if he will.” Harry sat down on the side of Hermione that was open and lightly patted her shoulder. “I imagine he’ll get over it just fine,” he offered. 

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll get along just fine without him,” Harry said firmly.

Hermione looked devastated at the thought.

“Hermione, neither of us deserve to be friends with someone who will treat us like garbage every time he gets upset about something and then expect to go back to normal when he decides he’s over it – without him even apologizing, I might add. That’s not a friendship.”

“I suppose,” Hermione reluctantly allowed.

“He is right,” Viktor agreed in his heavy accent. “I don’t know your friend well, but he should not make you so sad when you’ve done nothing to him.”

Hermione turned into Viktor and Harry let her date work on cheering her up while he looked back at Blaise, who was just finishing his punch as the music changed to a slow song. A slow smirk pulled at his lips as he extended his hand, “May I have this dance, Harry?”

Harry accepted the hand with a smile and let himself be led onto the dance floor. Instead of anything complicated this time, Blaise began a simple, slow waltz, and he pulled Harry very close.

With a small chuckle, Harry gave up and just leaned his body against the larger one in his grasp. He let his head rest on Blaise’s shoulder and breathed in his delightful scent. “You smell really good.”

He didn’t realize he’d actually said that aloud until Blaise chuckled.

Harry felt his face heat again, but he kept his head where it was.

Blaise rubbed a hand over his back, “I’m glad you like it. It was a gift from my mother. She got it in Italy last spring.”

“It’s nice,” Harry reiterated, and his heart finally began to calm from Ron’s little tantrum. He just didn’t understand it. Ron had refused to even try to interact with his date, and then he’d gotten upset that Hermione and Harry were having fun. Perhaps he was bothered by Blaise being a Slytherin, but Harry knew that Ron had been just fine with Krum being a Durmstrang student when he’d been fan-boying all over him because he was a quidditch star.

Then Blaise started to softly sing along to the song and Harry smiled as he listened to his deep voice rumble in his chest. It was enough to draw Harry;s thoughts entirely away from Ron and back onto his date.

When the song ended, they didn’t begin dancing to the next, faster song, but Blaise drew back to study his face, “Feeling better?”

“Yes,” Harry admitted. “Thank you.” He glanced around for Hermione, hoping that she was doing better as well. His eyes soon lit on her dancing once again with Viktor, her smile restored.

Blaise followed his gaze, then gently took both of Harry’s hands into his own, drawing Harry’s full attention back to him. “What do you say to a walk? The gardens outside looked quite interesting.”

“That sounds great,” Harry agreed, because he was curious about what had been done out there, and just getting out of the crowded great hall for a bit also sounded nice.

The gardens were lit with fairy lights and Blaise led them, holding Harry’s hand still, down one of the winding paths between the bushes, statues, and fountains. Then Blaise’s arm slid around Harry’s back and drew him close and Harry looked up at him in vague surprise. Blaise just grinned at him. “You’re really warm,” he admitted.

And Harry realized that it was quite chilly out, though there must have been some warming charms on the gardens because they weren't as cold as they should be. He didn’t feel uncomfortable though. His magic, he suspected, was continuing to be helpful tonight.

Whether Blaise was really cold or if he had ulterior motives, Harry didn’t complain, even boldly stretching out his own arm around the small of Blaise’s back.

The taller boy smiled at him as they walked on a bit further. “So,” Blaise said after a minute, “May I ask what made you decide to say yes when I asked you to come with me?”

Harry huffed a bit of a laugh, “Honestly, I was rather cross with McGonagall just then and going with you seemed likely to annoy her.”

Blaise let out a startled laugh at the admission. “You are very honest. I like that about you.”

Harry sighed softly before confessing, “I don’t like to lie. And I hate being lied to.”

Blaise was silent a moment before quietly saying, “Noted.”

Blaise gently guided Harry around to face him and Harry realized that they’d ended up in a particularly secluded bit of the garden with a statue filling a gap between two hedges in a way that formed a secluded little alcove.

Gently but firmly, Blaise guided Harry until his back was to the statue, then leaned in close until their bodies were touching in a very nice way. “I really like you, Harry,” Blaise whispered. “May I kiss you?”

Harry swallowed nervously, licking his lips, and nodded.

Blaise’s lips turned up in a smile and then he leaned in closer. Harry closed his eyes when he could no longer focus on his face and he felt the silky softness of Blaise’s lips lightly touch his own.

His whole body seemed to come alive at the contact and he felt his magic react as well, sort of softening and then Blaise kissed him more firmly and Harry’s magic wrapped itself around Blaise as surely as Harry’s arms had done.

Blaise made a soft, involuntary sort of sound and Harry felt something firmer, slightly cool, sweep along his lip.

Harry’s breath stuttered as he identified that thing as Blaise’s tongue , and Harry did his best to reciprocate, cautiously licking at Blaise’s lip. Then Blaise’s tongue touched Harry’s and it was another completely new, completely incredible thing that he never wanted to end.

A few seconds more and Blaise drew back just enough to meet his eyes, “Was that your first kiss?” he wondered.

Harry felt himself blush as he nodded.

“Mine, too,” Blaise smiled, “but don’t tell anyone, yeah? We Slytherins have a bit of a game, coming up with the most outrageous lie about our exploits, but in such a way it can’t be proven a lie.”

Harry huffed a laugh, “You Slytherins are barmy.”

“Possibly,” Blaise allowed, then leaned in to kiss him again.

Harry lost complete track of time as his whole world seemed to come down to the lips on his, the body under his hands, and the hands that explored his back and sides and hips so thoroughly. 

It was eventually the snarling voice of Severus Snape that drew Harry’s attention back to his surroundings.

Blaise clearly heard it as well because he drew back quickly and met Harry’s eyes. Despite their situation, Harry couldn’t help but be thoroughly distracted by just how beautiful the other boy looked. There was something about him in that moment that he didn’t think he’d ever quite seen before. The expression in his eyes perhaps. Or maybe Harry was perceiving Blaise’s own excited magic, but not in any way he could quite quantify. It wasn’t just beautiful. It was like… It made him feel like he could trust Blaise, which was somewhat of an alarming feeling for someone who had not a single soul in the world not magically bound to him that he could truly trust.

A conversation between Snape and Karkaroff soon drew most of his attention away from Blaise.

“Severus, you cannot pretend this isn’t happening!” Karkaroff’s voice sounded anxious and hushed, though why he’d chosen this venue to argue if he wanted to avoid being overheard Harry could not guess. “It’s been getting clearer and clearer for months. I am becoming seriously concerned, I can’t deny it-”

“Then flee,” Snape said coldly. “Flee. I will make your excuses. I, however, am remaining at Hogwarts.”

And then, without warning, Snape suddenly changed direction and he was towering over them in a moment.

Blaise quickly stepped back and Harry tried to discretely straighten his robes.

Snape looked from Blaise to Harry rather slowly, then back to Blaise with a disgusted sneer, “I had thought better of your taste, Zabini.” He turned black eyes back on Harry and pronounced ten points of Gryffindor, Potter. Now get back inside.”

“Yes, sir,” Blaise said politely and snatched Harry’s hand, leading him swiftly back toward the castle.

Harry rolled his eyes but was no longer surprised at the double-standard that left Gryffindor out ten points and Slytherin just as it had been.

Unfortunately, on their way back inside, they stumbled upon what seemed a private moment between Hagrid and Madam Maxime. They both froze, not wanting to be caught witness to such intimacy.

“Moment I saw you, I knew,” Hagrid was saying.

“What did you know, Hagrid?” Maxime questioned in a low purr.

“I just knew… knew you were like me. Was it your mother or your father?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Hagrid…”

“It was my mother. She was one of the last ones in Britain. ‘Course I can’t remember her too well. She left, see. When I was about three. She wasn’t really the maternal sort. Well, it’s not in their natures, is it? Dunno what happened to her. Might be dead for all I know.”

Harry glanced at Blaise uncomfortably before his attention was caught by a strange sort of beetle crawling on the statuary between them and Hagrid. Harry wasn’t sure what was so strange about the beetle, but something about it made him uneasy.

“My dad was broken-hearted when she went away. Tiny little bloke, my dad was. By the time I was six, I could lift him up and put him on top of the dresser if he annoyed me. Used to make him laugh.”

Harry forced his attention away from the beetle and decided it was more than time to be gone. He drew his wand and, as quietly as he could manage, cast a disillusionment spell over Blaise and then over himself. He added a silencing spell to their feet and they hurried away, but not before overhearing Hagrid mention how excited he was to meet another half-giant, having thought himself to be the only one.

They heard Maxime raise her voice in anger, but didn’t stick around long enough to catch the particulars. Once they were inside, Harry checked to make sure the entrance hall was empty and then canceled the concealing spells on them both.

Blaise, he noticed at once, had a rather concerned look on his face.

“What is it?” Harry asked warily. He hoped Blaise wasn’t upset about Snape finding them together.

Blaise hesitated a second before asking, “How much do you know about giants?”

Thrown by the direction of the conversation, Harry shook his head, “Not much.”

With a sigh, Blaise drew him back into the great hall and settled them at the more secluded table. The noise of the band in this room made their conversation more private than whispering in the empty entrance hall would have.

“Look, giants are a violent race. That and their low intelligence is what’s kept their population so low for millennia. They fight for dominance, they fight for sport, they fight when they’re bored. They’re incredibly dangerous because of this proclivity. And it means that having one as a parent isn’t the sort of thing any smart person would admit to,” Blaise explained.

Harry nodded slowly, “And being twice the height of the average man isn’t enough to, I don’t know, tip people off?”

Blaise smiled a little fondly, “Magic, Harry,” he shook his head in exasperation. “An accident with any number of spells, potions, or rituals could have caused a child to grow much too large, and maybe it wasn’t easily fixed and his family couldn’t afford to hire a specialist, so they just left it be.”

Harry nodded thoughtfully. Truth be told, when he’d first seen Hagrid and learned of magic, he’d sort of assumed the man was a giant, though he’d later learned that giants were about twice as tall as Hagrid. He’d never really wondered how the man was as big as he was after that. He’d come to know Hagrid and it was just part of him. “So he’d better work harder at keeping it a secret,” Harry decided. He’d have to have a talk with the man later about being careful what he says and where.

Blaise nodded, “I’d have thought he was that smart at least.”

With a frustrated sigh, Harry glared at Blaise because he didn’t appreciate hearing his friend so disparaged.

Blaise just shrugged unrepentantly, “I know he’s your friend, Harry, but I’m not going to pretend that he’s some greater thinker just to soothe your delicate sensibilities.”

And then he just watched Harry coolly, clearly waiting for Harry to pass judgment for his comment.

Harry looked away from Blaise, toward the dancers still having fun on the dance floor. He didn’t appreciate having a friend talked about badly, even if he did know that Hagrid wasn’t any kind of genius. Despite that, however, he was also kind of warmed by Blaise being himself rather than trying to pretend to be who he thought Harry would want him to be.

“Is our date over then?” Blaise asked rather stiffly.

Harry sighed as he turned to look at Blaise again and he could see him bracing for the worst. Harry shook his head and, with a nervous smile, leaned closer to steal a quick kiss. He noticed Blaise’s shocked and pleased look for just a moment before he took the other boy’s hand and led him back to the dance floor.

Blaise was grinning when Harry turned back to him to dance and Harry felt his heart flutter at the sight. Blaise was truly breathtaking when he smiled like that.

Blaise said nothing, merely pulling Harry close and leading them into the quick-step dance.

As they danced that song and the next several, Harry felt his magic settle around Blaise again as though it was wrapping him in a hug. Or maybe trying to keep him from getting away.

He wasn’t sure what to make of it as his magic had never done such a thing with anyone, but he thought it must be a good sign.

The rest of the ball was spent between dancing and taking short breaks, where they often ended up chatting with Hermione and Viktor. Blaise seemed friendly enough with the professional seeker, who had been eating at the Slytherin table with him all year. Viktor also seemed to make a genuine effort to get to know Harry a little bit, but Harry didn’t sense that there was any more to it. He was treating him like his date’s best friend rather than like a competitor or a celebrity.

It was nice, and it made Harry think more highly of him.

Harry did get around to showing Blaise his socks when they were sitting down without Hermione or Krum one time. He didn’t honestly wants to risk getting Hermione started on a free-the-house-elves rant in the company of two purebloods. He didn’t want to risk ruining the high spirits.

Blaise found them thoroughly amusing, almost as much as the idea of a house-elf giving a gift to a wizard.

“He’s weird, but he’s my friend,” Harry warned Blaise with polite firmness.

Blaise raised his hands in surrender. “I’ve known people to call their owls their friends, why not their house-elf?”

Harry nodded his approval and they returned to dancing.

They stayed until the very end of the ball despite many others having drifted away sooner. Ron, they had not seen again after Harry had yelled at him. With any luck, Ron had gone upstairs to think about why he shouldn’t treat his friends like dirt if he wanted to have friends.

Hermione and Viktor drifted toward the front doors of the school for their goodbye, while Harry accompanied Blaise to the top of the staircase down to the Slytherin dorms.

“This was fun,” Blaise offered truthfully, stepping closer to Harry than was at all necessary.

Not that Harry was complaining.

“It really was,” Harry agreed, rather surprised to realize that it was the truth. Maybe even an understatement.

“In that case, I think it only makes sense that we continue to spend time together,” Blaise suggested hopefully.

“Sound reasonable,” Harry agreed. “I suppose we’ll have to.”

Blaise smirked in response, though it soon pulled into a grin, “I’ll see you soon, then,” he promised, and leaned in for a quick kiss.

Harry caught his lapel and held him close a few seconds longer before he let him go.

Blaise sent him a wink, then turned and trotted easily down the stairs.

Harry watched after him for a second and tried not to grin like an idiot as he turned to look for Hermione, who was just turning away from where she must have been watching Viktor go.

She put a hand to her heart and mimed a swoon.

Harry laughed and they met in the middle of the hall.

“That was fun,” Hermione sighed with a dopey grin all over her face.

Harry hoped he didn’t look as ridiculous, but he suspected that he did. They started up the stairs together, but paused when someone called to Harry from behind them.

Sobering somewhat, Harry turned to find Cedric hurrying up the steps. The Hufflepuff glanced somewhat awkwardly at Hermione, clearly not wanting to speak in front of her.

“I’m off to bed,” Hermione excused herself and started up alone.

Harry looked curiously at Cedric and waited. 

“Listen,” Cedric said in an undertone that had Harry leaning toward him slightly to better hear, “I owe you one for telling me about the dragons. You know that golden egg? Does your wail when you open it?”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded.

“Well… take a bath, okay?”

Harry blinked, “It’s wailing because I smell bad?” he ventured.

“No,” Cedric laughed a bit, then tried again, “Take a bath and, er, take the egg with you. Just… mull things over in the hot water. It’ll help you think. Trust me.”

Harry stared at him.

“Tell you what,” Cedric said quickly, “use the prefects’ bathroom. Fourth door to the left of that statue of Boris the Bewildered on the fifth floor. Password’s ‘pine fresh’. Gotta go. Want to say goodnight!”

And with that Cedric hurried back down to where Cho seemed to be waiting for him.

Harry pondered his words as he wandered back up to the tower. He didn’t understand why he had to be so cryptic. Harry had just told him straight out that the task was dragons, he hadn’t said, “wander out into the forbidden forest in this particular direction. See if that helps you think…”

He shook his head, but he supposed he didn’t have any better ideas for the egg.

Tomorrow though. He was rather tired at the moment.

Hermione wasn’t in the common room when he got there, so he assumed she’d headed straight to bed. Harry followed suit. In his dorm, he found Ron’s bed curtains tugged closed and no sight of the redhead. The dress robes Harry had gifted him lay in an untidy heap next to his bed.

With a sigh, and wondering how that was going to fall out tomorrow, Harry gathered his pajamas and headed into the bathroom for a quick shower before bed. He tried not to let himself think about anything except how glad he was that McGonagall had been so pushy and rude about him finding a dance partner.

When he’d crawled into bed and secured the curtains, he called out Kaa and fell asleep somewhere in the course of describing the evening.

Chapter Text

The Egg

Boxing Day started later than normal, with everyone having slept in after their late night at the ball. Ron, it seemed, had decided his best course of action was to pretend his tantrum from the ball had never happened at all. He wouldn’t quite meet either of their eyes, but otherwise tried to pretend all was normal. Harry decided that he would let it go provided that Ron didn’t reassert those opinions.

It had been a good reminder though, to keep his heart well guarded from his jealous friend.

Ron did prove that he was by no means over the issue from the ball by hastily leaving the area every single time Hermione mentioned Viktor. After the third time this happened, Hermione ceased to look at all surprised and instead just sighed after the redhead’s retreating back.

Harry found himself hoping that, now it was her Ron was being a berk to, she’d stop being so bloody understanding and take offense. It had been infuriating to listen to her justify Ron’s treatment of him in November, like the fact he had jealousy issues was something Harry was duty-bound to forgive him for. Like Harry’s fame meant it was his responsibility to apologize to his friends for the way he was treated by others.

That evening, after curfew, Harry took Cedric’s advice and stole down to the Prefects’ bathroom with the golden egg. He chose to go after curfew since he couldn’t guess how long this would take and didn’t want to risk being found there by a different prefect, who might report him to a teacher. His luck, Q it would be a Slytherin and they’d report him to Snape.

He settled in the water and then took the egg in hand, staring at it in consternation. Warily, he cracked it open, only to almost burst his eardrums thanks to the acoustics of the bathroom.

Quickly snapping it closed, he didn’t latch it, but just held it and stared at it, waiting for the inspiration Cedric suggested would come.

Any time now.

Harry was just starting to get really annoyed with the cryptic damn hint when Moaning Freaking Myrtle came up from under the water right in front of him with a giggle.

Harry flinched in shock and then colored heavily in mortification on realizing that she’d been under the water for Merlin knew how long. Where he was totally naked.

His magic crackled in response to the sense of violation he felt and when Myrtle opened her mouth to say something, his magic just snapped.

Myrtle let out a startled squeak and Harry flinched badly enough that he dropped the egg right into the water.

Harry grimaced, hoping the egg wasn’t ruined, and shifted aside the bubbles to see where the egg had landed.

There was a glow coming from under the water, he quickly realized, and something like music.

Harry blinked in disbelief. Cedric couldn’t have just said “put it under the water”? What a berk!

A glance around the bathroom proved that, whatever his magic had done, Myrtle was gone for the moment. With luck, he could finish up and be gone before she returned. He took a deep breath and dunked his head under the water, where the music came into sharper focus and he could make out the words.

“Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you’re searching, ponder this:

We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,

An hour long you’ll have to look, 

And to recover what we took,

But past an hour – the prospect’s black,

Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.”

Harry listened to it several times before he was convinced that he’d memorized every word. He got out of the water then and back into his clothes lest Myrtle return.

He took the egg back to his dorm, where everyone else was already asleep. When he was situated in his bed with the curtains spelled closed, he called out Kaa.

The massive serpent slithered his way out of Harry’s skin with a satisfied sigh, and then set about making himself comfortable by wrapping himself securely around Harry’s warm body.

Harry dutifully recited the clue to him and Kaa hissed thoughtfully.

“We cannot sing above the ground,” Harry recited. “Does that mean the second task is going to be underground? In a cave or something? I don’t know of any caves around here, but with magic, they might just make one. What can’t sing above the ground?”

“Or water,” Kaa suggested. “You put the egg underwater to hear them sing, did you not?”

Harry nodded with dawning realization. “And that was probably part of the clue as well. Okay. Underwater then. What… In the lake?”

“It seems sensible. The First Task was had here on the school grounds. It seems unlikely the next would be staged far away.”

Harry nodded. “Okay, so underwater… I’ll have an hour to search underwater? How am I supposed to breathe?”

“A spell, likely,” Kaa suggested dryly.

“Hardy har har,” Harry grumbled. Problem was, he didn’t know any spells to let him breathe underwater for an hour. His mind moved on to the other important bit of the clue. “What do you think it means that they’ll take what I’ll sorely miss? Are they going to go through my things and steal something?” He tried to go through all of his things in his mind in search of something he’d particularly dread to lose. There was his book vault, of course, but the whole point of that was that it looked like any other book. Though if they did find it, he’d have bigger problems than finding it again considering what all it contained.

“Your broom, perhaps,” the serpent posed. “You are quite unreasonably attached to it.”

“It’s an expensive broom,” Harry pointed out grumpily. “But the last line. ‘Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back’. Surely they can’t really just keep it or destroy it if I don’t find it in time. If it’s very expensive or has a lot of sentimental value, they can’t just steal my things and then tell me to retrieve it on their terms or lose it forever. That’s not…”

“It may be one of your inaccurate human ‘turns of phrase’,” the snake suggested.

Harry relaxed a little, because that did make sense. Poems were especially prone to imprecise wording and generally shouldn’t be taken totally literally. It was probably just for added drama.

Because if they did steal from him and not give it back if he failed… Well, he didn’t know what he could do about it, actually. Complain loudly? Talk to the press? The Daily Prophet would probably turn the story around to make him sound like a whiny brat or something instead of the wronged party.

With a heavy sigh, Harry started wondering where he could hide his most prized possessions leading up to the task in hopes that they didn’t get stolen. Perhaps something like his book vault, but for many different items? Something small enough to keep in his pocket or around his neck at all times? He’d look the next time he went into Hogsmeade.

Other than that, he needed to find a way to breathe underwater for an hour. And also, to stay warm because the task was in the end of February and that lake was going to be freezing. He wondered if his magic would take care of it the way it had seemed to keep him comfortable during the ball.

Harry told Ron and Hermione about the clue the next morning and the last week of winter break was spent mostly in the library searching for a way to stay underwater for an hour without dying from lack of oxygen.

Ron wasn’t much help, not just because he wasn’t all that good at research, but because he hadn’t touched his homework yet and so spent most of his time working on it while Hermione and Harry researched for the second task.

Then Viktor started joining them in the library, which distracted Hermione from her research, but clearly made her so happy that Harry didn’t mind. Ron, true to form, grabbed his things and left the library the moment he saw Viktor. He scowled and sneered, but said not a word about it. 

So maybe he wasn’t totally unable to learn.

Their third day in the library brought another pleasant surprise when Blaise helped himself to the seat next to Harry. He met Harry’s smile with a small one of his own and then just started silently taking notes from an arithmancy book.

Blaise continued joining them after that at least a couple hours each day, though he soon progressed from school work to other interests. His appetites seemed diverse as Harry had seen him reading about warding, advanced transfiguration, obscure potions, and even alchemy so far.

The Article

When classes resumed, they found Hagrid had been replaced by Professor Grubbly-Plank, who would only comment that Hagrid was “indisposed”.

Harry found himself growing rather worried while the girls and professor were distracted petting the apparently sexist unicorn.

“He’s fine, Potter,” Malfoy drawled, “Physically, at least. He’s just too ashamed to show his big, ugly face.”

“What?” Harry asked with growing concern.

And Malfoy drew a folded newspaper from within his robes and offered it to Harry with a flourish, “There you go.”

Harry sneered at the ponce who seemed to have been carrying around a newspaper just for the chance to taunt him with it. He unfolded it warily, the other Gryffindor boys crowding around him. The headline photo did not bode well. It was a picture of Hagrid looking extremely shifty, the headline reading: Dumbledore’s Giant Mistake .

With growing dread, Harry read the article by the awful Rita Skeeter. There was a mention of Mad-eye and his reputation, which… well, the man was rather unstable. But then she suggested that he was nothing compared to Hagrid, which was ridiculous. Hagrid was about the kindest soul Harry had ever met.

Well, if one avoided any animal that Hagrid thought was fun, at least.

The article then went on to talk about how terrifying the skrewts were, which… Well. Yes, they were terrible, but no one had been injured by them, so Hagrid wasn’t doing so bad.

There was a quote from bloody Malfoy about his attack by the hippogriff last year and how Crabbe had been badly bitten by a flobberworm. Rita was either really stupid or assumed her readers were to print that. Anyone with a passing grade in potions had to know flobberworms had no teeth.

Then she outed Hagrid as a half-giant which had Harry instinctively glancing up at Blaise, only to find the other boy already watching him, looking like he was waiting to be condemned. He didn’t look ashamed or smug.

Harry looked back at the paper. It honestly hadn’t ever occurred to him that Blaise would use that information against Hagrid. He wondered if he’d been naive, but it just didn’t make sense. Why would Blaise have kept visiting him in the library if he was doing that in secret?

Harry had chosen to ignore Blaise disparaging Hagrid’s intelligence during the ball, but he had to know Harry wouldn’t do so for something like this.

Skeeter went on to highlight the nasty history of the giants and their more recent tendency to side with Voldemort.

She then wrapped up the article by pointing out Harry’s friendship and insinuating that perhaps Harry was being deceived into being friends with such a vicious, evil part giant.

By the time he’d finished, his magic had gone very still and very tense, like it was readying to attack one of the sniggering Slytherins, mostly Malfoy and Crabbe, though Goyle was also smirking smugly.

“A flobberworm, Crabbe?” Harry asked disdainfully. “I hadn’t thought your constitution was quite that delicate.”

The boy colored and his snickering turned into glaring. Goyle, strangely, turned his smirk on Crabbe.

Malfoy just doubled down on his smugness. “Now that everyone knows how dangerous the halfbreed is, I don’t reckon it’ll be long before his teaching career comes to a sudden and ignoble end. A half giant… And here I’d thought he’d just swallowed a bottle of skele-grown as a child. None of the mummies and daddies are going to like this at all. They’ll be afraid that he’ll eat their precious kiddies,” he gloated.

Harry’s magic honed in on Malfoy with undiluted rage and Harry took a threatening step toward the blond, “You-” was unfortunately all he got out before the professor’s voice snapped toward them.

“Are you paying attention over there?”

Harry’s magic boiled beneath his skin as he forced himself to stop. He had half a mind to snarl at the teacher about her stupid lesson that excluded half the class and it being no wonder they weren’t paying attention, but he forced himself to swallow it down. Detention would not help anything. Instead, he simply sent Malfoy the blackest glare he could manage, hoping that it conveyed all of the pain he wanted to inflict on him.

Satisfyingly, Malfoy went pale as milk.

As soon as the class was over, Harry hurried on ahead of everyone, worried that he would actually attack Malfoy if he continued. Or maybe anyone else who managed to annoy him at the moment.

He was crossing the entrance hall when someone grabbed his arm and Harry had them pinned against a wall before he even realized his intent. He was ready to snarl at them until he realized that it was Blaise. He let go immediately and took a step back, running a hand roughly through his hair. “Sorry,” he breathed.

Blaise just nodded, watching him warily. He hesitated a moment before asking, “Can we talk?”

Harry nodded and glanced around, knowing that the rest of their class would be coming through at any moment. His eyes landed on the tapestry behind a statue that hid the door to the room they’d used for dance lessons.

Harry had no idea why the room was hidden, but he figured it was probably just tradition. Hogwarts had her secrets.

He led the way into the room and paced to the middle before stopping and turning to face Blaise, who was just stepping inside and closing the door. Harry waited, since Blaise was the one that wanted to talk.

The other boy stayed near the door, hesitating again and Harry wondered how badly he’d scared him.

With a sigh, Harry turned and walked to the far side of the room, looking out one of the tall, narrow windows at a courtyard that may only be accessible from this room because he didn’t ever remember seeing it before.

“I didn’t tell anyone about Hagrid,” Blaise finally said.

Harry winced because that was at least half-lie. He took a breath before quietly saying, “I told you that I hate being lied to, Blaise.”

He didn’t look at the other boy and the silence stretched.

Finally, Blaise admitted, “I told Tracey, but under a silencing spell and with the understanding that it was secret. She didn’t tell anyone, Harry. I’m sure of it.”

Harry nodded, feeling incredibly relieved to hear the truth in that. Blaise might be mistaken about Tracey, but he’d truly not meant anyone else to learn of it. It was gratifying to know that he’d not been naive to trust Blaise. It was possible someone else had been in the garden that night, close enough to overhear as well. Hagrid had been such a fool to speak about it so openly.

“You must have told people, too,” Blaise pointed out. “Weasley and Granger, at least.”

Harry laughed bitterly, “No. I have a thing about secrets, Blaise. I respect them.” He finally turned to look at the other boy, who hadn’t moved from his place by the door, but he was looking at Harry with intrigue.

“There's a lot more to you than most people realize,” Blaise said softly.

Harry couldn’t stop the huff of a laugh that understatement inspired, but he quickly shook his head, “Most people don’t look beneath their own preconceptions.” He studied Blaise a long moment. The way he was standing all the way across the room. “Are you afraid of me?” he asked uncertainly. It would be understandable if he was. Harry was frightened of himself sometimes. The way he was changing. The initiative his magic liked to take when he wasn’t controlling it carefully enough. The… prophecy of his ultimate fate and how frightening it was that it might come true no matter what he tried to avoid it.

“You were pretty frightening when you were glaring at Draco,” Blaise admitted, moving slowly closer to Harry.

Harry grimaced faintly and looked out the window again. “Malfoy has it coming.”

“He does,” Blaise agreed, and Harry could see from the corner of his eye when Blaise stopped in the middle of the room. “Your eyes… Just for an instant, they went a bit red.”

Harry turned his head quickly to focus on Blaise and he felt his heart pick up speed. “What?” he demanded.

Blaise nodded carefully. “Like a flicker of fire behind your pupil.”

Harry swallowed uneasily. A flicker of fire. It seemed a fool’s hope that that wasn’t to do with his father.

“I won’t ask,” Blaise said a moment later. “I can respect secrets, too. Not sure if Malfoy will mention it to anyone though. I think he just about pissed himself, so he might be too spooked.”

Harry took a slow breath and looked out the window again, wrapping his arms around himself. He suddenly felt very cold. He did not need whatever rumors Malfoy might stir up.

“Is it safe to touch you now?”

Harry flinched slightly at hearing Blaise’s voice right behind him. Harry took a breath and nodded. He wasn’t quite ready to look at Blaise.

He felt Blaise’s arms wrap tentatively about his middle and Harry covered them with his own. Blaise seemed to grow more confident and his embrace grew firmer. Then Harry felt a light kiss pressed to his temple.

Amazingly, Harry’s tense magic began to settle, relaxing almost as much as it did in Knockturn Alley. 

Harry closed his eyes and focused on Blaise. On his magic. It was definitely Dark. Alone like this, it was much easier to single it out and define it. Perhaps that’s why his magic was so fond of Blaise.

“There’s a Hogsmeade visit next Saturday,” Blaise said after several minutes of silence. “Would you go with me?”

Harry smiled and leaned his head back against Blaise’s shoulder so that he could look up at him. “I’d like that.”

Blaise smiled too and leaned down quickly to brush his lips against Harry’s.

Hogsmeade

Harry Potter was an enigma, Blaise reflected with a glance at the smaller boy walking at his side. They were on their way to Hogsmeade, heavy cloaks and warming charms protecting them from the chilly day.

Harry was so different to what Blaise had thought he would be. He’d expected a typical Gryffindor. Loud, brash, arrogant, self-righteous… Instead he’d found a quiet, sometimes-snarky, surprisingly intimidating boy with layers that Blaise had yet to even glimpse. A boy with a strong moral stance regarding secrets and a hatred of lies. Even an unnerving ability to know when he was being lied to. Blaise hadn’t thought there would be any harm in the white lie about not telling anyone of Hagrid. He knew Tracey wouldn’t tell anyone, so what could it hurt? But Harry had known. There had been no doubt in his voice when he’d admonished Blaise for it.

And the intimidation… Merlin, he’d looked at Malfoy like he was going to destroy him. Like he had no doubt he could destroy him. And his eyes… That flicker of flame hadn’t been like a candle flame. It reminded him more of Fiendfyre. Malevolent fire.

At least he was pretty sure Malfoy hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. He suspected that the boy wasn’t totally sure if he’d really seen it and didn’t want to risk being thought a liar. That or he really was that terrified of Harry now. He’d certainly been much quieter with regard to him since then.

With a glance at Harry, who looked lost in thought, Blaise casually moved a bit closer to him and deftly caught the nearest hand in his own.

Harry started slightly before glancing at their joined hands and Blaise smiled when he saw pink tint his cheeks. The smaller boy glanced up at him and Blaise lifted and eyebrow inquiringly.

Harry shyly looked away again, but he squeezed Blaise’s hand a little and didn’t try to pull away.

Blaise internally preened while he enjoyed the warmth of Harry’s hand in his. Harry seemed to run quite warm and he didn’t seem at all bothered by the chill breeze.

Despite the incident with Malfoy, Blaise hadn’t actually thought to be afraid of Harry until his back had hit that wall in the entrance hall. Harry had moved so fast , and thrown Blaise around like he weighed nothing despite their size difference. It had been frightening, though once he’d had a chance to think about it, he’d realized that Harry had released him instantly on recognizing him. 

Blaise had resolved to avoid surprising Harry when he was in a temper, but had otherwise gotten over that momentary fear.

He’d actually found it ridiculously attractive. There was an air of danger to Harry that he thought most people would never guess at existing, but knowing that it was there was thrilling in a way that Blaise was sure his mum wouldn’t approve of.

Which was why he had no plans to tell her.

They slowed a bit when they reached Hogsmeade as they’d made no plans on what they were going to do when they got there.

Blaise used his free hand to find his pocket watch and check the time. It was a bit after eleven. “Feeling up for an early lunch?” he suggested. “We can beat the crowds at the Three Broomsticks?” It wasn’t the best place to eat in town, but most of the places Blaise knew off the beaten path in Hogsmeade tended to be a bit Dark, and he didn’t want to risk scaring Harry off at this point.

Harry agreed easily and they made their way to the popular tavern. Thanks to the early hour, there were several open tables. Harry made for the most secluded table, a booth in the back corner, and Blaise silently marveled at Harry’s reclusive tendencies. It was another thing he’d not have guessed about the Boy-Who-Lived before he started getting to know him. Harry was shy and not at all fond of his fame. It was so different to what most Slytherins would do in the same situation that it was entirely startling.

Harry chose to sit on the side of the booth against the wall, settling in the middle of the bench and clearly expecting Blaise to sit across from him.

At least partly just to surprise Harry, Blaise chose to instead slide in next to him.

Harry looked at him with wide eyes, but didn’t hesitate to slide over to make room.

Blaise also noticed that he was blushing again as he settled in close enough that their arms brushed. Totally worth it.

He did note that Harry had never rejected one of Blaise’s touches. Not when he knew it was Blaise that was touching him. He didn’t tend to initiate touches very often though. It made Blaise wonder if it was a fear of rejection that held him back or just a general shyness.

The fact that someone as rich and famous and powerful and attractive as Harry could possibly fear rejection boggled the mind a bit. 

Madam Rosmerta found her way to them moments later and they both ordered. Harry went for butterbeer while Blaise got herbal tea. Hogwarts usually only had black tea and he missed the herbal mixtures he had at home.

By the time Blaise had his tea fixed to his liking, their food was arriving, and Blaise made smalltalk while they ate, mostly discussing classes and homework.

When they were finished with their food, they both got refills on their drinks and lapsed into silence.

Feeling a flutter of nerves, Blaise tried to be as nonchalant as possible as he reached into an expanded pocket inside his cloak and retrieved the wrapped package he’d stowed there that morning. He placed it on the table in front of Harry, who looked at him with wide, surprised eyes.

Very, very green eyes, Blaise observed greedily. He adored those eyes, and the lighting in the tavern wasn’t managing to send any obscuring reflections into the lenses of Harry’s glasses at the moment, leaving him almost overwhelmed by the expressive green eyes.

“What’s this?” Harry asked uncertainly.

“A gift, Harry,” Blaise drawled teasingly. “The polite response is to open it and say thank you.”

Harry blushed again, but he smiled as well as he turned his attention back to the gift. “I didn’t get you anything,” he said softly.

“I didn’t ask for anything,” Blaise countered. “I wanted to get you something. Now open it.”

Hesitantly, Harry did so.

Water Magic , the title was embossed in gold leaf on the brown leather.

He heard Harry’s breath catch as he ran a hand reverently over the soft cover a moment before he opened it and began to page through.

Blaise waited silently for Harry’s verdict.

“These are spells to use for underwater exploration,” he finally whispered.

“Among other things,” Blaise agreed.

“I never told you the clue,” Harry looked up at him uncertainly.

Blaise rolled his eyes deliberately, “You and Hermione were hardly guarding the subject of your research binges, Harry.”

Harry looked at the book again and Blaise felt a small swell of unease. He hoped he hadn’t overstepped some strange Gryffindor boundary he couldn’t understand.

“How did you find this?” Harry finally asked. “We’ve been looking for weeks…”

Blaise gave an easy shrug and cautiously hoped that Harry wasn’t upset. “I mentioned it to my mother. She’s something of a professional shopper. She scours used bookshops and junk shops all over the world looking for treasures. She found this on one of her trips.”

Harry shook his head slightly before looking back up at Blaise, a smile beginning to curl his lips.

Blaise began to relax, finally feeling that Harry was pleased.

Then Harry’s face opened in a wide grin and he slid a hand around Blaise’s neck and leaned up to kiss him thoroughly.

Blaise felt a bit flustered at the public setting, but not at all displeased by the reaction.

“Thank you,” Harry said fervently, turning his eyes to the book again. “You have no idea…”

“If that’s your idea of a thank you, Harry, you can expect more gifts soon.”

Harry laughed out loud, his green eyes dancing with happiness as he looked at Blaise again.

The tavern was getting full by then and Blaise suggested they get moving as he dropped a few galleons on the table to cover the tab. 

As they got up, Harry tucked the book into his pocket, still looking so very happy, and Blaise found he had to work very hard to keep his pleasure from showing as blatantly as Harry’s. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so genuinely good. Harry had reacted to his gift better than he could have hoped. Blaise wasn’t sure if he’d ever made someone so happy before.

It was a good feeling.

They nearly ran right into Bagman on his way in while they were trying to get out. The annoying wizard lit up at the sight of Harry and wasted no time in dragging him away for a private word.

Blaise waited impatiently while they spoke in undertones, the words completely absorbed by the general din of the room. Bagman looked slimy, wheedling. Harry looked annoyed. With a few curt words, Harry stepped away from Bagman and they left the building together.

“What was that about?” Blaise wondered.

Harry huffed in disgust, “He was trying to figure out if I was ready for the next task. He keeps hinting at giving me advice, but I have no interest in owing anything to a man like that.”

“Probably wise,” Blaise nodded. “Rumor has it, Bagman has a gambling problem. He might try to blackmail you later, lest you be accused of cheating.”

“He’d be as liable as me,” Harry dismissed. “I doubt he’d risk it. Maybe he’s bet on me.”

Blaise raised his eyebrows, “That would actually make a lot of sense. You must have been quite the long shot before the first task. I doubt you’re such a longshot anymore, given you’re in the lead.”

Harry heaved a weary sigh, “Merlin, what a bother. I hate everything about this stupid tournament.”

Blaise lifted a surprised eyebrow, but didn’t comment on that. He opened his mouth to ask after their next destination, but Harry’s wand was suddenly in his hand and before Blaise could so much as wonder, he’d cast a disillusionment on himself.

A second later, he heard a whispered incantation and then the unpleasant feeling of cold egg running down his body.

Harry’s warm hand took his and he was quickly led away.

He noticed as they moved carefully so as to avoid bumping anyone, that Rita Skeeter and her photographer were heading right for the Three Broomsticks, precisely where they’d just been standing.

They were two businesses down and a street off the high street when Harry reversed their disillusionment and Blaise stopped holding in his laughter. “Is that how you always get out of trouble?” he inquired, remembering that Harry had used the same method to get them away from Hagrid’s awkward confession to Madam Maxime at the Yule Ball.

Harry shrugged sheepishly, a blush coming to his cheeks again, “It’s a useful spell.” He shook his head then and scowled in the direction they’d come. “I don’t want to imagine what she’d write about me if she cornered me here. Basically the whole interview from the wand weighing ceremony was fabricated. She didn’t even ask any real questions. Just made statements that sounded almost like questions but that they required no actual answer, and then made everything up for her article,” he said with pronounced disgust.

Blaise raised his eyebrows thoughtfully at that admission. “Most people are aware of the way she embellishes her articles, but she also tends to base them in truth, which is why she’s managed to become so popular,” he explained. No wonder people had such a twisted idea of Harry’s character if they were basing it on things like that article. “She’s a vile woman, though. She ran a smear article on my mother the summer before I started Hogwarts.” He felt a mean smile stretch his lips, “She vastly underestimated my mother and was very lucky to get off with only a fine and an official reprimand while the paper printed a retraction. My mother is very wealthy and does not suffer fools besmirching her character so publicly.”

Realizing suddenly that he probably looked rather bloodthirsty, he blanked his face and glanced at Harry, but the other boy only looked curious.

Blaise cleared his throat quietly and continued, “Underage muggleborns are generally protected from the press by the child welfare office at the ministry if they don’t have any magical guardians, but I guess the rules often don’t seem to apply to you.”

Harry blinked at him, “You mean there’s actually a child welfare department in wizarding Britain?”

“Of course,” Blaise frowned. “We’re not savages to leave magical children to fend for themselves, Harry.”

With a supremely disbelieving scoff, Harry shook his head and muttered, “Could have fooled me.”

Blaise’s frown deepened at the implications of that statement, but he supposed it wasn’t entirely inaccurate in his case. He wasn’t sure why, but the rules very often didn’t seem to apply when it came to the Boy-Who-Lived.

Not wanting to press, Blaise decided to change the subject by inquiring as to where Harry wanted to go next.

This led them in search of a particular item Harry wanted. Something small enough to carry in his pocket that held enough expanded space to put larger items inside it. He found it a bit intriguing that Harry was looking for such a thing, but politely asked no questions.

His mother tended to come through Hogsmeade three or four times a year to pick through junk shops and such in search of items that were considerably underpriced. It was a common enough phenomenon for these shops to come across rare or powerful items without realizing their full worth. Most of these were sold elsewhere for a profit. Those likely to appreciate in value or simply the bits she liked best, were displayed or stored. He didn’t doubt his mother could open a rather large museum if she ever wanted to show off her collection.

Happily this had led to Blaise knowing all the best places to look for unusual items such as Harry was seeking.

They went to the most mainstream shops first, but when neither turned up anything, Blaise considered his options.

“Is there anywhere else?” Harry asked with a dispirited sigh.

“I know of another shop,” he admitted hesitantly. “It’s, er…”

“What?” Harry asked innocently.

“Well, I’m not sure if you’ll like it, but we might get lucky.”

“Let’s go,” Harry encouraged.

Keeping his nerves internal as much as he could, Blaise led Harry to the basement-level shop with the ebony door. It was the kind of place that tended to walk the line of legality in many of their wares.

Harry pulled in a startled breath as he stepped through the door and Blaise winced slightly on realizing that Harry must have felt the Dark magic of the wards. He shouldn’t have been surprised that someone as powerful as Harry would have some degree of natural sense for the magic around him.

He waited tensely to see if Harry would turn around and leave, but he only looked intrigued as he studied the shop.

It was a nice place. Much nicer than the average junk shop, Blaise thought. The shelves were all polished mahogany, the lighting was oil lamps of shining brass. The floors were all fine ebony planks. 

Harry looked charmed as he looked around with a smile. “I never knew this was here,” he admitted.

“I think they’re mostly word of mouth,” Blaise shrugged, trying not to feel nervous. Maybe Harry didn’t understand what it was he was feeling.

They split up to look around and Blaise found himself looking for possible future gifts for Harry as well as his mother. He didn’t find much of interest – at least not in a reasonable price range.

By the time he wandered back to Harry, the other boy was examining a wrist cuff. Dragon hide, he thought when he got closer. The black band was quite attractive, really.

“Open the clasp and look on the inside, now,” the bald old man behind the counter was instructing as Blaise approached. “See that little door? Open that up. Right, now put your fingers inside and pull gently.”

Harry did as instructed and the expanded space within the cuff was revealed as the tiny opening grew large enough to easily stuff a quaffle inside.

Harry grinned, “How much can it hold?”

“Couldn’t say, lad. I’ve tested it to a dozen square meters without finding a limit. There you go, just push at the sides to shrink it back down.”

“How much do you want for it?” Harry asked, already reaching for his coin purse.

“Couldn’t let it go for less than twenty galleons, son,” he said without missing a beat.

And poor, gullible Gryffindor that he was, Harry paid the man without any attempt at haggling.

Blaise withheld a sigh. He knew the Potters had money enough that he didn’t bother challenging Harry’s willingness to depart with his wealth, but as soon as they were back outside, he couldn’t help but chastise, “You know he would have probably sold that for twelve or fifteen galleons, right?”

Harry looked up from where he was fastening it to his wrist and blinked at Blaise, “Really? I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Places like this always price their merchandise up just so they can let themselves be haggled down and still make a profit,” Blaise explained.

“Oh. I guess that makes sense. Thanks for telling me,” Harry smiled warmly at him.

Blaise shook his head fondly at both Harry’s ignorance and the ease with which he trusted Blaise to educate him faithfully. 

They made a few more stops, at Honeydukes to stock up on some sweets, then several different places that Harry liked the look of, including a bakery. He didn’t buy anything, but instead picked up owl order catalogs at each place as it was getting a bit late after their search for Harry’s new cuff.

They returned to the castle in time for dinner, though Harry suggested they could meet at the library after.

Blaise was admittedly pleased that Harry wanted to spend more time with him after they’d been together nearly the whole day.

He sat at the Slytherin table among his yearmates and began filling his plate without a word.

“Have fun on your date, Blaise?” Draco asked rather sullenly. He’d been a bit sullen about all things Potter since Harry had scared him so much.

“I did, Draco. Kind of you to ask,” he responded, ignoring the tone entirely.

“I can’t believe you’re still seeing each other,” Daphne admitted, her brow slightly furrowed. “I honestly hadn’t expected you to last until the end of the Yule Ball, much less weeks later.”

Daphne seemed to have been one that was most convinced of Harry’s arrogance and prejudice. Evidence to the contrary seemed to genuinely confuse her.

Blaise just gave her a mysterious smile, “He’s quite different to what I had expected. Refreshingly so.”

Daphne nodded pensively and returned her attention to her food.

“But he’s a halfblood,” Pansy complained irritably. That seemed to be the only thing she needed to know to have a negative opinion of Harry and it was annoying. 

Tracey was a halfblood, too.

Rather than letting his annoyance show, Blaise just gave her a pleasant smile and offered, “Many powerful witches and wizards are halfbloods, Pansy. More, I’d reckon, than purebloods. British pure blood is growing a bit too thick these days, I think,” he said lightly. With his mother having been Italian, he wasn’t technically a British pureblood, though if he married into the British families, his children would be.

Pansy’s expression soured into deepest disgust and she flashed him a nasty sneer before pivoting her body away from him to engage Draco in conversation instead.

Blaise caught Tracey’s amused gaze and gave her a quick wink before turning his attention back to his food. He had places to be, after all.

By the time he’d finished eating, Harry had left the great hall, so Blaise made his way to the library, where he found Harry and Hermione at their usual table, minus Ron or Viktor for the moment.

He noticed as he sat down that Harry had the book Blaise had gifted him open between them and he did his best to swallow down his smugness as he sat. Harry had been very pleased with that gift.

Harry turned a grin on him that had Blaise melting a little on the inside. Merlin, there was no wonder Harry was so misunderstood. With smiles like that, anyone would think him a simpleton who wore his every thought on his sleeve. How could anyone possibly guess that he was a boy who’d learned to respect secrets?

Blaise was reaching for his bag in order to continue what he’d last been reading when his eye caught on a new necklace Hermione was wearing. He froze at the sight of it, entirely shocked.

“What?”

Blaise blinked and tore his gaze away to find Harry looking at him with concern. He swallowed uneasily and glanced at the necklace again. “Where did you get that necklace?” he asked Hermione as casually as he could manage.

“Oh,” she smiled broadly. “Viktor gave it to me in Hogsmeade today! Isn’t it beautiful?”

Blaise nodded slowly, shocked and unsure if he should say anything.

Harry must have read something on his face though because he pressed, “What is it?”

Blaise hesitated, then cautiously explained, “It’s a promissory necklace. They’re enchanted with family magic for good health and protection and given at the beginning of a courtship.”

“Courtship?” Hermione frowned. “He didn’t… mention anything about that. Do you mean he wants to marry me?”

Blaise winced slightly at the brazen ignorance of their customs. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but he still found muggle customs quite… scandalous in many respects. Barbaric, in others. He tried to remain polite for Harry’s sake, “You have gone on a date and you are continuing to spend time together. To assume that he wants anything from your liaison other than to discover if he wishes to marry you is a rather grievous insult to him.”

Hermione’s brow furrowed. “I’m not trying to insult him, but… Well, I’m obviously far too young to be married!”

Blaise nodded, “But not too young for a betrothal. If things progress well between you for the remainder of this year, it is entirely possible he would seek a betrothal with you before returning home.”

Hermione looked rather pale, her fingers nervously dancing over the fune-carved wooden beads of her necklace. “Why don’t they teach these things?” she complained finally. “How am I supposed to know any of it?”

Blaise glanced at Harry, who was frowning and looking rather thoughtful. “I would suggest that you ask Viktor.”

“Aren’t there any books about this?” Hermione pleaded.

Blaise shook his head, “Nothing that will be of much help to you. I don’t know of any that are written for people who don’t come from our culture. It’s just too ingrained in wizarding culture for there to be books written for people who don’t understand it. The only books I know of are regarding the intricacies, not the basics.”

“That’s… frustrating,” she said.

“Probably better to hear it from Viktor anyway,” Harry offered. “Then he can explain himself and you won’t get any wrong impressions.”

“I suppose,” Hermione said doubtfully.

Though Hermione remained distracted, Harry was soon lost in reading through his new book. Blaise settled in to read as well, trying not to worry about what Harry thought of what Blaise had explained to Hermione, as it did, of course, apply to them as well.

He didn’t understand why muggles had to be so uncivilized, but he wished Harry had not been raised by them.

Chapter Text

The Second Task

The book Blaise had given to Harry turned out to be a Godsend. It had all the spells one would need to explore for an hour underwater, including spells to regulate your temperature and deal with the pressure of going more than a dozen feet underwater. It was perfect. 

He’d been forced to give Blaise several extra kisses in thanks as he found more and more spells to help him through the task. Blaise had accepted them all without complaint. He had looked rather smug each time, but Harry was prepared to allow that given that it really was deserved.

They had managed to cheer up Hagrid at last, though the man had then insisted that Harry needed to win the tournament to kind of stick it to the purebloods that one didn’t need pure blood to do well.

Harry played nice and went along with it for Hagrid’s sake, but he still didn’t really care about winning. If he came through it without dying, being maimed, or outing himself as more than the average wizard, he would consider himself lucky. Granted, he’d also prefer to manage it without humiliating himself, but beggars and choosers…

When Hagrid returned, his first class was continuing their study of unicorns, but rather than the sexist adult unicorn, Hagrid brought a pair of juvenile unicorns, which had gold coats and didn’t mind being petted by boys as well as girls. Unfortunately, the things did seem to mind Harry. He hadn’t got within four meters of them before they’d started to panic. Hagrid had had them all back up, then approach one at time. Disturbingly, Harry was the only student in the class that got that reaction, meaning that he was stuck watching from a distance, completely alone.

On the way back up to the school, Malfoy commented unnecessarily loudly to Blaise, “You know, Zabini, as far as I know, unicorns won’t come near people that aren’t virgins.” His voice took on a tone of highly unbelievable concern, “It’s just that I noticed they liked you fine, but wouldn’t go anywhere near your boyfriend. Might be something to think about before you end up embarrassed.”

Harry felt his cheeks burn at the insinuation and he slowed his pace to let the others drift further ahead as a number of them were looking at him, either to giggle or frown. 

Hermione and Ron hung back as well, but when Harry noticed Blaise nearing him, he urged them to go on ahead.

They walked slowly to the castle together as everyone else drifted further ahead. The silence stretched a bit before Blaise spoke, “I’m not actually worried, you know.”

Harry glanced at him, both hopeful and embarrassed. He was fourteen for Merlin’s sake! Why wouldn’t he be a virgin?

Blaise leaned down to press a light kiss to Harry’s cheek, “Only a virgin could blush that prettily at being accused of being anything else,” Blaise explained with amusement.

Harry scowled, his embarrassment thankfully fading in favor of annoyance.

Blaise just laughed lightly at him and pulled him close for a hug. Harry felt a kiss pressed to his temple and his annoyance simmered down considerably.

Blaise held him for a moment longer before leaving him to go into the great hall alone.

Harry sighed and tried to keep his mind from returning to the likely reason the unicorns actually wanted nothing to do with him.

Harry spent the weeks leading up to the second task practicing the spells he’d found in the water magic book. When he felt that he’d gotten the spells pretty well figured out, he’d sneak into the prefect’s bathroom after curfew and practice in cool, bubble-free water. When he got the warming spell worked out, he was able to turn the water fully cold to see how well it was working.

The last week before the task, he started going into the actual lake as Krum had been doing. He needed to test the pressure spell, and that meant that he needed to go deeper than waist-deep water would allow.

“Remember to stay out of any weeds,” Hermione coached as he completed the final spell and began to wade into the water. “There’s grindylows that live in them and who knows what else. Clear water is your best bet.”

“Yes, Hermione,” Harry dutifully replied. She’d reminded him of this more than once, not to mention that it was pretty obvious information. He knew that she was just worried for him, so he didn’t let it irritate him.

He was pleased that the icy water didn’t feel cold as he sunk up to his shoulders. “I’ll be back in five minutes,” he promised, then dove under.

He quickly pulled off his glasses and slipped them into a pocket. They didn’t work well at all under the water, though his eyes were protected from the water with a clear-eyes spell that coated the surface of his eyes with an invisible barrier so they wouldn’t get irritated by the water.

Cautiously, he pulled in a breath of water. It was a very strange sensation, but not entirely unpleasant. The warming spell worked to keep it from feeling icy cold. The water-breathing spell had been, by far, the most difficult he’d had to learn. He still wasn’t sure if he was doing it right, but he’d found that if he just pushed his magic into it, it worked. He’d gotten it to work consistently, so he was pretty confident that his mastery of it was good enough for the task.

Two days before the task, Harry received a very short letter from Sirius asking the date of the next Hogsmeade weekend and saying basically nothing else. No encouragement for the upcoming task. Just a curt demand to know the next Hogsmeade weekend.

Harry irritably sent a reply with the information, keeping it equally as curt.

Honestly, he had more than enough to worry about at the moment, but, as usual, Sirius seemed to just add to his problems rather than alleviating any of them. Or even offering moral support.

He really hoped that Sirius was like this because of Azkaban and that he’d been a lot better when James and Lily had named him as Harry’s godfather. 

The day before the task, Harry explored the lake more fully, finding his way to the merfolk village near the middle. The clue had said that he should “find them where their voices sound”, which he suspected meant that whatever he had to find would be in their village. He’d added another spell to his repertoire, an ocular enhancer, which allowed him to see much better in the murky, dark depths of the lake.

The merfolk watched him curiously as he neared, but many of them had spears and they didn’t look terribly friendly, so he didn’t get too close, just circling it at a distance to learn what he could.

He, with Ron and Hermione – who insisted on accompanying his every trip into the lake in case something went wrong – returned to the castle when it was too dark to continue. He felt that he was ready, but the nerves were still beginning to grow enough that he worried if he would get any sleep. At least he felt a lot more prepared for this task than he had for the first. Benefits of having more than two days to prepare, he supposed.

Hermione was in full peptalk mode when they entered the castle and nearly ran into Fred and George.

“There you are!” Fred – probably – said with exaggerated exasperation. 

“We’ve been looking everywhere for you!” George explained more dramatically than necessary.

“How come?” Ron frowned at them.

“McGonagall wants Hermione,” Fred shrugged.

“Didn’t tell us why,” George agreed. “She was looking a bit grim, though.”

“Well, I suppose I’d better go,” Hermione frowned, but didn’t waste any time in following the twins.

Ron and Harry resumed their course alone. Ron suggested a game of chess or exploding snap when they got there, but Harry declined. “I’m just going to head to bed,” he said. “Want to get as much rest as I can.”

Ron looked a bit disappointed, but didn’t complain as Harry retreated.

Harry took a shower because he was covered in dried lakewater, then changed into his pajamas and settled in bed, spelling the curtains sealed and silenced around him.

Then he called out Kaa, the real reason he’d wanted to go to bed early. His snake was good at helping him see things practically and reasonably. He hoped that it would help his nerves.

He filled the snake in on his day while Kaa listened patiently.

“So you have your plan and you are ready,” Kaa concluded. 

“Yes,” Harry agreed.

“Yet you worry.”

Harry nodded slowly and admitted, “I’m nervous. Something could go wrong. I might have misinterpreted the clue and maybe I’ve not prepared as well as I’d thought.”

“Things you cannot change. Certainly not now.”

“I know,” Harry sighed. “It’s hard not to worry anyway.”

“Another human failing,” Kaa concluded.

Harry huffed a laugh, “I guess so. We humans are just illogical like that.”

“I have noticed.”

A moment of silence stretched between them before Harry added, “I’m worried, too, about what they’re going to take that I will miss. I’ve put everything that I care about in the cuff and I wear it constantly, but they’ll have to have something, right? Will they steal this off my wrist while I’m sleeping? Or maybe they’ll just take my whole trunk, assuming there must be something in it that I care about?” 

He frowned and added, “And if they do, what will I wear tomorrow? Pajamas?”

“If they take your trunk, I suspect they would leave a change of clothes.”

“True,” Harry nodded.

They talked for another hour, mostly going over what Harry could do if various things went wrong. Eventually, Kaa had to insist that he get some sleep lest he fall asleep under the water in the morning and drown.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take nearly as long to fall asleep as he’d expected. Kaa had actually managed to settle his nerves considerably.

That lasted, of course, until he woke up and remembered what the morning would bring.

Worryingly, Hermione seemed to be missing. “Have you seen her since last night?” Harry asked Ron as they made their way to breakfast without her after Lavender confirmed that she wasn’t in the dorm and hadn’t come back the night before.

Ron shook his head.

Harry’s mind turned over the situation while he nibbled on some toast, trying to get down as much as he could.

When McGonagall came to collect him for the task, Harry had to ask, “Professor, do you know what’s happened to Hermione? I haven’t seen her since she went to see you last night.” His next stop would normally be the hospital wing, but he had no time before the task.

McGonagall frowned at him, “She’s fine, Mr. Potter. You need to focus on the task. May I assume you are prepared?”

“As I can be,” Harry said, though most of his attention remained on Hermione. McGonagall seemed to know where she was. Harry could only think that she’d been called out for a family emergency, or…

Or they were using people for this task, rather than possessions.

How could they hide people in the Black Lake without drowning them though? Well, of course there were magical ways, but wouldn’t it be dangerous?

The wizarding world, he reminded himself. They gave wands to eleven-year-olds and let kids play a game flying at high speeds a dozen meters and more above the ground. Magic gave them the ability to heal almost anything, so they weren’t as careful about risking severe injury as muggles were. At least, that was his guess about the reason.

When they reached the part of the lake set up with stands, Harry was led into a tent set up much like the hospital tent from the last task, but instead of four beds, there were eight.

That convinced him. They were all meant to retrieve people that were important to them.

“Uniforms have been provided for this task,” McGonagall explained and nodded toward a section of the tent that Harry realized was set up with four curtained-off cubicles. The front flap of each curtain had the crest of one of the schools on it, the two for Hogwarts were in red and yellow behind the crest, making it clear which was intended for each of them. “Go ahead and change, then wait in here until someone comes to get you,” she instructed.

Harry stepped into his cubicle and pulled the curtain closed, adding the securing spell he used on his bed curtains to make sure they wouldn’t be opened before he was ready. He then turned to examine the “uniform” he’d been given.

It was clearly meant for swimming. A one-piece suit with shorts and short sleeves, obviously meant to fit snugly. Harry frowned at the short sleeves. If his left arm was exposed from the bicep down, there was no way anyone would miss his tattoo.

With a deep breath, Harry drew his wand and concentrated on pulling his magic to help him, since he didn’t know the proper spell for this. He knew one that he thought would work, but it needed to last a couple of hours. Then he cast and watched in satisfaction as the sleeve lengthened until it would reach his wrist. He repeated it on the other sleeve to match, then decided to lengthen the legs so they’d end just above his knee rather than mid-thigh. He thought it would look better with the long sleeves. And also because it was going to be hard enough to be dressed in such a tight outfit for everyone to see. He didn’t need an excess of skin on display as well.

With luck, the judges wouldn’t put up a fight about him altering his uniform. He thought he should be entitled to his modesty, at least. It still had the Hogwarts logo large on the back and a smaller one on the left side of his chest.

That done, he quickly changed. He could hear movement in the other cubicles, so he assumed the other champions were getting changed as well.

The suit was tight enough to make him blush when he had it on, but he supposed there was nothing for it. Regretfully, he had to leave his wrist cuff behind, not wanting to risk it being judged a magical item not allowed in the task. He tucked it into a pocket of his robe and left it behind as he stepped out.

Viktor was already out of his cubicle, wearing a uniform that looked like Harry’s had before he’d changed it, though with his school logo. Depressingly, the Bulgarian looked much better in the tight uniform, with a much broader chest and shoulders and noticeable muscles in his legs. Harry looked painfully thin and painfully young next to him.

“Have you seen Hermione at all?” Harry asked without much hope.

Viktor shook his head grimly.

“Didn’t think so,” Harry sighed.

The dull roar of hundreds of students began to grow outside the tent and Harry felt his nerves rising again. Merlin, he hated this.

Cedric was the next to emerge in a uniform identical to what Harry’s had been initially. He also filled out his uniform much better than Harry, though he wasn’t quite as broad as Viktor.

Fleur came out soon enough and Harry noticed that either she had altered the uniform as well, or the girl’s version was different because the shorts were extremely short and hers was sleeveless.

Viktor’s eyes lingered on her for a moment before he frowned and looked away and Harry uncharitably wondered if she’d deliberately made hers more revealing in hopes of distracting them.

Cedric did seem rather distracted, staring a good while longer before he seemed to catch himself and turned his whole body away from her.

For whatever reason, her allure had never worked on Harry, for which he was grateful. It would be terrible if he couldn’t stop himself drooling over her while he disliked her so much. With a personality like hers, she really didn’t deserve such attention.

Harry let out his breath slowly and went to sit on one of the beds as they were the only place to sit in the tent. He braced his hands next to his knees and leaned forward, gaze on the floor. He let his eyes unfocus and just concentrated on breathing. His animagus training had given him a foundation in meditation and he used the skill now to settle his mind while he waited. If he didn’t, he knew the nerves would just build exponentially.

When Bagman swept his way dramatically into the tent, Harry blinked back to his surroundings and saw that Fluer and Cedric had both moved to sit on the beds as well, with Fleur on the opposite side of the tent and Cedric halfway in the middle. Viktor was still standing.

“Okay, everyone!” Bagman said with a large, cheerful smile. “It’s showtime! Come on out.”

Trembling slightly with nerves now, Harry followed the others out. The stands were packed to capacity now, the judges set up at a table at the water’s edge. Percy was in place of Crouch again, which Harry did find odd. It was one thing to send an assistant to attend the Yule Ball and quite another to send him in your place to the actual event.

Each of the champions was spaced out along the shore, leaving a couple meters between them.

Once Harry was settled in place, he couldn’t help but glance back at the stands. There was still no sign of Hermione among the Gryffindors.

Looking at all the people did make him extremely self-conscious about his attire again. He had to consciously prevent himself from trying to cover himself with his arms. It would be ineffectual and make him look stupid, so he just crossed his arms over his chest instead.

Then Bagman’s voice rang out, magically amplified, and Harry’s attention was yanked forcefully back to the task at hand. “All right! Our champions are ready to commence the second task, which will begin on my whistle! They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One… two… three!”

The shrill whistle pierced the excitement of the crowd and Harry drew his wand and concentrated. He cast the warming charm first because it was freezing. Then he slipped out of his shoes and socks and waded into the water. He cast the clear eyes and ocular enhancement spells, then paused to gather his concentration before casting the water breathing spell. As usual, his magic kind of muscled it into compliance and he was pretty sure that he still didn’t have that spell down. It worked though, which was the important part. He immediately dove and took a breath of cool water. 

His ocular enhancement spell gave him much improved visibility in the slightly murky water and he watched the others already moving on ahead. Cedric and Fleur both looked to be using a version of the bubble-head charm while Viktor’s front half looked like a shark.

Harry slipped his wand back into his wrist sheath and put his all into moving toward the merfolk village with all the speed he could muster.

He did drift a bit too close to the weed beds at one point and the Gindylows moved toward him, but Harry’s magic snarled at them and the small but dangerous creatures immediately retreated. It was the same as had happened the one time he’d come close to them while he was preparing for the task. Less human creatures seemed to respond to his magic’s threats much more decisively. Perhaps it was their instincts that warned them that he was a predator they did not want to take on.

When he reached the village, he risked moving in closer now, and as he’d suspected, they didn’t challenge him. He was pretty sure they must have agreed to this, though he wasn’t sure he’d want to try going into their village without permission. They all seemed to be out watching the happenings now, and a collection of them were spread around what seemed some sort of town square, singing the same song from the clue.

With his enhanced vision, even the dark at the bottom of the lake didn’t impede his sight and Harry soon spotted four people tied to the tail of a giant merperson statue in the middle of the square. He spotted Hermione immediately and began toward her before he realized that Blaise was tied up next to her.

He’d thought Hermione would be his hostage, but he supposed it made sense that she’d be Viktor’s instead. She was Harry’s close friend, but he didn’t fully trust her. Viktor, on the other hand, apparently considered her as a possible wife. Blaise certainly wasn’t here for any of the other champions. 

Harry made out Cho as well, who was undoubtedly Cedric’s hostage, and a young blond girl that looked quite a bit like Fleur. A little sister, maybe.

The hostages all looked to be unconscious, fine streams of bubbles emerging from their mouths. They must have been imbued with some form of water-breathing magic.

Harry reached Blaise at the same time as Viktor in his half-shark form rushed to Hermione and began tearing at her bonds with his teeth. Harry frowned, mildly concerned that he’d hurt her, but then returned his attention to Blaise. He reached for the ropes binding him and his excitable magic just disintegrated them on contact.

Harry glanced around, but neither Viktor nor the merfolk seemed to have noticed what he’d done.

He grabbed Blaise when he was loose and cast one more glance at the remaining hostages. He felt a sliver of worry for them, but quickly dismissed it. No one was going to let them die. With that firmly in mind, he began swimming for the surface at the same time as Viktor began to ascend with Hermione.

They broke the surface almost simultaneously and the hostages immediately began to wake when the air touched them.

Harry quickly drew his wand and reversed all of the spells on him besides the warming charm, though he did take a moment to cast another warming charm on Blaise, just in case all the magic on him had left when they broke the surface.

Blaise grinned at him as they began to swim toward the shore in pace with Hermione and Viktor – who had reversed his transfiguration and looked human again.

They swam to the shore among raucous cheers, and were hastily steered into the tent by Madam Pomfrey, who wrapped them in blankets and forced pepper-up potions on each of them, then she hurried back out to wait for more patients.

Harry shook his head and cast drying charms on himself and Blaise while Viktor and Hermione did the same, though Hermione and Viktor remained huddled in their blankets while Harry and Blaise let theirs fall.

“Oh, Harry! I can’t believe they didn’t tell you what was going on! You must have been so worried when I just disappeared!”

Harry nodded as he noticed a beetle in Hermione’s hair. It looked like the same kind of beetle he’d seen in the garden during the Yule Ball and he had the same sense of wrongness about it. He worried that maybe it was poisonous and his magic was trying to warn him. Not wanting to risk it hurting Hermione, Harry quickly leaned forward and plucked it from her hair, crushing it in his fingers before it had a chance to bite him.

He grimaced slightly at the gooey mess on his fingers and wiped it on the discarded blanket before focusing on his friends again. His magic had immediately calmed down again, so he figured the danger was past.

Viktor had taken advantage of the situation and pressed himself against Hermione’s back, wrapping them both in his blanket. She was blushing but smiling as well.

“I was worried,” Harry admitted, “but I asked McGonagall and she seemed to know where you were, so I kind of figured it was probably you they’d taken. Especially as none of my possessions that I cared about were missing.”

“I have to say, Harry, I’m a little flattered that I’m what you’d miss most,” Blaise smirked at him.

“Don’t let it go to your head, Blaise,” Harry teased back. “They probably just picked whoever we went to the ball with.”

“Except for Delacour,” Viktor pointed out.

“Yeah, but anyone with eyes could tell she wasn’t at all fond of Davies,” Harry laughed.

“This is true,” Viktor allowed, “but they chose correctly for me,” and he turned absolutely smitten eyes on Hermione.

Harry rolled his eyes good-naturedly as he turned his attention to Blaise to give the others a bit of privacy.

Then they were all distracted when Fleur was all but dragged into the tent by the medi-witch. The only female champion was in hysterics, gasping and crying for Gabrielle.

Harry felt quite alarmed by the sight and began to wonder if he’d been wrong about the hostages being safe.

Fleur was forced into a blanket and given a potion as well, but she immediately rushed back out of the tent.

Worriedly, Harry followed her out, the others trailing behind him.

Madam Pomfrey was now restraining Fleur from diving back into the water even as Cedric and Cho were now visible swimming toward the shore. 

A horn sounded to announce the hour was up.

Cedric and Cho were just reaching the shore when another figure appeared only a bit off from the docks and Harry realized that it was one of the merfolk supporting the youngest hostage.

Fleur rushed back into the water far enough to grab the girl and hug her tight, repeating her name over and over again and gasping an explanation of getting caught by the Grindylows.

Harry felt relieved to know that he’d not left anyone down there to die.

Dumbledore then crouched at the water’s edge and spoke quietly with the merperson, who he seemed to be able to understand. Harry wondered if there was a spell for that or if Dumbledore had really found it worthwhile to learn to speak the merfolk language.

The judges then moved into something of a huddle to confer on what they’d learned of the happenings in the lake.

Afterward, it was announced the Fleur would receive twenty-five points – apparently for trying. Cedric got forty points for coming in third, just inside the time limit. Harry and Viktor, having both returned in the same amount of time, and both having used unique spells, were each awarded forty-eight points, and remained tied for first place.

Harry could only shake his head in disbelief. He really was much more focused on surviving and keeping his secrets than winning, but he was still tied for first.

Viktor clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder in congratulations, and Harry smiled and returned the sentiment.

Blaise snuck a quick kiss and faux-coyly thanked Harry for being his hero.

Harry blushed and elbowed the other boy for his cheek and they all made their way back into the tent so the champions could change back into their clothes. Harry was relieved to find everything just as he’d left it. He slid his glasses back onto his face and hoped that no one had noticed that he’d not been squinting without them. He’d kind of forgotten about them for a bit there.

When he and Viktor were dressed, they began to make their way back up to the castle with Blaise and Hermione. He glanced around for Ron, but he didn’t see him anywhere, so he shrugged and began answering Blaise’s questions about exactly which spells he’d used and how they’d worked.

Chapter Text

Sirius

Since they wouldn’t learn anything about the third task until the end of May, Harry turned his focus back to learning as many advanced spells of all kinds as he could manage, as he’d been doing before discovering the first task was dragons.

It was frustrating to know that he’d be fighting for his life again in a couple of months, but not knowing what kind of spells he should be focusing on to protect himself. He was going through all the standard books of spells for the higher year levels as well as choosing spells that looked helpful from other books in between.

They wouldn’t begin learning silent casting until sixth year, but Harry began practicing that as well, just in case it would be needed. He’d been lucky that he didn’t have to cast any spells underwater during the last task because he wasn’t sure if he’d have managed it. His magic had helped as needed, but it would be much better if he could cast properly without words. Less likely that he’d expose himself that way.

It was hard though, he found, to do it without getting some assistance – even minimally – from his magic.

He tried casting a levitation charm on his charms text and he ended up getting so frustrated with his failure, that his magic finally pitched in. The book did, indeed, begin floating. Problem was that nothing he did would stop the book from floating afterward. The spell he’d been trying to cast should have only levitated the book while he was concentrating on it, but whatever his magic had done had left it perpetually floating.

Luckily, it only floated a handful of centimeters above a surface and Flitwick had thought it was delightful when he’d discovered it, so he didn’t get in trouble for having a floating textbook. The only real problem was that it kept trying to float out of his bag if he didn’t remember to fasten it closed. It was annoying, but no matter how many times he tried to cancel the spell, it wouldn’t work.

Hermione couldn’t get it to work either, which annoyed her right up until Flitwick tried and failed, at which point she dubbed it one of those “Harry Potter” things, and dismissed it as a quirk.

It really was amazing the things magical people would brush off as just a weird magic thing. Like Hagrid being twelve feet tall. Harry’s first thought when he’d met him had been that he wasn’t human, but magicals hadn’t seemed to question it.

Ron, sadly, was barely talking to Harry these days. Apparently, the fact that Blaise had been more important to Harry than Ron was something he wasn’t ready to forgive. Harry suspected that half the problem was that it hadn’t been Ron and the other half specifically that it had been Blaise. A Slytherin. Harry had tried to float his suggestion of the judges just choosing their Yule Ball dates, but Ron hadn’t been satisfied, especially as that had not held true with Fleur. Harry wasn’t nearly as bothered now as he’d been back in November, and he was glad for the proof that he’d guarded his heart well since then. It was a lot easier to ignore Ron now and get on with his life. Still sad, but it wasn’t occupying his thoughts constantly and leaving him feeling both devastated and furious as it had before.

At the beginning of March, Harry got another brief letter from Sirius, this one telling him to be at the road out of Hogsmeade at two o’clock on Saturday afternoon and Harry should bring as much food as he could.

Harry sighed heavily while Hermione fretted about Sirius putting himself in danger. Harry wasn’t sure how he felt at the prospect of meeting his godfather in person again. The man hadn’t made a great impression on him the last time they were together and the letters they’d exchanged since really hadn’t warmed him toward the man at all. He loved the idea of a godfather, but the reality wasn’t so great. He knew that Sirius had been damaged by his time in Azkaban, but Harry had never known the man when he was sane so it was hard to like him.

But then, given that he’d tried to kill Snape when he was sixteen, Harry had serious doubts that he’d ever been properly sane.

Still, the way the man was asking for food didn’t sound very good. Harry knew all too well how it felt to starve. So as soon as the meal was over, Harry headed for the kitchens. It was easy to get away from Hermione. He simply had to remind her that none of the elves would speak to him if she was there. He strongly suspected that Dobby was the only elf in the entire school that didn’t hate her for how she’d been trying to trick them into freedom with her knitted hats. Harry would have intervened himself if he’d thought there was a real danger of the elves being freed against their will, but Dobby had assured him that only the headmaster could dismiss them. They did have to clean up student clothes to launder and such, after all. The elves just took it as a personal insult that she would make the attempt.

Dobby and Winky were the only elves cleaning Gryffindor tower anymore. Dobby because he was strangely impervious to Hermione’s house-elf focused mania, and Winky because she refused to let Dobby be the only one keeping her Master’s part of the castle clean. She seemed to outright hate Hermione, but she had very strong house-elf morals and he was sure she’d not say a bad word against Hermione as long as Harry called her a friend. What she did say tended to be highly passive-aggressive, but not outright condemning.

In the kitchens, Harry declined any food due to having just eaten, but he did pull Dobby aside, “Hey, Dobby. So I’m going to meet Sirius on Saturday in Hogsmeade and he’s asked for food. I don’t want you to steal from Hogwarts, but is there somewhere you can go to buy some food for him? Maybe something spelled to last until he can eat it?”

“Dobby can be doing that, master Harry,” the elf excitedly assured, “but Dobby will be needing money to be buying.”

Harry nodded and fished into his cuff for his money pouch. He frowned at what he found. He’d spent quite a lot on the cuff, and there were a few more Hogsmeade weekends this year. He shifted the coins aside and found his Gringotts key instead. “If I give you my key, can you take money from my vault?” he wondered.

Dobby nodded happily, “Dobby can be doing that!” and he stood a bit taller, as though proud to be trusted with it.

Harry just smiled at him and handed the key over. “Okay. Take out three hundred galleons. Bring fifty back for me. The rest, spend on food. Get a good selection of healthy stuff, preserved and ready to eat if you can. I don’t think Sirius probably has a kitchen to prepare things in. And something for him to carry it all in that will be small and light, okay? You don’t have to do it immediately. I know you’re busy here as well. Just make sure I get it by Saturday morning.”

“Dobby will be doing that!” Dobby promised.

Harry spent a few more minutes asking after how he and Winky were doing. Dobby was happy to report that Winky was like a new elf now that she was bonded again. They were both happy to be his elves and happy to work at Hogwarts until he got a house. Hogwarts always had plenty of work for everyone.

Blaise again asked Harry to spend time with him in Hogsmeade, but this time Harry had to admit that he had something he had to do in the afternoon, though he agreed to spend the morning with Blaise.

As Harry was coming to expect with Blaise, despite looking curious, he didn’t ask. It was nice that he didn’t pry into every detail of Harry’s life, and it made him realize just how much Hermione and Ron did that. Blaise made him feel like he was allowed to have secrets and that was a nice feeling.

So he and Blaise headed out early. They spent most of the morning at Gladrags, where Blaise was getting fitted for a new set of dress robes. Apparently his mum was getting married over their spring break, so he needed a new set.

“How many times has she been married?” Harry wondered when they left the shop and started wandering aimlessly down the high street.

“This will be eight,” Blaise sighed.

“Eight?” Harry asked in disbelief. “She’s been divorced seven times?”

Blaise gave him a look that Harry couldn’t quite understand. “Divorce is a muggle concept, Harry,” he said with a bit of a wince. “Magicals marry for life. My mother has been widowed seven times.”

Harry winced at his ignorance and insensitivity. “Sorry.”

Blaise shook his head, “It’s okay. I know you were raised by muggles.”

They walked in silence a bit before the absurdity of Blaise’s statement fully sank in, “ Seven times?” he couldn’t help but mutter.

Blaise gently took his arm and led him down a quieter side street. “Look, my mum has something of a… reputation. Some people call her a black widow,” he said distastefully.

“Oh,” Harry frowned, feeling wrong-footed and not knowing how to fix it.

Blaise hesitated a moment more before offering, “Between you and I, the reputation isn’t entirely unfounded.”

Harry blinked. Opened his mouth. Realized he had no idea what to say and closed it again.

“I’m only telling you this because I know that you can keep a secret,” Blaise said firmly. “She’s just… not had too many good experiences with men, all right? My father was her first husband and he was an evil son of a bitch. This one’s different though. She loves him and he seems like a decent bloke from what she’s said in her letters. I’d rather they courted a little longer, but there’s no reasoning with her.”

“That’s good,” Harry said encouragingly. “I mean that she loves him, not that they’re rushing.”

Blaise gave him a small smile, “I’m glad you think so. I was… a little worried that you might read into the rumors if you heard them.”

Harry took a moment to puzzle the meaning from that before shaking his head, “I know when someone’s lying to me, Blaise. I’m not worried.”

“Good,” Blaise concluded.

They window shopped for a bit after that. The wind was cold, but neither of them minded casting warming charms as necessary. When lunch time came, Harry said goodbye to Blaise and headed out to meet Sirius. Dobby had come through with more than enough food for Harry to share a meal out of it. Hermione had, of course, offered to go see Sirius with him, but Harry had told her that he wanted a chance to talk to him alone. He wasn’t entirely sure why he wanted to talk to him alone. It just felt important. Like he needed a chance to really get to know him.

He found the dog waiting happily at the stile. There was a pile of newspapers clutched between his teeth. The dog wagged its tail at him and Harry followed him over the stile and up the side of the mountain that sat perched over the magical village.

It was a half hour’s climb up the steep mountain trail, which Sirius managed easily on four legs. It was a little harder for Harry, but his stamina was another thing that had been improving lately and he found that he wasn’t even out of breath when Sirius finally led them into a narrow fissure in the rock that led into a cool, dimly lit cave. Buckbeak was tied up inside, which made Harry wonder how the beast had gotten in. Sirius must have either widened the entrance or shrunken the hippogriff. Knowing how touchy the animals could be, Harry was betting on the former. Harry bowed to Buckbeak and waited for the animal to return it before turning his attention back to his godfather, who’d resumed his human form. His hair was longer, though just as matted. He was wearing ragged gray robes that looked like the same ones he’d been wearing when he’d escaped Azkaban. It had been like nine months and the man hadn’t managed to get a change of clothes? Surely he could have snatched some off a muggle drying line or filched something from a laundromat? Surely anything else would let him blend in better if he was seen in human form?

He did notice the cloak he’d sent the man for Christmas was folded up in the back of the cave, so at least he had something warm. Sirius looked troublingly thin. He definitely wasn’t finding enough to eat.

Harry wanted to say so many things, but he hardly saw the point. Sirius was a grown man. He should have been capable of providing himself at least with food and clothing, even as a fugitive. Growing up with the Dursleys, Harry had managed to keep himself moderately fed out of the bin if nothing else. Even public ones. Surely with magic, Sirius could manage that much. Admittedly though, Harry had no idea if magicals threw away as much food as muggles. Maybe they just vanished what they didn’t eat?

“Food?” Sirius asked with faint hope.

Harry fished into his pocket and extracted the shoulder bag Dobby had brought the food in. He drew his wand and returned it to normal size, then handed it over.

Sirius dug into it immediately, then hesitated in surprise and dug deeper. “Pup, how much food did you get?”

“Enough to last you a while, I reckon,” Harry shrugged and transfigured a rock into a cushion to sit on. “Come on, then. I’ve not had lunch,” Harry urged.

Sirius quickly sat down on the cold stone across from Harry and began pulling out what seemed to be meal packs made up of wooden plates fitted with glass covers. The food inside each was perfectly stuck in place no matter how he turned the dish. He selected chicken for himself and offered a like one to Harry, which he accepted.

A firm pull removed the cover and steam immediately billowed out.

Sirius moaned at the smell and dug in at once.

Thankfully, the dish included a set of wooden flatware because Harry was sure his godfather would have used his filthy hands otherwise.

Sirius was so intent on the food that they didn’t talk at all until Sirius had finished licking his plate clean. Harry didn’t rush through his own, so he still had a bit to go when Sirius leaned back and clutched at his stomach with one hand. “Oh, Merlin, that was good, Harry. Where on Earth did you get all of that though?”

Harry shrugged, “There’s a house-elf at Hogwarts that likes me. He belonged to the Malfoys, but I kind of accidentally severed their bond in my second year. I just asked him to pick this up for me when he had time.”

“A house-elf,” Sirius shook his head. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Granted, I think the only house-elf still bound to my house would probably rather poison me than feed me,” he grimaced.

Given what he knew of house-elves, Harry found that worrisome, but didn’t have time to comment on it before Sirius was going on.

“I know this must have been expensive though. I’ll pay you back when I get a chance to stop by the bank, okay?”

“It’s fine,” Harry shrugged, “but if you want.”

“I do,” Sirius nodded firmly. 

“What are you doing here?” Harry finally asked.

“Fulfilling my duty as Godfather,” Sirius said. “Don’t worry about it. I’m pretending to be a loveable stray.”

Harry sighed at the admonition to not worry. As though he could just turn it off.

“I want to be on the spot. Your last letter… Well, let’s just say things are getting fishier. I’ve been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I’m not the only one who’s getting worried.”

Not knowing what to say, Harry just reached for the pile of old papers Sirius indicated and scanned the headlines. There was one on Crouch’s illness which made it sound really serious. Another headline talked of Bertha Jorkins still being missing and the Minister becoming personally involved.

Harry wasn’t sure how Fudge was supposed to help along the investigation if the aurors weren’t managing. He scanned the articles, then shook his head and looked at Sirius again. “A department head is sick and a witch went missing. You think they’re connected?” He couldn’t see it, personally. And those two events didn’t sound all that extraordinary. Maybe it was growing up in the muggle world, but seemed to him like these things just happened.

Like Sirius was maybe making connections that weren’t there and dreaming up conspiracy theories because he wasn’t quite all right in his mind. Between Azkaban and living like this though… Who could blame him?

“I think it’s suspicious,” Sirius confirmed. “You don’t know Crouch, Harry, but I do. If he’s ever taken a day off work for illness, I’ll eat Buckbeak.”

Harry glanced at the hippogriff, slightly disturbed by that declaration, then shook it off. “So you know him?”

Sirius nodded grimly, “He was the one who gave the order for me to be sent to Azkaban – without a trial.”

Harry pulled in a startled breath.

“Crouch used to be the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, didn’t you know?” Sirius went on. “He was tipped for the next Minister for Magic. He’s a powerful wizard. Powerful magically and power hungry . He was very outspoken against the Dark Side, but then a lot of people who were against the Dark Side… Well, you wouldn’t understand. You’re too young…”

Harry clenched his jaw. He was really damn sick of people telling him that he was too young to know things. “Try me,” Harry bit out.

Sirius looked surprised by his tone, but then smiled faintly. “All right.” He got up and started pacing. “Imagine that Voldemort’s powerful now. You don’t know who his supporters are, you don’t know who’s working for him and who isn’t; you know he can control people so that they do terrible things without being able to stop themselves. You’re scared for yourself and your family and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing… the Ministry of Magic’s in disarray, they don’t know what to do, they’re trying to keep everything hidden from the muggles, but meanwhile, muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere… panic… confusion… that’s how it used to be.”

Harry frowned as he listened to Sirius’ explanation. It sounded horrible. And it gave him a new appreciation for his ability to hear lies. He wouldn’t have to worry nearly so much about whether he could trust those close to him because he’d catch them in lies if they’d changed sides.

“Well, times like that bring out the best in some people and the worst in others,” Sirius continued, explaining that Crouch had probably been principled in the beginning, but he didn’t stay that way. He rose quickly through the ministry and ordered increasingly harsh measures against Voldemort’s supporters. The aurors were given special powers to kill rather than capture suspected Death Eaters. Apparently Sirius hadn’t been the only one to go to Azkaban without a trial. Crouch even authorized the use of the Unforgivables against suspects, which Harry rather thought invalidated the name of the curses. After all, if they were unforgivable… it rather followed that there could be no justification for using them.

But people were frightened and a lot of them supported such measures. They wanted him to be minister. Then Voldemort was gone and it seemed only a matter of time until he got the job.

“But then something rather unfortunate happened…” Sirius smiled grimly. “Crouch’s own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who’d managed to talk their way out of Azkaban. Apparently they were trying to find Voldemort and return him to power.”

“His son?” Harry whispered in horror.

“Yep,” Sirius nodded. “Nasty little shock for old Barty, I’d imagine. Should have spent a bit more time at home with his family, shouldn’t he? Ought to have left the office early once in a while… gotten to know his own son.”

“Was he a Death Eater?” Harry wondered, because the wording Sirius had used was ambiguous.

“No idea,” Sirius shrugged. “I was in Azkaban myself when he was brought in. This is mostly stuff I’ve found out since I got out. The boy was definitely caught in the company of people I’d bet my life were Death Eaters – but he might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Harry remembered what Crouch had done to Winky. There had been no evidence. He’d kept her from being arrested, but then coldly chucked her out of the only home she’d ever known. Still didn’t fully make sense to Harry. 

“There was no actual evidence?” Harry questioned.

“Didn’t matter. The association… the suspicion… it was enough for Crouch.”

“So he didn’t get a proper trial, either? No chance to defend himself?”

“I suspect old Crouch was worried about drawing it out. Evidence might come out that made him look worse. Besides, the longer it went on, the more people would remember and look poorly on him. He just shipped the boy off to Azkaban the same day and tried to pretend like he’d never had a son.”

Harry could only marvel at the heartlessness of it. The selfishness. So concerned for his own image that he wouldn’t even give his son a chance to plead his innocence.

“I saw the dementors bringing him in,” Sirius continued more quietly. “Watched through the bars in my cell door. He can’t have been more than nineteen. They took him into a cell near mine. He was screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days though… They all went quiet in the end. Except when they shrieked in their sleep.”

The place sounded a bit like Hell, really. He couldn’t believe that there were people in there who’d not even been found guilty of their crimes. He wasn’t sure even the guilty deserved that place. Maybe only for the most heinous of crimes when proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Pettigrew probably deserved it. And Voldemort. And probably Crouch, because he’d sent innocent people there.

“So he’s still in there?” Harry asked, rather horrified by the idea of any innocent people in that place.

“No,” Sirius shook his head grimly. “No, he died about a year after they brought him in.”

“Died,” Harry repeated. At like twenty. “From what?”

Sirius shrugged, “Most go mad in there and plenty just stop eating after a while. They lose the will to live. You could always tell when a death was coming,” his eyes went rather distant as he remembered. “The dementors could sense it. They got excited. That boy looked pretty sickly when he arrived. Crouch being an important ministry member, he and his wife were allowed a deathbed visit. That was the last time I saw Crouch, half carrying his wife past my cell. She died herself, apparently, shortly afterward. Grief. Wasted away just like the boy. Crouch never came for his son’s body. The dementors buried him outside the fortress; I watched them do it.

“So old Crouch lost it all, just when he thought he had it made. One moment a hero, poised to become Minister… next, his son dead, wife dead, the family name dishonored, and so I’ve heard since I escaped, a big drop in popularity. Once the boy had died, people started feeling a bit more sympathetic toward the son and started asking how a nice young lad from a good family had gone so badly astray. The conclusion was that his father never cared much for him. So Cornelius Fudge got the top job, and Crouch was shunted sideways into the Department of International Magical Cooperation.”

Sirius settled back down and they fell silent for a time, Harry’s mind turning over the idea of what those times must have been like. Harry didn’t like the idea of Ministry employees being allowed to use spells that earned anyone else a lifetime in Azkaban. It was hypocritical. They should either treat them as unforgivable or make the sentence for their use more based on the circumstances than the magic.

But he supposed that was indicative of the way Magical Britain seemed to think of magic. Dark magic was bad because it was Dark, not because it was used for bad things. 

He had used Dark magic and probably killed some of those sadists at the World Cup, but he liked to think it was justified, given what they were doing. He hoped that it had been justified, at least.

“What’s the time?” Sirius wondered at last.

Harry called his wand into his hand from his sheath and opened his mouth to cast a tempus, but then closed it again and concentrated a moment before flicking his wand.

The magic felt a bit listless, like it wasn’t quite focused as it should be, but the spell flickered and settled well enough to make out the numbers in the dim cave.

“Nearly two,” he announced.

“Was that non-verbal, pup?” Sirius asked excitedly.

Harry gave him a cautious smile, “Yeah. I’ve been practicing. Still not very good at it, as you can see.” Not many spells were simpler than a tempus, after all, and he’d barely managed it.

“Not that good?” Sirius protested. “Most people struggle with that stuff in sixth year!”

Harry shrugged, “Well, I thought I should learn. For the tournament, you know? Since all my competitors are at least sixth years.”

The reminder sobered his godfather and he shook his head grimly, “I’m not going to breathe freely again until this damn tournament is over.”

Harry blinked in surprise and felt a small bloom of warmth in his chest. He was pretty sure that was the first time Sirius had actually expressed displeasure about Harry’s placement in the tournament beyond his suspicions as to who did it and why.

“You’re still being careful, right?” Sirius pressed. “You never told me about how the second task went. I read about it in the paper, but did anything strange happen? Like the chain breaking in the first task?”

“Nothing like that,” Harry dismissed.

“I also read that your hostage was a Slytherin boy,” Sirius said, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Yeah,” Harry nodded, suddenly nervous. “We’re, er… dating, I guess,” he admitted, bracing himself for the worst as he carefully watched his godfather for a reaction.

Sirius immediately grimaced, “A Slytherin, pup? Really? I don’t know much about the Zabinis. They’re from Italy. The family has only been in Britain a few generations. I do know that my mother never had anything bad to say about them, which pretty much means they’re Dark.”

Harry supposed it could have been worse, but Sirius clearly thought even less of Dark wizards than Hermione. It was an unpleasant reminder that his godfather was likely just one more person who would abandon him if he learned the truth. Or even a small piece of the truth. “I should probably get heading back,” Harry sighed, standing up and canceling the transfiguration on the rock he’s used for a seat.

Sirius quickly got to his feet as well. “I’m not saying he’s bad, Harry,” he said hurriedly. “I just want you to be careful. Slytherins… You don’t know what they’re like. They’ve always got ulterior motives. And they’re ambitious, Harry. I just… I think they’d see dating you as some kind of prize because you’re the Boy-Who-Lived or because you’re the Light’s hero. And… I don’t think you should trust any of them.”

Harry sighed heavily and looked at his godfather for a moment before deciding he might as well see how easily he might be scared off. “I was supposed to be a Slytherin, Sirius,” he said gravely and watched his godfather flinch away like he’d slapped him. He nodded silently. “The Hat said I’d be great there. That I’d make friends. I was afraid everyone would think I was Dark, so I begged it to go anywhere else and it put me in Gryffindor. But if you think all Slytherins are scum, Sirius, then you think I am, too.”

Sirius stared at him and opened his mouth as if to speak several times, though no sound was made.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone that,” Harry said softly, though it wouldn’t be too terrible if people found out now. He’d not have told him if he really feared others learning of it. He didn’t trust Sirius all that much, after all.

Sirius still didn’t seem to know what to say, so Harry turned and made his way out of the cave.

Within a couple minutes of picking his way quickly down the mountain, Sirius raced up behind him, tail wagging, but ears down.

The animagus accompanied him the rest of the way back to Hogsmeade, parting ways again at the stile.

Chapter Text

Madman

The day after Harry’s meeting with Sirius, the Daily Prophet ran an article about their famous writer, Rita Skeeter. Apparently, she’d gone missing and the aurors had no leads.

“Maybe she finally went after the wrong person,” Lavender suggested rather meanly when she heard Hermione commenting on it.

“That’s a horrible thing to say,” Hermione frowned, though Harry thought she wanted to be upset at the idea more than she actually was.

“Oh, please,” Parvati sneered, “My father says she’s a horrible woman who would turn the country against her own mother for the chance to sell out a printing.”

“My mother swears by her,” Seamus protested.

The argument seemed to be mostly that – whose parents loved or hated the woman. The leading theory among the students as to her disappearance seemed to be that she’d either been offed by someone that she’d maligned over the years or she’d uncovered the wrong secret in researching an upcoming story and had been killed for it. A minority of students firmly believed that she’d just gone off grid in her research and would emerge with a ground-breaking story any day.

Personally, Harry wasn’t really upset by the idea that she might be dead. He’d not have wished it on her for being a generally horrible person, but he wasn’t going to mourn her either.

Harry honestly found Hagrid’s class on nifflers much more interesting. The critters had a remarkable knack for searching out “sparkly stuff”. It seemed like they’d make great accomplices to jewel thieves. Or treasure hunters. Hagrid said they made horrible pets as they tended to destroy houses, but Harry didn’t reckon you’d have to let it roam your house like a cat or dog. Surely you could pen them up like chickens or gerbils or something.

The annoying bit came after the class when Ron, who’d been sulky and barely talking to him since the task, had demanded to know why Harry hadn’t told him that the leprechaun gold he’d used to pay Harry back for the omnioculars at the Quidditch World Cup had disappeared.

“I honestly didn’t notice, Ron,” Harry shrugged. When exactly would he have remembered to miss it? While they were fleeing into the woods? Afterward, when he was contemplating the morality of taking a life if you were defending innocents?

“Must be nice,” Ron scowled as they sat down to lunch. “To have so much money you don’t notice if a pocketful of galleons goes missing.”

Harry shook his head and tried not to snap at the redhead, “I had other things on my mind that night, Ron.”

“I thought I’d paid you back,” Ron continued to bemoan. “You shouldn’t have given me those robes for Christmas.”

That much, Harry already knew, though not for this reason.

“Just forget about it, Ron. I didn’t care if you paid me back in the first place.”

Glaring blackly at his plate, Ron muttered an angry, “I hate being poor.”

“Oh, shut up , Ron!” Harry finally snapped. He was just so tired of having to be so careful to hide the money he had lest Ron fall into an epic sulk. “I hate being an orphan, but I don’t moan about it every time you mention your parents!”

And that ended up coming out louder than he’d have preferred, causing a number of nearby people to fall silent and look at him in shock.

With a frustrated huff, Harry stood and left the Great Hall. He could have lunch in the kitchens instead, and it would give him a chance to see how Dobby and Winky were doing.

Ron grew even more distant after that incident, spending most of his time either being sulky toward Harry and Hermione or inserting himself with Dean and Seamus, who so far seemed uncertain as to his place in their little group.

Harry just found the whole thing exhausting. When he thought back to even the end of the last year and how close he’d been to Ron, he didn’t know how to wrap his mind around it all. He wondered if Ron had changed more or if he was the one to change.

He still didn’t fully understand why Ron had reacted as he had. He’d always had some jealousy issues, but he’d never been a fraction so bad. That had been the turning point, though, he thought. That had been when Harry had stopped being willing to put up with it and maybe that was the real change. Once Harry stopped excusing Ron’s behavior, their friendship was doomed.

The dissolution of that friendship resulted in a somewhat different dynamic between Harry and Hermione. Mostly with regard to studying. Harry had never been against it, really. That had mostly been Ron and Harry had just gone along with it to keep him happy and because it was easier to goof off with Ron than to study.

Without him in the equation, Harry let Hermione talk him into studying a lot more often, for classes and especially for the tournament, though he’d initiated plenty of that kind of studying himself, not wanting to end up dead in the next task.

Blaise continued to show up to the library when they were studying, though they mostly studied adjacent to each other rather than together. It was nice to have him there.

They went to the April Hogsmeade weekend together as well, mostly combining window shopping with actual shopping. Blaise, of course, went home for spring break as his mother was getting married for the eighth time. That still boggled Harry’s mind a bit, as did who Blaise had hinted at being the source of at least some of those husbands’ untimely ends.

It made him think about the morality of killing again and strangely, it made him feel a bit better. It helped to reinforce the idea that killing wasn’t always evil. Sometimes, when the person you killed was hurting people, or would hurt them in the future given half a chance… then maybe it wasn’t evil.

He knew that soldiers who killed on command weren’t evil unless they knew their superiors were evil and supported them for that reason. And police or aurors weren’t evil if they killed in the line of duty, protecting themselves or others. But he didn’t think there needed to be a government determining when it was and wasn’t okay to kill. They were, hopefully, subject to oversight which helped to ensure they weren’t sanctioning killing for the wrong reason, which maybe made it a little better in general.

He didn’t think vigilantes were evil though. Hell, at this point, he was a vigilante. Or, at least, he’d acted as one at the Quidditch World Cup and he didn’t regret it.

Hermione was still seeing Viktor, which was good since she spent all of her Hogsmeade weekends with him and didn’t mind Harry spending his with Blaise. She hadn’t brought up the subject of the necklace he had given her again, at least not to Harry, but she was still wearing it, so he figured she must have gotten some satisfactory answers from Viktor. She wasn’t the kind of person to be willing to move forward in ignorance when there were answers within reach.

In the last week of May, McGonagall instructed Harry to go down to the quidditch pitch at nine that night to learn the details of the third task.

The quidditch pitch, they found when they arrived, was now full of hedges, still low enough they could step over them, which they had to do to meet with Bagman in the center. The man succinctly explained that the third task would require them to navigate a maze, filled with creatures provided by Hagrid as well as spells, which would provide obstacles to impede them. The timing of their entrance to the maze would depend upon the points they’d accrued in the first two tasks, giving he and Viktor an edge over Cedric and Fleur.

When they started back toward the castle, Viktor asked Harry for a private word, which Harry agreed to quite readily in an effort to avoid Bagman, who seemed to want to offer him help yet again.

“What is it, Viktor?” Harry wondered as the Bulgarian moved toward the forest for privacy. “We just talked this morning.”

“Not privately,” Viktor explained.

Harry nodded somewhat warily, wondering what Viktor would want to ask without Hermione hearing. Nothing bad, he hoped, like how to gently break up with her. He didn’t think it would be anything like that. Viktor still seemed totally enthralled by her whenever they were together.

When they’d passed Hagrid’s hut and the Beauxbaton’s carriage, Viktor finally seemed satisfied by their privacy under the shade of the forest’s edge. Harry automatically gave the shadowed area beneath the trees a wary glance, but he saw no sign of hungry acromantula or territorial centaurs or offended hippogriffs or anything else concerning.

“I wish to propose a formal betrothal to Hermione before we separate after the tournament,” Viktor began without preamble, his accent maybe slightly improved since Harry had first been introduced to him.

Harry’s brow rose in surprise at the topic, though not so much that it was happening at all. The promissory necklace and Blaise’s explanation had strongly hinted that this might be coming.

“I know,” Viktor continued, “how I would go about this with a pureblood woman, but Hermione has informed me that the world she grew up in is very different. She did not understand the necklace I gave her. I had not realized that I would need to explain it until she asked about it.”

Harry nodded, “Yeah, I’m still learning that stuff, too. It’s all really different here.”

“This is why I wished to speak with you. You had similar upbringing. How do I explain what I am asking of her?”

Harry grimaced a bit at the question, “I’m not sure… Well, how about you explain to me what you mean by a betrothal and I can tell you if any of it really surprises me.”

“Well…” Viktor seemed a little thrown by the suggestion. “A betrothal is a formal agreement between two families regarding a member of each family and their intentions to pursue a marriage. It is… a trial time. When we will decide if we wish to wed and we will consider only each other and no other during this time. If the betrothal goes well, it ends with an engagement, which is the period of time during which the marriage contract and wedding celebration are arranged.”

“It sounds similar to what muggles call ‘dating’,” Harry observed. “It just sounds more formal and it involves the families of the people. Most muggles want to make those kinds of decisions without any input from their families.”

“How strange,” Viktor frowned.

Harry shrugged. “So how long does a betrothal last?”

“There is no limit. It depends upon the participants. Some betrothals are arranged by parents while their children are infants. If those are carried through to engagement, it is often not until they are adults. Betrothal among older people, such as widows and widowers, often last less than a year. I would expect a betrothal with Hermione to last until she is seventeen or eighteen, though it may last longer.”

“That’s still really young by muggle standards,” Harry tried to explain. “Most muggles don’t get married until they’re in their middle twenties or later nowadays.”

Viktor looked at him like he’d said something utterly absurd. “So late. I do not understand why.”

“Well…” Harry ventured uncertainly. He was hardly an expert on the topic. Most of what he did know was from Petunia’s soaps and her gossiping. “I guess they want to have time to explore life and work on their careers and that before getting married.”

“But would not exploring life be more enjoyable with a spouse and a career easier to manage?” Viktor sounded like he was stating the most obvious facts of life.

“I… don’t know,” Harry admitted. “I’m not an expert or anything, but I think it might actually be marriage itself that’s so different between the cultures. Muggles seem to see it as kind of restrictive and the wizards I’ve heard mention it don’t sound like they think the same way.”

“Restrictive?” Viktor blinked. He seemed to ponder that a moment before venturing, “I think maybe these are two different things that have the same name. Marriage is not restrictive. It is a joining of families and interests. It is raising children. It is closeness and affection and unity.”

Harry’s brow rose at the description, “Describe it to her like that,” he encouraged. He wasn’t sure how he felt about marriage, to be honest. With the Dursleys and the Weasleys as examples, it was easy to see that it wasn’t at all the same for everyone. Viktor made it sound nice, though.

Viktor nodded, “Thank you. I will do that.”

He opened his mouth again, as though to continue, but then there was the loud crack of a snapping twig and rustling from the trees.

Having faced enough things trying to kill him in that forest, Harry didn’t hesitate to draw his wand. He took Viktor by the arm and urged him to step further away even as he turned toward the noise. His magic instantly went on alert, tensed and still.

“What is it?” Viktor questioned, his tone quiet and wary.

Harry glanced toward the sky, but no moon was visible. It hadn’t risen yet, he didn’t think. He wasn’t sure if it would be full. It occurred to him that keeping track of moon phases might not be a bad idea, actually. Something for the future, assuming he survived the night.

Then something large stumbled through the brush right in front of them. Harry took a step back and lifted his wand toward it, an impedimenta on his tongue as he didn’t want to attack with dangerous spells until he’d identified it.

Before he could cast, however, the man – for it was definitely a man – stopped and turned to speak exuberantly with a tree.

Harry stared at the man. It was Mr. Crouch, he realized, dirty and bleeding in torn and filthy robes. He looked beyond fatigued. His hair and beard were overgrown and unkempt.

“Wasn’t he a judge?” Viktor asked, sounding unnerved. “Isn’t he with your ministry?”

Harry nodded and took a cautious step closer to the man, but Crouch did not seem to notice him, carrying on his conversation with the tree.

“...and when you’ve done that, Weatherby, send an owl to Dumbledore confirming the number of Durmstrang students who will be attending the tournament. Karkaroff has just sent word there will be twelve…”

“Er… Mr. Crouch?” Harry tried to interrupt.

“...and then send another owl to Madam Maxime, because she might want to up the number of students she’s bringing, now Karkaroff’s made it a round dozen. Do that, Weatherby, will you? Will you? Will…”

The man’s eyes were bulging and he stood staring at the tree, muttering soundlessly at it. Then he staggered sideways and fell to his knees.

“Mr. Crouch?” Harry said more loudly, moving forward to cautiously touch the man’s shoulder with his free hand. “Are you all right?”

Crouch’s eyes were rolling wildly about now. He looked entirely mad.

‘What is wrong with him?” Viktor asked, his voice growing more alarmed.

“I don’t know,” Harry admitted warily, not taking his eyes from Crouch. “You should go get someone…”

“Dumbledore!” Crouch suddenly gasped. He reached out and seized a handful of Harry’s robes, dragging him closer though his eyes still weren’t focusing on Harry. “I need… see… Dumbledore…”

“Okay,” Harry agreed cautiously. “If you get up, Mr. Crouch, we can go up to the castle-”

“I’ve done… stupid… thing…” Mr. Crouch breathed. He still looked utterly mad, his eyes rolling and spittle dribbling down his chin as he appeared to fight for every word. “Must… tell… Dumbledore…”

Harry’s magic felt even more alarmed than Harry, like a dog with its fur all puffed up, growling warnings at Crouch.

“You need to get up, Mr. Crouch!” Harry said loudly and clearly, hoping to get through to the man. With his free hand, Harry grabbed the hand fisted in Harry’s robe in an attempt to dislodge it, but the second Harry touched his skin, the Dark, foul magic drenching the man became suddenly and unmistakably apparent.

The Imperius Curse.

Was this what a partial success in fending off the curse looked like?

Realizing that he had no idea what the man might have been Imperiused to do, Harry suddenly felt very unsafe to be so close to the man.

With only a second’s hesitation, Harry turned his wand on the man and cast, “Stupefy!”

Crouch immediately sagged to the ground and Harry slumped with relief. That was a spell that he’d learned only in the last few weeks and he was quite pleased it had worked. He glanced back toward Viktor, only to realize that the man was quite a bit further back than Harry had suspected. He was clenching his wand in a fist and looking extremely nervous.

Harry blinked at him briefly before he realized that, for all his skill and confidence and greater age, Viktor had probably never had to deal with anything so real as this – without spectators and judges or failsafes. It gave Harry a brief moment of perspective on how fucked up his own life was, but he banished the thought quickly in favor of the situation at hand.

With a swish and a flick, Harry levitated the unconscious man and turned back toward the school. “Come on. We should get him to the hospital wing and send for Dumbledore.”

They walked back up to the school in silence. The grounds were still and quiet with no sign of anyone else out and about.

“Potter!” a voice called as soon as they’d stepped into the school, and the uneven gait announced Moody as he trumped up the stairs. “What’s all this?” he demanded, wand out, magical eye spinning wildly.

“It’s Mr. Crouch,” Harry said with some relief. “He just stumbled out of the forest talking about needing Dumbledore. He’s out of his mind.” He stopped himself before he mentioned anything about the Imperius. In class, Moody hadn’t mentioned anything about any way to detect it, and Harry knew full well how different his magic tended to be. He wasn’t going to take any chances with saying the wrong thing.

“What do you mean, out of his mind?” Moody pressed urgently as he stumped his way over to them.

“One minute he’s talking like he thinks Percy Weasley is there and then he’s gasping about having made a mistake and needing to tell Dumbledore,” Harry tried to explain.

“A mistake?” Moody pressed, both eyes focusing on Harry for a moment.

“He didn’t say more,” Harry admitted. “I’m not sure he could. It seemed really hard for him. Do you think it’s the Imperius?” he asked.

Moody focused on him momentarily again, then shook his head. “Not many can fight it like you can, Potter. I’ll take him from here,” he flicked his wand with a silent spell and Harry felt as Crouch was pulled from the support of Harry’s spell into Moody’s. “It’s almost curfew. Get to the tower, Potter. And you should be returning to your ship, Krum.”

“Yes, sir,” Viktor said with some apparent relief, and immediately turned and left.

Harry sighed. He wanted to argue, but he doubted ‘I saw him first’ was going to sway Moody. He gave a reluctant nod and started toward the stairs up to Gryffindor. He cast one glance back to see Moody stumping toward the hospital wing.

In the common room, Harry filled Hermione in on finding Crouch with Viktor and got a brief lecture for being so near the forest at all, though she seemed more concerned about Crouch than anything.

Having heard nothing about what had happened with Crouch, Harry and Hermione tracked down Moody before lunch the next day.

“Did you find out what was wrong with him?” Harry asked as soon as they were permitted into his office. “Is he going to be okay?”

Moody sighed and sat down, motioning for Harry and Hermione to sit as well. “It doesn’t look good, Potter. He’s been moved to St. Mungo’s and of course the aurors were called in, but he’s not sane enough to give a statement.”

“But he did seem to be making sense a bit,” Harry reasoned. “He had moments…”

“It probably wasn’t sanity, Potter. Just another face of his madness. He had moments of calm when he didn’t know where or when he was and then moments of paranoia where he’d beg to see Albus even when the man was standing right in front of him.” He shook his head, “Last I heard, they were talking about moving him to the Janus Thickey ward. That’s for permanent spell damage, see?”

“So it was caused by a spell?” Hermione pressed.

“Couldn’t say, Granger,” Moody dismissed. “Have to wait for the full report from Mungo’s.”

Harry left the man’s office not knowing what to think. He knew without a doubt that he’d felt the Imperius curse on the man, but maybe his attempts at fighting it really had broken his mind. It still seemed strange that Moody hadn’t mentioned anything about it, but… Maybe they really couldn’t tell? There had also been… something like a lie in Moody’s explanation. When he’d said that Crouch probably hadn’t been showing moments of sanity, that hadn’t seemed to be the truth. But then maybe Moody was editing things because they were students and not related to Crouch and didn’t actually have a right to these answers, despite Harry having been the first to speak to the man.

Regardless, Harry wasn’t willing to risk telling anyone what he knew about it. Not for the sake of some man he didn’t know, who, by all he’d heard, was a pretty nasty human being in his own right.

The next morning, Harry received a letter from Sirius addressing the situation with Crouch even though Harry hadn’t told him about it. He must be in contact with Dumbledore, Harry supposed.

Harry – what do you think you’re playing at, walking off into the forest with Viktor Krum? I want you to swear, by return owl, that you are not going to go walking with anyone else at night. There is somebody highly dangerous at Hogwarts. Crouch was obviously cursed with something really nasty and it could have happened right there in the forest. The attacker might have been bare meters away from you in the dark. You could have been killed.

Your name didn’t get into the Goblet of Fire by accident. If someone’s trying to attack you, they’re on their last chance. Stay close to Ron and Hermione, do not leave Gryffindor Tower after hours, and arm yourself for the third task. Practice stunning and disarming. A few hexes wouldn’t go amiss either. There’s nothing you can do about Crouch now. 

And don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t bother to send me an owl about what happened. It would have been nice to hear about it from you, pup. Keep your head down and look after yourself. I’m waiting for your letter giving me your word you won’t stray out of bounds again.

Sirius 

Harry found the letter somewhat touching in its concern and utterly infuriating in the reprimand and demand.

“Who the Hell does he think he is to lecture me about being out of bounds after all the crap he got up to in school?” he fumed as he crumpled the letter into a ball before stuffing it into his pocket.

“He’s worried about you!” Hermione said sharply. “You need to listen to him!”

Harry bared his teeth at her in anger. “Someone’s always trying to fucking kill me, Hermione. That’s been a fact since my parents died. I’m so fucking tired of everyone telling me to be careful and never do anything ever lest I be in danger. I can’t live my whole life hiding from the world! Who the Hell would want to live like that?”

“We’re just worried about you, Harry!” she snapped back. “We don’t want you to get killed!”

“Do you think I want to die?” Harry growled, his mind flashing to his fears about what the afterlife held for him. Hell, for certain, with a dad who might see him as a threat to his power. “Do you think I’m not careful? There’s a difference between being careful and cowering, and I’m not willing to cross that line!”

And he stormed up to his dorm, unwilling to argue any further lest he say something he’d regret. He was just so damn tired of people treating him like he was too mentally deficient to realize that he was in danger and so must be reminded. Like he was too stupid to be able to take care of himself when he’d been doing exactly that since his parents died. The Dursleys definitely hadn’t done any more than they absolutely had to.

He paced the empty dorm room for a few minutes until he’d calmed down a little, then took Sirius’ letter from his pocket and smoothed it out to read through again. It still made him angry.

After a couple read-throughs, he found some writing supplies in his trunk and sat on his bed to write a reply.

The first attempt was very long and talked about trust and hypocrisy and cowardice and even the neglect of the Dursleys. It ended up crumpled into a ball and lit on fire. There was so much he wanted to say to the man. So much he wanted to argue against. He couldn’t help but feel it was all too revealing though. As much as he wanted the man to understand where he was coming from, he also didn’t trust him enough to give him true insight into his life.

In the end, he went with a more bitter and angry rant instead. It was probably time he let Sirius know how he really felt in more explicit terms anyway. Maybe the man would learn from it.

Sirius,

I’m fine. I appreciate your concern for me. Indeed, I can empathize with it. I imagine it’s similar to how I feel knowing that you’re constantly putting yourself in danger for no reason that I can see by staying practically in Hogsmeade. So how about this. I’ll lock myself away in safety as soon as you do.

If you’re truly surprised that I didn’t rush to send you a letter about this, perhaps think about your response. Why would I deliberately tell you something that will only get me lectures? For your information, I did not go into the forest. Viktor and I were standing at its edge, still on school grounds. Why at nine o’clock at night? A good question. That’s apparently when Bagman could spare the time to tell us about the third task. A friend of mine then pulled me aside for a private conversation.

I did nothing wrong and I resent your implication that I was somehow recklessly putting myself in danger. If you’re only going to write me to berate me, make vile insinuations about my friends, and demand that I obey your commands like a damn dog, maybe don’t bother writing to me anymore at all. I’ve survived people trying to kill me every year since starting Hogwarts and I suspect that I’ll survive this one as well.

-Harry

He read through it a couple times and debated trying another, less angry and dismissive version, but in the end he decided it would do his godfather good to read it. He had no idea if it would make a difference in the way the man treated him or not.

On Monday, while Ron was in Divination and Hermione in Arithmancy, Harry found himself doing yet more reading on advanced spellwork to help him survive the third task and whatever that might end up involving. He chose to do his reading in bed, which was probably a mistake because he ended up dozing off part way through.

He dreamed about a high, cold voice that spoke to Wormtail, “You are very fortunate indeed. Your blunder has not ruined everything. He won’t trouble us further.”

“My Lord!” Wormtail gasped, “I am so pleased. And so sorry…”

“Nagini, you are out of luck. I will not be feeding Wormtail to you after all. But nevermind… there is still Harry Potter.”

The cold voice then addressed Wormtail again, “Perhaps one more little reminder that I will not tolerate another blunder from you…”

And Wormtail begged, though to no avail. 

“Crucio!” the voice said.

Harry woke with a gasp, his scar prickling painfully and tingles of phantom pain running all through his body. He shuddered as he sat up, gulping for air and willing his pounding heart to calm.

“What the Hell?” he whispered, running his hands roughly through his hair.

Had that been real? He couldn’t help but remember the end of his second year when Dumbledore had said that Voldemort had left a bit of himself in Harry and that was why he was a Parselmouth. He didn’t really think that was the cause of his ability to speak the snake tongue, but this… It wasn’t the first time his scar had hurt after a dream.

Sirius would have him go running straight to Dumbledore, Harry knew, but he wasn’t too keen on the idea. It seemed a stroke of luck that this had happened when he was alone. No one need ever know.

He’d tried to research into what it could mean to have a piece of Voldemort inside himself at the end of his second year and beginning of his third, but there hadn’t been much to find in the Hogwarts library. He’d come to the conclusion that he was dealing with soul magic. It’s the only thing that made sense of what Tom in the diary had been. A bit of Voldemort’s soul, and Dumbledore had said that the piece in Harry was like that, just less vital.

Problem was, soul magic was more than just a little taboo. Even in Knockturn Alley he’d yet to find any real information on it that wasn’t just a vague theoretical overview.

He couldn’t imagine what else this could be. That definitely hadn’t been a normal dream.

As his heart finally began to calm, Harry picked up the book he’d been studying when he fell asleep and took it down to the common room. He wasn’t going to stay in bed and risk falling asleep again.

No one would know that had happened. The last time he’d tried to reach out about a dream, Sirius had come charging back to Britain like a suicidal idiot and Harry hadn’t gotten any actual advice out of it anyway. Just a “go to Dumbledore if it happens again”. As though he wanted that man to know anything more about the unusual things that happened around Harry.

As the final task neared, Harry spent more and more time studying advanced magic and gave less and less attention to his classes and homework. Even Hermione was cutting into her studying for exams time to help him prepare for the final task.

As the final couple weeks dawned, Sirius broke the silence he’d held since Harry’s last letter. Instead of addressing that, he’d finally commented on what Harry had told him before leaving the cave that day. He’d just said that it didn’t matter if Harry had been meant for Slytherin because he’d chosen Gryffindor and it was people’s choices that defined who they were. It sounded suspiciously like he’d talked it over with Dumbledore.

Harry didn’t respond, but Sirius nevertheless began sending him daily letters, a stark contrast to the month or two between letters that he’d maintained the rest of the year.

Harry was pleased to believe that it indicated how worried about him Sirius actually was, though the man didn’t spend much of the letters actually saying that. Rather he took to giving entirely useless advice, like, “Stay focused.” Because he couldn’t have figured that one out himself. Or he’d say things like, “Voldemort seems to be getting more powerful, but don’t worry about that. There’s no way he can get to you while you’re under Dumbledore’s protection.”

That last one had Harry crumpling the letter in disgust. It was the same sentiment Mrs. Weasley had expressed before his third year and it drove him crazy. He’d almost died so many times at Hogwarts despite Dumbledore’s presence. What the Hell made everyone believe that Dumbledore was infallible when he clearly made mistakes all the time?

It honestly brassed him off, this willful blindness. “Don’t take chances, Harry. Never leave the tower except classes and meals, Harry,” and then in the same breath, “Nothing can hurt you so long as you’re under Dumbledore’s protection, so don’t you worry about a thing.”

Just… What the fuck?

He hadn’t been seeing Blaise as much due to his hectic schedule with trying to get in as much practice as he could, though they still met up in the library once or twice a week. Since it was the library, they didn’t have all that much time talking, but it was nice that he was there.

On the morning of the final task, McGonagall instructed Harry to go into the Entrance Hall after breakfast because the champions were all meeting their families. Harry felt both annoyed at her apparently forgetting that he was an orphan, and slightly horrified at the thought that they’d somehow forced the Dursleys into coming and he’d actually have to see them.

The reality turned out much more pleasant as he found Mrs. Weasley and Bill waiting for him. They had a little run in with Cedric’s dad before they could get away. Apparently, the article in the paper when Skeeter had made the whole thing about Harry and hardly acknowledged that Hogwarts had another champion, had gotten under his skin and he acted like Harry had written the damn thing himself.

“Didn’t bother to correct her though, did he?” he demanded.

Harry had no idea how he was supposed to have done that. It’s not like the newspaper printed articles written by him. And no one listened to anything he said if it was contradicted in the paper anyway. As though Rita Skeeter was a better authority on Harry’s life than Harry himself.

Cedric, at least, apologized for his dad’s atrocious behavior, and Harry didn’t stick around long to listen to more.

He ended up having a pretty good morning walking all around the castle with Mrs. Weasley and Bill while they reminisced about their own times at Hogwarts.

They went to the Great Hall for lunch and all the Weasleys currently in attendance sat with them. It was almost like being back at the Burrow and he had a really good time. It even helped to forget, if only for a little while, about the task that was going to try to kill him again that evening.

Hermione did not join them for lunch, though they ran into her coming in the main doors as they were heading out.

“Where were you?” Harry wondered.

“Oh,” she blushed brightly as she looked between Harry and Mrs. Weasley and Bill. “Viktor asked me to have lunch with him and his parents.” She clammed up at that point, but Harry saw her fingering her necklace and he had a pretty good idea of what had been discussed. 

He let her go without comment, but Mrs. Weasley looked after her with a faint tut, “I don’t understand what you young people find so appealing about going abroad. There are plenty of good jobs and potential spouses right here in Britain, you know.”

Harry glanced at Bill in time to see him roll his eyes expressively before he pointedly changed the subject.

The afternoon was spent in a lazy walk around the castle grounds before they wished him good luck and promised to be watching his performance. All the light-heartedness of the day seemed to drain away at once as he walked to dinner with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man to the gallows.

Chapter Text

The Third Task

Harry picked at his dinner, eating little more than a bread roll and hoping even that would stay down as the nerves really began to overwhelm him.

And so the announcement came before he felt nearly ready.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in five minutes’ time, I will be asking you to make your way down to the Quidditch field for the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament. Will the champions please follow Mr. Bagman down to the stadium now?”

All of Gryffindor house gave him a standing ovation as he rose to go and he tried to smile, though he probably just looked sick. He vaguely heard his friends wishing him luck and then he was out of the Great Hall with Bagman and the other champions.

Bagman prodded him yet again, asking how he was feeling while he ignored the other champions.

“Fine,” Harry said curtly, even as his magic coiled ever tighter in anticipation.

The hedges on the pitch now towered at six or seven meters tall. They stopped before an opening in the hedges revealing a dim and creepy passage beyond.

The stands around them soon began to fill, the air ringing with excited voices and the rumblings of feet as the hundreds of students filed into their seats. The sky was growing dark, stars beginning to show.

Hagrid, Moody, McGonagall, and Flitwick approached them to announce that they would be patrolling the outside of the maze, ready to come and retrieve anyone should they wish to be rescued. They just needed to be capable of sending up red sparks, which Harry thought was a lot to assume if they were in need of rescue.

Bagman then cast a sonorous and gave the introduction for the spectators. Harry and Viktor were tied for first, followed by Cedric, and then Fleur.

And then Bagman was counting down and Harry and Viktor were hurrying into the shadowed passage.

As soon as they stepped inside, the sounds of the spectators died away and Harry shivered a bit at the oppressive silence that was left. He and Viktor split when they came to a T.

Harry’s magic was tense, on high alert as he walked through the paths, the gloom growing thicker by the minute as the last of the light left the sky above.

The first obstacle he met was unmistakably his boggart. Just as the boggart in his third year exam had done, it had taken on the appearance of Harry, but with devil’s horns, batlike wings, and a barbed tail. He opened his mouth and a black, forked tongue snaked out.

With a shudder, Harry concentrated before casting “ridiculous!”, and the devilish version of Harry morphed into a tiny cartoon devil with red skin and a pitchfork, then retreated hastily into a dark nook under the hedge.

He shook off that disturbing experience as best he could and soldiered on.

The next obstacle took the form of a strange, golden mist floating in the middle of his path.

After a moment of consideration, Harry decided to try to get rid of it like he might any other mist. He sent a blast of wind at it, and it immediately dispersed. Harry wasted no time before hurrying through the space and when he looked back, it was already recollecting itself.

He heard Fleur scream, but then she went silent again, so perhaps she’d made it past whatever had made her scream.

He walked on for some minutes more before he stumbled upon one of Hagrid’s monstrous skrewts. It seemed something of an unfair advantage to use these in the task when Harry had been studying them in class all year, but he wasn’t going to complain. It was rather unfair that he was forced to compete at all, but here he was.

The skrewt began to advance on him, but his magic was all but writhing in agitation at this point, and the skrewt seemed to sense it because it stopped its advance and took a skittering step back.

Emboldened, Harry took a cautious step toward it and the beast backed away further. Harry continued in this manner, the skrewt not willing to let him get too close, and then it was backing down a connecting path and Harry was hurrying past it. He kept a weather eye on his back after that, but it didn’t try to pursue him.

As he continued for some minutes more, Harry concluded that the maze surely had to be expanded larger than it really was. The pitch was big, but this maze seemed endless.

Before he could find any more obstacles or the cup, he heard screaming again, this time in Viktor’s voice. There was no mistaking that scream as anything but one of agony. Harry didn’t even think before sprinting toward the sound of the voice as the screaming went on and on. When he was sure that it was just on the other side of the hedge, he turned his wand on it and the reductor curse leapt into the bush before he could even vocalize the spell.

A large hole trembled in its wake and Harry wasted no time in leaping through. It took him a moment to make sense of the scene he found. Cedric was standing over Viktor, his wand on him as he screamed and writhed on the ground. There was a manic light in Cedric’s eyes and no discernable expression on his face.

It took less than a second to assess the scene and then Harry was casting a stunning spell on the older boy.

Cedric collapsed at once and Krum lay there, panting.

Fervently hoping that Viktor would be okay, Harry bent over Cedric and touched his hand. He grimaced at once as the filth of the Imperius Curse filled his awareness. That was good, at least. Relatively, speaking. He really hadn’t thought for a moment that the Hufflepuff would even be capable of casting that spell, much less willing to.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked Viktor with concern.

“Yes,” Viktor nodded, accepting Harry’s hand to help him rise. “I did not expect the treachery.”

“I don’t think he was in his right mind,” Harry allowed, unwilling to admit to his certainty on the point. “I think he’s under Imperius.”

“Imperius?” Viktor frowned at him. “But who would do that?”

“I don’t know,” Harry shook his head. “Someone trying to hedge their bets, maybe.”

“No one would use such a spell to win any bet,” Viktor disagreed.

Personally, Harry wasn’t so sure. He’d seen enough of the dark side of human nature to have his doubts, but it was equally likely that this had something to do with an attempt on his life again.

Viktor looked at Cedric’s prone form with a grim frown, “Do we leave him?”

“I’ll send up sparks,” Harry reasoned. “Someone will come get him,” and he suited words to action and sent up the sparks.

“Well… May the best man win, yes?” Viktor said after a moment.

“Right,” Harry nodded, trying to get his head back on the task.

They moved on in the same direction, but again split at the first connecting path.

A few turns later, Harry found himself confronted by a sphynx.

She eyed him warily, coming to a stop in the middle of the path and staring at him, her tail flicking in agitation. “You are very near your goal,” she said, staring at him intently. “The quickest way is past me.”

“So will you step aside?” Harry asked cautiously. “Please?”

And she hesitated on giving an answer before finally settling on, “No. Not unless you answer my riddle.”

The riddle wasn’t overly complicated, and the sphynx actually seemed relieved when he answered correctly, so he didn’t think she was crazy about fighting him anyway. He wasn’t sure if she just generally didn’t like attacking school children or if she was responding to his magic the way the skrewt had.

And then he turned a corner and the Twiwizard Cup stood gleaming on a plinth directly ahead. Harry broke into a jog only for Viktor to appear from a side path in front of him. They both began to sprint, though Harry didn’t think he had a chance, and then Harry spotted the massive form of an acromantula to their left. It was moving toward them and it was going to run right into Viktor.

“Viktor! On your left!” Harry shouted, genuinely concerned for his friend’s life, having faced acromantula himself in the past.

Viktor turned just in time to leap out of the way and Harry didn’t think before casting a, “Stupefy!” at the spider as he bore down on his competitor.

It stumbled and collapsed at once and Harry saw Viktor only narrowly roll out of the way before it was on top of him.

With the cup only meters away, Harry continued running right for it even as he saw Viktor roll to his feet and lunge. Harry willed his magic to make him faster and his surroundings seemed to leap past him at unbelievable speed. He stretched out his hand at the same time as Viktor and he didn’t know which of them would reach it first.

Then Harry felt his fingers touch the smooth metal at the same time that there was a jerk behind his navel and his feet left the ground.

The Triwizard Cup was apparently a portkey and it dragged both him and Viktor away with it, so the other boy must have touched it at the same moment.

Harry had just enough time to wonder if that meant they would tie, and then his feet were slamming into the ground, and he realized they were not back outside the maze. Granted, they were out of the maze, but they weren’t on Hogwarts grounds anymore.

Looking around, there was no sign of the mountains near Hogwarts, so they’d clearly gone a long way.

“Where are we?” Viktor inquired as he looked around.

“I don’t know,” Harry admitted.

“So the Cup was the portkey?” Viktor wondered. “Did they tell you this?”

“No.” Harry dusted himself off and took in their surroundings. They were in a cemetery of all places. He drew his wand. This didn’t feel right. There was something in the air… like a faint wisp of Dark magic.

Harry’s magic was all but snarling in anticipation when he saw a figure moving toward them. Everything about this felt wrong. This wasn’t how the task was supposed to go. He’d just decided that this was definitely the part where someone tried to kill him and was lifting his wand in anticipation when his scar suddenly exploded in agony. It felt like taking a cricket bat to the forehead but one that was on fire.

The shock and pain had him on his knees before he could think and then Viktor was collapsing next to him amid a flash of sickly green light.

Harry found himself staring at the face of his friend. The unseeing eyes of the young man who wanted to marry Hermione. He was dead.

Rough hands began to pull at him and Harry tried to resist but his head hurt so much that he could barely see straight and Viktor was dead. He was…

Cords dug into his wrists and Harry moaned and tried to pull away, but he was tied fast. He tried to pull his eyes away from Viktor’s body, and he managed to identify their attacker.

It was Peter Pettigrew.

Harry struggled against his bonds, but they only dug deeper into his hands and arms. He couldn’t seem to stop looking at Viktor… at Viktor’s body just lying there on the grass.

A wad of black cloth was forced into Harry’s mouth and he could only watch numbly as Pettigrew moved away, out of Harry’s sight. He was left once more staring at the lifeless body on the ground. He ached with the knowledge that his friend was dead. Hermione’s boyfriend was dead.

His magic was a writhing mess of shock that seemed capable of doing nothing productive.

His awareness of events going on around him seemed to be somewhat choppy. He was missing things. Zoning out. He didn’t know how to make it stop.

Pettigrew had levitated a huge stone cauldron into the center of the open area in front of Harry and lit flames beneath it. At some point, he’d also left a small, writhing bundle on the ground there. It was the size of a baby, but it felt profoundly wrong and his scar throbbed every time he looked at it.

Then Pettigrew moved aside the cloth and drew from the bundle a thing out of a nightmare. It had the proportions of a small child, but it was scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. It’s arms and legs were thin and feeble, but it bore the face of a monster. Flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes.

Pettigrew held the naked thing as one might a child and dropped it into the cauldron.

The liquid in the cauldron appeared to be boiling, but Harry did not dare to hope it would die of the heat or the lack of air. He was sure that thing wasn’t human enough to die so easily.

“Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!” Pettigrew incanted and drew what seemed to be bone dust right through the ground from the grave over which Harry was tied. He added it to the potion and then went on in a tremulous voice.

“Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master,” and Pettigrew, with a mighty downward slash of a dagger, severed his own hand.

Harry stomach rebelled and he swallowed down bile as the horrible man’s hand landed on the ground. Pettigrew quickly wrapped the stump of his arm with a prepared cloth, then shuffled over to retrieve his severed hand. He dropped it into the potion, gasping and whimpering in clear agony, then began to shuffle toward Harry.

“Blood of the enemy, forcefully taken, you will resurrect your foe.”

Harry was expecting that dagger in his heart, but Pettigrew went for Harry’s arm instead. Harry wrenched hard against his bonds, afraid that he was about to lose an arm, but there was no progress to be had. The bindings seemed to tighten further and he couldn’t feel his hands at all anymore.

Then Pettigrew pressed the dagger into his arm and Harry felt the pressure as he pushed and then pushed harder.

The dagger could not pierce his flesh.

Pettigrew tried one more time, pushing even harder, then tucked the dagger into his belt and drew his wand. “Wards won’t protect against Dark curses,” he muttered, then cast, “sectumsempra.”

Harry gasped in pain as several small cuts opened up along his arm and Pettigrew quickly pocketed his wand and pressed a vial to Harry’s arm to catch the blood.

Pettigrew then went back to the cauldron and poured the blood inside.

The potion instantly turned blindingly white, then bled slowly into a bloody red and began to spew copious amounts of steam that poured from the cauldron and onto the ground, blanketing the area in red mist that smelled strongly of sulfur.

Then a figure rose from the cauldron. The man was tall and slender and totally bald.

“Robe me,” a smooth, masculine voice commanded.

Pettigrew struggled to obey despite having only one hand.

As the light from the cauldron fell to less blinding levels, Harry was able to see the man sneer at Pettigrew’s attempts and then lift his own arms to get the robe over himself.

Harry felt dread settle in his gut as he recognized the man from his second year. The shade from the diary. This man appeared in his twenties or thirties, but it was undeniably the same man. Tom Riddle.

Lord Voldemort.

The man took a few minutes to examine his own hands and arms, his eyes bright with triumph and a certain feverish light that Harry took to be insanity. There had been shades of it in the Riddle from the diary, but this was much worse.

Then he ignored his servant’s heavily bleeding arm in favor of his unmarred one, which bore the Dark Mark. He admired it for a time before using it to summon his “true family”.

Voldemort then began to monologue about his father’s grave and his father’s mansion and his father’s abandonment.

Harry tried to focus on his breathing and not thinking about Voldemort or Viktor or Pettigrew’s whimpering or the snake circling him. She was even bigger than Kaa and looking forward to eating Harry by the things she kept hissing.

Harry knew that he had to calm down and get his magic under control if he was going to have any chance of getting out of this.

Then the Death Eaters began apparating in and Harry had something else entirely to try not to panic about. Each of them crawled to Voldemort and kissed the hem of his robes.

Voldemort then went on a long speech, scolding them for not finding him and raising him much sooner.

By the time Voldemort got done with story time for his followers, Harry was beginning to feel his magic settle into something maybe useful.

Harry couldn’t help but be interested when Voldemort explained about how he credited Harry with surviving when he was a baby. According to what the man said, he seemed to believe that Lily Potter had sacrificed herself for Harry and somehow accidentally provided him with a powerful protection.

It sounded like truth and Harry thought the man honestly believed it. Harry wasn’t convinced it was the truth, knowing what he did about his own heritage, but he wasn’t about to refute it as it was a convenient explanation.

Then Voldemort moved to prove that he could touch Harry now and lightly pressed the back of one finger against Harry’s temple.

Harry gasped at the pain of his scar responding to the touch as Voldemort dragged his finger lightly down the side of Harry’s face in the parody of an affectionate gesture. Even as the pain tried to white out Harry’s perception though, his magic seemed to gain purpose, honing in on the unwelcome contact with more precision that it had had since the portkey dropped him here.

Voldemort then turned away from Harry and continued his monologue about his time as a bodiless wraith wandering the world like some parasite, possessing small creatures until their bodies failed. He mentioned Quirrell and that mess, though said nothing of the diary, so perhaps he didn’t even know about that.

He spoke of magic that Dumbledore had used to protect Harry. An ancient magic that protected him as long as he was in this relations’ care.

Harry thought, if that was actually real, “care” had to be pretty loosely defined. Actually, so did “protection”. Voldemort claimed that he couldn’t get him at the Dursleys’ house, but they seemed to have no difficulty hurting him.

Harry spent the time Voldemort was talking to order his magic as well as he could manage. He thought that he could probably get free of his bindings the way he’d freed Blaise in the second task, but that wasn’t likely to do any good, surrounded as he was. He might even manage to summon his wand, but again… He didn’t know how to apparate. He needed a plan before he tipped his hand.

Then Voldemort turned his wand on Harry and cast, “Crucio.”

It was pain beyond anything he’d ever experienced. Like the worst pain he’d felt from his scar, but over every inch of his body, inside and out. It was stabbing and aching and burning and pinching and every kind of pain imaginable all at once, absolutely everywhere. His entire world was pain.

It stopped and Harry realized that he’d been screaming and immediately stopped, panting and sagging in his bonds.

“You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me,” Voldemort said with satisfaction. “But I want there to be no mistake in anybody’s mind. Harry Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help him, and no mother to die for him. I will give him his chance. He will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Nagini,” he added an aide to the snake.

“Now untie him, Wormtail, and give him back his wand.”

Harry felt a bit shocked as the first and only two real bits of his plan were freely provided for him. The bindings were released and his wand was placed back in his hands, though he fumbled it a bit as the blood rushed back into his arms, sending tingles briefly through his hands. He rubbed at one arm to chase the feeling away and realized that the cuts Pettigrew had put there had healed.

“You have been taught how to duel, Harry Potter?” Voldemort asked quite cordially, his dark brown irises flashing red for just a moment.

Harry shook his head, struggling to think up some kind of plan. “Not really,” he admitted because that farce with Lockhart in his second year was hardly what he would consider reliable instruction. He could try to make a run for it, but he’d have to make it through the circle of Death Eaters, who’d closed ranks now to form a solid circle around them.

“We bow to each other, Harry,” Voldemort instructed, bending a little, but keeping his eyes on Harry. “Come, the niceties must be observed. Dumbledore would like you to show manners. Bow to death, Harry.”

The Death Eaters were laughing around them and Voldemort was smiling. Everyone seemed to be having a great time watching a Dark Lord duel a fourteen-year-old like this was an honorable fight.

Harry did not bow, staring the man down instead while his mind spun in search of any strategy that might let him live to see the next sunrise.

“I said bow,” Voldemort said, raising his wand, and Harry felt the man’s slimy magic reach out to him.

It burned as his own magic reacted to the intrusion and Harry felt his spine bend ever so slightly and he shook with the effort to fight it off.

The Death Eaters laughed harder than ever, but Harry saw Voldemort’s eyes narrow with what might have been wariness as he released the spell.

“Very good. And now you face me, like a man. Straight-backed and proud. The way your father died.”

Harry found a flitting moment of satisfaction in the thought that this man would probably shit himself if he ever faced Harry’s true father.

“And now… we duel.”

And with terrible speed, Voldemort had cast another Cruciatus curse.

Harry was aware enough, this time, to know that he was screaming and that he had fallen to the ground, but those thoughts barely penetrated through the all-consuming agony.

Then the pain ended, and Harry moved quickly to retrieve his wand and regain his feet. He staggered a bit, his entire body trembling uncontrollably, but he felt his magic filling him and his strength returning quickly.

“A little break,” Voldemort allowed because he obviously wanted to drag this out, in order to fully torment and humiliate Harry before killing him.

Harry would take what he could get. Every second that he remained alive was a second he could try to find a way to stay that way.

“That hurt, didn’t it, Harry?” Voldemort teased him in a parody of kindness. “You don’t want me to do that again, do you?” And the man obviously wanted him to beg or something.

Harry said nothing. Blasting his way out was looking like his best shot, but he doubted that it would work. He might be able to get a head start on them, but what good would that do against people who could cross distances instantly. They’d just get ahead of him. He’d have to kill or incapacitate all of them if he wanted to get away. It didn’t seem possible, but it was a better chance than standing and waiting to die.

“Answer me,” Voldemort said angrily, then, “Imperio!”

The spell slammed into him and it was so much stronger than Moody’s. It was like everything that had ever worried or hurt him had ceased to exist and he drifted in a world of peace and happiness and a voice whispered to him to just say no. Just answer no.

And then his magic filled him and burned away the false peace and the cajoling voice along with it.

“Fuck you!” Harry snarled instead.

Voldemort’s face twisted into fury, “Obedience is a virtue, Harry, but perhaps you just need another lesson in pain.”

And Harry was not going to stand there and just take another dose of the torture curse. As soon as Voldemort began to raise his wand, Harry threw himself into a diving roll, landing behind the headstone to which he’d been tied. He heard the curse slam into the marble as it missed him.

“We’re not playing hide and seek, Harry,” Voldemort chided, evidently in a better mood for seeing Harry flee from him.

“Yeah, well, I never learned to properly duel,” Harry called back in reflex. “Standing there getting repeatedly cursed seems like a stupid idea though.”

He risked a quick peek back out to see Voldemort approaching at a leisurely pace, but his eyes also fell on the one thing he’d been studiously not thinking about since he’d started trying to calm down.

Viktor’s lifeless body.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and gave a moment to wishing so hard that Viktor was still alive. When he opened them again, he almost screamed because Viktor was crouched right in front of him, looking just as surprised as Harry felt.

Then he realized that this wasn’t quite Viktor. That is… he was see-through.

Viktor blinked a few times, then focused on Harry intently. “The Cup, Harry. The portkey is still active. Get to it and it will take you back.”

Harry nodded a couple times. It was the best plan he had. He wasn’t sure if Viktor was a ghost or if Harry had somehow called his spirit back for a chat, but he didn’t have time to question it. He needed to get to the cup and then hope that Viktor was right about it still being an active portkey.

He pictured in his mind as accurately as he could manage, exactly where the cup lay. He’d need some kind of distraction to get that far.

“Take my body back if you can, Harry,” Viktor urged. “Dark wizards can do terrible things to entire family lines with a body.”

Harry gave him a nod, then took a deep breath and spun around to the opposite side of the headstone from where he thought Voldemort was. He wasn’t even fully standing yet when the first spell left his wand. The blood boiling curse narrowly missed Voldemort, whose return killing curse just missed Harry.

Harry didn’t take time to breathe before sending another curse, a bone crushing curse, toward the man who aimed another killing curse and Cruciatus at him in the same amount of time.

Harry dove then, toward Viktor’s body even as he summoned the cup. He contacted both in almost the same moment and felt the hook behind his naval grab him as another Killing Curse missed his back so narrowly that he felt it brush the hair at the back of his neck.

And then he was whirling away from the graveyard and he held tightly to Viktor’s body as he slammed into the ground again.

Immediately, he was overwhelmed with a cacophony of noise. Hundreds of voices cheered and Bagman’s amplified voice was saying something into the din.

Harry knew that he was back, but he didn’t try to raise his head just yet, instead clinging to the body beneath him and wishing so hard that it hurt that Viktor hadn’t had to die.

Then Viktor’s body convulsed, and Harry lurched away from it, blinking is disbelief when Viktor sat up and succumbed to a small coughing fit.

After a moment, Viktor looked up and met Harry’s shocked eyes with his own.

Chapter Text

Aftermath

Harry woke up to the sound of Mrs. Weasley fretting that someone would wake him if they didn’t quiet down. Ironic then that it was her who’d woken him, he supposed. He was curious as to what was happening though, so he lay still and listened. He cracked open his eyes to see that Mrs. Weasley and Bill were both standing near his bed, though facing away, allowing him to fully open his eyes.

“Regrettably, but all the same, Minerva…” that was Minister Fudge. They were speaking loudly and hurrying toward the hospital wing.

“You should never have brought it inside the castle! When Dumbledore finds out-“

Then there was the sound of the hospital wing doors slamming open and Bill drew back the curtains around Harry’s bed, giving him full view.

Fudge was storming into the hospital wing with McGonagall and Snape right behind him. The minister barely had time to demand to see Dumbledore before the man himself was stepping in behind them.

“What has happened?” Dumbledore demanded sharply, looking from Fudge to McGonagall.

Harry watched silently as the story began to unfold. Apparently, when Fudge had heard that the man responsible for all that had happened that night had been caught, he’d insisted on summoning a dementor before seeing the man. And the dementor had Kissed Crouch immediately upon sighting him.

And Fudge defended himself by claiming that there was a good chance the man was guilty of killing people and therefore it was perfectly fine that he’d been summarily executed.

Harry watched in silent horror as the Minister for Magic dismissed any kind of judicial proceeding as necessary because he was guessing that the man was just a lunatic who’d done it because of his lunacy. He refused to even consider the possibility that Voldemort could actually have returned. By all appearances, the mere idea terrified him, so he chose not to believe it.

“When Harry touched the Triwizard Cup tonight, he was transported straight to Voldemort,” Dumbledore said firmly to Fudge. “He witnessed Lord Voldemort’s rebirth. I will explain it all to you in my office.” He glanced toward Harry and noticed that he was awake, so Harry gave up pretending and just sat up, automatically reaching for his glasses. “I’m afraid I cannot permit you to question Harry tonight.”

And Fudge got a curious little smile as he asked, “You are prepared to take Harry’s word on this, are you, Dumbledore?”

“Certainly, I believe Harry,” Dumbledore said forcefully, “I heard Crouch’s confession, and I heard Harry’s account of what happened after he touched the Cup. The two stories make sense. They explain everything that has happened since Bertha Jorkins’ disappearance last summer.”

“You are prepared to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned on the word of a lunatic murderer and a boy who… well… I know you’ve been trying to keep it quiet, Dumbledore, but I know that the boy’s a parselmouth. Nathaniel – my nephew? – he’s a fifth year now. He told me that the boy is a parselmouth. Spoke right in front of the whole school, Nathaniel said. And you want me to trust him on his word alone?”

Dumbledore tried to defend him, but Harry had mostly stopped listening. He took a deep breath and absorbed what he was learning. The minister truly was as corrupt as he could have feared. Dumbledore had been right to question Crouch before calling the ministry because Fudge had just killed the man, not wanting to hear a word that was said. He might pretend that the Dementor had acted without orders, but if it really was Kissing people without authorization, Harry suspected that a coward like Fudge would be panicking that he could be next.

No, he’d killed Crouch because he didn’t want his own assumptions to be proven wrong. He’d rather live in ignorance than learn the truth.

And when Harry proved to be inconvenient, well then he was a Dark wizard. He could speak to snakes after all, which just proved it.

This definitely confirmed for Harry exactly what kind of treatment he might expect should his true parentage ever become known. Speaking to snakes was surely nowhere near as bad a charge as being the son of Satan, even if wizards, by large, didn’t seem to really believe in him.

Then Dumbledore lost his temper with Fudge’s blustering and laid down an ultimatum. “If your determination to shut your eyes will carry you as far as this, Cornelius, we have reached a parting of the ways. You must act as you see fit. And I – I shall act as I see fit.”

And the minister had apparently had enough. He dropped a heavy bag of coins in Harry’s lap and another at Viktor’s bedside, then stormed out of the hospital wing.

Dumbledore spent a moment looking after the man, then began issuing orders. He sent Bill to Mr. Weasley at the ministry with instructions to begin recruiting from within the ministry. He sent McGonagall to collect Hagrid and Madam Maxime. He then sent Madam Pomfrey to collect Winky from Moody’s office. For some unknown reason, she’d apparently not been sent back to her duties and must have witnessed her former charge lose his soul.

Harry would have to make time to speak with her tomorrow. Make sure she was okay. He couldn’t believe Dumbledore had brought her into it at all. She’d not had anything to contribute. It had been cruel to make her a witness to any of it.

He then asked Sirius to transform back and, naturally, Snape didn’t take it well.

“He is here at my invitation,” Dumbledore said, “as are you, Severus. I trust you both. It is time for you to lay aside your old differences and trust each other.”

Harry watched with raised eyebrows as Dumbledore forced to two to shake hands, as though that would make things okay between them. Harry had no love for Snape, but he couldn’t help but be on the man’s side in this. Sirius had not only tried to kill him, but he suffered no punishment for it and still professed absolutely no regret for anything except perhaps not succeeding.

And Snape was supposed to trust him…

Was Dumbledore actually deluded?

The headmaster then told Sirius to set off at once to alert Remus Lupin, Arabella Figg, and Mundungus Fletcher.

Arabella Figg? Surely, he couldn’t mean the old cat lady who’d watched Harry growing up… The woman was a muggle.

Wasn’t she?

“You’ll see me very soon, Harry,” Sirius promised after receiving his orders. “I promise you. But I must do what I can. You understand, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Harry sighed. “Of course, I do.” He understood that Dumbledore’s orders would always come first. Not that he didn’t think things needed to be done about Voldemort. He just thought they could probably wait until morning. Were they really waking everyone up in the middle of the night? It’s not like travel took time when there was floo and apparition.

When Sirius had transformed back into a dog and trotted out of the infirmary, Dumbledore turned to Snape. “Severus, you know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready… if you are prepared…”

“I am,” Snape replied more gravely than Harry had ever seen him.

“Then good luck,” Dumbledore said and watched Snape sweep his way out of the hospital wing.

The headmaster stood in silence for a time, looking pensive. Finally, he instructed Harry to get some rest, and left as well.

Harry was left alone then with only Hermione, Ron, and Mrs. Weasley being awake. They all looked at him and Harry didn’t want to talk about anything. Between the Third Task and Voldemort’s resurrection and then seeing firsthand the horrific corruption of the ministry…

Harry took off his glasses and lay back down, turning away from everyone and closing his eyes. He was exhausted, but he didn’t feel like he could sleep. He’d been given a dreamless sleep potion when he’d first laid down, but he thought his magic had burnt it all out already.

Instead, his mind turned over everything that had happened since they’d landed back on Hogwarts grounds.

Viktor was alive, a fact for which he was indescribably grateful. Dumbledore had asked them what had happened when they’d first arrived and Harry had stuttered out something about Voldemort being back. He’d said that Viktor had been knocked out most of the time and Viktor hadn’t hesitated in agreeing with his statements, thankfully. He didn’t know what he’d have done if Viktor had insisted that he’d died and been brought back to life.

While Dumbledore and Fudge had been arguing, Moody – or who they’d thought was Moody – had taken Harry and Viktor back into the castle. He’d said they were going to the infirmary, but he’d taken them to his office instead.

When the man had begun ranting about the Dark Lord, Harry and Viktor had both gotten rather uncomfortable. Harry had deliberately overstated how well received the Death Eaters had been and Moody had begun to furiously rave about their unworthiness. That had been proof enough for Harry. He’d sent an incarcerous at the man just a second before Viktor had stunned him.

He’d not had a Dark Mark when they checked, which had confused them, but then Dumbledore had shown up with McGonagall and Snape and taken charge of things.

Dumbledore had been furious enough that his magic was flaring uncontrollably, and Harry had pulled his own magic in as tightly as he could manage, afraid of what the man might notice with his magic in such a state.

McGonagall wanted to take Harry and Viktor to the hospital wing, but Dumbledore had insisted that Harry needed to stay. To understand. Harry wasn’t quite sure if he was more grateful or irritated by that. He wanted to know what was going on, but he was so freaking tired…

Viktor, at least, happily took the opportunity to leave.

Then he’d sent Snape for veritaserum and to retrieve Winky for reasons still unknown and he’d sent McGonagall to take Viktor to the hospital wing, then retrieve Sirius in dog form, from Hagrid’s hut and take him to Dumbledore’s office. Harry wasn’t sure what the man had been doing hanging around Hagrid’s hut as a dog. Waiting for results on the Third Task, maybe.

Harry had felt rather alarmed about them interrogating the man without calling the aurors, because this seemed like something law enforcement would handle, but Dumbledore had said that they would get their answers first, insinuating that the ministry couldn’t be trusted.

What had followed was learning that Moody had been impersonated by Barty Crouch Jr, a Death Eater and presumed dead man, all year. The man explained how he’d broken out of Azkaban, faking his death in the process, then been held under Imperius for a decade by his father until he escaped. He said that Bertha Jorkins, the witch that had gone missing this year, she had discovered that Barty was there. When Crouch Sr. got home, he cast a memory charm on her so powerful that it damaged her memory permanently.

Harry hadn’t been able to help feeling a little bit glad at what had happened to Crouch Sr. His mind broken beyond repair. Apparently, he’d had it coming.

Winky broke down crying as she listened, apparently feeling guilty for letting Bertha find out.

Barty then admitted to having cast the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup, apparently having stolen Ron’s wand from his pocket during the match. Barty had been under an invisibility cloak in the top box to watch the match, as a reward Winky had negotiated for him. He explained that Crouch Sr. and dismissed Winky from his service primarily because she’d let Barty get the wand and get out of control. The Quidditch World Cup had been her idea from the start.

Winky sobbed at the retelling, curling into a ball on the floor and rocking back and forth in her grief.

Barty went on to explain that Voldemort had apparently sought him out, showing up at his house one evening and Imperiusing Crouch Sr. before stealing away with Barty. He explained about reentering Voldemort’s service with such fervent joy that Harry felt pity for the man. Voldemort just wasn’t a man deserving of that kind of loyalty, but Harry doubted the man would have ever been persuaded of such.

Not that he had to worry about it anymore.

Harry did wonder what happened to a soul when it was devoured by a dementor. Did it just move on to the afterlife directly or was it truly consumed? Could a creature actually devour a soul? Weren’t they eternal?

Barty explained how he’d abducted Moody and taken his place. Then Crouch Sr. had overcome the Imperius placed on him and made directly for Hogwarts. Barty had been alerted by Voldemort and was on the lookout for him when Harry had brought the man into the castle. Barty had taken the time to use Dark spells to fully break his father’s mind before taking him to Dumbledore that night, ensuring that any true bits the man might impart would be obscured by the nonsense he spouted.

This distressed Winky even further, hearing of her previous master’s fate.

When Barty had concluded his tale, Dumbledore had looked at the man with profound disgust. Harry had found it uncomfortably easy to imagine the man would look at him the same way if he ever learned the truth of Harry’s heritage. Harry looked at this broken man with his incredibly tragic life comprised of a horrible father and desperation that led him to bad decisions and then his father’s betrayal that sent him to Azkaban, then more than a decade under Imperius. This man wasn’t evil – or at least he hadn’t had to be evil. He had been a neglected child led astray and betrayed with magics that drove him insane. He’d focused that insanity on revering a man even more mad.

And Dumbledore looked at the man with such disgust…

Dumbledore had then asked McGonagall to stay and guard Barty while he had Severus fetched Madam Pomfrey to get the real Moody to the hospital wing. Poor Winky was left crying on the floor.

The old man had then taken Harry up to his office for yet more conversation despite the fact that Harry just wanted to lie down and try to process all that had happened that night.

When they had reached Dumbledore’s office, Sirius had already been there in human form. He’d wrapped Harry in a warm hug even as he began peppering him with questions about what had happened.

Dumbledore had quickly explained to Sirius what they’d learned about Barty impersonating Moody and what Barty had told him. He then asked Harry to explain all that had happened after he’d touched the portkey.

Sirius, at least, had protested that they should wait to question Harry until morning, but Dumbledore was firm, playing on Harry’s Gryffindor pride and asking him to be courageous enough to go through the story for him.

Harry folded his hands in his lap and focused on his fingers as he numbly went through the explanation, carefully changing Viktor’s death into him being stunned. He kept as close to the truth as possible lest any lies be exposed later.

Sirius latched a hand firmly onto Harry’s shoulder and held it throughout the explanation, a steady presence that actually helped Harry to keep going.

When Harry had mentioned Pettigrew using a spell to cut open Harry’s arm, Dumbledore actually took the time to look. Harry had explained that Pettigrew had healed it after, perhaps to keep him from losing too much blood before he could face Voldemort. He’d said that Pettigrew had used silent spells, so he didn’t know what they were.

When he explained that Voldemort had used his blood in the ritual to make himself stronger – to incorporate Lily’s sacrifice into himself – Dumbledore had looked, for a moment, quite triumphant. He’d hidden it quickly, but Harry knew what he’d seen, and it frightened him. Dumbledore was pleased that Voldemort had used Harry’s blood. Did he plan to use Harry’s blood in some way to fight the Dark Lord? Harry knew just enough about blood magic to know that, in using Harry’s blood, Voldemort may have given himself a weakness if that same blood was used against him. Undoubtedly, he’d planned for Harry to die and thus it wouldn’t be a problem.

Would Voldemort be even more intent on killing Harry now? Was Dumbledore planning to use him in a way Harry might not survive?

Harry explained the ritual as best he could, having been kind of out of it for a lot of that. He’d then told them all he could remember of Voldemort’s speech both before and after the Death Eaters had arrived.

Finally, he explained that he’d made a mad dash for the Triwizard Cup in the vague hope that it would work again. He’d seen no other way that he and Viktor would have a chance at surviving. Happily, it had worked.

When he’d stopped speaking, Dumbledore had taken the time to praise Harry for his great bravery, equal to that of those who had died fighting Voldemort. Like that was some great feat he should aspire to. The old man probably did think so. He told Harry that he’d shouldered a grown wizard’s burden and found himself equal to it.

That had just made Harry feel all the more exhausted. It was yet more proof that he had no business trying to enjoy childish things. Like it or not, he needed to face the world with the mindset of an adult or he’d never survive to become one.

Harry had finally been taken to the hospital wing after that, where Mrs. Weasley had smothered him a bit and Dumbledore had asked no one to ask him any questions about what had happened. He did feel a touch grateful that he’d not have to deal with that, but it also felt a little high-handed that the man would force him to relive it all, then magnanimously relieve him of further such burdens.

Pomfrey had taken a minute to cast a diagnostic on him and declared him healthy, though she looked at him suspiciously, like she thought he might have healed himself.

Harry had learned a few basic healing spells, but he should probably learn a few more if he was going to keep healing spontaneously and needing to explain it.

Harry had then changed into pajamas and been given a dreamless sleep potion that had lasted less than half an hour.

Another thing he was going to have to figure out how to explain sooner rather than later. He didn’t think anyone had noticed this time, thankfully.

He was exhausted, but he lay in bed for quite a while, feigning sleep, while he thought over the events of the evening and what, exactly, it meant that Fudge was condemning him as Dark due to his ability to speak with snakes.

Eventually sleep came over him though his thoughts followed him into his rest such that he hardly noticed the transition from awake to sleep to awake again.

A New Day

Madam Pomfrey left Harry alone to eat and Viktor pushed aside his screen and carried his own breakfast tray over to sit on the bed next to Harry instead of halfway across the hall. Moody’s bed was concealed behind another screen on the other side of the room.

Viktor took a moment to raise a privacy ward around them, then took a bite of his food and looked at Harry. “I remember everything,” he said quietly. “I know that I died. I…” he shook his head. “There was… a pull. To move on. It wasn’t strong. I was more inclined to stay and see that you survived. Or maybe to be there should you die.” He stared at his plate blindly for a moment, then looked at Harry again. When you crouched behind the gravestone, I felt you pulling me closer and then you were looking right at me. When you took the portkey, I was pulled along and I landed back in my body. How…?”

Harry sighed and offered, “I’m not a necromancer. At least, I’ve never intentionally practiced necromancy. I wasn’t trying to bring you back. I was just wishing that you weren’t dead.” Harry’s magic was thrumming with tension at the topic. This was as close as he’d ever come to someone finding out about his secret and he didn’t feel at all prepared for it. “I heard a story that I once resurrected a dead bird when I was really young, but nothing like that has happened since.”

Viktor nodded. He didn’t seem surprised. “You are very powerful, Harry. Perhaps you are a born necromancer. They are rare today, but they exist, and they have certain abilities even if they never formally train as a necromancer.”

Given his heritage, Harry wouldn’t be surprised if he did have some affinity for Death magic. Neither would it surprise him if he had no special affinity for it at all and his magic was just that strong and proactive when it wanted to be.

Viktor studied Harry a moment before adding. “Dark magic is not evil, not even necromancy. There are Dark spells and necromantic spells that can only be used for evil, but such is not true for all of them. Some are even inherently good. My family still practice deathbed rites. They are necromantic spells that allow the dying to bless family members with their own death. Many countries have deemed them evil, though they do not work if the sacrifice is not willing.

“I think your mother may have used such a spell when she was killed. To protect you.”

Harry nodded, not sure if that was possible or not.

“I know how the Dark Arts and necromancers are viewed in Britain,” Viktor went on. “I vow to you on my magic that I will do all in my power to ensure no one ever learns of what happened from me.”

Harry felt Viktor’s magic respond to that vow and he let go of most of the tension he’d been holding.

“I owe you the Life Debt, Harry,” Viktor said solemnly. “That is a thing I take very seriously.

“Thank you,” Harry said hoarsely and took a sip of the water on his breakfast tray. They fell into silence and Harry did his best to eat a bit more while Viktor also went back to eating.

“The Dark Lord and his minion know that I was dead,” Viktor said as they were finishing up their food. “They will learn that I am alive. They may speak of it.”

Harry swallowed the bite of food that tried to get stuck in his throat at that reminder. “Yeah. I know,” he agreed.

Harry thought that it was definitely time that he began making plans for the future. It was beginning to look unfortunately likely that he would have to flee the country at some point. Perhaps before he finished his schooling. With Voldemort back and now in possession of this dangerous information… With the minister prepared to label Harry Dark in order to disregard an inconvenient fact…

He was surprised by just how much regret he felt for having to leave Blaise behind if he had to flee. He liked Blaise a lot.

When they’d finished their meals, the trays vanished back to the kitchens and Viktor retreated to change out of his pajamas. Harry took the time to do the same. He was more than ready to get out of the infirmary. He really wanted some privacy to go over all that had happened with Kaa.

When Harry pushed aside the screen behind which he had changed, he found Viktor waiting for him. The older boy placed the plain sack filled with galleons at the foot of Harry’s bed.

“What’s this?” Harry asked warily.

Viktor raised a privacy ward around them again before explaining, “I do not deserve a share of the winnings. I would not even be here to take them were it not for you.”

Harry stared at the man incredulously. “We both took the cup at the same moment. We tied, Viktor.”

“What happened was not your fault, but you saved us both,” Viktor insisted. “The winnings belong to you.”

“The winnings are for the tournament,” Harry said, “What happened in the graveyard had nothing to so with it. As far as I’m concerned the task ended the moment we both touched the cup. We tied.”

Viktor shook his head obstinately, “My honor demands that I do not take any part of the winnings. You earned it, Harry. You saved me from Cedric and then from the spider. Had I properly thought on it, I would not have taken the cup at all.”

Mr. and Mrs. Krum arrived in the infirmary then and Harry sighed in exasperated defeat as Viktor broke the privacy ward.

“My parents are taking me home today,” Viktor explained. “I will never forget what you did for me.”

“Mr. Potter,” Mr. Krum greeted when he stopped at the foot of Harry’s bed. “You saved my son’s life.” And the man bowed from the waist. “My family are forever in your debt.”

Harry withheld yet another sigh. He didn’t know this man and it felt like it would be rude to try to brush off this gratitude. “Viktor is a dear friend,” Harry said instead. “I’m very glad that I was able to save him.”

“If there is ever anything you need,” Mr. Krum said firmly, “we will do whatever we can.”

“Thank you,” Harry said for lack of anything else that wouldn’t be rude.

Mrs. Krum, a stately woman in robes as fine as her husband’s, wrapped a maternal arm around Viktor’s shoulders and pulled him close, but she too looked at Harry with infinite gratitude.

They left soon after and Harry, seeing no sign of Madam Pomfrey, quickly fled the infirmary. He wished for his invisibility cloak, but he wasn’t willing to return to his dorm to retrieve it. He was sure he’d be delayed by curious questions for hours if he did that.

Instead, he just took the most obscure path he could manage to one of the neglected rooms that he’d often used for a private word with his familiar.

He knew better wards now for keeping himself safe from anyone who might wander in either randomly or in search of him. When he felt adequately protected, he called out his familiar and, with a feeling of great relief, went through the whole tale again. This time, he didn’t need to lie about anything and he felt tremendously better when he was done. Like, in telling the only being in the world that he fully trusted, his burden had been halved.

He stayed in that room talking to Kaa until it was time for lunch. The snake commiserated with him and shared many of his concerns regarding Fudge and the information about Viktor’s resurrection that Voldemort and Pettigrew now held.

Harrys’ world was definitely growing more dangerous every year. This year it had changed by leaps and bounds.

After sending Kaa back into his skin, Harry called for Winky. The elf appeared with a solemn bow, but Harry saw that her eyes were red and puffy still from crying.

Without stopping to think about it, Harry drew her gently into a hug. She didn’t move for a long moment before her thin arms wound around his sides very slowly and pressed against him with the most tentative pressure.

“I’m so sorry that Dumbledore put you through all of that yesterday. I’m so, so sorry. I think maybe he was hoping to learn some context from your reactions to what was said, but he was wrong to do that to you.”

After a moment, he felt Winky’s tiny hand pat his side as though to comfort him. “It is being okay, Master Harry, sir. Winky is recovering. Winky knows that good Master Harry is not at fault.”

Harry drew back from the elf, concerned that he was making her more uncomfortable than anything.

She smiled warmly at him when he let her go. “Winky is well, Master Harry.” Her smile turned to a concerned frown as she added, “But Winky is hearing that the bad You-Know-Who is hurting Master Harry. Winky was worried that Master Harry would be angry that bad former master was sending him to bad You-Know-Who.”

“I know it’s nothing to do with you, Winky,” Harry promised.

“Winky is glad,” she said quietly.

Harry smiled and patted her shoulder gently. “I’m glad that you’re okay. Do you feel up to running an errand for me or did you want to rest today? I can ask Dobby.”

As he’d mostly suspected she would, Winky immediately drew herself up and tucked away her emotions, “Winky is being ready to serve Master Harry in whatever errands he is needing done.”

“Okay then,” Harry nodded firmly. He didn’t want her to think that he doubted her ability. “There’s a few things I need for you to pick up.” He fished into his wrist container and found his money pouch. He gave her the whole pouch. “Just spend what you need and you can leave the pouch and the items in my trunk when you’re done. By this evening, if you can manage it.” He then gave her a list of the herbs he needed and the approximate amounts. It wasn’t overly much.

When she was gone, Harry regretfully climbed to his feet and made for the Great Hall.

Curiously, he wasn’t bombarded by questions as soon as he arrived. In fact, most people seemed unwilling to meet his eyes or speak to him at all.

He cautiously took his place at the table across from Hermione and next to Ron, who gave him a self-conscious smile.

“Professor Dumbledore gave a speech at breakfast,” Hermione explained. “He told everyone to leave you alone and not ask you any questions.”

Harry frowned warily. As relieved as he was to not be mobbed by curious students, it also seemed a bit odd. If no one knew what had happened, they would make up their own version of events.

As he began to eat, Ron began speaking rather haltingly, clearly not sure of his welcome. “My mum said she asked Dumbledore if you could come straight to the Burrow this summer, but she said Dumbledore wants you to go to the Dursleys’ first,” he shrugged, gaining confidence when Harry didn’t snap at him or ignore him.

“Did he say why?” Harry wondered.

Ron shrugged, “She said Dumbledore’s got his reasons. I suppose we’ve got to trust him, haven’t we?”

No. Harry didn’t think that they had to do any such thing.

Neither Ron nor Hermione seemed to know what to say after that and so the meal passed mostly in silence in their little piece of the table. Harry noticed that he was getting a lot of furtive glances though they looked away if he looked at them, clearly unwilling to meet his eyes.

Blaise

Blaise watched Harry across the Great Hall as he ate breakfast without saying much of anything to anyone around him. He had tried to talk to him after breakfast, but he’d already been gone from the infirmary.

When Harry got up to leave, Blaise quickly followed suit, meeting Harry just outside the Great Hall. Granger was with him, but so was Weasley. The Weasel seemed to only act like Harry’s friend right after Harry was nearly killed and it was getting really annoying, especially as Harry seemed content enough to ignore the previous months of cool disdain he’d received.

Happily, Harry wasted no time in excusing himself from his friends when he saw Blaise.

Granger and Weasley left. Granger sent him a smile as she passed whereas Weasley seemed to be trying to pretend that Blaise didn’t exist, which… rude.

Blaise took Harry’s hand and swiftly hauled him to that secret room off the entrance hall. As soon as the door was closed behind them, Blaise wrapped his arms around the smaller boy. “Merlin, Harry,” he breathed into messy black hair. “I wanted to see you last night, but the infirmary was crowded. I didn’t think I’d be very welcome.”

“It’s okay,” Harry said softly. “I mostly just went to sleep anyway.”

Blaise drew away to get a better look at the boy he was entirely too invested in. “I don’t suppose there’s much hope that you’ll stop scaring me to death, huh?”

“It’s not generally my idea,” Harry said self-deprecatingly.

“I know,” Blaise sighed and brushed a tuft of hair behind Harry’s ear. He realized that he was staring like an idiot and forced himself to let go of Harry. Merlin, they weren’t properly courting. It was embarrassing that he was so invested. “Have you seen today’s Daily Prophet?” he went for a subject change.

Harry shook his head.

“They’re calling you traumatized,” Blaise explained with distaste. “Saying that no one knows exactly what happened. They said it was a portkey malfunction.”

“Portkey malfunction?” Harry asked incredulously. “What about Barty Crouch Jr.?”

Blaise frowned, “Who?”

Harry sighed expressively and spun around, pacing angrily across the room before turning around again. “Fucking Hell! So that’s what happened. Portkey malfunctioned. We just got lost for a little while before we thought to grab the portkey again and then we came right back? Traumatized by getting lost for an hour?”

Harry looked really brassed off.

“That’s basically what they’re saying. They, er… They mentioned you being a parselmouth. Insinuated that historically parselmouths weren’t the most trustworthy folk.” Blaise watched as Harry rubbed a hand roughly over his face.

“Hermione didn’t mention a fucking word about it, and I know she gets the Prophet,” Harry said in disgruntlement.

“What did happen?” Blaise asked, then heard how it sounded coming out of his mouth and hurried to temporize. “I mean, if you’re okay talking about it. It’s fine if you’re not.”

Harry turned to look out a nearby window at the unfamiliar little courtyard. “No, you’re right,” he said after a moment. “People should know the truth. Damn Dumbledore and his ‘don’t ask him any questions bullshit’. I swear he gets off on being the only one who knows what’s really going on.”

Blaise grimaced faintly at the wording but didn’t interrupt.

Then Harry went on to tell him an incredible tale about a dead Death Eater impersonating their defense professor all year. About how he’d put Harry’s name into the Goblet of Fire. How he’d Imperiused Cedric to ensure Harry would win. How he’d turned the TriWizard Cup into a portkey that took Harry to a graveyard where he was tied to a statue while one of the Dark Lord’s followers used Harry’s blood as in ingredient in a ritual to restore the man to a body.

How Voldemort was, even now, alive and well once more.

How Harry had barely managed to get himself and Viktor away using the still active portkey.

When Harry finished his tale, he moved to stand in front of the window and look away from Blaise. “You don’t believe me,” he said when Blaise had apparently been silent too long.

“No,” Blaise corrected, then realized that might sound like agreement and added, “I believe you, Harry. You’re a painfully honest person. Of course, I don’t think you’re lying.”

And Harry’s stiff posture relaxed a bit in what Blaise thought was relief.

“It’s just hard to know what to say in response to that. You were… he tortured you. Fucking Voldemort,” he shuddered saying the name, but he said it. He was too young to remember anything about the war, but his mum’s opinion, when it came up, had always been that the Dark Lord was mad, likely driven that way by unscrupulous use of the Blackest Arts. She blamed the man for making things even worse for Dark practitioners, but she did respect his power and ruthlessness insofar as advising Blaise to stay well clear of anything involving him.

If he was back, then everything was about to get a lot worse. Especially for anyone Dark that didn’t want to follow him.

What he’d have to deal with wasn’t going to be anything compared to what Harry would be faced with, he recognized. What he’d already been faced with.

“So he’s back and the Ministry’s what? Covering it up?”

Harry nodded, “Fudge doesn’t want to believe it’s true. And he’s going out of his way to ensure he doesn’t have to. He had Barty Crouch Jr. Kissed and called it an accident. Decided judicial procedures were pointless anyway because he had a firm guess that the man was just a nutjob. He had no curiosity about how he’d gotten out of Azkaban or what he’d been doing the last twelve years. He was so damn determined to disbelieve. When Dumbledore mentioned my testimony, Fudge just said that I was a parselmouth and therefore obviously untrustworthy…”

Harry looked so fucking lost, it was painful.

Blaise quickly crossed the room to wrap Harry in another hug. Maybe if he just never let go, he could protect him from all this insanity.

Harry clung to him for a long time, just taking slow, measured breaths. “I’m not ready for this,” he said at last. “I don’t… know why he wants me dead so much. Why did he choose me to be his damn nemesis? Why did everyone else go along with it? I just want to get through school.” His breath hitched and Blaise felt him stop breathing as he must have been fighting sobs.

“I don’t know,” Blaise admitted. He felt completely helpless to know what to say. It’s not like anything was going to make this crappy situation better. “Are you going to be safe this summer?”

Harry shook his head and stepped back, quickly turning away and running a sleeve over his face. “I have no idea. Dumbledore’s sending me back to the muggles, of course. Supposedly, I’m protected there. Maybe it’s true. I haven’t seen any Death Eaters there before. Probably the most dangerous thing I have to worry about this summer will be boredom.”

Blaise found a place to sit against the wall where there was a good view out the window, then patted the floor next to him.

Harry huffed a tiny laugh, but slid down to the wall to sit as requested.

Blaise wrapped an arm around him and was gratified when Harry leaded into him. “Do you want to talk about something else?” he asked after a moment.

“Merlin, yes,” Harry said without delay.

Blaise nodded firmly. “Want to hear about my mum’s latest wedding? Honestly, she hosts them so often it’s become a bit routine for her and all of her usual guests.”

Harry gave a small, watery laugh and Blaise counted it as a win, going on to talk about the flowers that his mum’s friend, Jesora, kept growing in her greenhouse just to decorate his mum’s many weddings. And about the subtle little extra bits the priestess kept including in the ceremony that seemed to be wishes for good health and good fortune for the groom, specifically. And about Amillee, a cousin who’d served as flower girl for every single one of his mum’s weddings, starting when she was only three. She was twenty-one now and married herself, but mum kept asking her. For luck, of all things.

They sat and talked about that for a long time. Blaise even told a few of the more humous stories about previous step-fathers. Harry didn’t seem to mind the dark humor in a lot of it.

When that topic wound down, Blaise started talking about some of the markets he’d visited around the world with his mum.

“Have you ever been to America?” Harry wondered when the conversation tapered off again.

“No,” Blaise said without delay. “It’s uninhabitable for magicals.”

“I’ve heard that,” Harry allowed, “But do you know why? What makes it uninhabitable?”

“The natural magic there’s wild, they say,” Blaise shrugged. “I don’t think anyone knows why. It’s too hostile to really study. I have heard rumors that the magic there was cursed a long time ago. That the magicals there angered the Gods and they cursed the land, leaving the natural magic so Blackened and twisted that it warps and mutilates healthy magic. Why? Planning a holiday?”

Harry laughed, but he sounded far too serious when he said, “Maybe.”

Blaise leaned back enough to get a good look at Harry.

Harry noticed the look and shrugged, “I don’t know. I just… I’m worried that I’m going to need to get away someday. Maybe somewhere that people won’t follow me, you know?”

Blaise gave that a moment to sink in, but he nodded. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense,” because the Dark Lord was back and Harry was pretty damn high on his hit list. “Promise you won’t leave without warning me?” Blaise ventured. He knew he had no right to ask anything more. They weren’t officially courting.

“If I can,” Harry nodded, “but I’m really not planning anything soon. Just… trying to get a handle on future plans.”

They sat in silence for a time, just leaning on each other and watching the sun track across the courtyard. Eventually, Blaise brought up a holiday he’d taken with his mum the summer before he started Hogwarts.

Harry listened mostly in silence, asking questions from time to time, assuring Blaise that he was paying attention.

Neither of them moved until it was time for supper. They made their way to the Great Hall and parted with a brief kiss before they entered the Great Hall. Harry sat down again between Weasley and Granger and Blaise wondered if it would be okay for him to ask about what was actually going on with Weasley. That relationship just didn’t seem very healthy.

Chapter Text

Disclosure

The leaving feast passed basically as expected. Lots of staring and awkward small talk with Ron and Hermione. Ron still didn’t seem sure of his welcome, which was fair because Harry didn’t know how he felt about it either. Hermione seemed afraid to say the wrong thing either with Ron or given Harry’s latest brush with death.

Karkaroff was missing. Gryffindor had won the House Cup and thus their red banners decorated the Great Hall. Harry suspected that a large addition of points had been added for his winning the tournament or possibly for rescuing Krum or something. Last he’d looked, Slytherin had been leading in points with Ravenclaw also slightly above Gryffindor.

He hadn’t really paid attention to that since before the third task so he didn’t even know when they’d been added.

Then came Dumbledore’s speech as the feast was ending. He started off by stating that Voldemort was back. That Dumbledore felt they all deserved to know the truth even if their parents would be angry with him for telling them.

Then, horribly, he mentioned Harry. “Harry Potter managed to escape Lord Voldemort. He risked his own life to return Viktor Krum, who was unconscious at the time and surely would have been killed had he remained.”

Harry swallowed bile and looked firmly down at the table in front of him, giving the now gawking Great Hall as little view of his face as he could manage.

“He showed, in every respect, the sort of bravery that few wizards have ever shown in facing Lord Voldemort, and for this, I honor him.”

Harry felt his face grow even hotter if that was possible. Dumbledore and his fucking bravery. Like Harry was some kind of hero. It wasn’t like he was some courageous auror running in to face Voldemort and save poor Viktor. He’d been kidnapped, then desperately trying to save his own neck. He’d hardly actually risked anything to bring Viktor with him.

Then Dumbledore raised his glass to Harry and toasted him, followed by the whole stupid Great Hall.

Harry did manage to glimpse the Slytherin table through the bodies around him. He noticed that a considerable portion of the table looked to have remained seated. Including Blaise. Harry couldn’t decide if he was relieved that Blaise wasn’t participating in this insanity or worried that Blaise was publicly snubbing him.

Dumbledore then went on about unity and closing divides and standing up for what is right rather than what is easy.

By the time the meal was over, Harry just wanted to go to bed, but there was something he needed to do first. The whole way up, he was surrounded by people whispering and speculating about Dumbledore’s speech. Harry didn’t think grave warnings about vague dangers was what these people needed to hear. They needed to hear what had actually happened.

After dinner, Harry forced himself to stop in the common room and raise his voice, “Er, hi everyone,” he said and waited while everyone in the common room stopped what they were doing to focus on him. "I know most of you are wondering what really happened during the third task. I er… I wanted to explain.”

That drew him the full attention of everyone present, several even moving closer to listen.

He cleared his throat nervously and explained an abbreviated version of events. That he and Viktor reached the cup at the same moment and that it was a portkey that took them into a graveyard somewhere. That Viktor was stunned while Harry was tied to a statue. He haltingly related that the Death Eater, Peter Pettigrew, had then used a ritual to return Voldemort to a body, using Harry’s blood as one of the ingredients. He explained that Voldemort then called his Death Eaters and scolded them for not coming to find him.

Harry skipped a lot of the details, saying only that Voldemort let him loose and gave him his wand so that they could duel. After being cursed a couple of times, he managed to get back to the cup and take himself and Viktor’s still unconscious body back to Hogwarts.

“What did he curse you with?” Seamus asked warily.

“Cruciatus Curse,” Harry said gravely.

That brought silence to the room and Harry used the moment to excuse himself up to his dorm. That had been hard, but he thought it was necessary. Whatever Dumbledore seemed to think, people needed to know what had happened or they’d make it up themselves and who knew what conclusions they’d come to. This was different from his other end-of-year “adventures” because it culminated in Voldemort’s return and that involved everyone.

There had been enough Gryffindors of all years in the common room tonight that Harry suspected the news would spread to the rest of the school through those with friends and family in other houses. And hopefully they’d all take it home to their parents and it could spread from there. Maybe the adults wouldn’t totally trust the story their kids’ told, but at least it would be out there for people to think about.

Not willing to show his face again that evening, Harry settled down on his bed to read. He’d figured out how to make the outside of his book vault look like one book while the contents were that of another, so he left it looking like Quidditch Through the Ages on the outside while he read about Dark Magic. He needed to look for books on necromancy this summer, but this would have to do for now.

Ron came up a few minutes later and sat on his own bed, staring at Harry.

Harry lowered his book to consider the redhead.

“Was that all true? What you said down there?” Ron asked cautiously.

Harry nodded, “Yeah. It was true.”

“Blimey, mate,” Ron whispered. “You didn’t have to tell everyone.”

“It’s better than having them make up their own stories,” Harry shrugged.

“Suppose that’s true,” Ron acknowledged.

Harry turned his attention back to his book when Ron said nothing more.

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a shit friend this year,” Ron said at last, and Harry looked at him again. Ron blushed and looked at his knees. “I get so jealous, it’s like… I can’t think. I’m just so mad.”

“We don’t have to be friends, Ron, if it’s so hard for you,” Harry said patiently. “I know it can’t be easy being my friend with everyone treating me like the second coming of Merlin or something because I’m the Boy-Who-Lived.”

“That’s the thing though!” Ron snapped out, then looked embarrassed. “It’s not just because you’re the Boy-Who-Lived,” he went on more calmly. “It’s because you’re really powerful. And you’re smart. And you’re really brave.”

They stared at each other a moment, then Harry said, “Does that mean you don’t want to be my friend?”

“No,” Ron said plaintively, looking terribly sad. “It means I’m a jerk and I don’t know how to be a better friend.”

“I don’t know, Ron,” Harry sighed.

“How do you do it?” Ron pressed. “You said you’re jealous of me having a family, right? How come you don’t get mad about it?”

“I just know that it’s yours and I can’t have it,” Harry struggled to explain. “I try to just be glad that I can know you all and be a little part of it. I don’t know if that would work for you. You could maybe try to ask Bill or Charlie?” he shrugged.

“Yeah,” Ron sighed heavily. “Yeah, maybe I will.”

Harry went back to trying to concentrate on his book, but after a few minutes, he noticed Ron move over to his desk and get some parchment and a quill, so maybe he was going to write to them right now.

Harry felt warmed that Ron had apologized and that he wanted to try to be better. He didn’t know if he’d ever properly trust Ron not to betray him again, but it would be nice if they could be friendly, at least.

He smiled at the thought of Kaa’s annoyance to learn that he and Ron weren’t fighting anymore.

He managed to read for a couple of hours, though he didn’t make a lot of progress. His mind was still too easily distracted. Thoughts of Voldemort’s return, Harry’s close brush with death, the Minister’s reaction, and his accidental resurrection of Viktor had Harry rereading more paragraphs than not.

In the end, he went to bed quite early, fatigued by heavy thoughts.

Ritual

Harry woke to the sound of chiming bells at midnight and touched his wand to deactivate the alarm, then forced himself to get up, blinking sleep from his eyes. He peeked out of his curtains and was pleased to see it was dark and quiet, all of his roommates in their beds with the curtains closed. A ragged snore leaked out from Ron’s bed and Harry climbed out of bed and moved silently to his trunk. He slipped on his shoes and collected the bundle Winky had left with the other supplies that he’d put together weeks ago. The herbs needed to be fresh, and he wasn’t sure how preservation wards would affect the ritual, so he’d opted to wait on those until he was ready.

He’d always planned to do this ritual after the tournament though he’d not expected that to end quite so horribly. He’d have the whole summer to work on mastering his animagus form, but first he needed to identify it.

Finally, he slung his invisibility cloak over his shoulders and located his map. The common room was also dark and empty at this hour and Harry made his way through without trouble. The Fat Lady yawned at him but didn’t properly wake up when he went through.

Rather than light his wand, Harry used the visual enhancement spell on his eyes. It was the same he’d used in the tournament. He’d found it in that water spells book, but the spell didn’t actually require one to be in the water for it to work. The pale moon shadows that reached the corridors suddenly seemed like the full light of the brightest full moon and he had no difficulty making his way to the second-floor girl’s lavatory.

He’d gone back and forth on where to do this ritual, but he was worried that he might die if he wandered into the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night. He was equally worried that he would be found out if he used this kind of magic elsewhere in the castle. The Chamber was outside the castle’s wards, and he felt confident that he could use it without being caught or killed, particularly since the basilisk had followed his orders and its gaze didn’t harm him.

The sink opened as easily as it had when he was twelve, and he slipped silently into the tunnel. The slide down was considerably more fun than it had been in second year, in large part because he knew that he wasn’t falling to his death. Also, he suspected that his resistance to injury ensured that he wasn’t getting any scrapes or bruises along the way.

The cave in was still there and the opening he’d gone through in his second year was quite a bit too tight for him now. Luckily, he now knew a lot more about his own magic. He took a moment to concentrate, then let his magic flow into the reparo as he cast it.

As he’d hoped, his magic took to the task eagerly despite it being rather too big a job for the spell in normal circumstances.

The massive stones and accompanying dust all slid right back into the ceiling and settled in like they’d never been damaged.

Harry waited a moment to see if the noise would bring the basilisk to investigate, but then decided not when he heard nothing. He wasn’t totally sure if she even could get out without someone opening the statue. The bones and skins in this area indicated she’d spent a good amount of time here, but he had no idea how long ago that might have been. It could have been when Riddle came down here regularly as a student. Or even before that when a different student had let her out.

The door into the chamber itself was open and Harry realized that he’d left it that way the last time he was here. He entered the chamber cautiously, but he found that it looked just as it had. He looked warily at the statue’s mouth, but it remained closed.

Harry picked a spot on the floor roughly in the middle of the room and began unpacking.

He placed the small, brass brazier on the floor, then set five candles around it, evenly spaced like the points of a star. The candles were the color of charcoal. According to his book, the color of the candles wasn’t important, but he’d chosen them in honor of his magic’s affinity.

Evenly spaced between the candles, Harry placed a clear quartz crystal of about three centimeters in diameter.

Last, Harry carefully layered the herbs evenly in the brazier. Then he picked up the book containing the ritual and began to read the ritual words. He’d read through them dozens of times already – silently and with his magic carefully reined in – to be sure that he could do so fluently. He placed his empty hand palm-down over the brazier and directed his magic to gather there as he read.

He knew enough Latin to know that the chant basically asked his magic to gather, to give the fire to the brazier, to show him the animal form of his soul. It seemed somewhat similar to the ritual that had been used to identify Kaa and he suspected that one of the rituals had taken inspiration from the other.

He repeated the words as he felt the magic gather and saw the herbs begin to smoke. He continued to chant as the herbs were reduced to ash and the fragrant smoke filled the chamber around him. His magic throbbed through the smoke in a steady rhythm that felt nearly intoxicating. He repeated the words again and again as the smoke began to gather in front of him, coalescing into the shape of a four-legged animal.

As more of the smoke was pulled in, the detail grew until he decided that it was canine. It was huge. As tall as Sirius’ grim, but twice as wide, rippling with powerful muscles unhidden under very short hair.

Then the form began to disperse, and he let go of the chant, allowing his magic to draw back into him and the smoke to diffuse naturally into the rest of the air in the chamber. He coughed a little and cast an air cleaning charm before he began cleaning up the ritual.

The brazier was full of naught but ash, which he vanished. The crystals were blackened and cracked, and they were vanished as well. The candles, he extinguished and used a mild cooling charm to quickly harden the melted wax so that he could pack them away.

When he’d packed away the brazier and candles, Harry left the chamber, sealing the door behind him this time. He used the same method as last time to ascend, placing sticking charms on his hands and feet.

The ascent went much more quickly this time. He was able to move at probably a jogging speed going up and his muscles were not at all fatigued when he reached the top. He suspected that he was getting stronger.

He waited until he was back in Gryffindor tower, his things packed away, and settled in his own bed to really think about the form he’d discovered. He was some kind of dog, he thought. No wolf was so heavily muscled or so short-haired. No bear would have such a long tail.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about his form. He would have liked something that could fly, honestly. Something that could blend in would have been handy, too. Like a pigeon, maybe. Or even a normal-looking dog. This form was going to be useful for fighting, at least. Or intimidation. It was a scary-looking animal, though he couldn’t guess at exactly what it was. A breed of dog he’d never seen before, maybe. Or a magical beast he’d yet to learn about.

Well, it would be useful enough. It would always do to have a second form at hand. If he was ever bound in chains, for one, transforming would be an easy way to escape them since wrist and ankle cuffs that were meant for humans could not hold a dog. Not even one that big.

He’d not wanted to distract himself from the tournament with his animagus form, but he definitely wanted to be able to work on the final stage of meditating to better understand his form during the summer. There would undoubtedly be a lot of downtime since he wasn’t permitted to do much of anything.

He considered calling out Kaa to discuss it, but as it was already far too close to morning and sleep was calling to him, he decided to leave it for the next day and focus on getting a bit more sleep tonight.

Investment

Blaise found Harry just as he was leaving the Great Hall with Ron and Hermione after breakfast. He’d turned a rather coolly raised eyebrow on Ron, but he hadn’t commented, thankfully. Harry wasn’t about to go trusting Ron anytime soon, but it would be nice to be friendly with him again.

Blaise instead sauntered up to Harry and wrapped an arm around his waist like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Do you mind if I join your compartment on the train?” he asked Harry primarily, though he did glance at Ron and Hermione to include them as well.

“Of course not!” Hermione was quick to promise. “Do we, Ron?” she asked with a clear expectation for his answer.

“Nah,” Ron shrugged, and he even seemed to mean it. Apparently, he’d made a lot of progress on the Slytherin=Evil front, at least with regard to this particular Slytherin.

Harry gave him a bright smile and Ron seemed to stand a little taller.

Harry made it three steps down from the front doors before he noticed the… creatures pulling the carriages. He missed the next step in his distraction and only Blaise’s arm still around his waist kept him upright. “What’re those?” he asked when everyone had stopped to look at him.

“What are what, Harry?” Hermione asked in bewilderment.

At the same time, Blaise’s arm tightened around his middle. “They’re called thestrals,” Blaise said quietly, and Harry looked up at him in question.

“What are thestrals?” Hermione asked, looking the way Harry was, then back at him and Blaise.

“They’re magical creatures,” Blaise explained as he got them walking again. “They look a bit like a pegasus might if it was reptilian and half starved.”

“Are they starved?” Harry asked worriedly. Starvation was a bit of a sensitive subject for him.

“No,” Blaise assured. “They’re quite well fed, actually. It’s just how they look.”

“Well why can’t I see them if you and Harry can?” Hermione asked, clearly frustrated.

“Thestrals have a natural invisibility to them. It’s a bit peculiar, really, but you can only see them if you’ve seen death. Seen it and understood it.”

That silenced Hermione as she turned shocked eyes on Harry.

Harry swallowed uncomfortably because his version of the events in the graveyard didn’t actually mention anyone dying.

Hermione looked like she was dying of curiosity, but her innate sense of tact prevented her from asking. Ron, unfortunately, had no such innate sense. “Who did you see die?” he blurted.

“Ronald!” Hermione snapped.

“What?” Ron complained. “He couldn’t see them at the start of the year! It’s a fair question.”

“You can’t just ask him that!” Hermione chided.

Harry ignored them for the moment as they’d just reached the carriages. He approached one of the thestrals cautiously, but it seemed tame enough. Surely it must be. He’d never heard of one of the first years randomly getting eaten on the way to the train, after all.

He lifted a hand toward it, palm up and fingers flat, inviting it to sniff but not bite.

Amazingly, it did stick its snout in his hand and give him a sniff just like a horse might.

“Hey there,” he greeted softly, lifting his other hand to give its face a pat. The skin was leathery and soft, and it leaned into his touch. His magic seemed to like it as well, for it seemed to almost embrace the beast’s obviously dark magic.

Blaise stepped up to his side and reached out a hand to pat the thestral’s neck, which it seemed to approve of as well.

Harry gave it another moment, then decided they’d best get moving lest they miss the train. When he turned around, he found Ron and Hermione watching him with concerned expressions and he sighed again.

“It was probably one of the Death Eaters,” Harry shrugged when they were all settled on the carriage down to the train station. Ron hadn’t asked his question again, but Harry figured he should give some kind of answer. “Voldemort threw a lot of killing curses around. I thought I saw one of the Death Eaters go down, but everything happened really fast.” It wasn’t even necessarily untrue. There had been a lot of killing curses and he had seen a Death Eater fall, though he didn’t know if the man had died or if he’d just dropped to avoid getting killed.

Thankfully, no one asked any follow up questions, and they made it onto the train without incident.

When they were settled in a compartment on the train, they managed to pass the first half of the ride in easy conversation about exams and classes and such. Eventually, their conversation drifted off and Hermione found a book to lose herself in. Ron seemed content to spend some time watching the scenery pass by the window. Harry was just thinking of doing some reading as well when Blaise took Harry’s hand in a gentle hold, drawing his attention.

He cleared his throat and studiously did not look at the pair across the compartment. “I wanted to explain my actions during the Leaving Feast,” he said with a touch of discomfort. “When Dumbledore called on everyone to raise their glasses to you.”

Harry blushed and shook his head, “It’s fine. Really.”

“Not without an explanation,” Blaise countered firmly. “I didn’t approve of Dumbledore calling attention to you in that particular light. It seemed… manipulative, I guess. Like by making you out to be a great hero, he was absolving himself of his guilt in letting you get snatched right off Hogwarts’ grounds. It felt wrong and I meant to make a statement in that regard. It was only afterward, when Daphne mentioned it to me, that I realized it may have been taken as a slight against you. I just… wanted to be sure that you had no reason to doubt my intention.”

Harry smiled, ignoring the fact that he was certainly blushing again. “Well, thank you for explaining,” he acknowledged first. It was nice to know for sure what that was about. He hadn’t been overly worried, but there was a slight bit of niggling doubt that had questioned whether Blaise was trying to make less of his feelings in front of the other Slytherins. “Incidentally, I thought the same thing about Dumbledore’s speech.”

“You don’t think you deserve to be recognized for fighting You-Know-Who and living to tell the tale?” Ron inquired, his tone a touch cautious in a way that Harry didn’t think it would have been a year ago.

“It wasn’t some heroic battle, Ron,” Harry admitted a touch bitterly. “I only survived because Voldemort was toying with me. He Crucio’d me more than once. If he’d used a lethal spell instead, I’d have been dead.”

That brought silence to the compartment once more, though Blaise tightened his hold and Harry’s hand.

“Hermione,” Blaise spoke up finally, “I was wondering how Viktor was doing after everything?”

Her face lit up at the mention of the Bulgarian, as it always did these days, “He’s doing pretty well. He said his parents are probably Harry’s biggest fans these days, but they’re recovering from the close call.”

Harry felt better to hear it. Well, not the part about his having new fans. He didn’t honestly care about that. He was just glad Viktor was doing well after… well, dying.

“Will you be seeing him over the summer?” Blaise continued the conversation with polite curiosity.

Hermione smile grew huge. “Yes. They’re going to pick me up near the end of July and I’ll spend the second half of the summer with them in Bulgaria.”

“Do you plan to court formally, then?” Blaise inquired.

Her cheeks grew pink, and she bit her lip as she nodded. “I think so, yes. When they come to pick me up, we’re going to go over everything with my parents and maybe draw up a contract.”

She looked deliriously happy about it.

“Then you have my congratulations,” Blaise declared.

Harry glanced quickly at Ron, who had been studiously staring out the window since Viktor was mentioned. He looked sad, but not angry. Harry thought he’d done a lot of growing up recently and he was really impressed. They’d none of them ever be quite the trio they’d been before, but Harry thought there was a good chance they could remain friends through school. Hopefully Ron would find a girlfriend soon and even things out a little better between them.

“Thank you,” Hermione positively glowed. “I admit that I was a little leery at first. The muggle world is very different with its opinions on marriage, you must understand. But Viktor explained it to me so beautifully. As a lifelong partnership in all aspects of your life. Support and solidarity in all things for your whole life… It all just sounds so amazing. And I think Viktor is perfect for me. He loves to listen to me talk about everything I’m studying, and he’s perfectly fine if I want to have a career or wait a bit for children. And I do want children. Being an only child, I think it would be marvelous to have three children, somewhat close in age, so they can grow together.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bore you. I’m just so excited. It’s nothing like I thought my life would go, but it just sounds so much better than what I thought I would do. I always imagined university and five years to establish myself in a career before I would even think of marriage, but I guess I always thought of marriage as a particular stage in my life. Viktor talks about it as the culmination of childhood. As a state in which to pass the entirety of one’s adult life. Moving through it with someone else. Someone totally loyal to you. It’s just… It sounds so wonderful.”

She looked incredibly happy. Even Ron managed to give her a half smile before he returned his attention to the scenery.

“It does sound nice,” Harry admitted. He’d never been one to plan out his future step by step like Hermione. He’d always been too busy surviving day by day. He’d kind of had a vague notion of marriage and family and a career, though he had no idea what kind of career nor any idea of when he would marry and start a family. Or what kind of person he might marry.

“Muggles seem to have a flawed understanding of marriage,” Blaise offered. “I admit that I don’t know enough about the culture to understand where the notion comes from.”

Hermione considered it briefly before offering, “I suppose it comes from the ease of divorce in the muggle world. Not many muggles take marriage as a lifetime commitment. People who marry young don’t tend to make good choices for a spouse that they’ll still be happy with as they move onto further stages of their life. So it seems logical to wait until you’re settled in where you want to be in life in your late twenties or early thirties before you start looking for a partner that you can be happy with in that stage of your life. Because it’s a lifetime commitment to magicals, I think that a couple makes the effort to grow with each other instead. To make it work because there’s no other choice.

“Oh, when I say it like that, it doesn’t sound quite so romantic,” she frowned.

“I think it sounds even more romantic,” Harry admitted, blushing a little when Blaise turned to study him intently. He shrugged and tried to explain. “I mean, falling in love and marrying someone because you can’t imagine your life with anyone else sounds nice. But getting married because you think you will make each other happy and then really working to remain what your partner needs… It feels more real. And more like something that everyone can do and not just the lucky few who find the perfect person.”

“I agree completely,” Blaise smiled softly.

Harry blushed and looked down at his lap where their hands were still wound firmly together.

“You might be right,” Hermione allowed, and she was smiling again.

After that, Hermione returned to her book. A thick old book with a title in French that told Harry nothing about the contents. Blaise offered to teach Harry rune dominoes, which turned out to be rather interesting. Certainly, more fun than chess. Ron, after a while, pulled out his chess set and began playing against the pieces. He beat them easily time after time and eventually got bored and went back to staring out the window.

Harry made a mental note to get Ron a nicer set for Christmas – assuming they were still friends by then. The nicer sets had multiple levels of difficulty that you could play against. There had to be sets out there for expert players.

When the lunch trolley came through, Harry purchased some drinks and snacks to share around the compartment as he always did. Sadly, it was only a few minutes later that Malfoy showed up with Crabbe and Goyle in tow. Harry was beginning to wonder why the tosser never seemed capable of just sitting in his carriage and leaving people alone on the train.

“You’ve picked the losing side, Potter,” Malfoy said with supreme self-satisfaction. “I did warn you, back in first year, you remember? I warned you about keeping company with riffraff like this,” he gestured toward Ron and Hermione’s side of the compartment. His gaze drifted briefly to Blaise, who only raised a challenging eyebrow in return, and Malfoy seemed to decide to ignore his presence entirely.

Harry huffed a humorless laugh in response to Malfoy’s taunts, ignoring Ron going red in anger, “Believe me, Malfoy. I’d much rather die fighting than live on bended knee, kissing the feet of a madman.”

“How dare you!” Malfoy snarled. “Those two will be the first to go, Potter,” he spat toward Ron and Hermione. “Mudblood and muggle-lovers first!”

Hermione had gasped at the slur and Ron was trembling in rage while Blaise seemed content to watch the action unfold.

Harry stood and took a couple of deliberate steps toward Malfoy, who immediately looked wary as he backed into Goyle. Harry stopped just a touch too close for polite conversation and looked hard into the blond’s eyes. “Don’t speak to me about things you don’t understand, Malfoy,” he said with quiet intensity that seemed to unnerve Malfoy more. “Why don’t you come talk to me again once you’ve experienced a couple of the Dark Lord’s Crucio’s. Because he doesn’t reserve them only for his enemies.”

Malfoy looked like he was trying very hard to project more defiance than wariness, but he wasn’t doing very well. “We’ll see, Potter,” was all he managed to reply, this tone less than firm. Then he turned and shoved his goons out of the compartment and followed them without looking back.

“Aw, you scared them off before we could even say hi!” Fred or George commented as they both stuck their heads into the compartment via the still open door.

Harry huffed a laugh and returned to his seat where Blaise immediately wrapped an arm around him.

“Malfoy’s a fool,” Hermione commented, quietly bitter. “He’s so childish.”

“He is,” Harry agreed soberly. “Now Voldemort is back, I don’t think that’ll last too long.”

Fred and George invited themselves into the compartment, settling down with one next to Hermione and the other next to Blaise.

“Shame we missed all the fun,” said the one by Hermione. Harry was pretty sure it was Fred.

“Oh well,” George concluded, pulling out a deck of cards. “Exploding snap, anyone?”

Even Blaise and Hermione agreed to play a few hands. It was always more fun with more people. After a few hands, Ron began prying at the twins to fess up about whatever it was they’d been so cagey about all year.

Eventually, Fred admitted that Bagman had stiffed them on the bet they’d made on the World Cup. Apparently, he’d refused to pay them out, stating they were too young to gamble anyway. He’d then also refused to give them back the money of their original bet, leaving them out their entire savings.

The rest of the trip consisted of playful banter and various games. Fred even got in on some rune dominoes though George admitted that runes wasn’t his game and played chess with Ron instead.

It made for a pretty great ride and Harry wished it could have lasted all summer.

Naturally, their arrival in London came too soon. It always did this time of year. Before they got too close, Harry asked to speak to Fred and George alone and they retreated to an empty loo. George put up a privacy ward and both turned to Harry expectantly.

Harry reached into an expanded pocket and retrieved the bulging bag of galleons that he’d combined from his and Viktor’s winnings. “This is the winnings from the tournament. It’s a thousand galleons,” he explained. “You two can have it to open  your joke shop if you make me ten percent owner. I’d even be willing to sweeten it a bit more if you’re willing to make that fifteen percent, but you’ll have to wait until I can get into my vault again.”

The twins exchanged very serious looks. Harry couldn’t follow the subtle facial twitches, but he was sure there was an entire conversation going on. After a few moments, they both looked at Harry again and Fred spoke, “We’re thrilled you have so much faith in our shop being a success, Harry!”

Harry laughed, “You two are the scariest mad geniuses I’ve ever met. If you don’t open a successful shop in the next five years, it’ll only be because Voldemort took over and outlawed laughter or something.”

The twins laughed and George shook a finger at Harry, “Very dark humor there, Harry.”

“Very dark,” Fred agreed. “Mum would not approve.”

“Better not tell her then,” Harry grinned.

“We’re interested,” George said formally, then. “We should write up a contract before you give us anything, though.”

Harry waved them off and all but shoved the galleons into their hands. “I trust you.”

The twins shared another look, then turn overly sappy looks on him. “We never knew we had such trust from you, Mr. Potter,” Fred said.

“However shall we repay such loyalty?”

Harry just rolled his eyes, “I just know that if you screw me over, I can tell your mum.”

That sobered the brothers quickly and they looked at each other before turning to Harry with wary respect. “We bow to your greater deviousness, Harry.”

And the pillocks proceeded to bow to him outrageously.

“I do wonder why it’s a thousand galleons,” Fred noted after a moment. “You should have gotten half the winnings for tying, right?”

Harry sighed exasperatedly, “Yeah, I should have. But Viktor decided that I deserved his share since I saved his life.”

“Ah,” Fred nodded, “Yes, how inconvenient noble people can be. Surrendering hundreds of galleons in winnings…” he shook his head in faux distress.

“Right indecent,” George abetted.

“Oi!” Harry complained and playfully slapped Fred’s arm.

“Ow!” Fred complained immediately, stumbling back half a step and clutching at his arm.

Harry almost smirked before he realized that Fred looked more shocked than playful. “Did I hurt you?” he asked quickly, feeling the blood drain from his face.

Fred rubbed his arm ruefully and shook his head, “I’ll have you know that’s going to bruise,” he accused playfully, “but no, Harry. I’ll survive.”

“You don’t know your own strength, mate!” George teased, taking a turn at rubbing Fred’s arm for him.

Thankfully, the train picked that moment to start slowing down and the twins tucked the bag of galleons away somewhere out of sight. Harry returned to his compartment and the twins bid him farewell before heading for whatever compartment held their trunks. He clenched his fists along the way. Merlin, he’d noticed that he seemed a bit stronger recently, but not strong enough to accidentally bruise a friend with a playful swat.

He was going to need to work on testing his strength a little. Try to get used to it. And in the meantime, he was going to need to be careful.

He got curious looks on returning to his compartment, but he brushed them off with a gentle reminder to Hermione that he was allowed to have secrets. Ron looked a little annoyed, probably that Harry was confiding something in his brothers that he didn’t want to tell Ron, but their renewed friendship was still rather tentative, and Ron didn’t seem willing to push it.

Blaise, of course, didn’t ask and seemed content not knowing, as he always was when Harry hesitated to share something. Harry loved that about Blaise and he spent the last few minutes of the ride with his head pillowed comfortably on Blaise’s shoulder.

When the train came to a stop, Ron and Hermione left the compartment first while Harry and Blaise lingered. Going back to Privet Drive always sucked, but knowing that he wouldn’t see Blaise all summer seemed to make it worse. Blaise pulled him into a tight hug, which Harry returned cautiously, trying to remain conscious of the amount of force he was exerting. When they separated, it was only far enough for their lips to meet in a series of soft, sweet kisses that Harry thought he could quite happily enjoy for hours.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have hours and Blaise pulled away all too soon, one long-fingered hand splayed across the side of Harry’s face. “I will write to you,” he promised.

Harry grinned, “Definitely. We should try to meet up in Diagon Alley at least once though.”

Blaise nodded, “I’ll try. My mum prefers we spend the first month of summer in Italy, but I should be back around the end of July, start of August.”

Harry grimaced a bit, rubbing lightly at Blaise’s waist where his hand rested on the soft tunic, “I usually spend the last few weeks of summer with the Weasleys.”

“Well, we’ll try to find a time. If not, we will see each other September first.”

Harry sighed. “Yeah.”

Blaise glanced at the closed door of the compartment and frowned a bit. The sounds of people moving outside was getting quieter. They needed to get moving. With one more soft kiss, they collected their trunks and left the compartment.

Harry separated from Blaise as soon as they were off the train. He knew that he wasn’t ready to meet Blaise’s mum. He avoided the gaggle of Weasleys as well, moving to duck through the barrier back into the muggle world. As he laid eyes on Vernon Dursley’s impatiently waiting bulk, Harry hoped that the twins got their shop running soon. Between Voldemort and Fudge, Harry was afraid he may end up fleeing before he was a legal adult. If it came to that, an independent revenue stream would be damn handy.

Chapter Text

Spies

Harry turned over impatiently in his bed and made a weak attempt to fluff the flat pillow before folding it in half and stuffing it back under his head. Turned away from the wall now, his eyes fell on his bedside clock, which was telling him it was just shy of three in the morning.

He groaned quietly and returned to his back, kicking off his blanket. This was becoming unfortunately normal for him this summer. It was a result of the spies outside. It had taken him a couple of days to figure out what he was feeling. It was like an itch at the back of his neck. Like someone was staring at him. And it was mostly constant this summer.

At first, he’d feared that it was Death Eaters, but as time passed, he became increasingly certain that these were Dumbledore’s spies instead. He thought Death Eaters would have made some kind of move by now rather than just sitting out there day and night. That and… It was hard to quantify, but the presences out there just didn’t feel hostile or malicious. He wasn’t sure how to classify how they did feel, but he didn’t think it was hostile.

Whether or not they were a danger to him didn’t seem to make a difference to his magic though. It was on edge constantly thanks to the spies and sleep was consistently elusive as a result.

At least the Dursleys were still leaving him alone on account of his murderous godfather. They didn’t dare give him any chores and he was still getting three small meals a day. Thankfully, this summer he wasn’t suffering from hunger for their treatment. Dobby had been quite happy to procure for Harry a selection of preserved meals for the summer just as he’d done for Sirius.

With nothing else to do and sleep all too elusive. Harry turned his attention to the presence he could feel watching him. His magic gently probed at it, trying to understand everything that he could about it.

A small eternity of that and Harry finally fell asleep without quite realizing he’d managed to relax.

He woke late in the morning to a crack from the street outside his window and startled halfway upright before collapsing back onto his bed with a groan. It must be time for his spies to switch shifts. If they’d really been concerned with remaining hidden, he’d have thought they’d at least come and go a little further away from the house, but they hadn’t taken the precaution.

He felt a second presence approach the house and a few minutes later, the first presence moved away, followed by a strident crack. The muggles must be getting annoyed with all these backfiring cars in the area by now.

With a sigh, Harry sat up and opened the expanded bag Dobby had procured for storing his meals. There was a plate of cold food on the floor, clearly having been shoved through the cat flap some time earlier this morning. Though it grated on him to waste food, Harry could afford to eat delicious meals that tasted like they’d just been prepared. He wasn’t going to choke down the crap the Dursleys gave him. He didn’t want to tell them not to give him anything though because then they’d wonder where he was getting food and they’d conclude either someone was giving him food, which would mean someone magical was coming into their house without their knowledge, or he had some kind of magical means which would indicate magical things happening in their house. He didn’t think they’d respond well to either.

So he’d taken to feeding Hedwig whatever bits of food she wanted from the plates and practicing wandless vanishing charms on the rest. It took a good five to ten minutes of concentration and trial and error to get the spell to work wandlessly most of the time, but he figured it was good practice anyway.

He opened a piping hot full English breakfast and breathed it in happily before digging in. It felt strange but very nice to still be able to eat three good sized meals every day. Normally his stomach would be shrunken by this point in the summer and eating would make him nauseous if he took more than a few bites at a time. He wished he’d thought of this back in second year when he’d first got Dobby bonded to him. It hadn’t been until last year that he’d started to really think about making use of the elf while he was still in Hogwarts.

When he was full, he vanished the meal provided by the Dursleys, then took the plate downstairs and washed it before making a trip to the loo and closing himself in his room again. The feeling of being stared at was like twenty times worse when he was actually outside – probably because he was actively being stared at rather than just the house he was in – so he didn’t venture out too often. He spent a couple hours working on his summer assignments, then an hour meditating toward his animagus form, then he spent a little while lying on his bed and tossing some of Dudley’s old broken crap in the air above him and catching it again. It was good practice for keeping his strength in check, and he wanted that in hand before he went back to Hogwarts. He’d broken several of the already damaged bits and bobs when he’d first started, but he was getting better at judging how hard was too hard.

When that got boring, he found himself fiddling with a broken wooden pencil. He twiddled it between his fingers thoughtfully for a time, then held it in his fist and used his thumb to deliberately snap it in half. Then he did it again with a smaller piece. It was… very easy. Too easy, he was sure. Curiously, he took one portion of it into his palm – a bit without the eraser – and then covered it with his other palm and pressed hard. He wasn’t too surprised when he felt the wood crush between his hands. He rubbed his hands together, grinding it down further. By the time he opened his hands, the wood was reduced to fine sawdust sprinkled with crushed graphite.

He wiped his hands over the trash and examined his palms. Not so much as a sliver.

He took a slow breath and then laid back on the bed for a while and just let his mind wander. He was getting… scarily powerful. He gave a few moments to lamenting how abnormal he was. A normal life was all he’d wanted before he learned of magic. He wanted to be a normal kid with normal, living parents who loved him and gave him a bedroom and made him lunches for school. Just normal things.

With a shuddering sigh, he did his best to let go of those long-held wishes. His mum and adopted dad were dead. His real dad was Satan. He wasn’t fully human and all the strangeness that went with that. Even among wizards he was freakish. He wasn’t ever going to be normal. Pining after an impossible dream was only ever going to hurt him.

Instead, he tried to look at the things in his life that were good. Blaise was a big one. Looking back, it was almost stupid how random it was that they’d gotten together but being around Blaise made him feel so good. He didn’t feel like a freak with Blaise. He felt… adored. It was an incredibly addictive feeling after growing up loathed.

Then there was Hermione, who loved him and might even learn to understand Dark magic and be capable of accepting all of him some day if she married Viktor. And Ron hadn’t turned out to be the best friend, but they weren’t really at odds anymore, which was nice.

And as much as it scared him, these superhuman abilities might really be the difference between life and death with Voldemort out for his blood.

They already had been the difference between life and death for Viktor, he recalled. That was another good thing.

With a sigh, he sat up and focused his mind into the calm place that he needed to work on his animagus form. He’d seen the form now, so all he had left to do was to get his mind to find common ground with the form. The shapeshifting, he’d learned, wasn’t the hard part of an animagus transformation. When all was said and done, the shifting of his body was almost an afterthought to the process. Once he could align his mind to the instincts and perspective of the beast, the rest would come almost naturally.

He was sure he’d have it down by Christmas. Ideally a good bit sooner than that.

He spent a couple of hours working on his animagus form, then took a trip to the loo. On returning to his room, he found Hedwig had returned and brought a letter from Hermione. He’d received one at exactly the same time the week prior, and he suspected that his exceptionally organized friend had her letter writing on a schedule. Then again, it was possible that Hedwig was the one visiting her at a specific time each week to look for mail and Hermione was just making sure to be prepared for the visit – his Hedwig was just brilliant like that. As far as he knew Hermione’s parents didn’t have an owl, though it was possible they’d be getting one now that Hermione was getting betrothed to Viktor. He wouldn’t be surprised if Hedwig still brought Hermione’s letters to him. He honestly wouldn’t put it past his owl to spend her time tracking down any incoming owls and mugging them for Harry’s letters so that she could bring them to him personally.

Harry spent a little time reading Hermione’s letter.

Dear Harry,

My summer continues to be quite busy. I hope yours is going well despite being back with your family. My parents really want me to test out at grade level in my muggle studies as I’ve done the last two summers, but with my plans to spend August in Bulgaria I’ve been really rushed to prepare. Of course, I’ve gone through some of the studies in my free time during the school year, but there’s still so much to review!

Mum and dad don’t really understand why I’ve decided that I want to get betrothed and likely married right after school. I’ve tried to explain to them how these things just work differently in the magical world, but I think they both see it as an outdated practice. Mum tried to talk me out of it, but they both seem resigned to it now. I think it’s maybe the last straw in giving up on their expectations for my life – the magical world having been the first. They’d always imagined that I’d follow them into dentistry when I showed an early aptitude for science and maths, and I’d thought I might do that for a time. I certainly didn’t have an aversion to it.

The magical world is so much more than anything I could have had in the muggle world though. I wish they could understand the wonder of it. I don’t have a magical career planned out just yet, but I think I’d enjoy something in magical research. Viktor’s family has plenty of money, so I wouldn’t even need a paying position in all honesty. Not that I’m going to tell my parents that I’d even think of living off my husband’s wealth. I don’t suspect they’d take that very well.

At least mum and dad seem mostly resigned to my choices at this point. They don’t understand it, but they are willing to let me make my own choices. I am so grateful to them for that.

I’m so looking forward to my time in Bulgaria this summer. I love my parents dearly, but it gets harder every year to spend months away from the magical world. The more I learn about magic, the more I’ve come to love it. And recent events have, I’ll admit, endeared me to some of the more old-fashioned (by muggle standards) cultural traditions in the magical world.

Though don’t take that to mean that I’m ready to ignore the injustices suffered by magical creatures or muggleborns!

There is so much more I’d like to write, but Hedwig is getting impatient with me and I’ve a pile of revision to get through today. I’ll try to give more time to writing my next letter in this coming week so I’m ready when Hedwig shows up.

Hoping you are well,

Your Friend,

Hermione

Harry couldn’t help but smile at the predictability of his best human friend. He thought he remembered her mentioning something about tests during the summer when they started their second year, but he hadn’t realized that she was actually keeping up with muggle schooling at grade level. That sounded like an incredible amount of work. Not that he was surprised that Hermione could manage it. She probably didn’t even mind it most of the time. He wasn’t sure if it was going to be at all useful for her future. From the sound of it, the odds of her going back to the muggle world after graduation were about nil if she didn’t even want to spend a couple months there in the summer. Hermione was the kind of person to see the value in knowledge for its own sake though. Harry could understand that if it was about subjects that he found interesting, but Hermione seemed to find all knowledge interesting. It sounded exhausting to Harry.

He moved to the rickety little desk in the room and replied to Hermione’s letter. When it was finished, he sealed the letter and hid it in the storage on his wrist along with Hermione’s letter. He’d send his reply out later, when Hedwig was done with her nap. In the meantime, he didn’t want to risk Dudley getting his hands on it. There was nothing incriminating in it, but Dudley would destroy it just for fun.

He decided that it was getting to be about lunchtime, so found another preserved meal and settled in to enjoy it – a prospect that never failed to bemuse him when it took place inside Number 4 Privet Drive.

A sharp crack from outside drew his attention to his watchers as he was finishing his meal. It was shift-change time, it seemed. He checked his watch and nodded. They were a punctual lot.

He grinned when he identified the newcomer. He was learning to tell the spies apart well enough that he thought he might be able to recognize them if he ever actually laid eyes on them in the wizarding world. This particular watcher was one that he’d been waiting a couple of days for. He – and he thought it felt male, if that made any sense at all – was the only one that didn’t seem to take his job very seriously. He was, in fact, prone to paying so little attention to Harry’s whereabouts that Harry barely noticed his presence if he wasn’t looking for him.

And sure enough, within a few minutes of the other spy leaving, Harry felt the man’s attention wander.

With a grin, Harry cleaned up his lunch and grabbed his invisibility cloak. He closed his eyes and concentrated and was able to identify only Petunia in the house and she was sitting in the kitchen, probably reading magazines and drinking tea.

This was an ability that Harry had discovered this summer – thanks to the spies, actually. Once he’d become aware of them, it had become almost impossible to ignore them. It was annoying, especially when he was trying to sleep, but it had gotten him paying more attention to his sense of people and he’d come to realize that he could sort of feel people, even when he couldn’t see them. He suspected that it was very much not something other people could do. Another to add to the list.

This one was very useful, however, proven as he threw on his cloak and sneaked out the backdoor. He went around the side of the house on the side furthest from where he could feel the inattentive spy, and made his way toward the train station. He didn’t have any muggle money, but that wasn’t strictly necessary when one was invisible.

Sneaking onto a train was child’s play, and he simply slipped into a loo and removed his cloak, then found a seat with no one the wiser. It wasn’t a long trip into London and only a short walk from there to the underground to catch another train to the vicinity of the Leaky Cauldron.

He was soon stepping back into the magical world, and he smiled at the sight. For all the drama and very real danger he’d faced since entering into this world, it always felt good to be surrounded by magic.

Harry went to the bank first and took out a generous sum, then made directly for Knockturn Alley. He was careful to keep a watch for any known Death Eaters, but Harry didn’t feel too worried to be wandering the Dark alley by himself, even after having his picture all over the Daily Prophet last year. He trusted his magic to be able to get him out of trouble should trouble make itself known.

Nothing much seemed to have changed in the magical world since Voldemort’s return. Of course, it certainly didn’t help that the majority of the magical world seemed to be entirely ignorant of the fact that the feared Dark Lord was back at all thanks to the Ministry being more concerned with covering it up than they were with protecting anyone or even investigating the possibility.

Harry made directly for his favorite bookshop and was happy to get a pleasant enough nod from the beady-eyed man that always seemed to be at the counter. Harry suspected he was the owner.

He looked first for necromancy books, then thought to try soul magic. What little he knew of the two schools of magic came from more general Dark magic books he’d bought the previous year. He was disappointed, but not overly surprised to find nothing helpful on either discipline. Both were probably a little more Illegal than the just Frowned Upon books stocking the Dark Arts section of the shop.

Harry nevertheless found some books that looked interesting regarding some Dark theory, which was generally less illegal than actual instructive texts. And the theory would build the foundation he needed to better understand it in practice later.

He also found a few books on warding. One covered mostly theory and one was basic wards while another was about blood magic, but had a couple chapters on warding with it.

He settled down in his favorite chair and spent a few hours reading with the comforting thrum of the Dark magic of Knockturn Alley wrapping him up like a blanket that had his magic settling down for the first time all summer. Those spies were costing him sleep at night and concentration during the day, but he hadn’t realized quite how badly his magic was handling the stress until it had lifted. He really didn’t want to go back at all, but he knew that his spies would be changing shifts soon and he didn’t want to risk getting caught. If Dumbledore closed the gap in security, he might not be able to get away at all for the rest of the summer and he didn’t want to imagine another six weeks of that without reprieve.

When he went to the counter to purchase his books, he cautiously inquired, “Do you ever come across any books on necromancy or soul magic?”

The man’s dark eyes darted up to scrutinize his face for a moment before he gave a slow nod, “Sometimes. Not the sort of thing I put on the shelves though.”

Harry nodded thoughtfully and hoped that he was reading this right. “I’d be interested in buying some books on those subjects,” he admitted. “Maybe if you come across some, you could set them aside for me?”

Again, the man hesitated, but then gave a small nod and focused back on tallying the total of Harry’s purchases, “I’ll see what I can find.”

Grinning at his success, Harry paid the man for the books, added a couple extra galleons on top, and left with a hearty, “Thanks!”

He retraced his course back to Privet Drive and slipped back into the house well before shift-change.

Dementors

By the start of August, Harry had made several more trips to Knockturn Alley, taking advantage of the inattentive spy whenever possible. Harry almost wondered if Dumbledore was forcing Snape to do it and the man was just pulling out a book as soon as he arrived and ignoring everything. Somehow, he didn’t think so. He kind of suspected that Snape would be more likely watching to try to get Harry in trouble for something than ignoring him if he was forced into guard duty. Also… Well, Harry hadn’t really noticed or paid attention to the “feel” of people before this summer, but Harry still didn’t think this man felt like Snape. He couldn’t say exactly why, but he felt pretty sure of it.

Harry had been lucky enough to get a number of books from his special order at the bookstore and now had a decent collection of material about necromancy and soul magic. A collection that had cost enough and was likely illegal enough that Harry had purchased a second book vault just for these books to further minimize their contact with the world. He kept them hidden beneath a Quidditch Through the Ages veneer and stored in his wrist storage whenever he wasn’t actively studying them.

They weren’t the easiest subjects to study. For starters, they tended to be either painfully dry, nauseatingly explicit, or a very strange combination of the two. They also tended to be heavy in Dark magical theory that he understood only in small part, which had led to him buying a number of supplemental books that he was constantly referencing when he got confused. And finally, many of them weren’t in English. Or not modern English. Latin was a common language for these books, even some of the newer ones for whatever reason. So he’d purchased dictionaries and instructional books on older forms of English and Latin as well as French and Russian to try to get through these. The only positive he could say about the experience was that picking up the languages was easier than he’d been expecting.

He stifled a yawn into his shoulder as he wandered back toward Privet Drive after his latest trip to the Alley. Despite Voldemort’s return, Harry had had no encounters with Death Eaters down Knockturn. He’d gotten glared at sometimes, like they knew who he was and didn’t necessarily like him, but no one had approached him. If they seemed of a mind to, his magic always got offended at them and no one had actually tried it.

It was getting a little late, but the last time the Dursleys had locked him out of the house when he was too late getting home, his magic had opened the lock under his hand almost before he’d realized it was locked. So he wasn’t too worried about that.

It had been an incredibly warm day, but his magic thankfully had taken to protecting him from such discomforts without any prompting from him. Every time he started to notice feeling a little warm, he was immediately swathed in the gentle cooling effect of his magic.

He was perhaps fifteen minutes from the Dursley house when he had the misfortune to encounter Dudley and his gang of miscreants. Dudley didn’t tend to go out of his way to antagonize Harry anymore, presumably because he had a touch more common sense than Petunia, but he couldn’t explain why to his friends and thus tended to be pulled into things when they were around, even if his heart was clearly no longer in it.

Harry no longer responded much to their taunting though, so the boys quickly grew bored and wandered away, leaving him alone with Dudley. The other boy gave him a wide, wary berth and Harry took a moment to just marvel over Dudley’s native cunning. The boy was far from bright, but he seemed to possess decent survival instincts.

As they walked, Harry found his mind wandering back to the events in the graveyard. Specifically, the moment Viktor was killed right in front of him and Harry realized that he was dead. The horror of it. The devastation.

“What are you doing?” Dudley’s panicked cry drew Harry’s attention from his own sulk as he was beginning to feel tears prick at his eyes. He looked around, quickly realizing that the night had grown much darker. And then it occurred to him that the heavy feeling in the air wasn’t just his own perception given his bleak thoughts. Rather, it seemed far more likely that the foul magic in the air was inspiring his spiraling thoughts.

“Stop it!” Dudley cried just as Harry began to pick up the sound of rattling breaths approaching.

“It’s not me!” Harry snapped as his magic abruptly went on high alert.

“I’ll tell dad!” Dudley threatened fearfully.

“Damn it, Dudley, it’s not me!” Harry snarled, struggling to figure out where they were coming from, because this was surely dementors. Though what dementors were doing in Little Whinging, Harry could not imagine. Just as Harry began to make out the floating forms approaching, he felt a heavy weight slam into the back of his head and spun with a snarl on Dudley where he’d just punched him. It hadn’t hurt, but it would have likely given him a concussion had his dad been human – or if it had been a year ago.

Harry reached out and gave the larger boy a gentle shove away from him so that he could turn his full attention back to the actual threat. It sent Dudley stumbling back and falling on his rear, but Harry had no more attention to give him. The dementors had slowed as they approached, as though wary, but they were still approaching. Harry didn’t care. His magic was more than merely eager to eliminate the threat, and Harry had only to give it the slightest nudge in that direction to have it leaping at them.

His magic had taken on dementors and won before, and it knew how to do it now. A raging fire seemed to spark to life within Harry as his magic sprang free and the scent of sulfur permeated the air. There were only two dementors now, unlike the many dozens he had faced last time, and it took only moments for his magic to wrap around them. They screamed and writhed as his magic held them in a grip of what seemed to be invisible flame for the creatures surely seemed to burn to death in the seconds it held them. Only when they were reduced to ash did it release them, and Harry felt the conflagration within himself cool once more.

He sagged a little with the sudden fatigue that hit him, but it was nothing at all like what he’d experienced in his third year. After a long look around, Harry was convinced there was no further threat. Indeed, even Dudley seemed to have disappeared, presumably having run for home.

Just as he was beginning to turn toward the Dursley house again, he heard running footsteps approaching and he pivoted sharply to face the potential threat. Only, rather than a threat, he found himself facing a disheveled and breathless Arabella Figg.

“Why isn’t your wand out, idiot boy?” she immediately shrieked at him. “You can’t count on accidental magic to protect you if there are more!”

“What?” Harry asked blankly, his mind hesitant to make sense of that statement.

“Your wand!” she snapped. “We don’t know that those two dementors were alone. Oh, I’m going to kill Mundungus Fletcher! He just left! Off to see someone about a batch of cauldrons that fell off the back of a broom! I told him I’d flay him alive if he went, and now look! Dementors! It’s just lucky I put Mr. Tibbles on the case! But we haven’t got time to stand around! Hurry, now, we’ve got to get you back! Oh, I will kill him! We are so lucky that your accidental magic acted up before you could cast a spell!”

“You’re a witch…” Harry said slowly, not yet capable of knowing how to feel about this. The batty old cat lady who’d been babysitting him as long as he could remember was a witch?

“I’m a squib, as Mundungus knows full well, so how on Earth was I supposed to help you fight off Dementors? He left you completely without cover when I warned him!”

Mundungus must have been the inattentive watcher, Harry concluded as he began to feel something hot and painful curl in his chest.

“Come on then, Harry!” Figg insisted. “We need to get you home in case there are more of them.”

Harry began to move toward the Dursley house, scarcely aware of it as he processed the implications of this monumental discovery. Figg was a squib. She was fully aware of the magical world. “I’ve known you all my life,” he interrupted whatever rant she was on now. “And you never told me. Nothing about the magical world or, or…”

“Dumbledore’s orders,” she replied simply, and with finality. As if the explanation was beyond reproach. “I was to keep an eye on you, but not say anything. You were too young. I’m sorry I gave you such a miserable time, but the Dursleys would never have let you come if they’d thought you enjoyed it. It wasn’t easy, you know. But, oh my word! When Dumbledore hears about this-“

Harry tuned out her further fretting. Dumbledore’s orders. And Figg had deliberately made his time with her unpleasant, knowing the Dursleys wanted him as miserable as possible… She’d willingly and knowingly contributed to his foul childhood.

On Dumbledore’s orders.

And she clearly had no shame at all about any of it. She told him without any apparent expectation that he’d find anything at all upsetting in it.

Shit. Dumbledore’s orders. After the Third Task, when Dumbledore had been handing out orders, hadn’t some of them been for Arabella Figg? He’d hardly given it a thought at the time. He’d never even truly considered that it could be his neighbor. Because she was a muggle.

He’d known her all his life, and Dumbledore… Fuck.

Harry’s lungs felt tight. His breaths far too hot.

He didn’t even know why this was bothering him so much. He’d known since first year that Dumbledore wasn’t to be trusted. He’d known the man had left him with the Dursleys and he’d surmised that he was being watched by Dumbledore’s people this summer. But the idea that Dumbledore hadn’t just left him with shitty muggles and ignored his existence for ten years… That Dumbledore was, in some way, actively complicit in Harry’s abysmal treatment. In his ignorance. That he’d actually ordered this woman to keep everything from him. To watch him be neglected and mistreated and to actually take part in making his life unpleasant in order to appease the Dursleys…

Harry only tuned back in to what Figg was saying when there was a loud crack and she instantly began shrieking, “MUNDUNGUS FLETCHER, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!”

The strong smell of drink and stale tobacco filled the air as a squat, unshaven man in a tattered overcoat materialized right in front of them. He had an overall disheveled look about him and was clutching a silver bundle that Harry recognized as an invisibility cloak. Harry also, almost immediately, recognized the feel of this man as the inattentive watcher.

“S’up, Figgy?” he blinked between her and Harry. “What happened to staying undercover?”

“I’ll give you undercover!” she cried. “Dementors, you useless, skiving sneak thief!”

“Dementors?” Mundungus repeated, aghast. “Dementors here?”

“Yes, you worthless pile of bat droppings, here! Dementors attacking the boy on your watch!”

Figg continued to berate the clearly startled man, who attempted to justify his absence by claiming a very good business opportunity. Figg proceeded to smacking the man around the head with her string bag, which sounded like it was probably full of cat food cans by the clanking noise it gave.

Mundungus soon after disapparated to go and inform Dumbledore of what had happened.

“I hope Dumbledore murders him!” she concluded when he was gone. “Now come on, Harry, what are you waiting for?”

Harry, who had stopped to watch her scream at the errant man, felt that the accusation leveled at him was hardly fair, but given what all else he’d discovered tonight, he wasn’t overly fussed about it in particular.

“I’ll take you to the door,” Figg promised as they turned onto Privet Drive. “Just in case there are more of them around.”

Harry cast her an incredulous glance at the insinuation that she was protecting him given her admitted status as a squib and insistence that he draw his wand in case there were more of them. Shouldn’t he be walking her to her door, rather?

“So Dumbledore’s been having me followed?” Harry decided to question in hopes she would reveal something he didn’t know about it.

“Of course, he has,” she replied impatiently. “Did you expect him to let you wander around on your own after what happened in June? Good Lord, boy, they told me you were intelligent.”

Harry cast her a fierce glare for that comment. She should seriously know him better than anyone who might have told her about his intelligence. He’d never liked the woman when he’d thought her a batty muggle, and he’d never been under the misapprehension that she actually cared about him, so it made no sense that he felt an additional stab of hurt at her comment.

Merlin, he was such a fool.

She didn’t seem to notice his glare, announcing her intention to go straight home and wait for more instructions. From Dumbledore, no doubt.

Harry let himself into the Dursley house with his mind still churning over what he’d learned about Figg, only to be accosted while his back was turned to lock the door behind himself. Someone grabbed him roughly and he was shoved into the nearest wall, hard.

“Think you can attack my son and then just walk back in here, boy?” Vernon bellowed at him, pressed close enough to his back that spittle flew into Harry’s face. “We took you in out of the goodness of our hearts! Supported you all these years at our own expense! This is how you repay us!” He pulled Harry back and shoved him into the wall again.

With a snarl, Harry pushed back against his uncle to give himself enough room to spin around and then he was fisting his hands into the front of Vernon’s shirt, and he was growling right in the man’s face, “Don’t you ever fucking touch me again, Vernon, or I swear that I will hurt you!”

He realized then that his uncle was pale as milk and the likely reason occurred to him as he noted that he’d lifted his portly uncle straight off the ground. Also, his magic was choking the room and it was not happy.

With a sneer, he released the man and gave him a light shove that sent him careening back into the wall. “As for your son, he punched me, and I pushed him away. That is all.” He looked down the hall and found Petunia with one hand over her mouth, eyes wide, watching the scene in terror as stark as Vernon’s. Dudley huddled his bulk behind her, looking even more frightened.

“Now,” Harry said tightly, “I suggest you all leave me alone and I’ll return the favor.”

Petunia gave a faint nod when he looked at her while the males appeared too intimidated to speak.

With a sigh, Harry turned and trotted up the stairs. What a fucking night.

When he got to his room, he found an owl waiting on the sill of the window he’d left open for Hedwig. He glared a moment at the letter it carried, then reluctantly went to retrieve it.

Harry,

Dumbledore’s just arrived at the Ministry and he’s trying to figure out why there were dementors near your home. Whatever you do, do not leave your aunt’s house and do not use any magic.

Arthur Weasley

Harry frowned at the letter, then huffed and tossed it onto his desk. He stood in the center of his room and closed his eyes, just breathing for a long time.

Dementors in Little Whinging and somehow that felt like the less notable portion of the evening. He did spare a brief moment of thought to wonder if dementors were sentient considering he’d just killed two of them, but then decided that he didn’t actually care. The things consumed human souls. Their existence was the best case for genocide that he could imagine.

It was considerably more world-shattering for him to discover that Dumbledore had been spying on him since his parents died. Spying and evidently approving of his spy being complicit in what was honestly child abuse.

Hedwig made a low, concerned sound and Harry moved to sit on his bed. He generally tried to limit how often he had Kaa out and about during the summer because there was no way the Dursleys would react well to him and there were no locks on the inside of the door, but at this point… Given what had just happened and the ultimatum he’d just laid down… Well, he didn’t think any of them would venture into his room for any reason at the moment and even if they did see Kaa, it would hardly change anything.

With that in mind, he called out his beloved serpent.

While Kaa settled himself the way he wanted around Harry, the boy explained the events of the evening to his attentive familiar.

“I don’t even know why this is hitting me so hard,” he concluded. “I knew that I couldn’t trust Dumbledore.”

“But you had trusted that you understood your own childhood and the people in it. Learning that you were wrong about such a large part of it is unmooring.”

“Unmooring,” Harry laughed. “Yeah. I guess that’s the word for it.”

Chapter Text

The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

Harry looked from the scrap of parchment to the one-eyed lunatic who’d shoved it in his face. “What’s the Order of the-“

“Not here, boy! Wait ‘til we’re inside!”

Harry’s left eye twitched as he swallowed down his frustration yet again. Merlin, these lunatics – half of whom had been spying on him over the summer – had shown up at the Dursley house in the late evening four days after the dementor incident and proceeded to treat him like some kind of zoo specimen to be ogled while extracting him from the ordinary muggle neighborhood like their country was in a state of open warfare. Considering his recent trips to Diagon and Knockturn Alley, he could say with some confidence that the danger was not nearly so urgent as these people made it out to be.

Why the Hell had so many of them shown up? And why fly brooms? Why not side-along?

He let himself be ushered into the rundown rowhouse. It was dark inside and everyone just crowded in rather than turning on any lights or lighting a lumos or anything, but Harry hardly noticed. The second he’d crossed the threshold, his magic had completely ignored everything except the heady comfort of the magic in this place. It had to be the wards, given the way it had taken effect instantly on entering the house. And they had to be incredibly Dark for his magic to react this strongly. Not even Knockturn gave him this level of comfort. He’d never felt anything like this.

He had an absurd urge to just sit down right there on the floor and bask for a while.

He was jerked back to the happenings around him when something rapped him sharply on the head and Harry jerked around the glare at the shadowed figure of Mad-eye Moody. The feeling of warm egg running down his body assured him that the disillusionment spell had been reversed, but Moody was luckier than he’d ever know that Harry’s magic had calmed down in this house. As testy as it had been outside, the unexpected spell combined with physically touching him with the wand may have been enough for Harry’s magic to slip out of his control in a fashion that Moody would have found unpleasant.

Mrs. Weasley arrived and greeted him briefly before announcing that the meeting had just started, which drew all of his escorts in a direction that he was not permitted to follow. Instead, Mrs. Weasley ushered him upstairs to a room he was apparently meant to share with Ron. She then left with a promise to call him down for dinner.

Harry gave a moment of thought to being irritated, but he just couldn’t muster the emotion while his magic was still basking in the magic of the wards. With a sigh, he just stepped into the room that had been indicated to be his.

Ron had been reclined on one of the beds, but he stood quickly when he saw him. “Harry,” he greeted, looking incredibly awkward.

“Ron,” Harry nodded politely.

“So… how was your summer?” he asked hopefully.

Harry shrugged, “Not bad until the fucking dementors.” He couldn’t help but grimace at that. The damn dementors still didn’t bother him as much as the revelations surrounding that incident.

“Right,” Ron winced. “Yeah.”

Harry moved to the second bed and sprawled himself over it. “So where the heck are we?” he asked as he tucked his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, letting himself just bask in the magic surrounding him. Merlin, he could live here.

“Oh, this is Sirius’ house,” Ron answered. “The Black family townhouse. That’s why it’s so creepy. Did you see the house-elf heads on the wall?”

Harry frowned a little but didn’t open his eyes, “No, I guess I missed that,” he admitted. It was difficult to imagine finding the place creepy, though he did know that people with very Light magic would feel that way surrounded by so much Dark magic. Just like Harry could never fully relax surrounded by Light magic. Not that he’d even realized that until he’d had Knockturn Alley for comparison. “What’s the Order of the Phoenix?”

“Dumbledore’s group,” Ron said, his voice moving back to his bed. “They’re a resistance group against You-Know-Who, since the Ministry’s completely useless. Won’t even admit he’s back.”

“Huh,” Harry muttered, unimpressed. Staying at the Burrow for the summer was one thing. Being stuck in Dumbledore’s vigilante lair was something else. Granted, given the magic here, Harry wasn’t eager to complain about being here. He could deal with Dumbledore’s pack of loyal dogs if it meant he got to stay here. He’d never been able to spend so much time surrounded by Dark magic before. After the unsettled sleep he’d been suffering all summer, he expected this was going to be a wonderful change.

“I wanted to tell you about all this sooner,” Ron continued, “but Dumbledore made me swear not to tell you anything about it. In case the owls were intercepted.”

Harry huffed a humorless laugh, “Really. Any idea why he didn’t just have you pass the letters through an Order member, instead? Seems to me they’ve been between this place and the Dursleys’ house all summer. They could have just handed them off. No chance of interception then.”

“…I didn’t think of that,” Ron said after a minute. “Have you really been watched all summer?”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t think I was supposed to know about it, but Figg let it slip after the dementors.” And no, he didn’t think he’d ever get over learning about Figg’s involvement with Dumbledore. That was just… too much. It would have been one thing if she’d just been secretly watching over him, but she’d known about how awfully they’d treated him and instead of helping, she’d contributed. He’d never forgive her for that. Or Dumbledore, who’d very clearly been pulling the strings. She’d made it clear that she did nothing without his orders.

“Dumbledore doesn’t trust me,” Harry said, mostly to himself.

“What?” Ron asked, surprise in his tone. “That’s mental, mate.”

“He’s gone out of his way to keep me ignorant all summer. Why would he do that if it’s not mistrust?”

“But why wouldn’t he trust you?” Ron pressed. “What could he think you’re going to do? Run off and join You-Know-Who?” He laughed at the absurdity of his own statement.

And Harry didn’t think that Dumbledore thought that. If only because he didn’t believe Harry was stupid enough to think Voldemort would welcome him. “I don’t know,” he sighed in frustration. Truth was, he worried that Dumbledore had found out about the raising the dead bit in the graveyard. If Snape was really a spy, it was very possible that he’d learned of it from Voldemort or someone in his camp and passed it back to Dumbledore. But Harry wasn’t about to mention it to Ron. “I don’t know,” he repeated, frustrated.

A long moment of silence passed before Harry questioned, “So what’s this Order been doing this summer? I haven’t heard of Voldemort doing anything, so what’s the Order doing to fight him?”

“Oh. Well, we’re not supposed to know anything, of course,” and Harry could hear his eye roll. “Mum doesn’t want us anywhere near the Order meetings. ‘Course, Fred and George aren’t standing for that. They’ve got these extendable ears, they call ‘em. Lets you eavesdrop past silencing wards and everything. Only we’ve had to stop using them lately because mum found out about them and went mental – tried to destroy the whole lot. We got a good bit of use out of them before that though, so we know a little.

“Some of the Order have been following known Death Eaters. Keeping tabs on them, like. Some are working on recruiting more people to the Order. And some are standing guard over something. They’re always talking about guard duty.”

“Probably me,” Harry sighed. He was already tired of this bullshit, and he’d just started learning about it.

“Oh, yeah,” Ron said in tones of dawning comprehension.

Harry laughed quietly.

Another few silent moments passed before Ron inquired, “Did you really get the dementors with accidental magic? Like in third year when your magic went nuts protecting you and Hermione and Sirius?”

And that had been the story. It hadn’t been all that far off at the time considering how little control he’d really had over his magic back then. “Yeah,” Harry sighed. “I think my magic just recognized them and it already knew how to protect me from them, so it just went nuts when they got too close.”

“Huh,” Ron muttered. “Crazy how powerful you are. For most people, accidental magic is rare after their first year at school. It gets used to working through a wand and stops just flaring like that when emotions are high. Not uncommon for really powerful people though, I guess.”

Harry tensed as he suddenly felt a swell of magic in the room with them. He was halfway to sitting up when the twins appeared in the room with a crack.

Ron shouted in surprise, which set the twins off laughing at once.

“Hello, Harry,” George beamed at him. “We thought we’d heard you were here!”

“I see you passed your apparition tests,” Harry grinned at the pair. He was feeling far too good to be annoyed by their scaring the daylights out of him.

“With distinction,” Fred said with a half bow.

“It would have taken you about thirty seconds longer to walk down the stairs,” Ron complained.

“Time is galleons, little brother,” Fred admonished even as he kept his attention on Harry, lifting in his hands a very long, flesh-colored string of some kind. “We’re trying to hear what’s going on downstairs.”

“Be careful,” Ron advised. “If mum sees one of them again…”

“It’s worth the risk, that’s a major meeting they’re having,” Fred said.

The door opened and Ginny swept into the room with a cheerful smile, “Oh, hi, Harry!” then turned toward Fred and George, “It’s a no-go on the extendable ears. Mum’s gone and put an Imperturbable charm on the kitchen door.”

“How’d you know?” George asked, visibly crestfallen.

“Tonks told me how to find out,” Ginny said. “You just chuck stuff at the door and if it can’t make contact, the door’s been Imperturbed. I’ve been flicking dungbombs at it from the top of the stairs and they just soar right away from it, so there’s no way the extendable ears will be able to get under the gap.”

Fred heaved a deep sigh. “Shame. I really fancied finding out what old Snape’s been up to.”

“Snape?” Harry asked quickly, feeling his heartrate pick up a little. He was the most likely to get Harry in trouble. “He’s here?”

“Yeah,” George said, closing the door and moving to sit at the foot of Harry’s bed. “Giving a report. Top secret.”

“Git,” Fred idly added.

The conversation turned to Weasley family drama from there. Apparently all the adult Weasleys had joined the order with Bill working for the goblins in London and Charlie recruiting from abroad. Percy was the only exception, despite having a cushy ministry job. Apparently, Dumbledore’s name in the Ministry was mud and Percy had cut himself off from their whole family in order to distance himself from Dumbledore.

The lack of family loyalty was galling, as was the insinuation that Percy was doing it all to suck up to his superiors. Harry couldn’t rightly blame him for being well quit of Dumbledore in general though. As far as Harry was concerned this revelation with Figg was the last straw for his being willing to give Dumbledore any benefit of any doubt. Or possibly the time of day.

Being loyal to the Ministry though was just about the dumbest thing Harry could imagine. From what he’d gathered thus far, the Ministry was both inept and corrupt, which was an awful combination to have to deal with, but to throw your full loyalty behind them? And over people who would die for you? Because the Weasleys were that kind of family. No matter how much they teased each other, any one of them would step in front of a Killing Curse for any other one of them, Harry did not doubt for a moment.

Except, apparently, Percy.

And then it managed to come back around to Harry. Because apparently Percy believed everything printed in the Prophet.

Harry grimaced at that and shifted uncomfortably when everyone looked at him. He ran a rough hand through his hair and nodded, “Yeah, I noticed that,” because he’d been just skimming most of the paper, but he had picked up on the negative light it had been turning on him. The insinuations ran from a bit mentally deranged to hints that he was succumbing to Dark Arts and his mind was going off because of it. It was… alarming, but not surprising after Fudge’s suggestions.

People in Diagon Alley tended to give him wary looks, which is why he’d taken to keeping his head down as much as possible when he was there. He honestly felt more welcome down Knockturn. He was sure plenty of people recognized him on sight now thanks to all the crap in the Prophet during the tournament in the last year, but he suspected that the previous two summers had made him a known enough face down the alley that people weren’t sure what to believe about him, especially with the Prophet calling him Dark.

“Everyone with a brain knows it’s mental that you could be Dark,” Ron assured with confidence.

Harry carefully swallowed down the snort that comment tried to elicit, and nodded instead.

Further discussion was prevented by the sound of quick footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Uh-oh,” Fred and George chorused before vanishing with a pair of cracks.

Seconds later, Mrs. Weasley appeared in the bedroom doorway to usher them all down to dinner. As Harry got up, his eye caught on the empty picture frame on the wall. “What’s that?” he asked Ron.

The redhead stopped on his way to the door and looked back. He spied the frame and shrugged, “Dunno. It’s always empty.”

“Right…” Harry said doubtfully. He examined the frame for a clue and quickly found the name plaque. Phineas Nigelus Black. “Well, whoever he is, I don’t fancy being spied on when I’m changing,” he announced and pulled the small blanket off the foot of his bed, draping it over the frame and tucking the edges securely around the fancy gilt corners. It wouldn’t block sound, but at least he could be sure some creepy Black ancestor wasn’t going to be watching him sleep.

On the way down to dinner, Harry inquired as to who this “Kreacher” was that Mrs. Weasley had mentioned and Ron explained that it was apparently Sirius’ totally mental house-elf. As they neared the entry, he also explained why it was so important to whisper in the hall. Apparently, Sirius’ mother had a portrait there and if anyone woke it up, it would start screaming bloody murder.

“Charming,” Harry couldn’t help but whisper back before they entered the kitchen.

They were barely two steps into the kitchen when there was a crash from the direction of the front door followed by an unholy screeching.

Sirius, who’d just looked up and begun to smile at Harry, suddenly scowled and rushed back out of the kitchen.

Harry peeked back out to watch as Sirius and Remus worked together to silence the howling portrait by tugging shut the ugly curtains hung over it.

When that insanity was over, Harry returned to the kitchen, where Sirius soon joined him. The man was quite bitter and morose and Harry got only a half-hearted greeting combined with a complaint about being useless to the Order.

Harry didn’t personally consider that a great failing, but knew better than to say anything about it.

Mr. Weasley greeted him with considerably more warmth than Sirius, Harry was slightly bitter to note. Bill was in the kitchen as well, busy with rolling up a length of parchment that must have been used somehow during the meeting. Harry wondered what it was – duty roster? Maps? – but he didn’t catch so much as a glimpse before it was rolled up and out of sight. Mundungus was slouched at the end of the table and had to be woken to be informed that the meeting was over.

Harry found himself wondering if the man served an actual function to the Order or if Dumbledore was just scraping the bottom of the barrel for bodies and not any too picky.

The Weasley parents set about finishing up the meal while Harry was ushered into a seat, rather wishing he’d been left upstairs until the food was actually ready. Especially when Mundungus began apologizing and making excuses for leaving Harry unsupervised on the night the dementors had shown up. Harry did his best to dismiss the man’s concerns. It really was fine. And Harry couldn’t say as much, but he’d quite appreciated the man’s lack of attentiveness to his guard duties. It had allowed Harry a much easier time to getting away without concern for being noticed this summer.

Sirius then set about complaining about being stuck inside all summer, even waxing poetic about how much fun a dementor attack would be by comparison.

“Haven’t you been wandering the country for the last two years? Why the sudden concern for hiding out indoors?” Harry wondered.

“Well, it’s not just the ministry now, is it?” Sirius groused. “Voldemort, too.”

“Okay, fair,” Harry allowed, “but Voldemort’s followers aren’t likely to be wandering the muggle world, are they? Surely you could take walks in your animagus form there? Provided you watch out for dog catchers, anyway.”

Sirius opened his mouth as though to counter that, then closed it again with a thoughtful frown.

“Don’t give him ideas,” Molly scolded. “It’s not safe for him to go wandering around anywhere. Dumbledore told you to stay inside for a reason, Sirius.”

Harry waited until she’d turned around, then offered Sirius and eye roll that almost made the man smile.

The conversation wandered a bit to Snape’s apparently baiting Sirius during Order meetings, then to the craftsmanship of the silverware that Mundungus looked to be pricing to the knut.

Then Mrs. Weasley shouted at Fred and George and Harry looked around just in time to see an iron cauldron full of stew, a large flagon of butterbeer, and a heavy wooden breadboard with knife come hurtling through the air toward them. They ducked under the table, but Harry’s hand remained braced on the edge and he felt the solid impact of the corner of the breadboard slam right into his knuckles.

Blessedly, it didn’t hurt, though he thought it might have broken something had he been less durable. He yanked his hand back and looked around, but no one seemed to have noticed.

Mrs. Weasley, expectedly, ranted at the twins at full volume until she accidentally brought up Percy and fell abruptly silent.

Bill quickly urged everyone to begin eating and Mrs. Weasley settled down without another word.

During the course of the meal, Harry learned that Mrs. Weasley quite detested Mundungus, and – from Sirius – that the man’s role in the Order seemed to be listening to gossip among petty crooks, mostly. And that he was trusted because Dumbledore had got him out of a “tight spot” once and now he owed him.

It made Harry start to wonder how many other people in the Order were similarly indebted to Dumbledore. Hagrid and Remus, certainly. And Snape. Harry wondered if Dumbledore really helped them out of the goodness of his heart or in hopes of favors returned on his investment.

“Molly hasn’t forgiven him for slipping off duty when he was supposed to be tailing you,” Sirius explained.

That comment settled heavy in Harry’s stomach and didn’t help his appetite at all. He really didn’t understand why everyone seemed to think it was perfectly okay to spy on him. Sure they said it was for his protection, but then why would he not be informed? It felt much more like they were trying to catch him at something rather than protect him from attack. And if Dumbledore knew that Harry had performed a feat of necromancy…

When the meal was concluding, Mrs. Weasley began talking about bed and Sirius stalled her, turning to look at Harry.

“You know, I’m surprised at you. I thought the first thing you’d do when you got here would be to start asking questions about Voldemort.”

Harry’s brow rose and he blinked at his godfather, “I’d just assumed you’d all pat me on the head and assure me that that was all grownup business,” he said rather sourly.

It was clear that Sirius had just started a fire in the room and Harry’s comment had thrown petrol on it. The relaxed, sleepy atmosphere turned abruptly tense. Mrs. Weasley sat up extremely straight in her chair, fists clenched.

Harry sat back and watched with wary eyes as the argument broke out. He did his best to catalog each person’s reactions and attitudes toward him and his right to know anything about the people trying to kill him.

Mrs. Weasley, obviously, was sternly against. Harry did feel quite resentful though, when she started insinuating that Sirius – Harry’s godfather – had no right to make any decisions for Harry. Apparently, that was Dumbledore’s job. The argument soon devolved into Molly obliquely accusing Sirius of using Harry as a surrogate James or something of the sort. She eventually entreated her husband for support and was quite disappointed when Arthus, calm and level-headed as he always seemed to be when there weren’t muggle gadgets about, advised that Harry should probably know at least a little now he was staying at Headquarters.

Then Remus suggested that Harry was better off getting a rough idea of things from them than in relying on rumors.

Mrs. Weasley finally saw her defeat coming and began lamenting Dumbledore’s edicts not being followed to the letter. And she dared to say, “…speaking as someone who has got Harry’s best interests at heart,” which managed to turn Harry’s stomach.

“He’s not your son,” Sirius gently admonished.

“He’s as good as,” Mrs. Weasley countered fiercely. “Who else has he got?”

“He’s got me!” Sirius pronounced hotly.

“Yes,” Mrs. Weasley sneered, “the thing is, it’s been rather difficult for you to look after him while you’ve been locked up in Azkaban, hasn’t it?”

Remus interjected then, pushing Sirius back into his seat and admonishing Mrs. Weasley, “You’re not the only one at this table who cares about Harry.”

Harry watched it all with anger simmering in a festering pit of disgust in his belly. All of these people who genuinely thought they cared for him. That they deserved to dictate his life because they had the best of intentions. All of whom seemed content to outsource to Dumbledore.

“I think Harry ought to be allowed a say in this,” Remus continued. “He’s old enough to decide for himself.”

And they all looked at Harry, surprising him in that they didn’t seem to consider that suggestion rhetorical. Did they really expect him to pipe up with, Gosh, no. I’d like to remain in ignorance, please. The world’s just too scary for youngsters like me to handle.

He cleared his throat and choked down the sarcastic response for fear they’d decide he really was too childish and change their minds. “Er, I’d like to know what’s going on, yeah.”

Mrs. Weasley acted like he’d just offered his innocence up to the guillotine or something the way she seemed about to start crying.

She then moved to evict all of her children, which resulted in universal objections from all four of them. Fred and George, Mr. Weasley decided, would stay because they were of age. Ron loudly objected to being kicked out when Harry got to stay, but a glance at Harry’s face and Ron sagged and let himself be ushered out with Ginny.

When Ron and Ginny were gone, followed by Mrs. Weasley, Sirius addressed Harry. “What do you want to know?”

Harry blinked a bit. Apparently, they were going to expect him to ask the right questions if he wanted answers. “Do you know what Voldemort’s been doing?” he chose to start.

The following questioning informed him that Voldemort had been laying low, taking advantage of the Ministry’s denial of his return. Dumbledore reckoned – and they weren’t clear if that was known from Snape’s spying or just Dumbledore guessing – that Voldemort was recruiting. And the Order was trying to counter it by spreading word of Voldemort’s return, though the Ministry were blocking them at every turn because Fudge was terrified that Dumbledore would run for Minister and his term was nearly up. Dumbledore had spies in the ministry and they suspected that Voldemort did as well.

And apparently Dumbledore was making waves about Voldemort’s return such that the Ministry was working to discredit him toward the possibility of locking him up in Azkaban.

It was all rather terrifying given that the Ministry seemed to like him no better. He was certainly less of a threat given his age – and probably harder to send to Azkaban for the same reason – but they were already slandering him in the Prophet. And two dementors had attacked him in his muggle neighborhood. Dementors that were supposedly controlled entirely by the Ministry.

Lovely.

Then Sirius began hinting about Voldemort searching for a weapon of some kind. Something he didn’t have last time when he was at the height of his power. When – by all accounts – he hadn’t needed such a weapon because he’d been winning the damned war before his encounter with Harry.

Mrs. Weasley intervened then and insisted that they’d heard enough. Lupin agreed, advising, “There are dangers involved of which you can have no idea. Any of you…”

Harry rolled his eyes, but he didn’t think anyone noticed. Lupin was sure that even he had no idea how dangerous it could be. Like he hadn’t faced Voldemort more times than anyone else in the damn room. He didn’t try to fight though. He was growing weary of listening to these people debate about his life like they’d a right. Of them all, Sirius had the most. Not only was he Harry’s godfather, but he was the only one of them with a decent excuse for ignoring Harry for ten years after his parents were killed. True, Sirius had gotten arrested while prioritizing revenge over Harry, but at least that had been just one dumb choice that he couldn’t take back. Everyone else had abandoned him quite willingly. Lupin included, and he was meant to have been closest to James and Lily of everyone else.

He did stop on his way out to comment to the room in general, “You know, keeping me ignorant isn’t the same as keeping me safe. You can all keep your secrets about this weapon Voldemort is seeking, but I’m very sure that it’s going to end up pointed at me. All you’re doing is ensuring that I can’t prepare to face it.” He didn’t want to hear their arguments and he knew he wasn’t going to win them over, so he left immediately after saying so.

When he crawled into his bed that night, he did his best to ignore such thoughts for the moment and just let the soothing blanket of Dark magic lull him into the most peaceful rest he’d maybe ever had.

Trust

Harry’s first morning at Grimmauld Place, he told Ron and Ginny everything that had been discussed. He saw absolutely no point in keeping them ignorant of it. He’d barely been told anything anyway. Certainly nothing that they could use to get into trouble. Nor was it any more alarming than knowing that Voldemort was back and having no idea of what he was doing or if the Order was countering any of it.

They talked in hushed voices while cleaning various parts of the house and killing various pests that had infested the place. It was unpleasant work and surely would have been much more easily accomplished with magic than by hand. Fred and George agreed that they’d gotten very little information, particularly given the way Mrs. Weasley had acted like they might as well be inducted into the Order as they knew practically all of their secrets. Harry rather hoped that wasn’t true or he’d be forced to think very poorly indeed of the Order. They could have, after all, guessed most of that information just from knowing about Voldemort’s return and then reading the newspaper.

While cleaning out the drawing room cabinet, Harry felt completely horrified by some of the things they were throwing away. Maybe it was a result of growing up with practically nothing that he could actually call his own, but throwing away things that looked valuable was galling. Allegedly, it was all infested with Dark magic, but it couldn’t be all that dangerous, surely, or they’d not have let the children handle them.

There was one bit that he came across that was absolutely choked with Dark magic. It was, to Harry’s senses, practically bleeding Dark magic all over the place. There was something about it though… It looked like a fancy antique locket. Given where he found it, he very much doubted it was made of painted steel or colored glass.

He ran his thumb lightly over the S-shaped collection of gems, struggling to understand what it was about the magic in it that was giving him pause.

Eventually, dissatisfied, but unwilling to give up, Harry slipped it into his pocket for later inspection, then went back to work. Several more bits and bobs ended up joining the locket in his oversize pockets before that cabinet was emptied. Not only did they look expensive, the magic on them appealed to him in some way. Only the locket had magic that he didn’t like, but it was just too powerful for him to toss it out with the trash. There was something going on with it that needed to be investigated. It was almost… familiar in a strange way.

A few days of cleaning and pest control later, Sirius drew Harry into an empty room for a private talk – or the silencing ward he cast would suggest at much, at least.

“So, listen, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said,” he started. “About keeping you in the dark when it comes to Voldemort. I think you’re right. You’re not a child and you deserve to know.” He took a bracing breath, then rushed on, “There was a prophecy made about you and Voldemort. It was before you were born. Only Dumbledore knows the full wording, but Voldemort is trying to get his hands on it. Dumbledore thinks it’s really important that that doesn’t happen.”

Harry took a deep breath as he absorbed that. Yet another prophecy about him. And one that only Dumbledore knew the full wording of. Fucking perfect. He turned away from Sirius and walked halfway across the room, fisting his hands in his hair in sheer frustration. His magic felt a bit like an agitated porcupine, flared and waiting for an attacker to make a move and regret it.

“Shit,” he heard Sirius mutter behind him. “Are you okay? Are you panicking? Should I not have told you that?” Sirius seemed to be the one panicking.

Harry forced himself to let go of his hair and face his godfather again, “I’m fine, Sirius. Just fucking frustrated.”

“That’s understandable,” Sirius commiserated, and he got points for not giving Harry a lecture on his language. “I know that none of this is fair, Harry. And I’m sorry that no one’s telling you anything. We’re just worried about you, and Dumbledore thinks-“

“I don’t fucking care!” Harry shouted, no longer able to hold his temper. “I don’t care what Dumbledore thinks, Sirius! He abandoned me with the Dursleys when I was a year old and encouraged his spy to treat me poorly so that the Dursleys would like her more! Then I went to his school where I’ve nearly been killed by Voldemort three times! I almost lost my soul to dementors twice! I’ve been attacked or nearly so by a teacher there every single year! I was nearly eaten by a basilisk and a dragon! And again and again, I have only survived because of luck and my own abilities. Not Dumbledore. Not even Dumbledore’s teachers or his fucking followers! Why the Hell any of you trust Dumbledore with my life is completely fucking beyond me! Why any of you believe that I trust Dumbledore with anything is more than I can grasp!

“The man is like some distant shadow cast over my life, pulling strings and watching me dance. I’m completely helpless against him and I have to watch all of you take his side while telling me to be fucking grateful that you all care so much. How dare you!” Harry was screaming by the end, and he breathed hard when he finally ran out of words.

Sirius, he noted, looked like the Knight Bus had just appeared in the room and run him over.

Harry turned away from him and took several steps toward the other side of the room, running his hands roughly through his hair again. His magic was humming so hard around him that his hair wasn’t quite lying down like it should. And, he realized, the old tea service in the cabinet on the far wall was trembling faintly.  He took a deep breath and concentrated on bringing himself under control. He couldn’t afford to lose it. Who knew what his magic might get up to and he didn’t need to be answering those kinds of questions.

“Okay,” Sirius finally said, how voice slow and cautious. “All right. That was a lot all at once. Can you… can you tell me more about what you mean? What all has happened at Hogwarts? Wait, what about the spy that knew the Dursleys?”

Harry shook his head with a bone-weary sigh, “It doesn’t matter,” he dismissed as he sat down, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.

“I think it does,” Sirius said after a moment and Harry heard him drag a chair closer and sit down in front of Harry. “This is clearly something that you feel strongly about.”

Harry dropped his hands and leaned back in his chair, looking at Sirius regretfully, “No, I mean it doesn’t matter because nothing I say will change anything. You’ll hear me out and maybe even say the right things. Then you’ll run back to Dumbledore to talk it all over with him and he’ll convince you that he only wants what’s best for me and that he’s smarter than everyone and you’ll come back and tell me that I should be grateful or something like that.”

“I won’t!” Sirius protested, visibly stung by the accusation.

“You always do!” Harry countered. “Every time I talk to you about anything, your advice comes in the form of, ‘Dumbledore thinks-“. Or else you interrupt yourself in the middle of telling me about how you and my dad ignored all the rules to remind me to toe the fucking line.”

Sirius reared back as if slapped and turned his gaze away. Harry watched him swallow, then take a few deep breaths before he looked at Harry again. “I don’t know how to take care of anyone, Harry,” he said baldly. “I wouldn’t know what I was doing if your biggest problems were acne and dating. But you’re the boy-who-lived, and that sucks so much, but it means that your problems are more often how to deal with people trying to kill you, and that… It’s so much pressure, pup. I’m so afraid that I’ll give you the wrong advice and get you killed!

“So, yeah. I’ve been asking Dumbledore’s advice. Because I know he’s a lot smarter than me.”

“Except that I don’t trust him,” Harry said gravely. “I can’t think of a single thing he’s done for me, specifically, that would make me trust him.”

“He’s had the Order guarding you all summer,” Sirius offered.

“Spying on me, you mean,” Harry frowned. “Guards don’t need to hide from the person they’re guarding.”

“He wanted you to be able to have a normal summer.”

“Really,” Harry said darkly. “A normal summer locked in a hot room without enough to eat?”

“What do you mean, not enough to eat?” Sirius asked warily.

Harry shook his head and looked away, studying the ugly wallpaper intently.

“Pup, what do you mean?” Sirius pressed after a long moment of silence.

“I’m not having this conversation with you,” Harry met Sirius eyes again and spoke very firmly. “I’m never going to matter as much to you as Dumbledore does, so there’s no point.”

“Harry, that’s-“ Sirius looked blindsided. “That’s not even close to true! I’ve loved you since you were born. I would die for you without blinking!”

“Would you?” Harry couldn’t help but ask snidely. “What if Dumbledore didn’t give you permission, though? What if he thought it was best that I be left alone all summer? What if my magic hadn’t gotten the best of those dementors? You weren’t fucking there! No one was! I was alone. On Dumbledore’s orders.”

“He put a guard on you! It’s not his fault that Dung left-“

“Isn’t it?” Harry laughed. “He trusted my life to someone like Mundungus Fletcher and you’re trying to tell me he couldn’t have – in all his vaunted wisdom – foreseen me not being properly protected?”

“Fine!” Sirius snapped suddenly, lurching to his feet.

Harry quickly leaned back, and his magic reared defensively as Sirius drew his wand, but the older man only held it straight in front of himself.

“I, Sirius Orion Black, do hereby swear that no one and nothing in this world, living or dead, will ever hold my loyalty above Harry James Potter! So mote it be!”

Harry felt the man’s magic swell and contract, binding him to the vow and he could only stare in bafflement. Sirius had just… Even Harry’s magic had gone still.

After a moment, Sirius returned to his seat in front of Harry and looked at him with sad eyes, “You okay?”

Harry shook his head and swallowed several times before he could speak, “No one… no one’s ever put me first before,” he admitted quietly. “Not really. They might say it, but they don’t act like it. That was…”

“James and Lily did,” Sirius said softly.

Harry shook his head again and blinked against the stinging in his eyes, “I don’t remember them.”

Slowly, gently, Sirius reached out and pulled Harry into a hug.

Harry breathed out and let his forehead rest on his godfather’s shoulder. He knew that Sirius was still far from perfect, but the man had just magically bound himself to Harry above everyone else in the world and that was… It was so much more than Harry had ever expected of anyone barring maybe a future spouse.

“Will you trust me now, Harry?” Sirius asked when they eventually parted.

Harry wiped surreptitiously at his inconveniently damp eyes. He thought about it a minute, then posed, “Will you… will you swear that you won’t just go telling my secrets to Dumbledore? Not even if you think it’s for my own good?”

Sirius sighed and rubbed at his face a moment before nodding, “Yeah, pup. I promise.”

Harry looked away at the discordant note in that promise. Sirius wasn’t lying specifically, but he wasn’t telling the whole truth, either. Like it came with provisos that he wasn’t sharing.

Still, the man had promised that his loyalty was to Harry first. Harry wasn’t going to tell him anything truly sensitive, he decided, but he could give him at least a measure of trust.

And so they ended up spending the next couple of hours with Harry explaining the insane things he’d survived at Hogwarts against all odds and the Dursleys treatment of him, including Figg’s participation at Dumbledore’s orders.

Sirius got angry about a lot of it, but Harry urged him to let it go. At least for now.

“But why?” Sirius demanded.

“Because it wouldn’t change anything,” Harry pointed out. “I asked Dumbledore to let me stay at Hogwarts my very first year and he didn’t even want to know why. He just told me no and sent me back. How many times have you honestly argued something with him and had him change his mind? How many times has anyone managed that?”

Sirius frowned as he thought about it.

Harry nodded without waiting for his godfather to finish his mental tally. “Yeah. I’m betting that number is zero or very close to it. Dumbledore’s smart and he’s got something to hold over the heads of most of you, I think.”

Sirius sighed, “You really don’t like him, huh?”

“I can’t trust him. Not based on his actions toward me my whole life.”

“All right, kiddo. But I’m going to work on him about you staying here next summer. We’ll see if I can’t prove you wrong about no one being able to change his mind.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Harry allowed. “Just please don’t go spilling all my secrets to him in the attempt.”

“I promised,” Sirius reminded him.

“And you sort of meant it,” Harry rolled his eyes.

Sirius huffed, then relented. “Fine. Barring life and death situations, I won’t share with Dumbledore anything about you without your permission. Satisfied?”

And that did sound like the truth, so Harry nodded and even mustered up a small smile, though a large part of him still had reservations. After all, life and death for Harry happened usually a couple times a year, at least, and was open to interpretation. After all, one could make an argument that Harry studying Dark magic could turn into a life and death situation. Or just about anything Harry did considering that he had a madman slavering for his blood.

So he let Sirius know that he appreciated the promise even while promising himself that he wasn’t going to go telling him any real secrets.

Chapter Text

The Attic

On the fourth day of endless chores, Harry was getting fed up. He had a bag full of books that he wanted to read and homework still to do and he was stuck cleaning a decade’s accumulated filth without magic while the absolutely useless damn house-elf insulted them and the adults all mostly stood around and watched.

At least Hermione wasn’t here, because the one thing that could definitely make things worse would be listening to her defend the demented elf.

Today, Harry finished his breakfast early, then slipped upstairs before they could be given orders to begin cleaning. He didn’t go to his room where he’d immediately be found. Instead, he ventured up higher, looking for a room to explore where he might not be found right away. He’d brought both of his book vaults – his old one containing all the books that he didn’t think anyone would care that he had. And his newer one, which contained only “questionable” reading material plus a couple of harmless quidditch books that he could disguise as the cover while the pages were filled with Dark Arts and such.

The first three doors that he opened on the top floor were a cluttered storage room, a totally empty room caked in layers of dust, and a moderately clean bedroom that one of the Order members must have been using recently. Then he came to a narrow door almost tucked into a corner. He reached for the knob slowly, wary of either an occupied room or some sort of magical pest infestation. The knob refused to turn at first, obviously locked, but his magic leapt to his aid without any input from him and the lock clicked open barely a second later. He eased it open slowly and peeked inside, but it was completely dark. There must have been no windows. He pulled the door open a bit further and a lamp set into the wall suddenly lit itself, casting a gentle light over… a steep staircase leading up.

Harry’s brow rose in surprise. He was on the top floor, so this could only be an attic. He debated the possible danger inherent to exploring the attic in a house like this – hadn’t Ron said that the Burrow had some kind of magical creature living in the attic? A ghoul, wasn’t it? Something like that. Then he heard someone call his name from a lower floor and he figured it was worth the risk. He slipped inside and quietly closed the door behind him.

The long, narrow stair led into an obvious attic space with ceilings that ran the same angles as the sharply slanted roof. He actually suspected that the space was likely expanded just as the rest of Grimmauld seemed to be. The truly interesting thing about the room were the runes carved into every centimeter of space on the walls and ceilings. The room was dimly lit, not by sconces like in the stairway or chandeliers like in much of the house, but by the faint glow coming from the runes themselves.

The only piece of furniture in the room was a pedestal right in the center, which held a single, thick book bound in some pale-colored leather.

Harry approached it curiously and found that the title of the book was “12 Grimmauld Place” penned in a reddish brown ink. He reached for it cautiously, letting his magic examine the magic in the room to be sure it was safe to touch.

He closed his eyes and tried to just focus on what he could feel. He was coming to learn that he could feel a lot these days when he let his magic loose. The runes in the room were obviously the house wards – their magic flowed through the very bones of the house. And the book… was connected to the runes. It didn’t seem dangerous, so he cautiously closed the remaining distance to open the book. The pages were inked in that same reddish-brown ink. Did people really use blood as ink? The first page was titled “Fireproofing”, followed by a description of a ward that would prevent the house from catching on fire without impeding the fires one wanted to light within the house. Following the description was line after line of runes that he understood only a little bit thanks to two years taking the class. These were clearly very advanced wards.

A few more pages in was another section, this one titled, “Unmouldering”, which seemed to be a ward that prevented mold from attaching to any part of the house, which was odd because Harry could have sworn he’d cleaned up more than one patch of mold in the last few days, and the whole house kind of smelled like it.

He ran his hand over the runes in the book and he noticed a bit of the runes carved into the walls suddenly glowed a little brighter. He moved his hand away and looked again and he realized that the “unmouldering” runes did seem to be barely glowing at all. Perhaps they were failing. He touched the runes in the book again, then concentrated on feeding just a faint trickle of his magic into the book.

Almost instantly, the runes on the wall flared brighter and when he pulled back his hand, they continued to glow more brightly than anything else in the room.

Harry pursed his lips as he stared at the runes. He hoped that he hadn’t done anything too drastic. If every scrap of mold in the place had just shriveled up and turned to dust or something it was very likely someone may have noticed, after all.

Before he could worry too much, there was a pop and the mangy house-elf was suddenly stood before him. His large eyes were opened wide, his mouth gaping as he stared at Harry, then he promptly dropped to his knees. “Kreacher did not know that nasty master’s heir was a proper wizard! You is being a good Dark wizard and Kreacher was not knowing! Kreacher is a good and loyal servant of the Dark! Please be forgiving Kreacher, young master! Kreacher is being a good elf!”

Harry stared in shock at the elf apparently losing his mind at the thought of having offended a “good Dark wizard”. So apparently the elf wasn’t entirely insane. Just really unhappy with all the Light wizards in the house.

“It’s okay, Kreacher,” Harry said cautiously. “I’m not angry with you, but… Perhaps you could work on cleaning up the house a little. Maybe not the bedrooms that the Order are using,” because, seriously, they could clean them up themselves, “but the common spaces. And my room,” because it would be nice if it smelled less like dust and mold in the room he was sleeping in.

Kreacher readily gave assurances that he would do so and popped away.

Harry shook his head after the elf, then turned his attention back to the book. There were a lot of wards in it, though he noticed that the majority of them seemed to be either quite low on power or virtually powerless. He considered adding more of his magic to them, but then decided he’d have to be careful about that if he didn’t want to raise too many questions. He’d have to do it a little at a time. And probably when everyone was sleeping if possible. Maybe the Order would think the wards were just getting charged because of all the magic now being used in the house. Like a side effect to it being occupied.

Harry spent the next hour studying the rest of the wards in the book. There were… a lot of rather unpleasant ones beyond the basics at the beginning that protected it from the things muggles homes had to fear. There were general security wards as well. Then there were the… well, rather unpleasant wards. Kind of terrifying, actually. Wards that would make the inhabitants nearly helpless against the one holding the wards, or tell the ward holder things people may well wish to keep private. Wards that could immobilize and imprison and render unconscious. Wards that could detect the alignment of magical cores, identify curses whether active or not, even to assess the physical health conditions of people within the house. Like detecting allergies, diagnosing pregnancy or illness, detecting inebriation. And then the outright violent wards that could injure, maim, or even kill. He was certain those must be illegal, but it didn’t surprise him that the house had them anyway.

He suspected that someone as powerful as Dumbledore or himself could likely escape through the wards, but most people would probably find themselves helpless. It made Harry want to learn more about wards. Both using and overcoming them. And it convinced him that he would think very hard before entering the house of an enemy in the future.

When he was done going through the wards, Harry noted happily that he’d not been found and decided not to mess with a good thing. So he settled down on the floor and found a book to read.

When lunchtime came around, he figured he was probably going to raise alarm if he didn’t turn up, so he reluctantly stowed his book back in his book vault, which in turn went into the hidden storage space on his wrist. He made his way down to the kitchen where he was abruptly hounded as to his whereabouts all morning.

“I found an empty room to do some reading in,” was his defense. “I haven’t even been able to start on my summer homework yet, you know?”

This got a reaction out of Mrs. Weasley, who promptly scolded him for not telling her that sooner, then insisted that he should sit out the cleaning until he’d finished his homework. Which was a pleasant surprise that allowed him to retire to his bedroom to do homework after dinner while the Weasley children were ushered back to cleaning.

Once he was reasonably sure that he would remain alone, he called for Kreacher.

The elf didn’t belong to him and thus could have easily ignored him, Harry was sure, but he appeared almost instantly with a deep bow. “How can Kreacher be assisting the good heir of no good master?” was how he phrased his greeting.

Harry smiled a little in bemusement, “Hello, Kreacher,” he started because politeness couldn’t really hurt, he didn’t think. “Have you been given any orders with regard to the things that are getting thrown away here?”

Kreacher immediately began to wring his hands, ears drooping and face falling, “Kreacher is being told he cannot take these things. They is being stolen and Kreacher cannot stop it,” he despaired.

Harry winced, sympathizing more than he liked. He had seen these things being thrown away and the sheer waste had offended him. But for Kreacher, these were the artifacts of a family he had loved and lost. It had to be a million times worse for him. That sympathy only reinforced the decision Harry had already made. “Okay, you can’t take the things, but could you point them out for someone else to take?”

Kreacher’s eyes burned with intensity, “Kreacher can. Will good master Harry be wanting to see them?”

Harry shook his head, “Not me.” Then he took a breath and called, “Dobby!”

The elf appeared with an excited bounce, “Master Harry is calling Dobby!”

“Dobby, I need you to go to Diagon Alley and buy a trunk. Something with expanded storage space. Bring it back here as soon as you get it, but make sure no one sees you, okay?”

Dobby bowed and popped away to do as commanded and Harry turned his attention back to the elder elf.

“Does anyone ever go into the attic, Kreacher?” he questioned the hopeful-looking elf.

Kreacher immediately shook his head so hard his ears flapped. “No one is being in the attic since Mistress Walburgha died. The door is not being letting in anyone who is not being both Dark and Black.”

Harry frowned a little at that. “I’m not a Black.”

“Yous is being Bad Master’s heir.”

“Wait, you’re saying that I’m actually Sirius’ heir? Like, magically speaking?”

Kreacher nodded emphatically. “Filthy Blood Traitor Master is doing the blood ritual before he is letting nasty Order wizards into Mistress’ house.”

“Huh,” Harry said softly, wondering if his blood had been involved in this ritual. It seemed the only thing that made sense from what he knew of blood magic. Then another thought occurred to him. “So Sirius really isn’t Dark?” His own sense of magic had seemed to suggest that, but the man was hardly Light either, so he hadn’t been sure.

“No good master is being born with Light magic,” Kreacher said with distaste. “Mistress Walburgha tried to fix him, she did, but he never got better.”

Harry winced at the idea of what might have been tried to “fix” an apparently defective child. Maybe there was a decent reason Sirius hated his family so much beyond a mere difference of opinion politically.

“Okay,” Harry decided to move forward with this conversation before they got interrupted. “Well, I’m going to have Dobby put the trunk in the attic. I need you to enlist Dobby or Winky whenever something in this house is getting thrown away that shouldn’t be. Show them what and where and they will move it up to the attic for safekeeping. Can you transfigure some basic replicas of everything so it won’t be obvious that it’s missing?”

“Kreacher can,” the elf nodded, “but not everything is to be thrown away. Sometimes it is being stolen.”

Harry furrowed his brow in concern, “Someone’s stealing? It’s not just Sirius giving things away?”

“No good master is giving things to the blood traitor headmaster, but the smelly one is also stealing when no one is being looking.”

Harry didn’t need a better description to know who he meant. Mundungus, it had to be. In retrospect, not all that surprising. Given his general lack of scruples about “business opportunities” and the way he’d clearly been pricing out the silverware at dinner. “Yeah, feel free to do the same with anything that’s being stolen. Or just take it back yourself if you can, just try to make sure you’re not caught. We don’t need Sirius getting suspicious and asking you any unfortunate questions.” It was stomach-turning the way the elves were unable to disobey direct orders, when Harry stopped to think about it. At least human slaves had some capacity for rebellion or escape. House-elves had no such luxury.

It made Harry wonder if there was a way to give a house-elf the bond it needed to a wizard without restricting its autonomy. Winky might put up a fuss about it, but Dobby would probably go for it. And he could work on Winky. Harry wouldn’t ever give them horrible orders, but he’d feel better if even the possibility of it was removed.

Dobby returned very shortly after that, and Harry found that he had to go up to the attic and call Dobby to him there before the elf could get in. Happily, once he’d been invited in, Dobby seemed able to get in without assistance.

With the trunk in place, Harry happily transferred the Dark objects he’d already liberated into the trunk as Dobby and Kreacher popped away to rescue anything else that had already been bagged up. Harry could appreciate Sirius’ wish to disrespect his family by tossing their heirlooms into the bin, but what the man didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, surely. He still got the satisfaction of chucking it all out and Kreacher got to keep his precious family treasures close to him. And Harry didn’t have to suffer the watching of valuable things thrown away. Win-win-win.

Gringotts

A few days before returning to Hogwarts, Harry finally decided that it couldn’t be put off any longer. In the letter from his mum that he’d received the summer before his first year, his mum had said that he could access the family artifact vault when he turned fifteen. That he would find her journals there with more information about his birth father and the events following that. As much as he craved that knowledge, he was equally wary of it. What he was and what he could do frightened him. His father terrified him. He had no idea if learning more about things from his mum’s perspective would make any of that better or worse.

Still, he did want to know.

So he waited until the house was asleep, then called Dobby to pop him to Gringotts. The bank was, thankfully, open twenty-four hours a day, probably to cater to the less legal or less human patrons that preferred to show up in the middle of the night. Or maybe it was a reflection of goblin physiology or culture. Harry honestly didn’t know if they were diurnal creatures or not.

At the counter, he asked to see his family artifact vault, and, after an inspection of his key, he was taken back without comment, thankfully.

The cart ride was longer than he was used to. This vault was deeper than his personal vault. The goblin took his key and opened the door for him, then stood back to let him enter alone.

Harry’s breath caught as he stepped inside. It was… massive. Nothing like the small room that housed the piles of gold coins in his vault. This was more like a cavern lined with shelves, each fitted with a sliding ladder as the only way to access the upper half of the tall shelves. There were sections that held many thousands of books, some with fancy gold leaf and others so worn they barely looked in one piece. Other sections looked like a junk shop with random bits and bobs piled together. Here, a doll with painted a ceramic face leaned against a globe that looked to be made of gold with gemstones making up the landmasses. There, an ornate set of what looked like marble knitting needles sat on top of a scuffed old letterbox.

Wonderingly, Harry wandered through the shelves, struggling to take in the sheer scope of the place. It made him think of the antique shop that Petunia used to drag him along to when Dudley was with his friends for the day. Dudley definitely couldn’t be trusted in the cluttered store, but Harry got to help her carry her purchases. This was much like that, just… a lot bigger. And the contents likely a lot more valuable.

He stopped and stared a moment at a set of full plate armor at the end of one shelf. It was polished to gleaming and fitted with an ornate, gem-studded sword.

A little further on, his attention was captured by a section of shelf that looked like it might have held the crown jewels. Some of the gems certainly seemed large enough. There were various forms of tiaras and circlets and crowns and such. There were also necklaces and earrings and rings and bracelets and broaches and more. It had to be worth a fortune if it wasn’t fake and he didn’t suspect that it was.

Hell, he’d known he wasn’t poor, but could he really be this rich?

Shaken, he continued on, attempting to focus on what he was looking for instead of trying to take everything in. Eventually, he came to a section of shelf labeled with names and dates. The shelves seemed to contain journals and wands along with a few other personal items, such as what were probably wedding rings and other precious jewelry. These shelves dated back to the time of the founders though there were gaps in places. It didn’t seem that everyone had left something of the sort.

Finally, he came to the end of the section. Or the last of it that was filled and found James Potter and Lily Potter nee Evans. James Potter left only three journals whereas Lily had left eight, each neatly labeled with a year starting in 1973 and continuing until 1981.

Harry collected all of his parents’ journals and lamented that there was nothing else to find, but he supposed that there had been no one alive after their deaths to desposit any of their belongings in the vault. He was a little surprised that the 1981 journal was even here, but then his mum had been a charms genius by all accounts. Perhaps she’d spelled it to come here if she died. She’d been concerned enough about his knowing things to leave the letter for him, after all.

With the small pile of journals tucked under his arm, he left the vault without taking the time to examine anything else. There would be time enough to explore this place in the future. With Dobby’s help, it wasn’t as though he couldn’t come back during the school year if he wished.

He found the goblin waiting somewhat impatiently outside his vault and returned to the surface with him, where he called Dobby to take him back to Grimmauld. He then took the time to add each journal to his secondary book vault – the one for his Dark Arts books. If any of the journals mentioned Harry’s birth father, then they needed to remain private.

Which, come to think of it, might have been an incentive for his mum to enchant hers to go to the vault. It wouldn’t do to have it laying around the house for looters to find if they were killed. Not if she truly believed that the secret was as dangerous to him as her letter implied. And given what he’d seen of the wizarding world so far, he had to agree. These people did not do well with things that were different or dangerous and he was certainly both.

Once they were secure, he changed into his pajamas and went to bed. He could put off reading them a little longer.

Hogwarts Letters

Harry had carefully worked out how slowly he had to work through his homework to make it last the rest of the summer to ensure he wouldn’t get stuck with any more cleaning. Ron was a little resentful of his avoiding the work, but Harry had just shrugged. It wasn’t like he could lend Ron some of his homework, after all. The twins had been quite impressed by how neatly he’d maneuvered their mum, though Harry had admitted that he hadn’t known it would work so well.

When he wasn’t working his way slowly through his homework, Harry tended to hide in the attic. It was the one place in the house he felt secure reading his Dark Arts books. And he had a goodly number of them now. That bookstore owner had had another couple of books to pass on to him through Dobby every week and Harry was of no mind to ask him to stop. Rather he’d asked him to widen the subjects he was setting aside for Harry. Not only were they interesting and potentially valuable for future use, but given what his magic had done with Viktor, Harry was quite keen to have a better idea as to what kinds of Dark Arts his magic might decide to spontaneously enact. There was also, admittedly, something he found generally fascinating about the advanced forms of Dark magic that these books described. Of course, some of it was quite horrible, but he had enough life experience by this point to know that there was very little of it that he would say with certainty that he would never use. Mostly that involved sacrificing innocents and such. The rest of it… well, there were some people that the world was better off without. He didn’t see why he shouldn’t benefit in the process of making the world a better place.

At least in theory.

Necromancy, not surprisingly, seemed to mostly involve using death or dead things to increase magical power, typically by way of a ritual. Conversely, it could also be used to simply bring death to living things, generally via spells.

Soul magic, on the other hand, was about using the soul to empower magic, or using magic to empower, augment, understand, or alter the soul. The possibilities were staggering, but so were the potential pitfalls if one made a mistake or an unwise alteration to the soul. Very high risk, high reward. It seemed to be mostly ritual magic, though there were a few spells. The Killing Curse, most notably. It killed the way it did because it didn’t truly affect the body. Rather, it worked by severing the soul from the body so violently that the body failed. It made him wonder how that would work on someone that was maybe immortal. Maybe his soul was different enough from a normal soul that it couldn’t be cut off the same way. Or maybe his soul was connected to his body in a different way. Learning about how the Killing Curse worked honestly made it almost not surprising that he’d survived it. Not that he was eager to see if the phenomenon would work a second time.

He also spent some time looking through the artifacts that he and Kreacher had squirrelled away in the attic, but he didn’t have enough understanding of runes and arithmancy to really trust his assessments at this point. His magic went a long way to telling him whether something was dangerous to investigate, but it didn’t give him quite enough confidence to want to try to use any of these artifacts.

The locket was by far the Darkest and the most dangerous according to his magic. It was also the most complicated according to his rudimentary ability to assess it the way normal people would.

So he decided that he’d just leave the stuff be for now, though he did instruct Kreacher that, should anyone be about to discover the trunk for any reason, he was to have Dobby or Winky pop it to Gringotts and deposit it in Harry’s vault for safekeeping. Surprisingly, Kreacher didn’t seem to mind that idea even though it would put the items beyond his reach. Harry supposed the elf would rather they were gone from his reach than destroyed.

The Hogwarts letters finally arrived the very day before school was to resume, which seemed ludicrous. Mrs. Weasley demanded his vault key so that she could go and pick up his things. Apparently, she was unwilling to brave the no doubt heaving Alley with any children along. Harry could understand that for her own children, but he was a little indignant at not being allowed to spend his own money. Still, it obviously wasn’t optional.  He made a mental note to never store anything private in his personal vault lest someone invite themselves into it like this. He’d have to amend Kreacher’s instructions regarding the trunk to send it to his family artifact vault instead.

And so he handed over his key and let her go. Annoyingly, it wasn’t among the things she passed over to him on her return and he had to actually request it back. She didn’t protest, at least, and gave it back readily enough, but it galled that she hadn’t done so automatically.

Ron made prefect for the fifth year Gryffindor boys, which was surprising given his general laziness and mild bullying of the younger years, but Harry supposed it was mostly about who you knew. And the Weasleys were close with both Dumbledore and McGonagall. He thought he remembered that Bill had been headboy in his day, though he had no idea if he’d deserved it. He did seem to be quite smart. Regardless, Harry chose not to mention any of that, instead just congratulating Ron. Maybe it would help him with his jealousy.

That evening, Harry snuck away from the party thrown for Ron’s getting prefect early. He’d stayed long enough to give Ron his congratulations again, but he wasn’t having all that much fun surrounded by all the Order members.

He ended up sitting on his bed rereading the handful of letters Blaise had sent him over the summer. Unfortunately, Blaise had returned to England only a day before Harry had been taken to Grimmauld Place and they’d had no chance to meet up. They had exchanged long, thoughtful letters about once a week, discussing what they’d been doing and whatever else came to mind. Harry had reread them each an embarrassing number of times. Blaise had ended each letter with the same line that made Harry squirm with pleasure every time he read it.

I count the days until I will see you again.

A silly and not particularly original line, but Harry could almost feel the sentiment behind it. Perhaps because it was a common thought in his own mind.

“Zabini, huh?”

Harry startled and looked up from the letter that he’d probably been smiling at like an idiot. His godfather was standing in the doorway and Harry was pretty sure he’d closed that door.

“You didn’t answer my knock,” Sirius explained in response to Harry’s look. “I can see that you were distracted.”

Harry felt his face heat a bit as he folded the letters together in a stack and stuffed them under his pillow. “What’s up?”

Sirius sighed and stepped all the way inside, closing the door behind him, then flicking his wand to raise a silencing charm. He stepped over to Harry’s bed and sat down at the foot, facing Harry. “Okay, don’t get mad, yeah?”

“Well, that’s an ominous start,” Harry frowned. They’d come a long way in their relationship since Sirius had sworn his mad vow. Harry still didn’t fully trust him, of course, but he had let the man in a lot more than he’d ever opened up to any adult.

Sirius held up his hands in supplication, “Look, you’re going to do what you want. I’m not going to try to demand anything. I learned my lesson.”

Harry allowed a weak smile, which was clearly what the man was angling for.

“So, I looked into the Zabinis and I’m a little worried. Now, hear me out,” he added quickly as Harry felt his face harden. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but the family is definitely Dark, though I haven’t found any proof that they’re aligned with Voldemort. He doesn’t usually recruit women and it’s just Blaise and his mum in this country, so it would make sense if they weren’t connected before. But there’s a good chance Blaise is on a list of recruits this time around.”

Harry took a breath and looked toward the window, though he let Sirius continue. He could hear him out, at least, before telling him that he was wrong.

“And, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but his mum is a suspected black widow. She’s been married eight times now, Harry. That’s so far beyond coincidence that I can’t believe they can’t arrest her on plausibility alone.”

Harry sighed. Blaise had basically told him that she had killed at least one of her husbands, if not all. Harry also knew that Blaise loved his mother dearly. Harry wasn’t entirely sure if he could excuse her murderous tendencies for Blaise’s sake, but Blaise had also insinuated that there had been extenuating circumstances. Maybe she was deliberately marrying men who deserved it so she could do the world a favor while inheriting their estates. He could forgive that.

“Look,” Sirius entreated when Harry must not have given the response he was hoping for, “I’m just a little concerned, Harry, because… Well – and I’m not saying this is the case – but the Boy-Who-Lived would be… I mean, if you died, your spouse would be set to inherit an awful lot…”

“Blaise isn’t planning to marry and off me,” Harry snapped, his annoyance overcoming the patience he was trying to have with the man who was obviously trying to look out for him in this misguided way. “Look, I know when I’m being lied to, okay? If it was like that, I’d know.”

Sirius sighed and shook his head, “All right, prongslet. All right. I don’t want to fight, it’s just… I remember what romance was like at fifteen. And with you being the Boy-Who-Lived… I worry. I just want you to be careful, okay?”

Harry huffed a humorless laugh, “Trust me, Sirius. Blaise isn’t a threat.” Harry had so many real threats in his life, it seemed plainly silly to even discuss this non-issue.

Sirius left him alone shortly after and Harry watched after him with the sober reminder that, despite his vow to Harry, Sirius still loathed Dark wizards.

Chapter Text

Back To Hogwarts

“I need to go to the prefect meeting,” Ron said awkwardly as they boarded the train. “Hermione’s probably already there. We’ll come find you when it’s over though,” he promised.

Harry shook his head, “That’s okay. I think I’m just going to sit with Blaise and his friends. He sat with us at the end of term. And I’ll have a chance to catch up with Hermione at dinner.”

Ron grimaced and looked momentarily irritated before giving a conceding nod, “Yeah. Right.”

He moved ahead faster, not saying another word.

Harry sighed after him, then shook his head. Their friendship wouldn’t ever be what it was, but maybe that wasn’t that odd. They were getting older. It probably shouldn’t be surprising that they couldn’t go back to the relatively carefree friendship they’d had when they were younger. People changed and circumstances changed. It was just part of life.

Blaise wasn’t difficult to find as he was standing in the doorway of his compartment, grinning at Harry when their eyes met. Harry returned his grin, more excited than he’d expected to be on seeing him. Damn, he’d missed him. He didn’t hesitate to step right into Blaise’s space and wrap his arms around him. Warm arms immediately returned the embrace and Harry happily breathed in the by-now familiar scent of him, now accented with a new perfume. It brought to mind the scent of the air after a heavy rain and a forest at springtime and something faintly of citrus. He liked it.

“Missed you,” he said just loudly enough for Blaise to hear, and he felt the smile on Blaise’s lips as a kiss was pressed to his temple.

“You, too,” Blaise replied just as quietly and held him another long moment before releasing him.

Harry reluctantly stepped back and accepted the wordless invitation into the compartment. He found Tracy Davis grinning brightly at him while Theordore Nott studied him with a blank face. “Hello,” he greeted them politely.

“Harry, you’re familiar with Tracy Davis and Theodore Nott, I presume,” Blaise introduced as he joined him in the compartment and closed the door.

“Of course,” Harry nodded amiably.

“So nice to finally meet you!” Davis declared cheerfully. “Blaise has been keeping you all to himself for far too long.”

Blaise slipped his hand into Harry’s as he passed him, then drew him down onto the vacant bench with him. Harry very happily leaned into Blaise’s side and smiled when an arm draped around him. He’d missed Blaise entirely too much for it to have been only two months.

“So, Harry,” Davis began at once, “I feel like I don’t know anything about you and you’re my best friend’s boyfriend, so that won’t do. So let’s start with the hard questions. Favorite color?”

Harry laughed a little, though he was feeling quite wary. There was something about her tone that was ringing slightly false. He suspected that she wasn’t actually as friendly and welcoming as she was making herself out to be at the moment. The fact she was a Slytherin was a good hint in that direction, after all. As was the way Blaise was sitting slightly tensely next to him.

“Er… green,” Harry admitted, “but very dark green.” Which had absolutely nothing to do with Blaise’s Yule ball robes, even if he’d been a little more fond of the color since around that time.

“What about favorite foods?” Davis pressed.

And so began an interrogation that probably left the Slytherins knowing more meaningless details about him than Ron or Hermione had learned in the last four years. None of the questions felt dangerous to answer. Indeed, they seemed tailored to be harmless. But there were an awful lot of them, and he was left feeling slightly like he’d divulged too much by the time the snack trolley came through and interrupted her.

He gave Blaise a slightly nervous look as they all rose to buy snacks and Blaise gave him a commiserating look and a kiss on the head that wasn’t all that reassuring.

When they’d all bought something and settled back down, Blaise spoke up before Tracey – and she had insisted he call her that somewhere in the midst of her interrogation – could begin again, if, indeed, that was her plan. “How about a game of rune dominoes, Tracey?”

She looked slightly put-out, but agreed readily enough, and they settled down to play with minimal talking.

Relieved, Harry retrieved this year’s defense text to read. Nott had spent the whole ride thus far reading a book that looked like arithmancy by the cover. He had appeared entirely focused on the book, though Harry could feel the boy’s attention on him, so he was definitely paying attention.

Fifteen minutes later, Harry closed the book in disgust.

“Tired of reading?” Blaise inquired.

“Of that, yeah!” Harry sneered at the offending book.

Blaise lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

“It’s total rubbish!” Harry exclaimed.

“He’s not wrong,” Nott spoke up for the first time.

“What’s wrong with it?” Blaise wondered.

“It’s completely passive bullshite that won’t help you defend yourself against a schoolyard bully, much less a hostile creature or wizard!” Harry disdained.

“Unfortunately,” Nott concurred.

“Defense is going to be a nightmare this year,” Harry realized.

After that, Harry turned his attention to other textbooks, which he found far less distressing. Theory probably wouldn’t ever be his strong suit, but he didn’t think any of it looked too terribly difficult, at least.

They arrived at the school without any great calamity. Malfoy didn’t even visit the compartment, which was a strange new development that Harry could only credit to the Slytherins sharing the compartment with him. Harry wasn’t sure if Malfoy didn’t want to find out if the other Slytherins would side with Harry against him, or if he was just trying not to start anything with them. Slytherins never did seem to quarrel. At least not openly. Surely they couldn’t all get along all the time. They weren’t nearly friendly enough for that.

The ride up to the school was again in Thestral drawn carriages. Harry was quite intrigued to find that Tracy and Nott could both see them as well, as was evident when they both patted the beasts as they passed them. He wondered about that, but didn’t dare to bring it up.

In the great hall, Harry split from Blaise with a perfunctory kiss that he liked all the better for just how rote it felt. When he reached the Gryffindor table, Hermione stood to greet him with an excited hug, which Harry returned happily. He’d missed Hermione as well, he realized, though nowhere near the way he’d missed Blaise.

When Dumbledore stood to give his announcements, there thankfully weren’t any revelations of more tournaments, though the new professor did have the gall to interrupt him in order to give a ridiculously long and meandering speech that seemed to boil down to the ministry sticking their corrupt paws into the running of the school.

“Fucking great,” Harry muttered as the food finally appeared, and he began dishing up.

“Language,” Hermione scolded, though her heart clearly wasn’t in it.

He just lifted his eyebrows at her, and she subsided.

“So how was your summer?” he prompted as they began to eat.

And just like that, her mood completely changed as she grinned hugely. “Really great,” she exclaimed with enthusiasm. “Viktor’s parents are really lovely. We took trips around Bulgaria every weekend that I was there! It’s a beautiful country. They hope that I’ll agree to move there if Viktor and I decide to get married, and honestly, I’m not completely opposed to the idea! Though, of course not until things have calmed down around here. I’m not going to just take off if we’re in the middle of a war.”

Harry smiled and listened to her rapid explanation of the last month that she’d clearly enjoyed very much. Harry wondered if it would be possible to change her mind about leaving despite the war. As much as he’d like to have her around, he’d like even better to know she was somewhere safe. He decided not to bring it up just yet. He’d let things between her and Viktor progress a little further first. Maybe she’d end up wanting to leave to be with him enough that Harry would only have to give her assurances that he didn’t mind.

When they were dismissed to their common rooms, Harry went to bed right away. He closed himself behind his bed curtains and spelled them sealed and silenced, then called out Kaa. He was going to need the company.

As Kaa wrapped himself around Harry until he was comfortable, Harry focused on the first of the three journals he wanted to read. 1979, 1980, and 1981 were his first focus. All were inside his secondary book vault, which he kept always on his person via the enchanted wrist cuff.

Kaa stopped moving and Harry pulled himself from the errant wonderings. “These are your mother’s writings?” the snake inquired.

Harry nodded. “Yeah. Should be everything she had to say about my dad in these. My birth father, I mean.” Harry had been procrastinating actually reading them, but it was starting to feel more like cowardice than anything, and he didn’t care for that trait in himself.

“You fear him,” Kaa observed.

“Yeah,” Harry admitted. Because fear and cowardice were very different things. Fear was what any intelligent being felt when threatened. Cowardice was succumbing to fear. That was a distinction he hadn’t understood when he’d first been sorted into Gryffindor, but he’d figured it out over the years.

“Then knowing more about him can only help,” Kaa reasoned.

Harry huffed a deprecating laugh, “Yeah. That’s… that’s good advice.” So, with a deep breath, he cracked open the earliest volume and started to read.

Admittedly, he skimmed the first half of the year, not all that interested. He was sure he’d go back and read with more attention later. Right now, he just wanted to know about his father.

The fighting between his mum and James seemed to be picking up that summer. Most of the fights centered around the war or complications due to it. Lily wrote about James spending so much of his time running errands for Dumbledore when he wasn’t working. She bitterly complained about him spending the little time they had free goofing off with Sirius instead of the date nights she kept trying to set up with him. She felt like an afterthought in his life and she hated it.

James was graduating auror training early along with half of his class as, apparently, the ministry needed aurors too urgently to wait and they were fast-tracking the top half of each class. The transition to more responsibilities led to longer hours and more stressful assignments which not only took up more of James’ time, but also made him even more inclined to want to spend his free time having juvenile prank wars with Sirius rather than spending time with his wife. And both of their time was further pared down by Order meetings and the assignments that came out of them.

She felt like a stranger to her own husband and utterly at the bottom of his priorities. James was not, according to her entries, at all patient with or sympathetic toward her complaints when she voiced them.

And then, finally, came the one he’d been waiting for. The entry was written in haste, the penmanship sloppier than most entries, ink spots more prevalent.

6 November 1979

I’ve made a terrible mistake. I feel like I’ve done nothing but fight with James for months, and then last week I tried to have a serious conversation with him, and he wouldn’t even listen. He said he was late to meet Sirius. Something for Dumbledore, and he was gone. I was so angry with him.

I just wanted to get out. I wanted to get away from the war and magic completely. I apparated to London. I transfigured my clothes, and I went to a club. I just wanted to drink and dance and lose myself for a little while. I wanted men to notice me. I wanted to feel admired. And I was. It was such a relief to just feel wanted by someone as I haven’t felt with James in so long. There was one man, in particular. He was… incredible. He was beautiful. Tall, dark, handsome… And so charming.

He made me feel beautiful and cherished. Desirable. He was intelligent and an incredible dancer.

But I let things go too far. I only wanted to dance, but I haven’t felt desired in so long and I didn’t want it to stop. I didn’t tell him that I was married. When he made advances, I should have withdrawn.

I didn’t.

I slept with him. I was unfaithful to my husband. I left as soon as it was over, but it was too late by then.

I still made it home hours before James, but I waited up for him. When he got home, I told him what had happened. It’s so painful how shocked he was. As though, despite everything, he’d never doubted my faithfulness for a moment. Even though he clearly should have.

The fight that followed was terrible. He yelled. I screamed. I cried. He threw things. It was ugly. He didn’t speak to me for days afterward. I’m still mad at him for how he’s been treating me, but I know that I stepped so far over the line. He’s every right to be far angrier with me.

Last night, he finally sat down and talked with me. Rationally, this time. I cried again and he hugged me of all things. He said that he wants to forgive me, but he needs time. I… completely understand. We’ve taken mutual vows of fidelity going forward. As long as we are married, we won’t be able to be unfaithful. I’d have probably slapped him if he suggested such a thing when we were first married. The pride of inexperience, I guess.

I wouldn’t have ever done something like this again. I’m certain of that. I wouldn’t ever put myself in such a position again, knowing my weakness. But I’m glad for the vows. I can’t ask him to trust my word after what I’ve done. Now we can move forward with at least that much trust renewed.

We made love last night

Harry cringed and looked away for a moment, then skimmed forward a bit and decided that there was nothing more pertinent in that entry. At least she’d not gone into any detail about the event that ended in his conception. She hadn’t truly gone into gory details in the last bit either, he didn’t think. Just lots about physical love and intimacy that he didn’t want to associate with his mother or adoptive father.

With a bracing breath, he moved onto the next entry. For a while, she just talked about rebuilding her strained marriage. At least it seemed that her infidelity finally shocked him into realizing that he couldn’t go on treating his wife like something he’d get around to if he ever managed to find the time.

In stark contrast to that summer, she wrote now about James making a real effort. There was still some lingering stiffness between them after her infidelity, but they made steady progress.

The hiccup came about a month later when she realized that her monthly was late. She and James hadn’t been together for several weeks before her infidelity and only a couple of times in the weeks after as they worked on their marriage. The odds weren’t nearly as high as they would like that James was the father.

Still, they continued to build the strength of their relationship through the following months. It was clear that James had matured a good bit in the course of things, and he seemed much more willing to put work into their marriage after than he had been before.

Then Lily hit her fifth month and Harry’s accidental magic had begun. It started as extreme and sudden bouts of sickness, then progressed to bruised organs by the time Lily managed to figure out the right charm arrays to keep the baby calm and content inside her. She still suffered occasional difficulties, including more than one cracked rib and a cracked vertebrae at one point as well as a collapsed lung in addition to less dangerous things like spontaneous levitation and a whole day in which her skin kept randomly changing colors.

It sounded harrowing and made Harry grateful that his mum had apparently been a master of charms because it might have saved her life.

There came a time, shortly before his birth, when Dumbledore had informed them of a prophecy pertaining to their son and Voldemort. A prophecy that Voldemort had learned of, and they were sent into hiding with Sirius as their Secret Keeper. The move had been difficult for Lily in her condition, and it was why they’d rushed to use the charm.

When she finally went into labor – apparently a week after her due date – they’d been so worried about how his magic would react to the birth canal that they’d opted for a cesarian as soon as she’d gone into labor, which was apparently exceedingly rare in the magical world thanks to magic fixing most of the things that would cause muggles to take the baby out that way. At least magical healing meant that she’d easily recovered from it.

Then, after the birth had come a period of adjustment to the world in which his accidental magic had also been on the violent side. He would wake during the night and if he was alone too long, the whole house would start to shake with his temper. Or the temperature in the room would plummet as soon as his nappy was removed for a change.

Then, around four months, things had started to calm. He’d settled down and his accidental magic had dropped off to levels that could almost be considered normal apart from the rare instance of spontaneously resurrecting small animals or once transfiguring his crib into a pile of fluffy pillows.

Shortly after his birth, they’d done the heritage test and learned who his father actually was. James had immediately moved to quietly, but legally adopt Harry, ensuring that he was a Potter in all ways that mattered, and it couldn’t ever be contested. They’d sat down and discussed what it would mean for Harry to have what seemed to be essentially a deity of some kind as a blood father. They could obviously expect him to be powerful. They weren’t sure if he’d develop any non-human traits such as horns or wings. They even floated the possibility of a tail, which he hoped never came true. They agreed that his heritage would have to be concealed for his protection, at least until he was an adult. Ideally, throughout his entire life if he was to have any chance at a normal one.

He found the entry where she mentioned the letter she’d written and taken to Gringotts to be delivered to him if they didn’t make it.

And then she’d detailed what she knew about his father. He’d gone by Lucifer, which she’d found a quirky name, but she’d thought on it no further than that. Who honestly would have? They hadn’t exchanged surnames.

His breath caught when he turned the page and there, filling most of the page, was a full color, shoulder-up drawing of a man. A face that was not Harry’s but bore him a striking resemblance. They had the same curly black hair. A similar jaw, though Harry didn’t have a cleft chin. Their noses were similar and the way their brow cut low over their eyes. Their skin tone seemed identical.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. He didn’t know if his mum could draw that well or if she’d used a spell, but he felt incredibly grateful to her that she’d included the image. Even though the man scared the crap out of him, it still felt incredibly… grounding, to know what he looked like. If learning of Figg’s treachery had left him unmoored, this image made him feel like he’d got hold of something again. This was his father. He looked a great deal like his father. Far more than the superficial likeness to James that everyone seemed to find compelling – perhaps because it had been so long since they’d seen James.

The man looked maybe thirty, which Harry supposed he likely still did. Aging was undoubtedly something beyond the devil.

After studying the picture for a long time, he finally turned his attention to the text on the facing page. She mentioned a few more details, like his height. An impressive six foot three that Harry wondered if he had any hope of reaching. He’d always been short for his age, though he’d had a bit of a growth spurt this summer. Perhaps due to actually eating well. She also mentioned his utter confidence and his swagger, which… Well, when one is an immortal deity, probably not surprising.

Then she wrote that Sirius had had a close call with Death Eaters, and they’d decided that it was too risky for him to remain Secret Keeper. He would continue to be, outwardly, and take on the risk of being hunted. But secretly they would change to their friend Peter so that even if Sirius was taken and tortured, he would be incapable of giving up their secret. No one was likely to suspect Peter, so he’d be safe.

It was the last entry.

Harry closed the journal and just let his mind turn over what he’d learned for a long time. There was so much. Details about his father and his mum’s marriage and the fidelius that had failed to keep them alive. Immediately after they’d changed to Pettigrew. If someone would have found this journal, Sirius might not have done over a decade in prison. But it also seemed hard to believe that his mum wouldn’t have taken some kind of precaution with that given how she’d prepared for the worst with him. But perhaps it really had been just a terrible oversight. No one could think of everything, after all.

Detention

“What would any of you possibly need to defend yourselves from, Mr. Potter?” the horrible woman probed with faux sweetness that made him want to wring her fat neck.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Harry returned a grin just as fake, “how about Sirius Black?” Because that was the Ministry approved story, wasn’t it?

She clearly hadn’t been expecting that name to come out of his mouth as her smile hardened. “Detention, Mr. Potter. For trying to spread hysteria. The Ministry will handle Mr. Black.”

The new defense teacher, Harry decided, was the worst they’d had yet. And that was including an actual Death Eater, a man possessed by Voldemort, and a man who’s only magical skills were the obliviate spell and whatever magic he undoubtedly used to make his teeth shine quite so brightly when he smiled.

“You really can’t let her get to you, Harry,” Hermione said, half scold and half commiseration as they left the classroom.

“I do seem to recall that you started it, Hermione, dear,” Harry frowned right back.

She blushed. “Yes, well. I was arguing rationally.”

“Yeah, and she didn’t give me detention for losing my temper. She gave me detention for having a good argument,” Harry pointed out.

“Yes, I did notice that,” she sighed. “She’s going to make this year a misery.”

“Yep.”

Every class was pushing the importance of extra studying for the OWL exams at the end of the year, and they would be given extra homework all year to facilitate that, which was going to make this year even more dreadful, he was sure.

In transfiguration, they were practicing vanishing charms, which were apparently extremely difficult spells and some of the hardest they’d face on their OWLs. Harry managed it on the very first try even though he had very little grasp on the theory McGonagall had just gone over, but then he’d been teaching himself to do these wandlessly over summer. He hadn’t known enough about the theory of the spell then to realize that it was supposed to be so difficult.

“That’s just not fair,” Ron despaired, though Harry was sure he’d grown used to Harry doing well in practicals by now.

Hermione certainly didn’t help matters by telling Ron that he just wasn’t concentrating hard enough, then managing hers on the third try. Harry wondered if Ron would have been happier if he’d befriended Dean and Seamus back in first year instead of him and Hermione. The other boys were snickering at their own failed attempts the next table over.

In Care of Magical Creatures, they were studying bowtruckles under professor Grubbly-Plank. Hagrid was absent for reasons unknown. Harry suspected Order business of some kind. He would like to think someone would have bothered to inform him if Hagrid was actually injured or seriously ill or something. He’d write to ask Sirius about it, but he didn’t want to risk it given the current political climate.

The bowtruckles were surprisingly vicious little things, and Harry found himself grateful that he wasn’t so easily hurt anymore when one of them tried to slice open his thumb. He did take more care to avoid invoking any further violence for fear that someone would notice.

A fourth year herbology class was just letting out when they reached the greenhouses for their next class. Ginny tossed a cheerful greeting at them as she passed, but she didn’t stop to talk. After her came a girl with very large blue eyes and a pile of pale blond hair atop her head.  She was wearing dangling earrings that looked like radishes, of all things, and a necklace made of what he thought looked like butterbeer corks. She saw them and made directly for them.

“Hello, Hermione,” she greeted politely.

“Luna,” Hermione replied stiffly. Harry threw her a curious look and she obliged. “Harry, this is Luna Lovegood. She lives near the Weasleys. We shared a compartment on the way to Hogwarts this year. Her father owns that gossip paper, the Quibbler.”

“O-kay,” Harry said uncertainly, mostly in response to Hermione’s barely tolerant tone. He sent a polite smile at the girl. “Nice to meet you, Luna.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Harry Potter,” she greeted in reply.

“Er… you can just call me Harry?” which came out a question because he’d never had anyone greet him with his full name like that. Well, anyone but Dobby.

“You’re nice,” she decided, then announced, “I believe you about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, regardless of what the Daily Prophet says. They don’t often get things right anyway.”

Hermione scoffed something that sounded suspiciously like, “Pot-kettle.”

“Thank you,” he said, ignoring Hermione.

Luna just flashed him a bright smile and walked away.

“Huh,” he muttered after her before continuing into the greenhouse. As they sat down, he lifted an eyebrow at Hermione. “Is there a reason you don’t like her?”

“People call her Loony Lovegood, Harry. For a good reason.”

Harry frowned at Hermione’s uncharacteristically harsh pronouncement. “People say a lot of mean things, Hermione,” he pointed out gravely.

Hermione hunched a little under his stare. She glanced at Ron as though for support, but the redhead just lifted his palms in surrender and she sighed, “She insists on talking about creatures that don’t exist,” Hermione explained. “It’s annoying.”

“Then ignore her,” Harry chastised. “She doesn’t seem like she’s trying to upset you. You could return that favor.” Harry had let Ron get away with a lot of minor bullying when they were younger, but he wasn’t a little kid afraid of losing his friends anymore, and he wasn’t going to put up with it now.

“I’ll try,” Hermione said, and then Professor Sprout started the class, and the subject was dropped.

Umbridge scheduled his detention that night about as early as she possibly could. He barely had time to scarf down some dinner before he had to hurry to her office. Unfortunately, he was waylaid leaving the Great Hall by a loud and angry cry of, “Oi, Potter!”

With a long-suffering sigh, Harry turned to figure out who else was determined to annoy him today. And he found Angelina Johnson storming toward him in a towering temper.

“How come you’ve landed yourself in detention for five o’clock on Friday, Potter?”

Harry frowned uncertainly at the question a moment before recalling that he’d seen that she was holding tryouts for a new keeper for their team that afternoon. With a sigh, he supposed he shouldn’t put this off any further. “Look, Angelina, I’ve been meaning to talk with you. I’m not going to be playing quidditch this year, so you’ll have to find yourself a seeker as well.”

Angelina’s eyes bulged in horror. “What?! No! You can’t do that!”

Harry winced as her voice hit a painfully high frequency.

“Take it back, Potter!” she insisted.

He shrugged helplessly, “Sorry. It’s my OWL year. I need to spend more time studying this year.”

“No, Potter. You can’t do this to me,” she pleaded.

“I’m really set on it. Sorry,” he winced, then turned and beat a hasty retreat while she stood there looking like she was going into shock. He was going to miss quidditch like crazy this year. It was one of the few things at school that let him really just forget his stupid life and have fun. But he was getting to be too strong, too fast, and too durable. What he’d said to Angelina wasn’t a lie – he should spend more time studying this year – but it wasn’t the main reason he was quitting. He couldn’t risk people getting suspicious about him. Especially not with how against him the Ministry seemed right now. Any hint that he might be a creature would probably be enough to put him under investigation or something. And he couldn’t afford that.

He turned his focus back to making it to his detention on time lest she have an excuse to give him a dozen more. She’d already given him four detentions for the crime of making a good point. He’d rather not give her actually good reasons to punish him.

On arriving, he found the office even more horrifying than Lockhart’s winking portraits of himself. Umbridge had the whole place decked out in gaudy pink and mewing cute kitten pictures. Merlin, it’s like she was overcompensating really hard for the fact no one could ever describe her as “cute”.

He held onto his temper by his fingernails as she ushered him into a seat. “Now, you are going to be doing some lines for me, Mr. Potter. No, not with your quill,” she dismissed as he made to reach for his bag. “You’re going to be using a rather special one of mine. Here you are.”

She held out a long, thin black quill with an unusually sharp point.

Harry reached out to accept it from her and nearly flinched away as his hand closed around it. The thing positively pulsed with Dark magic.

“I want you to write, ‘I must not incite hysteria,’” she instructed.

Harry licked his lips nervously as he cautiously drew the quill closer to him. His magic had gone from ruffled with annoyance to flaring in defensiveness. “How many times?” he asked softly as his magic tried to make sense of what he was feeling from the quill beyond that it was Dark.

“Oh, as long as it takes for the message to sink in,” she said sweetly. “Off you go.”

She moved back to her desk and Harry cautiously adjusted his grip on the quill. The feeling it was giving him… like a tickle in his throat. Like it was… thirsty.

“Er, Professor? You’ve not given me any ink,” he pointed out with a sinking feeling that it hadn’t been a mistake.

“Oh, you won’t need any ink,” she said with a touch of a laugh in her voice.

What the fuck…

With a deep breath, Harry put the quill to the parchment and began to scratch out the first line.

He stopped when there was a sharp pain in his hand. He turned his hand and saw the lines he’d written cut into his skin. Then there was the faintest sizzling sound, and a sharp, acrid smell like sulfur and burning feathers. A very fine tendril of smoke drifted up from the quill. He glanced up to find Umbridge watching him with a hungry gleam in her eyes. A peek at his hand showed that the wound had healed, and he rubbed at it lightly, brushing away the blood. Hopefully she’d think it had broken before doing anything to him, because the magic of the quill was surely broken now. His blood did not seem to agree with it.

“Problem?” Umbridge asked in her faux sweet voice.

“Er, it does seem to need ink, Professor,” he ventured, cautiously putting the quill to the parchment again, but as he’d suspected, it did nothing more than an ordinary quill without ink would do.

With a scowl, the woman rose from her seat and stormed over to him, plucking the quill from his hand. She frowned at it, then drew her comically short wand and flicked it at the quill. Then she turned a deep frown on Harry. “What did you do?”

Harry carefully fixed his face into innocent confusion, “I just tried to write with it, Professor. Is it meant to be self-inking?”

She stared at him a moment longer, then spun and marched back to her desk, her short stride stiff and angry. “Very well, Potter. You will use your own quill tonight.”

Relieved that his magic had taken care of that, he bent to his bag to retrieve his own quill and ink and set about mindlessly scribbling lines about not inciting hysteria.

The horrible woman kept him there writing that stupid sentence over and over for hours. He couldn’t imagine the cramp he’d have suffered a couple of years ago. Luckily, he no longer seemed to suffer from such simple pains. It did mean that he had nothing to distract him from the tedium though.

The detention that followed the next night had her presenting him with another quill that felt just the same as the first. This time, she stood in front of him and watched intently as he began to write. He tried to keep his hand turned so she couldn’t see the back of it, and carefully withheld any flinch at the sudden pain, but just as had happened the last time, the Dark magic in the quill fizzled and burned away at the first touch of his blood.

Umbridge yelped and immediately yanked it out of his hand, apparently having seen the little tendril of smoke this time. “What did you do, boy?” she demanded.

“Only what you told me to, Professor,” Harry let himself sound a bit exasperated, but carefully contained his urge to snap at her. He hated to be called that.

Apparently, she was unable to find anything to berate him about in that because he was left to write lines with his own quill again. Though he imagined things would have been much worse had her quill worked on him, the sheer mind-numbing boredom of the detention that went on for hours and hours left him fantasizing about which Dark curses he’d like to use on her. It wasn’t just her blatant targeting of him that rubbed him the wrong way about her. He’d gotten used to that with Snape. No, it was that damn faux sweet manner that she had that made him fantasize about making her scream. At least Snape didn’t try to pretend to be anything but a sadistic arse.

For his remaining detentions, she did not attempt to force him to use a cursed quill, at least.

Exploration

Ron tried out for the Keeper position on the quidditch team that Friday while Harry was in detention, and he got it. Ginny got the Seeker position, too, which meant that more than half the Gryffindor team was now Weasleys, which was a little funny, though Harry supposed it owed to all the quidditch they’d played growing up.

Hermione, at least, had given up on her quest to trick house-elves into freedom after Harry had practically begged her to just write Viktor about house-elves and see if he could explain their situation better. She was still making hats, but she was leaving them out in the open now while she waited for Viktor to write back.

Harry suspected any accidentally freed elves would probably just go to Dumbledore and beg for their jobs back, but it still seemed horribly rude to try to trick them like that. Though it did seem unlikely to work. Surely house-elves couldn’t be assigned any laundry duties if picking up any clothes would free them. And he rather doubted that Filch was washing all the laundry in the castle.

It wasn’t until that weekend that he got any time with Blaise thanks to Umbridge’s absurdly long detentions. So it was right after breakfast on Saturday that Harry found Blaise at a table in the library where they’d agreed to meet. He immediately moved a chair so that it was right up against Blaise’s chair and settled into it, leaning against the taller boy quite happily.

Blaise chuckled quietly and wrapped his arms around him. Harry felt a kiss pressed lightly to the crown of his head and he sighed in contentment as his magic embraced the other boy. “How did detention with Umbridge go?” Blaise asked when Harry made no move to pull away.

Harry groaned, “She made me write ‘I will not incite hysteria’ for hours. I wanted to gouge out her beady eyes.”

Blaise gave a surprised laugh, “Harsh, but undoubtedly justified, I think.”

“Glad you agree,” Harry nodded/nuzzled Blaise’s neck. He felt a long-fingered hand thread into his hair and hummed in pleasure. He wanted to suggest they go somewhere else and just cuddle instead of studying, but he knew that he had a pile of homework to tackle, and he suspected Blaise likely did as well. So he reluctantly drew back and turned his attention to pulling books and parchments out of his bag.

As they started on their homework, Harry hooked his ankle around Blaise’s under the table and found himself grateful that it was just the two of them for the moment. He’d invited Hermione along, but she’d declined, insisting that he and Blaise should have some alone time. Ron was at his first quidditch practice.

After a couple hours of working mostly in companionable silence, Harry pillowed his head on the taller boy’s shoulder again.

“Taking a nap?” Blaise teased lightly.

“No,” Harry admitted, shifting his side more fully into his boyfriend’s, “cuddling.”

Blaise’s arm wound around him again and a smile-shaped kiss was pressed to his head.

“Missed you this summer. And this week. We need somewhere private to spend time together.”

Blaise’s arm tightened around him a little. “I like the sound of that,” he said softly. “Any ideas?”

Harry hesitated a moment before reasoning, “I’d say the Chamber of Secrets, but there’s no furniture or anything down there. And it’s rather wet.”

He felt Blaise stiffen under him, then hands gripped his shoulders and gently pushed him away until their eyes could meet, “Are you telling me that you actually know where the Chamber of Secrets is?”

“Yeah, I found it in second year. But it’s rather wet, like I said.”

“Harry,” Blaise gave him an exasperated look. “You realize I’m a Slytherin, right?”

Harry sighed, “Ugh, I suppose you want to see it, then?”

Blaise widened his eyes pleadingly.

Harry laughed and slapped his shoulder playfully, taking great care to make sure it wasn’t too hard. “Fine. Right now?”

Blaise glanced at the essay in front of him, “I can finish this later. You?”

Harry shrugged, “Sure.”

Blaise had a definite bounce in his step as Harry led him through the school, though he stopped with a curiously raised eyebrow at the girl’s loo.

Harry opened the door just a touch and knocked on it before calling out, “Hello? Anyone in here?”

There was no reply, which he supposed meant Myrtle was out as well, thankfully. He tipped his head toward the door, then led the way inside.

“We’re in a girls’ loo,” Blaise observed, looking around warily.

Harry could only shrug, “Yeah. Wasn’t my idea.” He moved over to the requisite sink and hissed it open.

“That’s incredible,” Blaise whispered in awe when all was still once more. “How do we get down?”

Harry gave him a grin, then jumped into the pipe. It was much less scary knowing what was at the bottom. Also, being much less breakable than he’d been at twelve. Harry managed to land on his feet this time and he immediately turned and waited a good dozen seconds before Blaise followed him. He positioned himself to catch the taller boy, assisting his landing so he settled on his feet rather than sprawling in the filthy skeletons that littered the floor.

“That was mental,” Blaise complained at once.

Harry laughed, “Yeah, in second year Ron and I shoved Lockhart down first, then jumped in after him.”

The look that Blaise gave him questioned his sanity and Harry grinned.

“Come on, then, if you want to see the chamber.”

“What in Salazar’s name is that?” Blaise breathed, grabbing Harry’s arm to pull him to a halt before they got too near.

“Just a shed skin.”

Blaise looked at him with wide eyes. “From what? A dragon?”

“I don’t think dragons shed their skin,” Harry frowned dubiously. Now he wasn’t so sure. Their scales were much larger than snake scales, but they were reptiles, so…

“Harry,” Blaise pleaded.

Harry chuckled nervously and rubbed at the back of his neck, “Well, you remember the part of the legend about Slytherin’s monster?”

“It’s real.”

Harry nodded, “Yep. Basilisk. Bloody big one.”

Blaise eyed the skin warily.

“It didn’t show up at all last time I was down here. Should be safe enough.”

“And if it does show up?”

“Well, it listens to me. Because I’m a parselmouth, maybe. I won’t let it hurt you,” Harry promised.

Blaise laughed a little and shook his head, his eyes straying to the skin once more. “Merlin. I’m probably crazy, but I believe you.”

Harry grinned happily and leaned up for a quick kiss, then resumed leading the way.

Harry hissed open the door with all the snakes, then lifted a hand to Blaise’s chest when the taller boy tried to step forward. “Let me make sure it’s safe,” Harry cautioned and stepped in first. The torches all flared to life in response to his presence and Harry looked around carefully, but there was no sign of a sixty-foot basilisk or homicidal memories or anything else. “Okay,” he called back.

“Sweet Morgana,” Blaise whispered, awestruck as he gazed at the massive statue at the far end of the room.

Harry shrugged and looked around. Maybe it had something to do with how he was first introduced to the room, but he didn’t find it all that impressive. Oh, it was grand and fancy, for sure, but not any more than the rest of the castle.

So while Blaise went to examine the statue up close, Harry found a loose stone and transfigured it into a sofa-sized cushion and made himself comfortable, though he did situate it next to Blaise. Just in case. When the dark-skinned boy started levitating himself to get a better look at the higher parts of the statue, Harry’s magic took to wrapping him with such care that Harry fully expected it to catch him without Harry’s input should it become necessary.

When a quarter hour had passed without Blaise seeming to grow the smallest bit bored, Harry removed his wrist cuff and fished inside for his book vault. After a moment of hesitation, he drew out the secondary one. He could trust Blaise with this, he thought. Still, he chose a book of questionable legality rather than obvious illegality. Specifically, blood wards.

He lost himself in the interesting book and so wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Blaise caught his attention once more by sitting down next to him on the oversized cushion. He looked up and found Blaise studying the cover of his book with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher.

“Everything okay?” Harry asked lightly.

Blaise blinked and focused on Harry’s face. “Blood wards?” he asked curiously.

Harry nodded, “Yeah. It’s both interesting and terrifying, some of the things that can be done with them.”

“I agree,” Blaise said, though it seemed to come a second or two later than it should have to be totally casual.

“You okay?” Harry asked.

Blaise nodded with another look at the book, then grinned and leaned in to kiss Harry, “Great. Thank you for bringing me down here.”

“Any time,” said Harry when their lips parted. “I’m glad you had fun.”

“Fun?’ Blaise laughed, standing again and lifting his arms to indicate his surroundings. “I’m in the Chamber of Secrets, Harry. This is the best date ever.”

Harry was in the process of laughing at his boyfriend’s dramatics when movement behind Blaise caught his eye and Harry turned his attention to a form slowly beginning to rise from the water. A… very large form.

Blaise must have noticed his focus because he was just starting to turn as her head emerged from the water, eyes glowing brightly in the torchlight.

Harry leapt to his feet and placed himself between Blaise and the basilisk before the taller boy could turn far enough to see the massive lizard. Harry immediately placed a hand over Blaise’s eyes and gently but firmly turned his face fully away from the basilisk.

“Harry?” Blaise’s voice trembled.

“Don’t open your eyes,” Harry cautioned as he warily moved his hand so that he could turn and face the snake. He found her coiled completely out of the water now, watching them but not looking ready to strike. “Hello,” he greeted in her language. “I hope you don’t mind us spending time here.”

“I do not,” she confirmed, eyeing Blaise curiously. “He smells of your magic. Is he your mate?”

“Yes,” Harry allowed as it was easier than quibbling over terminology with a massive lizard. Though he did wonder about Blaise smelling of his magic. He knew that his magic loved wrapping itself around Blaise and it was certainly doing so now that he felt the other boy in danger, but he hadn’t realized Blaise would actually smell of it. “You are not to hurt him,” Harry said firmly but politely. He didn’t want to insult her, but neither did he want there to be any question that it was a demand and not a request.

She dipped her head slightly, “I will not harm your mate, Serpent Master.” And then a pair of clear eyelids slid from the inside edge of each eye and all the way to the outer, leaving the vibrant yellow color muted. “He can safely look at me now.”

“You gaze won’t hurt him?” Harry took care to clarify.

“It is safe,” she reiterated.

And it sounded like the truth, so Harry took a breath, then stepped slightly to the side and turned to look at Blaise, “You can open your eyes now.”

“Is it still there?” Blaise asked tensely.

“Yes, but it’s safe. She’s covered her eyes.” For a moment, Blaise did nothing and Harry urged, “Trust me.”

Blaise gave a slightly hysterical little giggle, but he did open his eyes and turn slowly to face her. His eyes grew incredibly wide when he laid eyes on her. “Gods,” he breathed, but he was in no way harmed.

Harry looked back at the basilisk. “May I ask your name?”

“I am called Alayssa, Serpent Master.”

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Harry.” A moment of silence passed between them, then Harry ventured. “Is there an exit through the water?”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“Where does it go?”

“There is a pool within the forest. The hunting is good there. I must thank you for not locking my prison once more, Serpent Master.”

Harry smiled tightly. “You’re welcome,” he said for lack of other ideas. He’d certainly not meant to leave her free, but had just kind of assumed when she went back into the statue that she’d be locked back in. There wasn’t really any way to tell her that right after she thanked him though. Especially after she called it a prison. Then again, that was years ago, and he’d not heard about people suddenly disappearing or something. And there was actually a colony of people-eating spiders in there, so a basilisk probably wasn’t all that much more dangerous than the forest had already been. In fact…

“Do you eat the spiders at all?”

“They scream beautifully when I chase them,” she agreed quite emphatically. “I like them the best. The horse men attack me if I go too close to their villages.”

Harry winced. The centaurs could be dicks, but they didn’t deserve to be basilisk food. “Yeah, try to avoid them. If they start going missing, they will ask the headmaster for help, and he might bring others to hunt you. Same if humans start to die in there.”

“I will be careful, Serpent Master,” she promised, and Harry got the feeling that she thought he was only worried about her in this equation and was maybe touched by it. Harry didn’t see any point in challenging that.

“All right, then,” he nodded.

“If you’ve no need of me, Serpent Master, I wish to rest.”

“Of course,” Harry said quickly, drawing Blaise from in front of the statue so that she could stretch herself up to reenter the mouth.

“By all the Gods, Harry,” Blaise breathed when the basilisk’s tail was well out of sight.

“All right?” Harry asked warily.

Blaise’s incredulity did not fade. “All right? I don’t even… You’ve no idea how incredible you are, do you?”

“Er…” Before Harry could figure out how to respond to that, Blaise had firmly seized his head and fitted their mouths together, so Harry just hummed his approval.

Blaise was not content with the chaste kiss, however, pressing his tongue into Harry’s mouth and exploring with great intent. Harry could do little more than try to respond with equal fervor. He certainly had no complaints.

They didn’t linger much longer before they had to return to the school above lest they miss lunch. When they reached the pipe, Harry cast a lightening charm on Blaise, then mild sticking charms on his hands and knees and urged him to start the trek upwards. He grimaced, but didn’t complain. Harry used the sticking charms, but didn’t bother with the lightening for himself. He was sure he could have stuck Blaise to his back and crawled them both up the tunnel without the weight bothering him. Nothing much really felt heavy to him anymore, though he was becoming increasingly adept at correctly judging his strength for delicate things, like quills.

When they reached the top, Harry heard voices in the bathroom and realized that he’d left the sink open on the way down. Wincing and hoping they’d not been discovered, Harry all but threw himself up into the bathroom, relieved when he realized that Blaise was only speaking with Myrtle.

The moment she set eyes on him, the ghost squeaked fearfully and vanished through the floor.

Harry blinked a moment, then shrugged. He hadn’t seen her since her “peeping Tom” moment in the prefect’s bathroom last year when his magic had forcefully banished her. Apparently, she hadn’t forgotten that. He honestly wasn’t sad to not have to deal with her crush anymore.

“What was that?” Blaise asked warily.

Harry shrugged. “She was spying on me in the bath last year. I, er… chased her away a little aggressively. I guess she’d not taking any chances now.”

“How in Merlin’s name do you scare a ghost?”

Harry felt his face heat a bit with a blush. “Not totally sure, but I’m not going to argue with success.”

Blaise gave him a small, bemused smile, then caught Harry’s hand and lifted their joined hands to press a kiss to Harry’s knuckles.

Harry felt his face heat a bit despite himself, but he grinned and squeezed his boyfriend’s hand as they started toward the Great Hall.

Chapter Text

Rebellion

The second Monday of term, Umbridge was appointed High Inquisitor by the Wizengamot, and she began inspecting classes in addition to teaching her own. Harry supposed she must have a time turner. If Hermione had been issued one to take extra classes, he couldn’t imagine why a Ministry enforcer wouldn’t be granted one to essentially work two jobs in the school at once.

“She was inspecting Divination,” Ron reported when he met up with Harry and Hermione before defense that afternoon. “Trelawney predicted that Umbridge was in grave danger. I really hope she was right.”

Harry huffed a laugh even as Hermione half-heartedly scolded Ron for the comment. “I don’t know, Hermione. I think I have to agree with Ron, here.”

She rolled her eyes, but then they were arriving at the dreaded Defense classroom. Harry let Hermione and Ron enter first while he took a deep breath and took a firm hold of his magic. It really hated Umbridge, and he dreaded what it might do if he didn’t keep a tight rein on it. Well, honestly he doubted that it would do anything he would find unpleasant, but the consequences were another matter. At fifteen now, accidental magic wasn’t much of a defense in any situation that wasn’t acutely life-threatening.

With a deep breath, Harry stepped into the room.

He might have made it through the class if he’d been allowed to just read – or pretend to read – the chapter in silence. But Hermione had to make a fuss, raising her hand and commenting that she’d already read the whole book and proving it by correctly answering Umbridge’s random question about chapter fifteen. Then Hermione had to assert her opinion as it differed from the author’s. Apparently Slinkhard believed that counterjinxes were actually just jinxes, seeming to indicate that neither should be used. Then Umbridge took five points from Gryffindor.

“Why have I lost points, Professor?” Hermione asked with admirable calm and poise.

“For disrupting my class with pointless interruptions,” Umbridge replied smoothly. “I am here to teach you using a Ministry-approved method that does not include inviting students to give their opinions on matters-”

And really, the snort just slipped out.

She stopped talking abruptly and turned her falsely sweet smile on Harry, “Do you disagree, Mr. Potter.”

Harry was unfortunately sure that withholding comment or – Heaven forbid – placating the woman would have been straining enough that his magic would have slipped his hold, so he commented as calmly as he could manage, “Not exactly, Professor. I just find it telling that the Ministry is so determined to ensure its citizens are incapable of defending themselves.”

“We’ve been over your need to cause hysteria, Mr. Potter,” she simpered at him, “but it’s clear the lesson didn’t sink in. Another week of detentions is in order, I think.”

Beneath the desk, Harry clenched his fists as hard as he could as he fought against his magic’s attempt to lash out at her. Still, the sconces on the walls all flared dramatically for several seconds before he could pull it back under control and there was a faint, lingering scent of sulfur in the air.

Hermione looked at him with wide eyes, but Umbridge seemed only confused, apparently not connecting it to Harry at all. Harry just turned his face toward his textbook and tried to remember to turn the page periodically for the rest of the class as his magic gradually settled down to a testy simmer.

As though the detentions themselves were not bad enough, McGonagall approached him at breakfast the following morning to scold him for having gotten them and to take points from Gryffindor since the detentions apparently weren’t having any effect on him.

Harry just stared at the floor as she berated him, concentrating on his breathing and keeping his magic calm as he silently moved McGonagall fully into the category of enemy in his mind. She was, essentially, taking Umbridge’s side in this without even giving him a chance to plead his case.

“Do you understand me, Potter?” she concluded when she’d finished berating him for not getting a better grip on his temper lest he end up in serious trouble.

“Perfectly, Professor,” he replied coolly.

And that seemed to be enough for she turned and strode toward the staff table.

Harry very deliberately sat down on the bench next to Ron, but when the redhead tried to commiserate with him for the rotten treatment, Harry just held up a hand and sat in silence as he tried to keep his magic calm. He wasn’t sure if his temper was getting worse or his magic more willful, but this was becoming concerningly difficult.

And then, because his day really could get worse, apparently, Umbridge was inspecting transfiguration immediately after breakfast. Thankfully, the awful woman mostly remained silent through the lesson after McGonagall snapped at her, though Harry found his irritation with McGonagall grew when she let her temper loose on the foul woman more blatantly than he had for this latest week of detentions and no worse than he had to get the first.

Part of him would have liked nothing more than to stay after class to urge McGonagall to get a better grip on herself lest she wind up in real trouble, but he knew the satisfaction would not have been worth the point loss and probably detentions she’d give him.

Also, Umbridge approached her desk as they were leaving, and Harry wasn’t going to spend any more time in her presence than absolutely necessary.

And if all of that were not bad enough, Umbridge then turned up at the Care of Magical Creatures Class. She made it very clear from her questions that she was preparing a case against Hagrid in case he came back. And, naturally, Malfoy and his little flunkies happily commented on Malfoy’s injury via hippogriff in their third year.

Thankfully, Blaise shared that class with them, and he’d wrapped an arm around Harry’s waist when he’d started to tense, and it had done a remarkable job calming his magic.

Now if only he could take Blaise with him wherever he went, he might have a viable solution to his unruly magic.

“Are you all right?” Blaise asked softly as they started back toward the castle after class. Hermione and Ron had gone on ahead to give him some time with Blaise, Harry was sure.

Harry shook his head and took a deep breath, “Well, I haven’t snapped and murdered her yet,” he said darkly.

Blaise huffed a small laugh, obviously unaware of how literally Harry was speaking. “Yes, try not to do that. Not to say that it wouldn’t be a public service, but I doubt you could convince the Wizengamot of that just now. You’re not terribly popular in those circles at the moment.”

“So you’re saying I should wait to murder people until I have more friends in high places?”

Blaise gave him a cheeky grin, “We’ll make a Slytherin of you yet!”

Harry shook his head, but he did feel a lot better.

That feeling, of course, did not survive his detention that evening, by which point he wanted to murder the foul woman again. Because Hogwarts had never been perfect, but it had been his escape from the Dursleys. His reprieve. And Umbridge was systematically destroying that.

It was nearly midnight by the time he made it back up to his dorm, which really shouldn’t be allowed. To keep him so long past curfew. Not that he was going to bother going to McGonagall about it. She’d made it clear which side she was on.

He was surprised, on entering the common room, to find Ron and Hermione had waited up for him.

“All right, mate?” Ron asked as Harry collapsed on the sofa in front of the fire.

“Just tired,” Harry sighed. To be honest, he was exhausted. His magic hated that woman so much at this point that even being in her presence was a struggle to keep it from affecting his surroundings. Then she started speaking and it was like holding the leash of a brassed off English mastiff. He could do it, but it was a constant struggle and a moment of inattention was all it took for it to slip enough to effect the fires in the room or suddenly drop the temperature. At least he was pretty sure that Umbridge hadn’t the slightest suspicion that he was responsible for that. She probably suspected the house-elves, given how xenophobic she was.

“We’ve got to do something about her,” Hermione proclaimed.

“I suggested poison,” Ron put in proudly.

Harry pursed his lips, because poison did have merit. The difficulty would be getting it to her without implicating themselves…

“No, I mean something about what a dreadful teacher she is, and how we’re not going to learn any defense from her at all,” Hermione interrupted Harry’s murderous plotting.

“Yeah, but what can we do?” Ron challenged. “It’s too late, isn’t it? She’s got the job. She’s here to stay. Fudge’ll make sure of that.”

“Well,” Hermione said tentatively, “You know, I was thinking today…” and she shot a nervous look at Harry. “I was thinking that maybe the time’s come that we should just… do it ourselves.”

“Do what?” Harry asked cautiously.

“Learn Defense ourselves.”

“Come off it, Hermione. You want us to do extra work? With all the homework they’re piling on us already this year?” Ron protested.

“But this is much more important that homework!” Hermione snapped.

Harry and Ron both stared at her in disbelief. Because there were obviously many things more important than homework. Most things, Harry would say. But he hadn’t thought Hermione would ever suggest such a thing.

“It’s about preparing ourselves,” Hermione said impatiently. “About making sure we can really defend ourselves. If we don’t learn anything for a whole year…”

“We can’t do much by ourselves,” Ron said, but he sounded defeated rather than dismissive. “I mean, we can go and look up jinxes in the library and try to practice them, I suppose…”

“No, I agree, we’ve gone past the stage where we can just learn things out of books,” Hermione interrupted. “We need a teacher. A proper one, who can show us how to use the spells and correct us if we’re going wrong.”

“Well, yes, Hermione. That’s what we’re missing,” Harry frowned at her statement of the very obvious.

“Oh, Harry. I mean you.”

He blinked at her. “Me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she insisted. “You’re easily the best in our year at Defense.”

“That’s not true!” Harry defended himself. “You’ve beat me on plenty of tests!”

“But never at practicals,” she challenged.

“That doesn’t mean I could teach it though,” he said firmly. He knew perfectly well that his success owed more to the strength of his magic than any amount of skill. He couldn’t very well teach anyone to just put more magic into it until it did what they wanted.

“Can’t we just try?” Hermione asked. “Please, Harry.”

“Fine,” Harry sighed. “If I can find a second between homework and detentions, we’ll give it a try.”

Hermione bounced excitedly at his acquiescence and Harry just grimaced at her and forced himself to his feet. “I’m going to bed,” he announced and made directly for the stairs. He heard Ron and Hermione whispering, and he could only shake his head. He honestly had no idea if he had any hope of teaching either of them, but whatever. If he was truly terrible, they’d give up the idea soon enough.

There wasn't much time over that week to work on any defense thanks to Harry’s ridiculously long detentions writing the same bullshit line over and over again while he struggled to keep his magic from lashing out at the vile woman.

Thus it wasn't until that weekend that they really got anything done, and Harry insisted on including Blaise if they were doing this. Ron had just sighed a bit resignedly, but Hermione had been happy with his inclusion. Thus they ended up in a vacant classroom on Saturday afternoon, the door locked and silenced to ensure their privacy.

"Okay," Harry said when they were all looking at him. "I'm not a teacher, so I have no idea what you all expect me to do. Maybe just cast spells that you have trouble with, and I'll see if I can correct you?"

"That sounds like a great place to start, Harry," Hermione said approvingly,

Harry sighed at her managing, but everyone soon picked a spell they found difficult, and Harry watched each of them as they cast the spell, studying their technique as well as the magic he could feel associated with it. To his surprise, he found that he was able to figure it out with a little observation. It wasn't so much about knowing all the theory just perfectly as he'd feared. It had, in fact, a lot more to do with the magic he could feel. He could tell whether the spell was struggling to form as it passed through the wand due to incorrect wand movements or if it was struggling elsewhere due to incantation or insufficient intent. It took a bit of observing with different spells, but the more he studied the three of them casting, the more he began to understand what he was seeing and the easier it became the next time.

If the wand movements were too big, for example, the spells tended to try to fill a greater area or flare out more. If they were too small, they became too narrow or condensed. If they were too imprecise, the magic tended to just sputter and fail as it left the wand. Incantations were more complicated, he suspected because they weren’t strictly necessary, at least not aloud. It had more to do with what was going on in a person's mind than just their vocalizations, which made it more difficult to categorize, but he was getting the hang of it.

"That was really incredible, Harry!" Hermione gushed as they packed up to head for lunch. "I mean, I didn't doubt that you could do it, but you were able to help so much quicker than I thought, and you explained it so well! We're going to be able to learn so much this way! I can’t believe that I didn’t know you were magically sensitive!"

Harry stopped what he was doing to look at her at that. “What do you mean?”

Hermione blinked at him incredulously, “Harry, did you not even realize that everyone can’t do that? Sense magic, I mean? Of course we can feel our own as we cast to some extent, but we can’t feel other people’s magic. Not, at least, without a great deal of study into the discipline.”

Harry swallowed and began to wonder if he’d given away far too much.

“But, of course, I should have guessed you would be. It’s terribly common among very powerful magicals. Almost universal, really, I think. But you have to be really powerful. Like once in a generation or less kind of powerful, but I think everyone knows you fit that bill. I mean, even people who don’t know you know that you’re the Boy-Who-Lived and that would be enough to guess.”

Harry calmed as Hermione spoke. It didn’t sound like it was anything specific to his heritage, but rather to his power level, which people wouldn’t find alarming. Dumbledore was that powerful, after all, and people loved him.

"Do you mind giving us a few minutes alone?" Blaise inquired before Hermione could gush anymore.

"Oh, sure! We'll see you at lunch, Harry," and she had the temerity to wink at Harry before leaving.

Harry just shook his head after her, wondering a bit as to what Blaise wanted to talk about. When the door closed behind his friends, he turned to regard Blaise only to stiffen in surprise to find him quite close and moving closer. Before he could wonder at what was going on, Blaise's large hands closed around each side of his face and drew him into a very intent kiss.

Harry very quickly got with that program, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend even as his magic wrapped itself completely around him. It went on for several minutes before Blaise finally drew back far enough to press his forehead to Harry’s as they both caught their breath.

"Er..." Harry ventured. "What was that for?"

Blaise shook his head a little, then pulled back enough to meet Harry's eyes, "You have no fucking clue how hot you are, do you?"

Harry blinked in surprise because... no. That's not a descriptor he'd ever attributed to himself. "Er... thank you?" he said uncertainly.

Blaise huffed in amusement before placing one more chaste kiss on his lips, then releasing Harry in favor of collecting his bag. "We'd best get to lunch before we're too late."

"Right," Harry agreed, moving toward his own bag. "Yeah." He wasn't entirely sure what he'd done to deserve that, but he hoped that he managed to do it again soon.

Meeting

"Harry, I really think that we need to do more than just practice Defense together," Hermione said firmly after their second successful weekend of it.

Harry sighed, somehow not surprised that Hermione had more ideas for this. "What do you mean?" he asked warily.

"Well, it occurs to me that we're not the only ones that aren't learning anything this year," she said firmly.

Harry tipped his head thoughtfully. "You think we should bring in more people? Like who?"

"Anyone who's interested!" Hermione said quickly, clearly encouraged by his lack of outright refusal. "It could be like a defense club. We'll just teach each other."

"Umbridge wouldn't like that," Harry said thoughtfully.

"Oh, hang her!" Hermione said.

Harry laughed, "I didn't mean that as discouragement, Hermione. In fact, I think it's an excellent reason to do this." Because maybe if he was defying her behind her back, he'd be able to hold his tongue to her face.

"Really?" Hermione asked excitedly. "Oh, Harry, that's wonderful! It really is so important that everyone learns defense. Especially right now with Voldemort being back. So we'll have to spread the word. Get a meeting together with everyone who's interested to discuss the particulars..."

"Discretely," Harry encouraged even though he didn't have much hope that it would be possible to entirely prevent Umbridge from learning of it. Not if they were going to include a lot of people. If they could get through the first meeting, he thought, they could enforce some secrecy measures.

Hermione began monologuing about lesson plans while Harry sat down in front of the fire and mused on security.

It ended up nearly a week later when the initial meeting was held. Hermione had thought to do it off school grounds to keep it further from Umbridge, but Harry had insisted on an environment that they could control and nowhere in Hogsmeade fit that bill. So instead, they ended up in one of many unused classrooms in the school, this one on the second floor, tucked back at the end of a corridor that hadn't been used for anything as long as Harry had been at the school.

Luckily, Harry had quite a few books on warding at this point, so he handled security for the meeting. The wards would have been stronger if he'd inscribed them with blood, but he wasn't sure if the Hogwarts wards wouldn't alert the headmaster to something like that. Instead, he just used a simple, ink-based potion that would carry the magic better than plain ink. He placed the runes around the outside edge of the door frame on the inside of the room, ensuring they would affect everyone who entered the room.

They'd used the last week to get the word around, stressing the importance of it remaining hidden from Umbridge. Since basically everyone hated her, that wasn't too controversial a request. The only people who seemed to like the woman were a small selection of Slytherins like Malfoy, whom she treated like Petunia treated Dudley because their parents were important in the ministry. Ron had suggested that they avoid spreading the news to Slytherin entirely beyond Blaise, but Harry had vetoed the idea. If they were inviting everyone else, then they were inviting Slytherins. If anything, a lot of them were even closer to the mess with Voldemort due to familial sympathizers and they needed the instruction more.

"Some of them are going to be Death Eaters, though," Ron had said grimly. "You know that, right? They'll use these lessons to hurt people."

"I know," Harry agreed, "but if we start treating them like they're already signed on, then we're just engraving the invitations, aren't we? At least some of them might choose to take the Mark only if they feel like they've no other option. We should at least give them a chance to choose differently."

And Ron had groaned dramatically in dismay, but he hadn't tried to argue his point any further.

Harry was honestly quite impressed by how hard Ron was obviously trying to be a better friend. He supposed that he'd have to mention it to him at some point, but he didn't want to embarrass him. Maybe in their dorm if they were alone.

Despite insisting on inviting people from every house and despite having okayed students third year and up when they were spreading the word, Harry wasn't prepared for just how many people showed up. There were dozens. He really wasn't sure how his teaching strategy was going to work with so many people, but he supposed some of them were probably just there out of curiosity All of these people wouldn’t sign up and of those who did sign up, a bunch would probably stop coming after the first meeting or so. It wasn't as bad as it looked, he promised himself as the number continued to swell as the hour drew near.

When it was finally time to start the meeting, Harry nodded to Ron, who closed the door, enacting the locking and silencing wards Harry had set on it.

Blaise had brought Nott and Tracy, Harry noted, then he noticed seven or eight other Slytherins. About half of them looked to be younger and the other half older. Harry really hoped that they were all just here to learn and weren't planning to make any trouble. He did recognize a couple of them from the Slytherin Quidditch team, but they weren’t smirking mockingly or threateningly at the moment – a first that he remembered.

"Hello," Hermione called to get everyone's attention. She blushed a little when everyone was focused on her, then plowed on. "Well, yes. Thank you all for coming. So Harry and I had the idea that it might be good to put together a group of people who actually wanted to learn Defense. It’s blatantly obvious that Umbridge doesn't want us to learn any actual self-defense, and I think that's a good enough reason to want to learn. And I do mean actual Defensive spells, not just in theory, but for actual real-life situations-"

"I bet you want to pass your Defense OWL too though, right?" Michael Corner cut in.

"Well, yes, of course," Hermione said with some exasperation. "But what I want more than that is to be trained properly in Defense because," and she took a deep breath, "because Lord Voldemort is back."

There was some shifting and muttering at this pronouncement and a lot of people looked at Harry.

Harry glanced around, but found himself focusing on the Slytherins. It probably shouldn't have surprised him that the group who looked the least skeptical of that claim were the Slytherins. They must know people whose fathers had been at Voldemort's little rebirthing party.

"So that's the plan," Hermione concluded. "If you're interested in joining, you can sign your name to the parchment at the front-"

"Is there any point in NEWT students signing up?" a sixth or seventh year Ravenclaw interrupted to ask, but she addressed the question to Harry rather than Hermione. "Can you really teach us anything?"

Harry's magic bristled a bit at suddenly being put on the spot, but he took a subtle breath and half a step forward. "Sure. How about a demonstration? Is there any spell that you haven't quite got down yet? That you're trying, but it's just not coming off right?"

She blushed a little and looked around, then straightened her spine and stepped toward the front. "Yeah. You can teach me to do it better? Any spell?"

"Let's find out," Harry shrugged. "Give it a try."

She eyed him a moment, then took a deep breath as she drew her wand. Her eyes slipped closed a moment, then she incanted firmly, "Expecto Patronum!"

It wasn't a spell that Harry knew, which just figured, but he paid close attention to her magic as she cast. The magic seemed weak and muddled from the very start. The magic itself felt very Light – enough that it grated a bit against his own magic. He hadn't studied much Light magic as it just made him a touch uncomfortable, but he knew enough to know that a spell that Light would require a positive emotion as part of the intent of the casting.

"Your concentration isn't good enough," he pronounced as the spell produced only a small cloud of fog that gave off a vaguely happy feeling.

"What?" she demanded.

"The spell isn't getting enough emotion. Happiness, yeah?"

"Do you even know what spell that is?"

"No," Harry dismissed. "Not really."

She stared a moment, then indignantly demanded, "You're magically sensitive?!"

"Sure," Harry shrugged as though it was the most normal thing in the world. As though he’d not just realized what it was himself.

She just stared.

"Oh, come off it, Sil," another upper year Ravenclaw chided. "He's Harry Potter. Are you really surprised?"

"Do you know how rare magic sensitivity is?" she countered.

"Almost as rare as extremely powerful wizards," one of the upper year Slytherins scolded irritably. Lucian Bole, Harry thought his name was. A beater. "Were you expecting anything else from Potter?"

She scowled at him, but retook her place next to the other upper year Ravenclaws.

"Yes," Hermione said after a moment of silence. "So, Harry can help you to figure out what you're doing wrong when you're casting. We will be learning defensive spells that will be new to some of you and not to others. Harry will help to make sure that everyone is able to cast them. Once you've got them down, you can move on to other spells, so everyone should have something to work on, no matter what year you're in. As I said, if you want to participate, the sign-up parchment is at the front of the room. If you don't sign up now, you can still attend a meeting later, but you will be required to sign before taking part."

A third year near the front moved toward the parchment and Harry spoke up.

"Word of warning. This room has been warded for secrecy. No one here will be able to speak about this meeting outside these wards. The sign-up parchment has also been warded to ensure your discretion. I can't imagine that Umbridge will be pleased that any of us might actually learn to defend ourselves, so this group will need to remain confidential. If you're not okay with that, then you're free to leave."

"You spelled us without our permission?" a younger Hufflepuff complained.

"Yes," Harry said without contrition.

Three or four people did choose that moment to turn and make their way out. Harry was slightly disappointed that it wasn't more. Ron opened the door for those who wanted to leave since he was keyed into the wards.

The Slytherin, Bole, was the first to step forward, and he commented as he signed his name, "You know, I wasn't going to sign up." He paused and signed his name with a flourish before turning to face Harry, "But you surprised me, Potter. This might actually work." Then he turned and handed to quill off to another Slytherin about his age.

And then everyone started moving, and it became a slow but steady procession of people stepping up to and signing the parchment,

Harry couldn't believe how many of them signed up and he held out hope that some might change their minds after the first meeting or two either didn't help them enough or proved to take up too much of their time.

When everyone that was going to sign had done so – and Harry thought it might have actually been everyone left in the room, but he wasn't sure – Hermione spoke up again. "So we're going to hold the first meeting next Sunday right after lunch. We're not totally decided on a location yet, but we'll pass word around no later than Saturday."

And Ron opened the door and poked his head out to look around, then stepped back and swung the door wide for everyone to begin filing out.

"Well, that was rather intense," Hermione spoke up when it was down to just the three Gryffindors plus Blaise.

Blaise coiled an arm around Harry and pulled him close – a gesture Harry was quickly coming to adore – as he commented, "It was interesting. Particularly the security. You lot really impressed the Slytherins with that. In fact, I think you'll likely get a few more looking to sign up at the first meeting. Some of them didn't see the point in coming because they thought you'd be shut down within a week.”

Ron snorted derisively and Hermione spoke up quickly, probably worried Ron was about to say something undiplomatic, “Well, that’s understandable. Slytherins are big on self-preservation and there is a lot of risk in going against Umbridge like this.”

Blaise gave a small nod as his thumb lightly rubbed against Harry’s side, “We’re also ambitious. None of us want to spend a whole year learning nothing in Defense, both for our exam scores and for more practical reasons.”

“Well, I shan’t hold my breath for Malfoy joining us,” Harry laughed lightly.

“No,” Blaise grinned in return. “I’m sure he’d rather fail every single OWL than take lessons from you.”

“I’m pretty okay with that,” Harry said.

Chapter Text

Hogsmeade

"So where do you want to go?" Harry inquired as they neared Hogsmeade.

Blaise licked his lips as he considered the question. He had a few places that he would like to go, certainly. Places that he'd not dared to take Harry last year. But he knew Harry better now. And he'd seen him reading about blood wards quite casually. It was possible that he'd not realized the subject was Dark, but Blaise rather doubted it. Harry wasn't dim by any means.

"I wouldn't mind checking out a junk shop or two if you're up to it," he said.

Harry nodded readily. "Sure. Sounds like fun."

So Blaise led Harry off the high street and to one of the Darker junk shops his mum liked to visit. Knowing for certain now that Harry was not only magically sensitive, but quite aware of his ability, Blaise was sure that he'd notice the magic of the wards on the place, though he wasn't certain if he'd recognize them as Dark. So he was watching Harry carefully as they entered the shop and the reaction wasn't overly blatant, but as he was waiting for it, he did notice. He was, in fact, pretty sure that Harry's shoulders actually relaxed as they stepped inside.

His mind spun with the implications of that. Could Harry's magic actually be on the Darker side? It seemed impossible, though he had to admit that that had a lot more to do with his preconceptions about the Boy-Who-Lived than with his familiarity with Harry.

He continued to watch Harry as they looked around the shop. There were a number of undoubtedly Dark artifacts lying around the place not even being subtle, but Harry didn't seem bothered by them. Indeed, he moved to curiously examine a talisman of shrunken human skulls as though it was nothing but fascinating,

"What is it?" Blaise inquired when Harry had stared at the talisman a little too long to ignore.

Harry glanced at him and smiled before looking at the talisman again. "Just interesting. The skulls are conquered foes. Trophies claimed in victory. I've read about this sort of thing, but I've never seen one."

"How do you know they're conquered foes?" Blaise posed, trying not to show too blatantly that he'd maybe, just a little bit, fallen in love. Because Harry read about necromancy?

Harry blushed a little and he shrugged, "Just feels like it."

Gods, he was so adorable. He was actually bashful about his enormous magical power and the magical sensitivity it gave him. "Huh. Brilliant," he said as casually as he could manage, hoping to put Harry more at ease.

They spent the morning wandering around a few such shops before their growing hunger led them to a restaurant he'd visited with his mum in the past.

The sign over the door read simply, "Cuisine."

Inside, the hostess took them to a booth, so Blaise slid into the same side as Harry, who smiled at the gesture and left almost no space between them. Harry’s attention was diverted when their menus were placed in front of them.

"This whole thing is the menu?" Harry asked, flipping through the dozen pages.

"They offer a selection from various countries around the world," Blaise explained. "The first half is European countries. The second half is elsewhere in the world."

"Oh," Harry breathed, apparently intrigued. "I don't even know where to start. If it's not served at Hogwarts, odds are good I've never tried it."

Blaise stared in surprise a moment before remembering that his poor boyfriend was raised by savages. Did muggles have no wanderlust in their tastes? "Well, then," Blaise decided, "We're coming here every Hogsmeade weekend from now on."

And Harry turned that beaming smile on him that always made him feel like some kind of hero from legend stepped right out of a story book. He was glad his blushes didn't tend to show as he returned Harry's smile, then set about questioning Harry on his tastes to find him something he'd like.

They settled on Asian food. Blaise got a Vietnamese beef pho – a kind of noodle soup. Harry got orange chicken and fried rice. Then they shared so that Harry could try both. Harry professed to like them both enough that he'd definitely get them again sometime and Blaise felt strangely accomplished for having given Harry such a small thing as this new experience with foods he liked.

Blaise paid for them both, and then they wandered a bit before Blaise suggested a bookshop, to which Harry assented readily enough. He might not have felt confident enough this morning to take Harry to this shop as it catered rather strongly toward Darker subjects, but after Harry's casual mention of reading about necromancy, Blaise figured it was safe. The shop was tucked under a rather ordinary grocer. One had to go around the back to find the discrete basement entrance, where a subtle, carved wooden sign on the left side of the door read "Tenebrae".

By the time they'd descended the stairs and stepped inside, Harry was grinning and looking around with real interest.

They spent a couple of hours in the shop, browsing and doing a bit of reading. Harry ended up purchasing three new books that he didn’t try to conceal from Blaise, so he was able to see that they were about warding possessions, the magic of Samhain, and familial magic, which was a form of blood magic.

Blaise couldn’t help but feel rather satisfied at how open Harry was being with him about these things. He knew that Harry was a person who valued secrets and the fact that he’d never heard so much as a hint of Harry showing any interest in the Dark proved that he considered this a secret. Blaise purchased his own book about ritual magic and they left the shop.

As soon as they were outside, Harry found a discrete place to take off his wrist cuff and transfer his new books into it. Blaise just placed his book in an expanded pocket.

It was beginning to get late, so they began to meander back toward the castle, enjoying the warm fall day and taking their time.

Shortly after they entered the Hogwarts grounds, Harry looked up sharply and Blaise followed his gaze in time to see a snowy owl swoop out of the sky and alight on Harry's raised arm. It wasn't an overly smooth landing, and Harry had to use his other hand to steady her.

"Is she okay?" Blaise asked cautiously as Harry moved them off the main path, getting a little distance from the trickle of other students making their way back toward the castle.

"No," Harry said, his voice tight. "What on Earth happened to you, girl?" he questioned as he examined her.

As though in response, the owl gingerly extended one wing just a little.

"Yes, I see," Harry said softly and lifted his free hand to touch her wing with the gentlest touch. "How did this happen?"

"She's carrying a letter," Blaise observed the scroll tied to her leg. He glanced around, but they didn't seem to be drawing attention from the few students in sight. "Do you suppose someone tried to read it?"

Harry nodded slowly, "I can think of at least one likely candidate." Harry looked coldly furious and growing more so as he considered how this had happened. "What did she do to you, girl?" he almost whispered.

Blaise flinched slightly as small flock of birds suddenly look flight from a nearby tree, and he realized as he looked around that the afternoon seemed to have darkened somewhat abruptly. His breath caught as he felt a faint tremor under his feet and the leaves of the nearest tree trembled audibly as several more small animals suddenly took flight.

Feeling somewhat alarmed, Blaise looked to Harry to see if he'd noticed, but Harry was entirely oblivious in his anger, and there was the hint of flickering flames within his pupils once more.

Blaise stopped breathing entirely as it occurred to him that all of this was Harry's doing. This was his magic making his anger felt in the world. Dear Morgana, how powerful was his boyfriend?

Then Hedwig made a faint sound, perhaps admonishing if Blaise was particularly fanciful in his interpretation.

And the world slowly righted itself as Harry blinked, then took a couple of deep breaths, as though to calm himself. He lifted his free hand again and ran it down her wing and this time, Blaise felt a sudden tension in the air for a moment before the owl stretched her wing, then tucked it back into her side as though it no longer pained her.

Blaise did his best to contain his astonishment, because had Harry just healed his owl without word or even spell? Blaise hadn't ever heard even the Dark Lord spoken of as this powerful.

As the owl took flight once more, now as smooth as can be, Blaise was hit all over again by how fortunate he was to have thrown that Yule Ball invitation at Potter that day. He'd not expected an acceptance. It had almost been a joke, though he'd not been disappointed by the reply he'd gotten.

"Are you okay?" he asked Harry as he watched the owl fly toward the owlery.

Harry shook his head minutely, his fist clenching until his knuckles whitened while his other hand tucked the letter into a pocket. "She hurt Hedwig," he said with such indignation it might have been funny in other circumstances. "She is a vile woman. She deserves-" he cut himself off suddenly and shook his head sharply. "Never mind. Come on. Let's get back."

Blaise paced Harry as they returned to the path and continued the trek back to the school. After a few moments, he reached out and cautiously slid his hand into Harry's, who looked momentarily surprised, and then grateful as he returned the grip and squeezed lightly.

It was a heady feeling to know how powerful Harry was, and to feel totally safe with him. Because Harry cared about him.

In that moment, Blaise made a decision. He was not going to let Harry get away from him. As soon as he left Harry's side, he had a letter to write and send to his mother.

Halloween 

After Hedwig was hurt, Harry found a ward in his new book for warding possessions. Hedwig wasn't quite that, of course, but he did find a ward that would work. He even snuck out to the Shrieking Shack to create the ward in order to ensure the headmaster wouldn’t be alerted by the school wards. On a small strip of leather, he carefully inscribed the runes in his own blood, then chanted a long incantation that burned them right into the leather as it activated the ward.

Once he tied this to Hedwig's leg, anyone touching her with malign intentions would receive a shock they would not soon forget. He'd been half tempted to use a ward that would have caused permanent damage – that vile toad deserved to lose every finger she laid on Hedwig, after all – but he'd figured the odds of that blowing up in his face were too high.

The first meeting of the new defense group – officially labeled the Defense Association – went well. There were as many people as he'd feared, and Blaise's prediction about more Slytherins showing up afterward had proved correct. Apparently, the fact that no one could talk about it was a selling point for Slytherins. Shouldn't have been a surprise, really.

Despite the large numbers though, Harry had found it decently manageable. His magic had seemed rather keen on the challenge, actually. Over the few meetings they'd had so far, his magic had seemed to adapt to the challenge more all the time. Even with so many people practicing their magic in the room at the same time, his magic was getting better and better at analyzing and diagnosing problems even across the room. He'd also learned that he could identify the twins playing a prank across the room as his magic warned him when they started deliberately causing trouble.

Thankfully, Dobby had been able to recommend an ideal location for the meetings. The room had a magic about it that allowed it to be just the size and layout they needed, stocked with just the supplies that would make everything go more smoothly.

It even had the ability to provide doors that opened to different parts of the castle, so the students could leave the room by different routes, each close to their own common rooms. Unfortunately, they did have to enter through the main door, but it was still very helpful for them to leave from different locations. He'd also insisted the disillusionment spell be the first that everyone learned together. Another assurance that they could effectively escape should it become necessary.

As Halloween drew near, Harry found himself increasingly restless. Each Halloween since he'd started Hogwarts had been rather more intense than the last and this year proved to be no exception.

Harry was unable to sleep at all the night leading into Halloween morning. He just couldn't seem to get tired. His whole body felt awash with energy, with magic. He ended up sneaking out to the Room of Requirement to just cast magically demanding spells at dummies, trying to work out some of the excess energy.

Harry worried, if this continued to get worse, what next Halloween or the one after that would bring. Still, there was no use in borrowing trouble. Next year would be time enough to worry about next year. For now, he needed to focus on getting through this one.

The sounds of Hell had started even before midnight, though he was growing somewhat alarmingly accustomed to them by the time other people started rising for the day. He tried to imagine living in Hell, these sounds a constant background to every day and night. Tortured screams and sadistic laughter while trying to fall asleep...

Which made him wonder if people in Hell slept. Would he sleep in Hell?

With the distracting noises and the more distracting thoughts engendered by the noises combined with the way his magic seemed to be rushing through his veins at twice the speed of his blood, Harry was... a bit off all day.

"Are you okay?" Blaise asked worriedly when Harry rather vehemently rejected his suggestion that they go to the library.

Harry clenched and unclenched his fist a few times, doing his best to stand still. They'd just finished their last class and after a whole day of sitting in classes, he was ready to come apart at the seams. "Yeah. Of course."

"He's always like this on Halloween," Hermione offered with some amusement.

Blaise lifted a curious eyebrow at Harry, who shrugged and nodded, because it was true enough. He hadn't been this wired back in first or second year, but he had been very twitchy, still getting used to the things he could hear that no one else could.

"O-kay," Blaise said uncertainly. "Do you want to... I don't know, go to the Room of Requirement?"

"Yes!" Harry said at once.

"Well, I'm going to the library," Hermione said before Harry could rush off. "I want to get started on the Ancient Runes essay, which you should be doing as well, Harry, though I suppose it was too much to hope that you'd do anything productive today."

Harry sent a mild scowl at her, but didn't have the patience to defend himself. Particularly when she was actually right. "See you later, then," he said instead and turned toward the Room of Requirement, pleased when Blaise immediately took up beside him. He didn't really want anyone else around right now anyway. He didn't trust Hermione enough to be showing her what he was probably going to end up doing in the Room of Requirement.

Harry stepped into the Room he'd summoned, and he was pleased to find a long dueling hall, the far end lined with numerous dummies.

Blaise whistled appreciatively at the interior. It wasn't nearly as wide as the room they used for the D.A., but it was longer, the ceiling a towering twenty feet overhead.

Harry smiled at him and willed the room to make them secure against anyone else coming in or sounds getting out. "Sorry, I need to work off a little energy," he admitted. "Give me some space?"

"Sure," Blaise agreed easily and moved to lean against the wall, a touch behind Harry where he'd be safe from any spells he was sending downrange.

Harry took a breath to center himself as he drew his wand and his magic coiled in anticipation. Then, as he'd done that morning when he'd come here alone, Harry began casting at the dummies. He deliberately chose spells that required more energy rather than using the most efficient spells as one would actually want to do in a duel in order to conserve their energy. He overpowered weaker spells rather than using the best one for the job,

And the dummies were swiftly destroyed, one after another, stabbed, slashed, bludgeoned, concussed, lit on fire, frozen and shattered. And because they were in the Room of Requirement, more dummies rose as he was finishing them off and he could just keep going.

He had no idea how long he went, but he was sweaty and winded by the time he stopped, his magic singing joyously at the exertion. His ears rang a bit in the sudden silence.

"Harry?" he heard after a moment and remembered that he wasn't alone.

He turned to regard Blaise, and frowned warily as he realized that he had no idea what that particular expression on his face meant. Before he could start to worry, Blaise was swiftly crossing the distance between them and warm hands cradled his face while hot lips pressed against his own, a wet tongue swiftly invading his mouth in the very best way.

It was so sudden and overwhelming that he didn't realize he was moving until his back hit the wall and then Blaise was pressed firmly against his front while the cool wall framed his back and Harry wrapped his arms around the taller boy and pulled him closer, mindful enough to ensure he wasn't hurting him.

He lost himself in the kiss for a long moment as one of Blaise's hands released his face to slide down over his shoulder, his side, and his hip. That was when Harry's body really began to react. He felt himself start to harden and he wasn't sure if he should be more excited or embarrassed, but by the time that thought passed through his mind, it was replaced by a sudden, unpleasant shock as a bucket of ice water seemed to be upended over his head.

Blaise leapt back with a yelp and Harry cursed coarsely, looking up and around for an explanation only to find nothing. He wasn't even wet, he realized.

"Sorry," Blaise panted.

"Wait, was that you?" Harry asked, confused and then embarrassed as he wondered if Blaise had been trying to calm him down because he'd realized how Harry was reacting.

Blaise shook his head quickly. "No. Sorry. I forgot you wouldn't know. That was my chastity charm at work."

Harry stared a moment and ran those words through his head again, but he was pretty sure he'd heard them right. "Chastity charm?" he demanded incredulously.

Blaise laughed a little helplessly, "Yeah. Sorry. It's a pureblood thing."

"What?" Harry demanded because he was thoroughly confused.

"Er," Blaise said somewhat awkwardly. "Well, you see, marriage vows tend to be a lot stronger and more effective when performed on virgins and then consummated. So pureblood parents tend to use chastity charms to ensure their children don't get carried away at Hogwarts and mess that up."

Harry groaned in despair. "Are you telling me we can't do anything?"

"We can kiss," Blaise said apologetically.

Harry groaned again and sat down on the chair that helpfully appeared behind him as soon as he wanted to sit.

Blaise approached slowly and sat down next to him when the chair turned into a loveseat. "I mean... it's an incentive to get married?" Blaise offered cautiously.

"You purebloods are barmy," Harry said without looking up, though he did lean into Blaise when an arm was placed warily around him.

"Marriages performed between two virgins tend to create bonds strong enough to prevent a lot of minor friction between spouses. It makes for happier marriages even over many decades. There is a good reason for it."

Harry gave up being dramatic about it and sat up to properly lean against Blaise. "Oh, fine. Don't expect me to be happy about it though."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Blaise said softly and he pressed a sweet kiss to Harry's temple.

Harry kind of melted into the contact. He didn't feel worn out after all that casting, but he did feel less wired. Given he'd gone through the same thing that morning, he didn't expect the feeling to last, but it was nice for the moment. Relaxing into Blaise was nice too.

Animagus 

That evening, Harry's restlessness had entirely returned by the time everyone else was sleeping. After pacing the empty common room for half an hour, Harry grabbed his invisibility cloak and ventured out.

He was sure that he was near to completing his animagus transformation and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try his first shift. Surely all of this extra energy could only help, after all. He considered using the Room of Requirement again, but the itch under his skin was demanding that he just get out of doors.

This led him to wandering into the Forbidden Forest late on Halloween night. At least the moon was at about half, so no worry for werewolves for another week.

He no longer much feared the Forbidden Forest. Most creatures that relied on their instincts seemed to give him a wide berth when his magic was feeling testy. Most other creatures that would challenge him – such as acromantula – would flee quickly enough when he started casting. Especially tonight with his magic eager to do some damage.

He did make an effort to avoid both the acromantula colony and the centaur village. That latter he had only a vague idea of where it resided in the forest, but idea enough to avoid it.

He didn't go too far before he came into a small clearing under a particularly large oak. It seemed a good enough place. He took a few minutes to set some basic, short-term wards around the place that would let him know if anything approached.

Then he transfigured a stick into a stand mirror in hopes that he would manage the transformation and want to take a look at himself.

Finally, he settled down on the ground and carefully slipped into the necessary meditation.

He didn't know how long he sat there, but eventually, he felt the animal form he was seeking slip over his impression of what his form should be as a human.

There was a very strange sensation of his body rearranging itself to fit the new form, and he held his concentration carefully until that feeling ceased.

Finally, he opened his eyes. The world around him looked quite strange. He could make out colors just fine, but there was something else. Something more that was difficult to define. He looked at his own body and saw sleek black fur and four canine paws. He felt a surge of excitement at his success and his tail gave an involuntary wag. A huff escaped him in what would have been a laugh were he human.

Carefully, he put his paws under him and stood. It felt more instinctive to use his body in this form than he'd expected. He didn't feel unsteady on his feet. He looked toward the mirror and took a step that way only to stumble. His body knew what to do, but he was overthinking it. Trying to concentrate to move instead of concentrating on getting to where he wanted to be. Trying to adjust his mindset, he attempted again to approach the mirror.

This time, his body obeyed him.

He stopped before the mirror and stared. He was a fearsome-looking dog. Very short black fur. Small, pointed ears. What did they call that? Cropped? Strange that his ears looked like that if it had to be done surgically. Perhaps this breed of dog just had ears like that naturally?

He couldn't guess at the breed, though he was huge and powerfully muscled. He opened his mouth and marveled at the massive teeth. Though his lips had hidden them completely, with his mouth open, they looked quite intimidating. He didn't think it was normal for dogs to have teeth quite this large and sharp. Marge's bulldogs certainly didn't, nor Sirius' animagus form. His eyes remained green, though the color was a little lighter. A little brighter. Rather like the color of the Killing Curse, actually.

He looked around the clearing, appreciating his sight in this form, and it finally occurred to him what was different about it. He could see everything despite the weak moonlight coming through the leaves overhead. In his normal form, he had very good night vision. In fact, it had improved in recent years until he was fairly sure that it was better than a normal human's.

This though... This was an entirely new level. He could see everything.

He was pretty sure normal dogs didn’t have enhanced night vision, which reinforced his supposition that he was a magical form of dog.

When he was done examining his form, he took to walking around the clearing, getting used to moving around in this form and testing out his nose as he tried to identify the multitude of things that he was smelling.

After some time spent in this manner, he became quite suddenly aware of something approaching. A favorable breeze brought him the scents of sulfur and ash and stone. Hell. It smelled of Hell.

By the time it emerged from the bushes, Harry was crouched defensively, teeth bared in warning.

The figure was another dog that looked quite similar to himself, though not quite as large. And rather than green eyes, this dog's eyes burned red-orange, shimmering like hot coals. Despite its fearsome appearance, it didn't attack. It stopped at the sight of Harry and tilted its head curiously.

Harry let out a warning growl and it promptly dropped and rolled onto its back, tilting its head back to look at him.

Harry eased out of his crouch a little, startled by the submissive gesture from the fearsome beast.

It gave a little whine and wagged its tail.

His, Harry mentally corrected as he took a cautious step forward. Definitely a male dog. He took a couple of more steps and sniffed at the dog carefully, but that was definitely Hell that he was smelling.

And then he felt like an idiot because of course it was a Hellhound. Of course he was a Hellhound.

But how and why had it turned up as soon as he'd achieved his form? Had it sensed him somehow? Would other beings from Hell sense him as well?

He scanned his surroundings carefully, listening intently with his enhanced hearing in this form, but he could detect nothing that didn't seem to belong in the nighttime forest.

Then the strange Hellhound rolled back onto its belly.

Harry's attention snapped back to it, and he bared his teeth silently, but the other dog just dropped itself into a playful pose, tail wagging.

He probably should have been more surprised that a damn Hellhound was treating him like a playmate. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth and its tail wagged so hard that its whole butt was wiggling, like the happiest, friendliest dog imaginable. It gave a playful flinch toward him, then hopped back, then forward again, growling lightly.

Harry felt his own muzzle open a bit in what would have been a grin were he human. As much as he thought he should be wary of a random Hellhound turning up out of the blue, its body language was pretty convincing that it was just looking to play. And Harry's own animal instincts wanted to respond in kind.

The dog gave a few more playful lunges and a woof, and Harry finally couldn't take it any longer. He lunged at the Hellhound, who immediately turned and sprinted, leading him a merry chase.

Harry lost himself in the play for quite some time before their game brought them too near an acromantula, which foolishly tried to attack rather than fleeing. The play immediately turned to the thrill of a hunt and Harry and the hound worked together to distract and attack the giant spider. It didn't take long at all the take the thing down.

When assured that it was good and dead, the hound became playful once more, teasing Harry until he gave in and chased it some more.

When the sky began to lighten with the first hints of predawn, Harry figured that he really did have to get back to the castle. He returned to the clearing first. he couldn't just leave a stand mirror there, after all. The hound followed him, and Harry eyed it warily as he concentrated to revert back to his human form. He wasn't sure how the hound would take the shift, but the damn thing might not have noticed for all the reaction it gave.

With a shrug, Harry vanished the mirror, then started walking back toward the castle.

The hound followed.

"Yes, that was fun," Harry admonished, "but it's time to get back to real life. Go on home." He added a shooing motion to make his point extra clear.

The hound just tilted its head at him and wagged its tail.

Harry stared a moment longer, then sighed as he fished his cloak out of his pocket. "Fine, but if you get caught, I'm pretending that I never met you before," he warned. He wasn't entirely sure how much the dog understood, but he suspected that it was at least as smart as Hedwig.

Being the very early hours of the morning, the most determined hall monitors were already abed, the earliest rising teachers not yet out and about, so Harry had no difficulty in getting back up to the common room without running into anyone. He was not surprised when the hound followed him all the way up to his dorm, nor when it draped itself across the foot of his bed.

With a sigh, Harry drew his wand to enlarge the size of his mattress without increasing the footprint of the bed, it was a tricky but useful spell that allowed him more space without taking up more room.

With most of two sleepless nights finally beginning to settle on him as the magical high provided by the thin veil was finally beginning to recede, Harry fell asleep in moments.

He woke a few hours later to a cold nose pressed to his ankle and he flinched back to frown at the hound, who did not appear to have moved during the night. He felt surprisingly refreshed despite the few short hours he had slept.

"You're here to stay, aren't you?" Harry said to the hound even as he observed his magic all but claiming the beast, clearly already getting attached.

The hound just gave its tail a couple of thumbs against the bedspread.

"Mate, you up?" Ron's voice came from outside his curtains a moment before they were pulled back. Ron glanced inside and his eyes skated right over the Hellhound without any notice at all. "Did you make your bed bigger? Think you can do that to mine later? Anyway, we'll miss breakfast if you don't hurry," Ron warned.

"Thanks," Harry said. "Go ahead without me. I'll be down in a minute."

Ron shrugged and left, leaving Harry to consider the hound again.

"Invisible to everyone but me?" he asked curiously.

The hound gave a small huff and dropped his chin onto Harry's leg, gazing at him with those burning coal eyes.

"I hope you like snakes," he decided after a moment. And he rather hoped that Kaa liked dogs. He didn't need the drama if those two got jealous or something. "How's Dante sound for a name?" he posed the hound. "It's from a book about Hell."

The hound wagged his tail in what Harry took for approval.

"Dante it is."

Chapter Text

Thestrals

It wasn't until he got to breakfast that day that Harry realized his senses had not returned to normal after leaving his animagus form. He was still smelling everything and hearing way more clearly and – when he ducked into a loo and used a nox spell – also seeing in the dark almost perfectly.

At this point, he could only roll his eyes at himself. He had absolutely no expectation that the effect would fade. His magic had apparently just decided that it had found something better and taken steps to ensure he kept it that way. He knew that animagi did tend to have sharper senses as a human if their other form did, but it was generally a small improvement, not virtually the same as their other form.

He was just going to have to be careful to remember to act like he couldn't see when he was in the dark with others. And to try to ignore things he smelled or heard that he reasonably should not have. At least the canine instincts that he'd felt while transformed did not seem to have transitioned back with him.

Dante, it turned out, had decided that following Harry absolutely everywhere was essential. Happily, not only did no one else see the damn hound, but they seemed to instinctively move around him without a single one of them realizing that they were unconsciously avoiding a certain area.

Dante also seemed to sense how much Harry loathed Umbridge. While the hound didn’t try to do anything to the foul woman, he did make a habit of spending Harry’s Defense classes lying in the corner and staring at Umbridge with a malign intent that she seemed to feel as she glanced surreptitiously around the room quite frequently and was slightly twitchy.

Harry couldn’t help but be pleased with it, and it did help his magic to stay settled in her class. Though he did worry that the hound may do something difficult to explain if Harry ever really lost his temper with her.

Yet another reason to keep tighter rein on it, he supposed.

The first Quidditch match of the season was just days later. It ended with Gryffindor winning the match and Fred and George both getting kicked off the team for pummeling Malfoy after he started with disparaging comments about their mum. Probably the only reason Ron and Ginny weren't also part of that scuffle was that they hadn't been in hearing range of the comments. Luckily for Angelina. And fortunate for Malfoy as well. Having three Weasleys beating the snot out of him while Ginny threw her nastiest jinxes at him... He'd have been lucky to get out of it with his life. As it was, Harry was pretty sure that Ginny was plotting against the Malfoy heir still. Harry wished her luck, honestly. Malfoy needed to learn to mind his manners before he made an enemy that wouldn't stop with simple assault or schoolyard jinxes.

Hagrid returned that evening with bruises on his face that must have come from one heck of a blow. The kind of blow that would have taken the head off a normal human. Hagrid was very coy about the whole thing, refusing to explain anything at all and insisting that everything was fine.

A week after his return, Hagrid held his first Care of Magical Creatures lesson that year, which turned out to be on Thestrals.

Harry was pleasantly surprised by that. He found the creatures very enjoyable to be around. There was just something about them that his magic quite liked. They were very Dark creatures, but also pure. Innocent and uncorrupted. It was a beguiling combination.

Hagrid called his herd of thestrals once the class was gathered. They came out of the trees in a trickle, sniffing the air suspiciously until they seemed to scent Harry. Then they pushed right through the other students so that they could all sniff at him. He laughed awkwardly and began to pat the creatures as the students that couldn't see them cried out in alarm. It was an exact reversal of the unicorn debacle.

The thestrals, unlike everyone else, seemed to see Dante, but other than a little bit of wary distance, they didn't seem bothered by him.

This impromptu mobbing continued for a few minutes as Hagrid began explaining about thestrals.

Then Umbridge showed up and instantly began baiting Hagrid and making notes, which she voiced as she wrote, about everything she thought Hagrid was doing wrong, which just flustered him and made everything worse. It was blatantly obvious that he was on her list to oust, apparently next to Trelawny. Undoubtedly because of what had been written about Hagrid in the paper last year. Umbridge had made no secret of her distaste for "halfbreeds".

Harry found himself staring at her hatefully as he patted the thestrals that were periodically nibbling on his clothes and hair when he’d been ignoring them for too long. They'd been friendly at the carriages when he'd greeted them before, but they'd also been fastened up and unable to actually approach him. Now they were untethered, they were taking advantage of it to inspect Harry thoroughly and beg for attention.

Harry used the distraction they provided in order to keep his magic from doing anything precipitous to Umbridge. Dante bared his teeth at the woman when Harry began to fume, but Harry turned a stern frown on the hound, who seemed to sense it, for he immediately looked at Harry, then took on the posture of a chastised dog – head slumped, tail down – and then settled down to stare at her the rest of the lesson.

He really couldn't kill the woman, Harry reminded himself, even if he had a hard time remembering why that was so important whenever she opened her mouth. Or gave that infuriating little cough.

Promissory 

Blaise participated in the D.A. meetings, of course. It wasn't a resource that he was about to ignore. As much time as he spent practicing spells though, he probably spent even more just watching his incredible boyfriend. Harry was so effortlessly, so guilelessly exceptional as to be all the more amazing for it. So many people – especially in Slytherin, but in all the Houses – worked so hard to appear powerful and competent and aloof, but Harry was so much more successful, and he wasn't even trying. If anything, he seemed to work at downplaying all of those things.

So, yes. Blaise spent more time than probably seemly just observing Harry. And, admittedly, thoroughly enjoying the position he had been allowed in Harry's life.

It was the last D.A. meeting before the winter break now and Blaise watched as Harry walked an upper year Ravenclaw through the precise wand movements of some advanced spell that he was struggling with. In the middle of what he was saying, he suddenly snapped his wand out and cast with a barely murmured incantation. The spell zipped across the room incredibly fast, slipping right between several people, and struck one of the Weasley twins in the back.

"Oi!" the Weasley in question complained as he began to uncontrollably float toward the ceiling.

"How many times have I told you to focus on your own spellwork and leave others alone?" Harry raised his voice to ask with a wry smile. He then went back to what he'd been saying while the floating Weasley seemed to decide that floating was fun. He adopted a lounged position, hands behind his head, ankles crossed, and just floated there contentedly, just high enough that he was above arm's reach of his brother, who was trying to snag his robe to pull him back down.

Harry left the twin to float there for the remainder of the meeting, which wasn't quite ten minutes. Further, every time the not-floating twin got close to grabbing him, he would drift a bit higher. And when he tried to use a spell to summon him or reach him, he swerved away from it until the twin on the ground threw up his hands and began composing his brother's eulogy in a loud and dramatic tone.

When Harry began dismissing people for the evening – in twos and threes so as not to draw attention – the floating twin just drifted back down to the ground without fanfare. It was... a very impressive spell if it was a spell's doing at all. Knowing what he did about Harry's power, Blaise suspected that may have been an ordinary levitation charm that his magic was controlling with barely a thought from Harry.

Harry was always the last to leave these meetings, so when it was down to the two of them with Ron and Hermione, Blaise wrapped an arm around Harry and quietly asked, "Can we stick around a little longer? There was something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Sure," Harry answered immediately, his expression curious. "You guys go on," he said to Ron and Hermione. "I'll be up later."

With murmured goodnights, the pair left.

"What is it?" Harry asked even as the room around them shrank rapidly down to a more comfortable size for two, the dueling room changing into a sitting room as the furniture just seemed to melt right into the walls and new ones spring forth.

It was always somewhat alarming to be in the room when it changed something major like that, but Harry seemed to instruct the room without any real conscious thought.

Blaise sat down on the provided loveseat and was pleased when Harry sat next to him. Blaise ran a palm over his thigh to clear the perspiration and mentally chastised himself for being nervous. He was pretty sure that he had no reason to be.

"So it's been about a year since our first date," Blaise began.

Harry's eyes immediately widened, "Oh, crap. Was I supposed to do something for our anniversary? Because I didn't even think about that," he said.

Blaise smiled, "No, don't worry. I wasn't expecting anything. It'd be different if we were married."

"Oh," Harry breathed with relief.

"Still," Blaise continued, "We have been together for a year and so I was thinking it's probably time we took our relationship to the next level."

Harry was frowning at him in confusion, so Blaise reached into his pocket and drew out the long box that had been sitting so heavily there all evening.

Harry took it cautiously and opened it like he wasn't sure what to expect. His eyes immediately softened when he got a look at the intricately carved wooden beads of the necklace. "Oh," he said, his tone a little hard to decipher.

"It's just a promissory necklace," Blaise said, not quite up to letting the silence linger just then. "It essentially means that we're considering each other exclusively..." He trailed off when Harry took the necklace out of the box and clipped it around his neck without hesitation. The magical clasp made it a simple process.

Blaise let out a nervous breath and smiled reflexively at the sight of it around Harry's neck.

Then Harry was kissing him, and Blaise let himself sink into it.

When Harry drew back, it was only enough to rest his forehead against Blaise's. "You know this is going to make you more of a target for Voldemort and the Death Eaters."

Blaise tensed at the Dark Lord's name, but withheld his flinch. He was becoming distressingly accustomed to hearing it. "I know," he answered, leaning back enough to look Harry in the eyes. "I actually wanted to do this a couple of months ago, but my mum wasn't too pleased about the danger it could put me in. She's been... resistant."

Harry stared at him a moment before cautiously questioning, "But you're sure?"

"Very much so," Blaise said. He hesitated to be more explicit, but reminded himself that Harry was a Gryffindor. He was a particularly sly Gryffindor, but he'd still probably prefer a certain amount of transparency in these matters. So he took a deep breath and forged on, "I don't like to think about my future without you in it," he admitted, and it was worth it when a brilliant smile immediately lit up Harry's face.

"Yeah?" Harry grinned. "That's good. I like thinking about my future a lot better when you're in it, too."

Just A Dream

The night after the last D.A. meeting, Harry jerked awake somewhere in the middle of the night, his heart pounding. He'd had the strangest dream. He was pretty sure that he'd been a snake given how he'd been slithering along the floor. And then he'd attacked Arthur Weasley, who'd been sleeping in a corridor using an invisibility cloak as a blanket.

It was all very strange.

He tried to remember any further details about the dream, but there didn't seem to be anything there. His magic felt rather ruffled, and he didn't care for it. He thought about getting up – a bit of a walk might help – but he was quite tired still.

With a sigh, he punched his pillow into a better shape and rolled over. It took an unfortunately long time to fall back asleep after that, but he didn't have any more strange dreams that he could remember.

The next morning, McGonagall bustled into the Great Hall, collected all four Weasleys without explanation, and ushered them out.

"That was weird," Harry said uneasily to Hermione as they began to select their breakfast.

"It must be some sort of family emergency," Hermione fretted. "I do hope everyone's okay."

Harry nodded and concentrated on his food, trying to dismiss that stupid dream from his mind. It was a bit odd that it came the night before this family emergency, but surely it was just a coincidence. Harry didn't take divination, but he didn’t think it likely that he'd started having some weird sort of premonition dreams. That just... seemed unlikely. Unbelievable, really.

So he put it out of his mind and just worried generally for his friends as they didn't return that day or the next before they had to catch the train back to London. Hermione postulated that they'd probably just been given early leave for the break, which made sense.

"Oh, I feel so guilty for not going to see Ron over the break," Hermione fretted as the three of them settled into a compartment on the train.

"He'll be okay, Hermione," Harry soothed. "If someone in the family was seriously injured or something, the family probably will want some privacy, anyway."

"That's true," Hermione sighed. "I just wish that I knew what was going on."

"I'll write you once I find out," Harry promised.

"Where are you going for the break, if you don't mind my asking," Blaise said.

"Oh, I'm spending the first week with my parents. We're taking a bit of a holiday to France. Then they'll fly back home while I go to spend the rest of the break with Viktor and his family. I've really been missing him and I'm quite looking forward to it."

"That's understandable," Blaise allowed. "I am very grateful that Harry and I go to the same school in the same year, so we won't have to deal with being apart for such a long time."

"Yes, you two are rather lucky that way. And don't think that I didn't notice that necklace you're wearing, Harry," she grinned at him. "I didn't want to make a big deal in front of everyone, but I'm very happy for you two. I'm not surprised, but I'm happy."

Harry couldn't help the huge grin that immediately settled onto his face at the reminder, and he leaned comfortably into Blaise's side, inspiring the taller boy to wrap an arm around him. He ran his fingers along the carved beads, thrilling at the subtle buzz of magic that met his fingers. This was obviously a family heirloom by the layers of aged magic that he could feel in it. It felt both protective and possessive and he rather adored the feeling. Knowing that Blaise wanted him. That he wasn't just an entertainment at school. That he wasn't just someone to keep around while it was convenient. He didn't really think that Blaise would think of him like that, but the unwanted little boy that the Dursleys had made him just luxuriated in this promise, the solidity of it.

In Blaise's comment that he didn't like to think of his future without Harry in it.

Malfoy made his appearance shortly after that, sticking his pointy head into the compartment to cross his arms smugly at Harry and go through the usual song and dance. Mudbloods, blood traitors, you're all going to die, blah, blah, blah.

Harry put up with it for about half a minute before he stood and approached Malfoy quickly enough that the blond took a reflexive step back, leaving him just outside the compartment. Harry then snapped the door shut in his face, fixed it there with a sticking charm, and silenced it to ensure they didn't have to listen to it if Malfoy decided to pound on the door or shout through it.

Harry then returned to his seat and leaned into Blaise's side, which was shaking slightly with his mostly suppressed laughter.

"I wish I could get rid of him that easily," Blaise lamented. "Alas, sharing a common room with him, I have to listen to that tripe all the time."

Harry tipped his head up to place a kiss to Blaise's jaw, "My sympathies. So glad I didn't go to Slytherin. I'd have probably cursed Malfoy bald and flatulent every other week and then Snape would have had ample excuses to never let me out of detention."

Blaise laughed aloud then. "Oh, but it would have been so much fun! And if you were doing that, I'd have definitely asked you out a lot sooner."

Harry muffled a snicker and they fell into silence for a short while before Blaise suggested rune dominoes and the rest of the trip was spent playing a few variations of the game. Some allowed three players. Others only two, in which case they took turns with the winner getting to play twice in a row while the others switched.

The three of them were evenly enough matched now in skill that the games were a lot of fun and kept them quite entertained through the ride.

When they arrived in London, Hermione gave Harry a hug and left first, giving Harry and Blaise a couple of minutes to say goodbye. It would only be for a couple of weeks, but Harry was used to seeing Blaise at least a few minutes every day now so he wasn't looking forward to the separation even if being away from Hogwarts and Umbridge was going to be a welcome relief. He hoped that he would be staying at Grimmauld rather than the Burrow. As much as he'd like to see Ron and find out what was going on, he could use a couple weeks of his magic taking it easy after months of restraining it against the need to maim Umbridge.

On leaving the train, Harry quickly located the werewolf waiting for him. The smell of him was quite distinctive, Harry couldn’t help but notice. A bit like a dog, but also of blood and madness.

And no, Harry had no idea how madness had a smell or how he recognized it as such, but that’s what it smelled like.

Remus looked exhausted. Considering it had been a good week and a half since the full moon, Harry found this somewhat alarming.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked cautiously as he approached the man.

Remus gave a humorless smile in return, "Hello, Harry. It's good to see you as well."

Harry blushed a little at the implied reprimand.

"We'll talk about it at Headquarters," Remus dismissed, then offered Harry a hand. "Hang on tight."

Harry did so and then he felt himself tugged along down a far too narrow path through something he couldn't define. He was deaf and blind and his magic bristled, but Harry managed to restrain it from fighting back. He didn't think that would be a good idea.

And then, thankfully, it was over. Harry stumbled as they landed in front of Grimmauld Place and shook himself free of Remus. "Merlin, that was awful!" he complained.

Remus looked somewhat apologetic, "Side along," he explained. "Believe it or not, it gets easier with practice."

"I'll go with not," Harry replied hotly.

"Come on," Remus urged. "It's not safe to hang about on doorsteps these days.

Harry allowed himself to be ushered into the dim and dreary entryway, his irritated magic seeming to breathe a sigh of relief once they were within the wards. Harry nearly sagged on his feet at the marvelous feeling of his magic settling down. He'd not realized quite how tense it had been at Hogwarts, but the contrast was enough that he really just wanted to curl up and take a nap right now.

Instead, he was led into the drawing room.

Harry noted as they moved through the house that the mold and dust both looked and smelled entirely cleaned up. So the wards he'd strengthened over the summer seemed to be working. Hopefully the inhabitants of the house just thought Kreacher was doing it.

In the drawing room, Sirius immediately jumped up and rushed to wrap his arms around Harry.

"Oh! Hi," Harry said in surprise as he returned the tight hug his godfather had surprised him with. He patted the man's back a few times when the hug went on longer than seemed normal.

"Okay, what is going on?" Harry asked when Sirius finally pulled back. Between Remus looking like death and Sirius acting like he was thankful to see him alive, Harry was starting to get worried. "What happened with the Weasleys?" he asked soberly.

"Have a seat, Harry," Remus encouraged, and Harry did so warily.

When they were all sitting, Remus on one love seat and Harry and Sirius on the one facing him, Remus cleared his throat, then said, "The night before last, Arthur Weasley was killed while on a mission for the Order."

Harry's breath caught in horror. The man was dead? That's why the Weasleys left early? Their father was killed? "How?" he found himself asking.

"It doesn't really matter-" Remus started.

"Voldemort's familiar," Sirius spoke over the top of the werewolf, who cast him a disapproving look, but didn't interrupt as Sirius went on. "He was on guard duty. None of us were expecting Nagini to show up."

"Guard duty," Harry repeated, his stomach turning because... Arthur had been killed by a snake... "Where?"

"The Ministry, but Harry I really can't say more. Dumbledore would have a cow at what I've already told you. He was under an invisibility cloak. He'd have been fine against a human, but the snake must have smelled him," he said bitterly.

Harry's magic was tense and still around him, like one massive white knuckle. Arthur Weasley had been attacked by a snake while under an invisibility cloak. But it hadn't needed to smell him, Harry wanted to say. He'd fallen asleep and the cloak had slipped off part of him.

He swallowed back the words and the panic with an effort. He couldn't say anything. Because this most definitely wasn't normal. Seeing visions of things happening hundreds of miles away wasn't normal. And why had he been the snake? Was it a Serpent Master thing?

Sirius pulled Harry into a hug as his mind continued to spin over what he'd just learned. It hadn't just been a weird dream. He'd seen Arthur Weasley killed. ...and he'd gone back to sleep.

He felt ill.

Harry flinched slightly when something heavy leaned against his leg. He turned his head to find Dante leaning on him, staring at him with soulful red eyes. He forced himself to look away and not draw attention to the hound that the others in the room clearly did not see. He had no idea where the damn hound had come from. He had noticed, at Hogwarts, that the hound had a skill for turning up in rooms he didn't remember him entering via the door, but he'd remained behind at Hogwarts, so turning up in a Fidelius protected house in London was quite a trick.

But one he'd deal with later because he was a little busy with his mental breakdown at the moment.

Sirius eventually withdrew, though he left a hand on Harry's shoulder, a strangely comforting weight. "Bill's made his transfer back to London permanent," he explained. "He's going to stay and look after the family, at least until the kids are all out of Hogwarts. Molly is..." he shook his head. "She's not handling it well. She's been on calming draughts since shortly after she got news.

"Bill called in some favors with some people in his line of work and they've warded the Burrow probably more effectively than this place now, so the whole family is going to be staying there for the holiday."

"Won't be much of a holiday," Harry breathed in extreme sympathy for his friends.

"No," Sirius said quietly. "No, it won't." He looked at Remus a long moment before adding, "This feels so much like the last war. A shroud of grief hanging over everything. The grim determination to keep fighting to honor those we've lost."

Harry sagged back against the sofa and resisted the urge to reach down and pet Dante. If this was just the first blow of many more to come, Harry truly dreaded the coming years. Part of him wanted to just pack up and flee the damn country, but he could hardly expect his loved ones to be equally as willing to abandon their country. This was their home. Harry had come to terms with the fact that he'd be leaving England when he was done with Hogwarts. There was no way he could stay here. Between the hero worship and the eagerness they had to vilify him, it just wasn't possible. And Hermione might go to Bulgaria after Hogwarts. But Ron and Sirius had deep roots here. Harry wasn't sure about Blaise. As far as Harry knew, he was set to inherit his family estate as his father was long dead, but he also had strong ties to Italy.

He shook his head and tried to focus. "I should write to Ron" he realized.

"That's a good idea," Remus agreed, "but don't expect a reply."

"Of course,' Harry said at once, because Ron might be too grieved to even read the letter, but on the chance that he would, Harry wanted to send it. Maybe Ron would even be grateful for the distraction.

And so, with one more hug from Sirius, Harry retreated to the room that he'd shared with Ron last summer. He immediately covered the empty portrait with a blanket from Ron's bed, then found his stationery and sat down at the desk to write to his friend. They weren't as close as they used to be, but Ron had been trying really hard to be a better friend this year and Harry thought he deserved a heck of a lot of credit for that.

Remembering his promise to Hermione, Harry found another piece of parchment and promised himself that he'd write to her immediately after Ron. She would undoubtedly send Ron a very long and thoughtful letter full of her condolences.

Headquarters was quite subdued as the holiday drew near. Sirius made a token effort to bring in the holiday spirit by decorating the house. And though no one was enforcing cleaning this time, Harry still took to spending a lot of time in the attic. It was peaceful up there, and he didn’t have to worry about stumbling across someone crying, which he did several times in the first few days. Also, he was able to read whatever he wanted without worrying about getting caught.

And Kreacher was very happy to go through the trunk of rescued items to proudly show Harry everything that had been saved thanks to his generous orders. Harry was pleased at most of it, genuinely appalled at some of the things they'd meant to throw out, and slightly curious as to why Kreacher didn't consider a few of the items to be trash, but he wasn't going to make a fuss if Kreacher considered things like a stained – hopefully clean – old handkerchief that had belonged to his mistress as being a treasure worth saving. Harry might just have to get a separate box for purely sentimental items. He could do without ever accidentally touching such a handkerchief again.

Harry still felt rotten about Arthur dying. Harry had liked the man even if he'd never known him well. He also couldn't imagine what his friends were going through. Harry had been so young when he'd lost his parents, it hadn't been the same. The hole they'd left in his life had always been a part of him. The Weasleys had just had that hole open up and they had to figure out how to live with it. Harry couldn't imagine how hard it must be.

He sent Hedwig out with Ron's gift on time. He had no idea if Ron was even going to be feeling up to opening his presents, but the last thing Harry wanted was to inadvertently make him feel worse by not sending it. It was an expert level chess board that would hopefully be able to actually challenge him if he played against it. It hadn't been cheap, but Harry thought Ron had more than earned it with the effort he'd been putting into being a good friend this year. Maybe it would give him some measure of distraction right now.

Harry chose to distract himself by focusing on learning spells that might keep him alive. Him and those he cared about.

Sleeping had become difficult. He kept jerking awake mid-dream, his mind spinning over the contents of the dream and trying to figure out if it was real or just a dream. So far, he didn’t think he’d had any more real dreams, but the idea that it was possible was leaving him very sleep-deprived. He was incredibly grateful that the Dark magic saturating the house had such a calming effect on his magic and he dreaded returning to Hogwarts if he didn’t have this dream situation figured out.

He did make one trip out, his second evening back. He had Dobby pop him to Diagon Alley a little while after claiming that he was turning in for the night. Most of the Alley was closed or closing up for the evening, but Knockturn was in full swing when he put up his hood and made his way down the Dark alley. He'd had Dobby picking up some special stock the bookseller set aside for him every other week. He'd gotten a number of rather illegal books that way so far, but Harry wasn't looking for anything necessarily Dark today. He just wanted books on all kinds of defensive and offensive magic. If this war was going to get bloodier, Harry fully intended to be able to spill more than his fair share.

He picked up a dozen books that evening and received a perfectly respectful greeting from the beady-eyed man that ran the store. Harry was likely one of his best customers, so he supposed it wasn't surprising.

Dante seemed to like Grimmauld Place, which wasn't a shock given a Hellhound was definitely a Dark creature. The hound seemed to particularly enjoy stretching out flat on his side and taking long naps in the attic while Harry read.

It was during one of these times that Harry introduced Kaa to Dante. The snake clearly saw the hound as an inferior form of familiar since he couldn't live within Harry's magic, nor could Harry speak his language, to which Harry spent several minutes assuring his snake that Harry was not trying to replace him and that of course he loved that they could speak the same language.

Dante, thankfully, hadn't taken offense to any of it.

Harry did figure out how the hound was getting around one evening when he was spending a bit of time in the drawing room a couple days before Christmas. He couldn’t very well hide in the attic all the time if he didn’t want to raise too many questions. He happened to glance up at just the right moment to see Dante walk casually out of a shadowed corner.

"How are you doing that?" Harry complained. He glanced at the door, but he didn't hear anyone moving around in the house. Sirius was in the kitchen with Remus, trying to put together some sort of dinner. Cooking was not Sirius' calling, but with Molly out of commission, needs apparently must. He certainly didn't trust Kreacher with his food. Which was honestly fair. That house-elf really hated him.

Figuring that he was safe enough for the moment, Harry set aside his book and stood, transforming reasonably smoothly into his Hellhound form. He'd been practicing in the attic since he'd got to the house. He'd not been quite confident enough to risk it in his bedroom. If there was a portrait in there to spy on him, who knew if his little blanket thrown over it would entirely protect him. He wasn't taking chances. Not with Dumbledore.

He was taking a small chance by changing now, but there weren't any portraits in the drawing room, and he figured he'd only be a minute or two.

Though he could see in the dark and hear and smell better now even in his human form, there was something extra about this form. Like a sense for the veil itself. There were places where it just felt a touch thinner. And sure enough, that dark corner that Dante had come from felt like that.

Harry approached it warily, immediately getting what felt like a metaphysical draft of Hell from it. He crouched slightly, his muscles tense as he approached it.

Dante moved to flank him, his posture also becoming somewhat wary, as though he was looking to back Harry up but hadn't figured out what the danger was.

Harry crept cautiously closer, his hackles rising when he heard a faint, tortured scream.

And then a noise behind him had him spinning around, teeth bared in a snarl...

Only to find himself facing a confused werewolf, who looked around the room without seeing Harry or Dante. He lifted his head and seemed to sniff the air a bit, then shook his head and walked back out.

Harry sagged in relief. He'd been such an idiot to not notice the man had left the kitchen and was approaching the drawing room. All of his senses had been totally focused on the apparent portal to Hell. Thank goodness that Harry was apparently invisible in this form just like Dante. He wondered if he could make himself visible. Because there were undoubtedly many instances in which being invisible in this form would come in handy, but there were others when it could be inconvenient.

Harry listened to be sure that Remus was well away – it sounded like he was going to check Harry's bedroom – then he transformed back and made his way down to the kitchen. He presumed Remus was looking to inform him that dinner was ready by the smell.

Sure enough, Sirius was just plating dinner as he entered.

"Where's Remus?" Sirius inquired as Harry took a seat.

"How should I know?" Harry asked innocently.

"He went to tell you the food was ready."

"Oh. I must have missed him. I was just in the loo and then I smelled the food and thought I should come see if it was ready."

"Well, he'll find his way back down," Sirius dismissed, sitting down to dig into his own food.

Remus did, indeed, make his way back down shortly and accepted Harry's loo excuse without suspicion.

Harry claimed exhaustion and retired early for the night, though sleep was the last thing on his mind. Instead, he spent the hours trying to puzzle out how to make himself visible. Problem was that he had no idea if it worked. He thought that he could feel something change, but it was subtle and he wasn't sure if it wasn't his imagination. Or something else entirely.

The last couple of hours before he fell asleep ended up occupied with a fierce mental debate that ended up transitioning into a pros and cons list that was fed into the fire when he was done with it.

In order to figure out if he could make himself visible to normal people, Harry needed to tell someone about his animagus form. There were only two people he'd really consider telling. Sirius and Blaise. He could trust Blaise with this, he thought. Sirius had sworn loyalty to Harry and this was a subject that the man was predisposed to be favorable toward.

He went back and forth for ages on whether or not it was stupid to tell Sirius. Part of him still loved the idea of Sirius, and he wanted to be closer to him. This seemed like a fairly safe way to offer the man something. That loyalty oath Sirius had made was far from perfect, but neither could it be discounted.

Telling Blaise, well... Harry was surprised to realize that he considered it only a matter of time before he informed Blaise. He wasn't sure if he was ready to do it immediately, but maybe it would be easier with practice. No matter what, he expected that he would tell Blaise eventually. Blaise had given him the promissory necklace, after all. Harry wasn't the only one hoping that they would stay together for the long haul.

No matter how much part of him liked the idea of telling Sirius… He just couldn’t actually picture himself doing it. Even when he tried to imagine it in his head, he kept freezing up and changing the subject.

Maybe in summer, if he spent more time with Sirius. Maybe he’d tell him then.

Chapter Text

Christmas

Christmas morning, Harry woke early to a large dog jumping on his bed and licking his face. Luckily for Sirius, his magic didn't consider the man a threat because it was ruffled but not agitated when Harry woke. So instead of his magic throwing the animagus across the room, Harry just flipped his blankets over the dog’s head and didn’t argue when his magic decided to stick them there.

Sirius changed back then, laughing breathlessly and crying his surrender as he fumbled for his wand to end the sticking charm.

Satisfied, Harry kicked his godfather out so he could get dressed, dismissing Sirius' argument that pajamas were suitable present-opening attire.

As he'd suspected, it wasn't just the two of them that morning. Remus was there too, wearing a small, warm smile and sipping from a mug of what smelled like some combination of hot chocolate and coffee. Which Harry now kind of wanted to try.

Harry had gotten Sirius an oversize dog bone as a gag gift that had the man laughing. Harry had also given him a cooking spellbook. Harry still didn't know Sirius all that well, so he was hard to shop for. One thing Harry did know about him was that he was a terrible cook. And that he didn't trust Kreacher to cook for him. Of course, it had become more important since Molly had moved back to the Burrow, but he hadn't exactly expected that when he'd bought it.

Sirius had laughed, but also thanked Harry genuinely with a blithe, "It probably is time I learned how to feed myself."

Remus has gifted Harry with a defense book he'd not read before, for which he thanked the man politely and apologized for not getting him anything. Remus just waved it off, not at all concerned. If he was going to be around next year, Harry supposed he'd buy the man an industrial size chocolate bar or something. Special order it from Honeydukes, maybe.

Sirius had gifted Harry with a fancy new winter cloak lathered in warming charms that Harry didn't precisely need as his magic didn't tend to let him get cold. It was still nice, and he knew he'd use it. He'd also gotten him a cloak pin with the Potter family crest, which was thoughtful of him and admittedly choked Harry up just a little.

He had also gotten Harry a new dragonhide messenger bag for school, the interior enchanted to hold much more than it should without getting any heavier. And new winter gloves and hat. And a sampler subscription to Honeydukes, so he'd receive a sampler box each month filled with goodies.

"Sirius," Harry complained. "I don't need more than one gift. Honest." As nice a feeling as it was that someone wanted to spoil him, he felt uncomfortably Dudley-like to be opening so many presents.

"Harry, I have a lot of Christmases to make up for missing. Let me spoil you for one decade and then I'll stop."

Harry laughed helplessly and shook his head at his godfather's impressive puppy-dog eyes.

Hermione had sent him a book all about the history of Yule and traditional magical ways to celebrate, which was interesting. He wondered if Viktor had recommended it to her. Ron hadn’t sent anything, but Harry was neither surprised nor upset about that fact.

Order members were in and out all day, starting just after breakfast, and Harry did his best to hide out between his bedroom and the attic. He wasn't honestly fond of most of the Order members and he'd just as soon avoid them.

Between lunch and dinner, he called his elves to him in the attic and asked Kreacher to join him as well. Kreacher did consider Harry his master because he was Sirius' heir, but Harry was a little murky on how much the elf was actually bound to obey him. "I've got you all Christmas presents," he informed them firmly. Dobby, of course, was delighted and gifted Harry with another couple of knitted socks, one of them in Kaa's black and bright blue colors with little snakes on them and the other black and red with little dogs that looked remarkably like Dante knitted into them.

"Thank you, Dobby. They're lovely," Harry smiled as he carefully folded them and set them aside to wear later. Dobby clearly didn't understand the concept of wearing a matching set of socks, but the obvious time, effort, and love he put into them made Harry cherish them.

"Now, Winky. I've gotten you a pin like Dobby's," Harry explained, offering the little crystal lightning bolt he'd made for Winky. It was imbued with as much protective magic as he'd been able to push into it. She took it silently, her eyes suspiciously wet, then gave a very deep bow and popped away. Harry suspected she was overwhelmed and needed a little time.

"Kreacher, this is for you," Harry offered the other pin he'd made. This one was in silver and bore the Black family crest on it.

"Good master Harry is being too kind," Kracher croaked as he accepted the pin and examined it intently.

"And for Dobby," Harry smiled and offered him the very soft blanket that he'd picked up last time he was on Knockturn Alley. It was a pale, silvery blue shot through with the occasional silver unicorn hair. It was a baby blanket meant to bestow peace on the baby. Or in this case, house-elf.

Dobby accepted the blanket with a trembling hand and watery eyes. "Master Harry is giving Dobby a blanket," he whispered in awe.

"Happy Christmas, Dobby," Harry smiled.

The elf's chin trembled a bit and then he threw himself on Harry in a desperate hug.

Harry’s heart broke a little as he rubbed the elf's back. "You're part of the family, Dobby. Don't ever doubt it."

It took several more minutes before the overwhelmed elf was able to pry himself free and pop away. Kreacher watched it all disapprovingly, but Harry noticed that he kept touching his pin, as though to remind himself it was there.

Dante picked that moment to make his way up the stairs - the bottom of which was the only part with dark enough shadows to travel through, Harry thought. Kreacher eyed the dog a moment before giving a small bow and a murmured, "Good master's Doggy," then popping away.

Harry smiled after the elf as Dante dropped into a sprawl pressed against Harry's leg. He pet the dog lightly and picked up his book again. The elves had gotten used to Dante and they all treated him with respect. Because of the way Harry's magic had very clearly claimed the hound as his familiar at this point, Harry suspected.

The Episode

There was an Order meeting on boxing day. It was quieter than Harry was used to without any of the Weasleys present, and everyone was more sober than usual. Of course, it was scheduled right after dinner, so Harry was unfortunately not able to hide away before everyone started showing up as they weren't finished eating.

Most of them were present and Harry was just getting up to show himself out when a sudden wave of dizziness crashed over him. Harry's world seemed to pitch, and he hit the wall hard, and then his head exploded in agony. He clutched at his head as his magic tensed in search of an enemy, but there was no one. He could feel the foreign magic, but not where it was coming from. He had a vague awareness that he was on his knees, people hovering over him, but the pain was blocking out most else.

He screamed, the pain unendurable. He'd not felt anything like this since he was in the graveyard with Voldemort. He heard the man's high-pitched cackle ring through his head, and then, with another fit of dizziness, the sensation was completely gone.

Harry gasped for breath in the sudden absence of pain and let Sirius help him to sit against the nearest wall.

"Harry, what happened?" Sirius looked panicked.

Harry half wanted to pretend it had just been a headache, but he didn't think that would be very believable. He felt a trickle of sweat on his brow, but when he wiped it away, his hand was red with blood. "Fuck," he breathed and dropped his head back against the wall. "Voldemort," he shook his head weakly. "I don't know what that was. I heard him laughing," he whispered, wincing as he took in the veritable crowd of gawking Order members, Dumbledore right in the middle, looking particularly grave as he stared at Harry's forehead, then looked toward Sirius.

"Sirius, why don't you stay with Harry," Dumbledore suggested. "I don't think he should be alone just now, but we do need to get the meeting underway."

Sirius helped Harry up and got an arm around Harry's shoulders to lead him up to the drawing room.

Harry felt weak and shaky, his magic tense and practically snarling at anyone that came near him. Luckily, Sirius' vow meant that Harry’s magic didn't consider him much of a threat or Harry probably would have been forced to crawl upstairs on his own. He didn't think he could handle any other Order member touching him just then.

"Are you okay?" Sirius asked softly when Harry was lying down on the sofa.

"Yeah," Harry sighed. "Just a bit of a headache now."

"Master is needing cold for his head," Kreacher popped in with a small, folded towel.

"Don't touch him!" Sirius snapped.

"Sirius, it's fine," Harry protested, extending his hand toward Kreacher. "Thank you, Kreacher."

Kreacher gave a small bow and glared murder at Sirius before vanishing again.

The towel must have been spelled cold because it was nicely chilly as Harry pressed it to his bleeding head.

"Did you befriend that crazy elf?" Sirius said in tones of complaint.

"He's not so bad," Harry smiled a little. "He's had a rough life."

"He's not the only one," Sirius bitched under his breath.

A long moment of silence passed before Sirius asked, "Has anything like that ever happened before?"

"My scar hurt just like that in the graveyard," Harry admitted. "But other than that, no." He thought of the dream he'd had of Mr. Weasley, but he couldn't bring himself to mention it. Because if he'd realized what was happening, maybe he could have raised the alarm. And maybe Arthur would have been found in time to save him. Anyway, there had been no pain then, so maybe it wasn’t related to this at all.

Harry fell asleep shortly after that and dozed an unknown amount of time, both exhausted and on edge at the same time, meaning he tossed and turned and woke frequently, then fell asleep again quickly.

This lasted until his magic all but jabbed him awake and he startled halfway to a sitting position, opening his eyes to meet Dumbledore's solemn blue ones. His magic all but hissed at the man because, really, in his current state, Dumbledore was the person he least wanted to be near in this house.

Dumbledore looked away after just a second, then took the seat Sirius had vacated. "Good evening, my boy," he said, though his eyes were focused on his hands folded in his lap.

"Headmaster," Harry replied evenly, pushing himself up to sit, thankful that his head was feeling better and the exhaustion had mostly faded.

"Can you describe for me what happened earlier?" Dumbledore requested.

Harry sighed, but he didn't suppose there was any way to politely decline. He hated talking about anything unusual about himself or his magic, but there wasn't a lot he could do about this being as it had happened where everyone could see. So, reluctantly, he explained the dizziness and the pain and the laughter and then the dizziness again before the pain was gone.

"You said that you felt the pain in the graveyard," Dumbledore mused, still not looking directly at Harry, "What about the dizziness?"

"No, that's new," Harry admitted, wondering at the significance of that. "Sir, do you know what happened to me? How could he do that when he was nowhere near me?"

Dumbledore stared blankly across the room over Harry's head, his eyes troubled. "I cannot say for sure, my boy. I suspect it is related to that mark on your forehead. It created a connection between you. I had hoped that the connection was benign, but it appears that Voldemort has discovered how to make use of it. I believe, my boy, that it is time you learned occlumency."

"What's that?" Harry questioned, though he was sure he'd heard of it. Some kind of mental magic?

"It is a mind art," Dumbledore explained. "It will teach you to guard your mind against intrusion. Severus has agreed to teach you as soon as classes resume."

"Wait, what?" Sirius' sharp tone came from near the door behind Harry. "Snape? He hates Harry. How is that going to work?"

"Severus has agreed to do his best to instruct Harry, Sirius, and I trust him."

As the argument continued in that vein, Harry absently noted the way Dumbledore said "I trust him" as though that should put an end to questions. Because Dumbledore's opinion was obviously to be respected above all logic.

Dumbledore eventually won the argument with, "There is no one else, Sirius. I cannot undertake such a task. I do not have the time, nor do I believe it would be helpful to Harry. Voldemort hates me above all others. Given the nature of this connection, it would not go well, I think, if I should attempt to teach him."

That night, when Harry was sure the house was down for the night, he called Dobby for a trip to Knockturn Alley. At his favorite bookshop, he found one book on the mind arts and got a promise that the bookseller would try to hunt down some more of them for Harry, which Dobby would come by to ask after in a few days.

Harry then went into the attic and searched through the trunk of rescued items because something was niggling at his memory. The locket was near the bottom, having been one of the first items recovered. As soon as Harry's hand closed around it, he knew that he'd been right. He held it for a moment, letting his magic examine it in as much detail as he could manage.

That locket felt like Voldemort's magic. There had always been something that felt wrong about it, but after that day's unpleasant refresher on Voldemort's magic, Harry understood what it was.

He called Kreacher to him. "Can you tell me anything about this locket?" Harry asked. "Where it came from or what it's for?"

Kreacher looked at the locket and immediately seemed to droop. He was silent a moment before quietly explaining. "Master Regulus was giving Kreacher the locket. He was ordering Kreacher to destroy it, but Kreacher tried. Kreacher could not."

"Wait, Regulus wanted it destroyed? Why? Why didn't he do it himself?"

And then the whole story came out. How Kreacher had been loaned to Voldemort and taken to a seaside cave. How he'd been forced to drink a terrible potion that had some sort of despair effect by the sound of it. He'd then been left to die, but Regulus had ordered him to return when his task was done, so he'd gone back and Regulus had nursed him back to health. How he'd told Regulus about what Voldemort had used him for. Then Regulus had taken him back there, but this time Regulus drank the potion and ordered Kreacher to destroy the locket. He'd been forced to leave Regulus there to die and he hadn't even been able to carry out his final orders.

By the end of it, Kreacher was a sobbing wreck and Harry felt bad for making him tell the story.

"I'll find a way to destroy it, Kreacher," Harry promised quietly, looking at the locket a moment longer before he closed the chest. It was as safe as he could make it here. No one should be able to get into the attic, but if anyone did, Kreacher would get Dobby to take the chest to Harry's vault at Gringotts.

"Good Master Harry will help Kreacher to fulfill Master Regulus' last order?" the elf said with painful hope.

"Yes, Kreacher," Harry said solemnly. He didn't know what the locket was, but Regulus had thought destroying it was worth dying over. And seeing as it contained Voldemort's magic, Harry was generally inclined to think destroying it was probably a good idea. "What have you tried so far?"

And Harry listened with some disbelief as Kreacher detailed the dozens of ways he'd tried to destroy the thing. Most of which should have worked at least to some extent. It shouldn't have looked totally unharmed. There had to be some serious magical protections on it.

"Okay," Harry said when Kreacher finally wound down. "Well, we have time. It's not going anywhere from here. I'll look into it when I'm back at Hogwarts, okay?"

The last two weeks of the break, Harry studied his books on occlumency, of which he got three more before returning to Hogwarts. Thankfully, he'd found in the very first book that it was traditional for master/apprentice pairs in the mind arts to exchange oaths first thing. Apparently, some sharing of memories both ways was basically guaranteed at some point in the training, with the master seeing many more than the apprentice. For this reason, given the high likelihood of sensitive, or at least embarrassing, memories being seen, the pair would take an oath to keep each other's confidence.

Harry absolutely intended to enforce that, or he'd find another way to learn this.

He read through the books and the meditation he'd learned for his animagus form was definitely going to assist in this, he thought. Still, it seemed to be a discipline requiring both time and practice. Not something he could pick up before dealing with Snape, and not something he could master without a teacher. Unfortunately.

Kreacher, since that night, had taken to treating Harry with almost reverence that he didn't try to hide from anyone else. He was constantly fetching Harry his favorite tea and snacks. If Harry mentioned that he had to run to another room to grab something, Kreacher tended to just pop in with it for him.

Sirius was baffled by the elf's behavior. "I haven't seen him act like this with anyone since Regulus," he complained. "What did you do?"

Harry just shrugged. "I like him, and I treat him that way." Which wasn't a lie. He did like the elf. He pitied him, too, but there was no need to voice that part. And yes, Kreacher would never have given him a chance if he wasn’t Dark, but he didn’t need to mention that either.

The first few days after his... episode, Sirius had watched him worriedly, but when nothing had happened, he'd started to calm down.

The morning Harry returned to Hogwarts, Sirius gave him a hand mirror. "It's linked to one I've got. Just say my name into the mirror and you'll be able to talk to me through mine. In case you need anything. Or if you just want to talk. Your dad and I used to use them when we were in separate detentions."

Harry laughed a little, wondering how many detentions the two must have had. "Thank you," he sighed, honestly a little touched by the gesture. And, considering Umbridge, it may well be the only way to talk to Sirius the rest of the year.

Though thinking about Umbridge did not make him eager to return to the school, even if he did miss Blaise.

Still, when the time came, Harry allowed Sirius to hug him and even patted the man on the back.

Severus

Severus stared at Potter, holding on to his temper by his fingernails. Albus had asked a lot of him over the years, but this one was pushing it. The foul brat had come into his office to receive free lessons in a very delicate art, and he'd had the gall to make demands. He was presently standing there, arms crossed, waiting for Severus to concede.

Severus would have suggested such oaths himself if he'd thought there was any chance the blasted boy would agree, but the very fact that he'd come in here making demands as though he'd a right made Severus dearly wish to refuse on principle. When he played the scenario through to conclusion in his mind, however, he knew there would be no point. He would refuse, Potter would leave and run to Albus. Albus would then call Severus to his office and insist all over again. Severus would resist as long as he was able, but he would end up capitulating in the end, as he always did when Albus was set on a plan. Better to save what dignity he still had.

"Congratulations, Potter. That may be the first intelligent thing that has ever come out of your mouth," he sneered instead. He then put quill to parchment and wrote out an appropriate oath that they could take. He thrust it at the boy without giving him the chance to suggest any alterations.

Potter accepted the parchment and scanned over it. He thought about it for a time, doubtlessly attempting to wrap his tiny mind around it. Then he nodded, as though his agreement had been solicited.

When the vows were taken, Severus began as he'd attempted to before Potter's demand. "Very well, Potter. If things are now sufficiently to your satisfaction..." he lifted his eyebrows and made a mockery of waiting for input.

Potter, somewhat disappointingly, just stared at him, though his hand did clench into a fist at his side.

"Delightful," he said in his most disdainful tone. "The mind, Potter, is a complex and many-layered thing... or at least, most minds are," he smirked vindictively at the brat. "It is true, however, that those who are have mastered legilimency are able, under certain circumstances, to delve into the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly. The Dark Lord, for instance, almost always knows when somebody is lying to him. Only those skilled at Occlumency are able to shut down those feelings and memories that contradict the lie, and so utter falsehoods in his presence without detection."

Severus went on, attempting to explain an incredibly advanced and delicate art to Potter, of all people.

"So does Dumbledore have a theory on what happened to me?" Potter asked when Severus paused. "On how Voldemort affected me like that?"

"Do not say his name!" Severus snapped at the moronic child.

The brat had the temerity to roll his eyes, "Dumbledore uses it all the time," he said as if that proved some point.

"Dumbledore is an extremely powerful wizard," Severus sneered. "While he may feel secure enough to use the name, the rest of us..." he rubbed at the mark burned into his arm. The mark of his servitude to the madman.

Potter rolled his eyes and looked away, but didn't press the point, "Does Dumbledore have a theory?" he asked again instead.

"The particulars of your situation are unique," Severus said, valiantly holding onto his temper and silently vowing to find a way to make Albus pay for this. Stinksap in the man's lemon drops for a month, perhaps. "There is a connection between yourself and the Dark Lord, of which he unfortunately appears to have become aware. He seems to have been testing the connection between you this time, but next time..."

"He might try controlling me," Potter finished when Severus hesitated. "Making me do things." The boy frowned deeply, apparently at least intelligent enough to find that concerning.

"Which brings us back to occlumency," Severus drawled, drawing his wand. Severus was oddly both looking forward to getting a look at the boy's incomprehensible thought patterns and dreading to spend any time in such close proximity to what would undoubtedly be the painfully inane ramblings of a hormone-driven mind. "Stand up and draw your wand, Potter," he ordered as he rose and moved around his desk.

Potter did so reluctantly, suddenly looking quite nervous.

"You may use your wand to attempt to disarm me, or to defend yourself in any way you can think of," he instructed the boy.

Potter raised a dubious eyebrow in reply. "Any way?"

"Yes, Potter," he said impatiently. As though the boy had any chance of actually harming Severus. What a fool. "Now, I am going to attempt to break into your mind. We are going to see how well you resist. I have been told that you have already shown aptitude at resisting the Imperius Curse. You will find that similar powers are needed for this..."

"Oh, good," Potter muttered dubiously under his breath.

Severus ignored him. "Brace yourself, now..." He hesitated just a second for the boy to actually attempt to do so, then cast the spell.

And Severus felt almost no resistance before he was able to slip into the boy's mind. He was planning to pull memories at random, even very old ones, to prove just how vulnerable the boy actually was.

But his plans flew from his mind almost instantly, because the mind he'd entered was nothing like any he'd ever been in before. Nothing like any he'd so much as read about before. The mind was disorganized. Chaotic, even, which was to be expected of someone with no knowledge of the mind arts.

Yet that is where it ceased to meet any and all expectations.

There was a weight here... an... enormity unlike anything Severus had ever heard of. And there was an... awareness that wasn't quite Potter, at least not consciously. It obviously wasn't Voldemort, either. In fact, he very much doubted that it was human.

The mind around him was massive and powerful and... not at all fond of him. The memories here were wreathed in shadow. And he got the sense that something within those shadows was watching him.

He froze, feeling entirely too much like a mouse that had just wandered into the owlery.

Harry

"Brace yourself... Legilimens!"

Harry flinched as Snape struck well before he could marshal his mental fortitude. Harry had, of course, read about the mind arts fairly extensively since the "episode", but that didn't mean that he was at all ready for this. Given at least ten minutes of meditation, perhaps, he could have been. But Snape obviously wasn't going to give him that. The man was probably getting off on the opportunity to make Harry’s life harder however possible.

The spell hit him, and his vision swam as he felt his magic immediately rise in offense at the intrusion.

And then it was over, and Snape stumbled back a step, blinking rapidly.

Harry had no idea if his magic had expelled the man or if Snape had left willingly. Had he done well or terribly? He had no frame of reference to begin to answer that question. He did notice that Snape looked quite a bit paler than he had a minute ago. Perhaps the spell had taken a lot out of him.

But... no. Snape wasn't just pale. He was looking at Harry very, very oddly. Almost... Well, on anyone but Snape, Harry might have called it fear, but... What the fuck could Snape have seen in his mind that would cause him to look at Harry with fear?

Snape's throat bobbed with a swallow before he seemed to make an attempt at pretending nothing untoward had happened. "Well, Potter, it is clear that you have no shields at all. As such, I think it is prudent that we begin by building them. We will give you time to make progress before we attempt this again. Sit down."

And he went back behind his desk and took his seat.

The rest of the lesson passed with detailed instruction on how to train his mind to resist penetration. It was... oddly civil. Snape still threw the occasional disparaging remark in his direction, but his heart no longer seemed fully in it.

Chapter Text

Spring 

The whole school was a touch tense when news came out in January that a bunch of Death Eaters had escaped Azkaban. The top dozen or so Death Eaters had been pictured in the paper. Voldemort's Inner Circle, or at least the ones who'd been arrested were now free again. And they were among the most dangerous and infamous of the lot. There were a lot of students who had lost loved ones to one of those Death Eaters, which had a lot of students weepy or snappish or both. The Slytherins, contrarily, had grown rather smug as many of them were related to the escaped Death Eaters.

Neville, in particular, was taking it poorly. The story of his parents' situation and exactly how they'd gotten that way had circulated the school within the first week. Same with Susan Bones and a few others who had been most personally affected by those Death Eaters.

Of course, the official story was that Sirius Black had broken out his fellow Death Eaters and that Voldemort definitely was not back.

The Weasleys had come back after the break quiet, sad, and angry in general. Harry tried to be there for Ron as much as he could, but Ron wasn’t talking much. He seemed to spend most of his time in thought, and not happy ones by the frowns he usually wore. He’d also become much more protective of his family, and not just Ginny. He used to trust the twins to handle their own affairs and half the time he even figured they deserved what they got. Now anyone speaking even slightly ill of any member of his family earned his ire.

The twins still made an effort to put on their usual cheerful attitude, but it was clearly strained. Harry didn’t think one had to be him to see that. They also clearly blamed Dumbledore for their dad’s death. Though they didn’t speak out openly against him, they tended to change the subject or leave the area whenever anyone started speaking well of the headmaster. And Harry had caught them pranking the most outspoken Dumbledore supporters.

“Stay out of it, Harry,” Fred said with alarming seriousness when Harry caught them boobytrapping a forgotten bookbag in the common room one evening after said bookbag’s owner had given an impassioned speech on Dumbledore’s virtues.

“We don’t want to have to prank you, too,” George said with the ghost of a grim smile.

Harry watched them a moment before saying quietly, “He got my parents killed, too, guys. Don’t expect me to defend him.”

The twins paused in what they were doing and exchanged a look before regarding Harry again.

“You never do sing his praises,” Fred noted thoughtfully. “How did I never notice that before?”

“Harry Potter is Dumbledore’s man,” George said. “Everyone knows it, so it doesn’t matter if you ever say it, I guess.”

Harry grimaced with distaste. He honestly didn’t know how people got that notion, though he supposed Dumbledore did go out of his way to favor Harry publicly. That was apparently enough to convince everyone that it went both ways just because Harry wasn’t obviously against him. “Yeah, well I can’t afford to speak out against him openly,” he admitted. “I don’t have any parents or older siblings to defend me from him, and the muggles certainly couldn’t do anything even if they wanted to. Which they don’t. He controls my life completely.” Insofar as Harry could be controlled, at least. But sneaking about was easier when the headmaster didn’t suspect him of it, so he would play the obedient child as long as he could.

Fred and George exchanged another look, then George clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Well, we’re in your corner, Harry.”

“Thanks, guys.”

Ginny was perhaps the most concerning of the Hogwarts-age Weasleys with her reaction. She’d grown quieter and sadder, but it was the anger that was worrying. She got a dozen detentions in the first month back at school for hexing other students. And Harry suspected that less than half of her attacks had been actually caught. Her temper seemed to dance always on the edge of exploding and people had begun to walk very carefully around her. She’d taken to openly sneering at any mention of Dumbledore – who had apparently not seen fit to explain to any of them exactly what Arthur had been doing for him when he was killed or why it was even important – and viciously scorning any mention of Voldemort or his Death Eaters, but she was equally likely to hex people for stopping suddenly in front of her or laughing too loudly while near her.

Umbridge’s reaction to the breakout and the tension it brought to the school was to push even more draconian control on the staff and students at Hogwarts. As though she could make everyone forget her boss’s incompetence if only they couldn’t talk about it.

Harry had taken to dealing with this via DA meetings, which were progressing quite well. The first meeting after the Azkaban breakout had been more than a little tense with the prickly students with a personal grudge against the escaped Death Eaters being in proximity to the Slytherins that took part in the DA.

Harry had been working with a seventh year Slytherin who was struggling with his silent casting on some of the more power-intensive charms when he felt the sudden burst of malicious magic. Harry’s head snapped around just in time to see a powerful cutting curse leave Ginny’s wand and Theodore Nott just barely get out of its way.

By the time the curse missed Nott, Harry was already moving, his magic slapping down Nott’s retaliatory curse even as Harry threw himself bodily between the combatants. “Stop!” he commanded, looking back and forth between them. Ginny’s face was hard, her expression twisted with hatred while Nott looked both angry and defensive. “The Hell, Ginny?” Harry demanded.

"He's a Death Eater!" she snarled. "He was praising their escape, Harry!"

"No one in this room is a Death Eater!" Harry said firmly, because he would have noticed if there were any Dark Marks in the room. Since his "episode" and discovering Voldemort's magic on the locket, Harry had become somewhat... sensitive to the feel of the man's magic. He could certainly feel it whenever he was near Snape. "No one, Ginny. I swear it," Harry said earnestly.

She stared at him a long moment, then calmed slightly. "He's still glad they're out," she said hatefully.

"That's not what I meant," Nott said very stiffly and very angrily. "Even if it was, though, you just tried to fucking kill me!"

“Like it would be any great loss,” she spat.

“Ginny!” Harry chastised. “Murdering classmates is not the proper response to differing opinions.”

She looked away, finally starting to look a little chastened.

Harry turned his attention away from her to look around the room. He realized that this needed to be addressed and raised his voice. They already had everyone’s attention. "I know tensions are high right now. I know that there are people in this room who have lost relatives to the relatives of other people in this room. But this does not make you enemies. Enemies of their relatives, possibly. It's even possible that you'll end up on opposite sides of a battlefield someday. But that day is not today."

He looked around at the faces staring back at him. Many looked disturbed. Some looked angry. A few, like Susan, just looked terribly sad.

"I'm not prepared to judge any of you on the actions of your relatives or on actions you may choose to take in the future. I realize that some of you may be my enemies in the coming years, but I'm not willing to condemn you before you've taken any action to deserve it. I can't control any of you. If you choose to judge and condemn each other, I can't stop you. What I can do, is stop you from acting on it here. So, from this moment on, anyone who takes any action designed to bring serious harm or death to anyone else while here will not be welcome back ever again."

He let that sink in a moment, then turned to look at Ginny. "You get one chance, Ginny, because I hadn't made this clear to this point, but you won't do anything like that again."

Ginny’s jaw clenched, but then she gave a sharp nod. “I won’t.” And she meant it. Hopefully she wouldn’t change her mind later.

Harry nodded. "From now on, I'd like you to practice on the opposite side of the room from Nott."

Ginny gave a sharp nod and hesitated a moment to look at Nott and stiffly say, “Sorry.” Then she stormed off to the other side of the room.

Nott stared after her, expression hard, but he didn’t look like he was plotting murder, at least.

“You’ll leave her alone if she does the same?” Harry asked Nott quietly.

The other boy stared at him a long moment, then gave a small nod.

“I’d like to hear you say it,” Harry pressed, because a nod wasn’t enough for him to be sure it was truth.

Nott raised his chin and stared at Harry for a moment before speaking. “If she attacks me again, I will retaliate, but… If she leaves me alone, I will leave her alone. Because she’s your friend, Potter. That’s the only reason.”

And that all sounded true. “Thank you,” Harry acknowledged.

Nott then turned away to continue his practice with Tracey.

Blaise stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Harry, pressing a reassuring kiss to his temple.

“What on Earth did he say?” Harry asked Blaise when the attention had sufficiently drifted away.

“We were talking about how fucked up Azkaban is,” Blaise admitted quietly. “Theo just said that ten years in there should be enough to pay for any crime and that the Ministry should just leave them alone.”

Harry sighed heavily, thinking of Sirius, and nodded. “I agree,” he admitted. “Not so much that they should be free, but that Azkaban is ridiculous. We have magic, for Merlin’s sake. We should be able to find a humane way to house prisoners.”

Blaise smiled at him, then leaned in to put his lips by Harry’s ear and said fervently, “I adore you.”

Harry felt his cheeks heat a little as he smiled involuntarily, but then someone was calling him over to help them and he left Blaise with Theo and Tracey again.

After that incident, Harry was more careful of watching what was going on during the meetings and the Slytherins took to remaining in their own corner of the room rather than the small amount of mingling they'd been doing before. Harry hated to see the regression, but he understood it. With political tensions as high as they were in the country, it wasn't unreasonable.

As the lessons continued, Harry noticed that he was starting to get more respect. People seemed to be getting more comfortable accepting him as an authority figure in the meetings – even the students that were older than him by a year or two. It was both gratifying and useful. And an unexpected bonus of these meetings. Previously, he'd been a known entity in the school due to his fame/notoriety, and his magical prowess and power was fairly well known. But, due in large part to his hesitance to socialize outside of his small friend group, there weren't that many people in the school who really knew him. And very few who actually respected him.

It could prove useful to him in the future to have so many people who looked on him as deserving respect. Especially if the Ministry continued to treat him like a criminal.

Thankfully, he had no further issues with Voldemort invading his mind while awake or dreaming so far as he could tell. Perhaps the man had discovered their connection and responded to it by blocking it securely from his end. Harry wasn't sure, but he was relieved.

He was making steady progress in his Occlumency. Organizing his mind was a chore and a half. It was such a mess. It was like trying to clean a room that was absolutely trashed, but he couldn't just put things where they belonged. First, he had to identify and categorize each thing. Then figure out where it belonged. Then actually build a place to put it. And there were about a million things laying around a room big enough to drop Hogsmeade into.

And in the midst of this, he had to learn to understand his own emotional ups and downs and figure out how to control them within his own mind by sort of building channels in his own head that he could open or block or redirect on command. Oh, and he had to construct shields to keep people out of his mind. And traps and misdirects in case people got in anyway.

And he had to do all of these things simultaneously, and so that they would work together.

And all his books on the subject offered more guidelines than actual direct instructions because everyone's mind was different and therefore there was no one way to do all of this.

It was maddening. The only saving grace was that Snape was continuing to be weirdly civil and taking a great deal of time and effort to help coach him through the techniques and make sense of how his own mind could be adapted to them with very little actual invasion of Harry's mind. Harry was certain that the man was doing this for his own reasons rather than Harry's benefit, but it was working out in Harry's favor, so he wasn't going to complain.

Snape spent very little time actually invading Harry’s mind, and when he did, it tended to only last a second or two and then they were back to lectures.

The man continued to be strange with Harry after that first occlumency lesson. Harry had no idea what Snape had seen in his mind, but it seemed to have shaken him. He still put in an effort to rise to all of his old vitriol, but it didn’t come off quite as earnest anymore. Whereas before, his hatred had been palpable, it now felt like a mask. Harry wasn’t sure if anyone else would be able to notice the difference or if it was something to do with his ability to hear lies, but it felt obvious to him.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about the change. He wasn't under any delusion that Snape suddenly liked him, but the hatred had let off. If anything, Snape seemed somewhat wary of him now, which was... strange.

Dante continued his practice of following Harry around, invisible and undetectable to anyone but Harry. He tended to nap in the corner during most of Harry’s classes, though in Defense he always remained alert from start to finish, his eyes never leaving Umbridge.

Harry took to talking with Sirius one evening a week on the enchanted mirrors, and they’d slowly grown a little closer. A little more comfortable with each other. Mostly, they just talked about what they’d done that week. Nothing with deep emotions or innermost thoughts, but it was nice to have someone to talk to who seemed to actually care about the minutia of his day. Well, an adult. He did have Blaise and Hermione. And Kaa.

Harry and Blaise continued to spend time together regularly, and Blaise continued to be the greatest source of comfort in Harry’s increasingly difficult existence at Hogwarts.

Valentine's day that year fell on a Saturday, meaning Harry spent the whole day with Blaise, with no classes to get in the way. They spent a good portion of it wandering around Hogsmeade and they had lunch at Cuisine, which Harry still adored, then wandered back to the castle and spent the rest of the day in the chamber of secrets on a conjured cushion just cuddling and reading. They started reading separately, but once Blaise realized that Harry was reading about the mind arts, he'd started reading along with him, interested in the topic. Harry had ended up lending him the books on the subject that he'd already gone through. Blaise was interested in learning Occlumency himself and Harry had promised to work on it with him when they had time.

The basilisk, happily, had not made an appearance this time.

Taking Umbridge 

Umbridge continued to grow worse as time passed until, at the beginning of April, they all came down to breakfast one morning to find the wretched woman sitting in the headmaster’s seat at the professor’s table, looking unbelievably smug.

When most of the students had gathered for breakfast, she stood and tapped at her water glass, slowly drawing the attention of the students. She gave her vile little cough, then began. “As you will have noticed, Albus Dumbledore is not here. Yesterday, he was charged with acting as a vigilante, among other crimes, and chose to evade arrest. He is presently a wanted fugitive. Minister Fudge has appointed me to replace him as Headmistress of Hogwarts. If anyone has any information on Dumbledore’s whereabouts, you can bring it to me. I will be conducting some interviews with certain students in the coming days in hopes of learning more about Dumbledore’s illegal activities here within the school and how it has affected the student body. I’m sure that I can count on all of you to make the right choices for your future.” And she gave a faux sweet smile and a girlish giggle, then dismissed them to their classes and waddled her way out of the room.

“Dumbledore’s gone?” Hermione gasped, quite pale at the thought. “A fugitive?”

“I’m not surprised,” Harry admitted quietly as they gathered their books and stood to leave the hall. “This has been coming since Voldemort’s return.” He took a breath and hitched his bag higher on his shoulder before admitting, “I just hope I’m not next.”

Hermione’s eyes widened further, “Oh, Harry!” Then her face hardened and she nodded decisively, “I’m going to write to Viktor. I’m sure his family can get you an emergency international portkey to get you out of Britain if that happens.”

And that… would be a relief to have, even if he was reasonably certain that he could escape Azkaban if necessary. He’d honestly rather not have to test that. “You’ll have to sneak out of school to send it,” he advised softly. “Umbridge has already been intercepting mail. I wouldn’t put it past her to search all mail coming and going from myself and my friends.”

“Good idea,” she agreed. “I’ll get it sent before dinner tonight. I can just sneak out to the Shrieking Shack. Can I borrow Hedwig?”

“Of course.”

By the next day, Umbridge had instituted the Inquisitorial Squad, which was a collection of mostly Slytherin Students, especially those with parents highly placed in the Ministry, who were able to take points and assign detentions to any other student in the school. And, of course, Malfoy was their foul leader, taking points so rapidly from everyone who wasn’t a Slytherin that he was sure the point system had just become useless as a tool for incentivizing and disciplining students. Slytherin was going to win the Cup and Gryffindor would be near zero at the end of the year. It didn’t matter if the Gryffindors were suddenly infused with Whit Sharpening potions for the rest of the year and they all become model citizens or if the Slytherins all stopped attending classes and ignoring curfew.

Fred and George didn’t take well to the Inquisitorial Squad, having stuffed one of them into a broken vanishing cabinet when he tried to take points from them.

“You’re going to be in so much trouble when he gets out though!” Hermione despaired.

“If he remembers how he got in there,” Fred said rather nastily.

“Or anything else,” George added in an undertone that only Harry caught, though he didn’t think anyone was meant to. He wondered what exactly they’d cursed him with before stuffing him in there. This darker side of the twins was honestly somewhat alarming, but Harry wasn’t sure he could blame them. It felt like the whole world was getting darker and they all had to go with it or get devoured by it.

And then Filch collected Harry before lunch and escorted him to speak with Umbridge, all the while practically creaming his shorts in raptures at the idea of whipping children and hanging them from their ankles. Which was apparently going to become allowed with the next educational decree.

Harry followed Filch with his magic all but growling at the man, and Dante baring his teeth, hackles raised in a great physical representation of what Harry was feeling at that moment. Harry was thoroughly disgusted that Dumbledore had employed this man for so long. Doubtlessly it was out of pity for the poor squib, whom he surely considered harmless since he didn’t have magic. But the mere idea of having a man that got off thinking about torturing children as a permanent part of the staff at a school was just horrifying. What the fuck was wrong with Dumbledore?

Harry was very suddenly feeling quite jealous of the Weasley twins, who were just going to do whatever they could to cause chaos for Umbridge until she expelled them. Without OWLs, they’d snap his wand if he was expelled, which was the only thing preventing Harry from going the same way. He did know that he wouldn’t submit to corporal punishment. If Filch tried to whip him, Harry was going to make him regret it.

But what about all the other students? What about the first years? Surely the pureblood parents wouldn’t stand for that. Umbridge might be able to screen the mail, but she’d have to let the kids go home in a couple months. How did she think there wouldn’t be backlash?

Unless she only allowed muggleborns and halfbloods without influential wizarding parents to be targeted. Their parents had no power and could only pull their children from Hogwarts to protect them. Which is probably what Umbridge wanted anyway.

Fuck, Wizarding Britain was fucked up. Harry’s plans to flee the country after graduation were starting to look more like something he wanted to do than something he felt he had to. He knew that if he ever had children, he’d never send them here. Not unless there was a total overhaul of the British Ministry of Magic.

He was drawn out of his thoughts when they arrived at Umbridge’s office. Which was not the headmaster’s office, because the castle had refused her entrance, according to gossip spread by the ghosts.

The horrible woman made him wait several minutes while she finished whatever she was writing. He spent it with his eyes closed, focusing on keeping his magic in check so it didn’t attack her. He wasn’t entirely sure what it would do if he just let it have at her, but he wouldn’t be totally surprised if she ended up reduced to a fine mist. He really loathed this woman.

Dante had taken a position in the corner behind her desk and was staring at her with bared fangs and raised hackles. It would honestly have been pretty terrifying even if he’d been an ordinary dog. But from a dog that was invisible and could travel through shadows… Yeah, she’d be dead the second Harry gave the word and there was nothing she could do and nowhere she could hide that would save her.

Finally, the foul woman looked at Harry and asked him what he wanted to drink. His first suspicion was honestly poison, but when she started asking him pointed questions, he revised to veritaserum. He obviously did not drink the offered tea, no matter how many times she urged him to “drink up!”. Instead, he pretended to sip while willing his magic to vanish a little of the tea at a time, which thankfully worked.

When he seemed to have drunk, yet couldn’t answer her questions about Dumbledore or Sirius’ whereabouts, she finally accepted that he didn’t know and gave up. Though she did make sure to warn him about how powerful she was and how much he didn’t want to cross her. She admitted to monitoring all communication in and out of the castle, and that she was just waiting to catch any shred of evidence to use against him so that she could expel him.

Then they were interrupted by what felt and sounded like an enormous explosion.

She waddled out to find the source as fast as her fat legs could carry her and Harry followed at a wary distance to find that one floor below her office, someone had set off an enormous crate of magical fireworks.

The sight managed to bring a small smile back to Harry’s lips and helped his magic to settle back into a safe resting state, though it remained somewhat riled. Harry was beginning to think it would be a miracle if he made it through the rest of this year without killing Umbridge. And all bets were off if she came back next year.

It took three days for Montague to turn up after Fred and George stuffed him in that vanishing cabinet, and the news was all over the school by the next day. Apparently, he’d come out with no memory. Like, of anything. A complete obliviate, though not a botched one like Lockhart’s, which prevented him from making new memories. Montague apparently just had complete amnesia.

Harry didn’t say anything, but he suspected that that hadn’t been accidental on the twins’ part.

The Krums did get back to Hermione with an international portkey for Harry in the form of a plain silver ring. It was actually a permanent portkey directly to their home, which was terribly kind of them, but not surprising given that they credited him with saving Viktor’s life. It was self-sizing, so he took to wearing it always on his right pinkie finger. It was an appreciated added security for himself should he ever end up in real trouble. Seeing as he was basically considered an enemy by most of the ruling body of his country, it was hard to ever really feel safe.

When the career counseling sessions came up, Harry had all he could do not to snort at the mere idea. As though he was going to graduate and get a job… First, he was stupidly wealthy and wouldn’t need to work. More importantly, he wasn’t going to be staying in Britain at all. Likely he wouldn’t even stay in the magical world if moving to America panned out.

Not that he planned to live a life of leisure off his bank account, of course. That would be dreadfully boring. But there were plenty of things he could do to entertain himself without a single NEWT to his name. Especially if he was living in the muggle world. He could open a store selling restored antiques, maybe. A good reparo would handle all the labor, after all. Or he could open a coffee shop and infuse all his caffeinated beverages with a mild pepper-up potion. People would love it. And there was no magical government in America, so there wouldn’t be any aurors showing up to get mad about it.

Still, it wasn’t optional, and he wasn’t about to tell anyone of his plans to flee the country upon graduating if not sooner should it prove particularly prudent. So, he turned up as ordered and sat awkwardly in front of McGonagall with Umbridge sitting behind him, taking notes of all things. Somehow, he was not at all surprised that the horrible woman was spying on the career ambitions of the students.

“Have you had any thoughts about what you would like to do after you leave Hogwarts?” McGonagall asked him, very determinedly ignoring Umbridge’s presence.

“I thought maybe Auror,” Harry threw out because it’s what everyone expected, and it would get him the fewest questions. Since he wasn’t planning to do anything that required NEWTs, he may as well take the path of least resistance here.

McGonagall quickly went into the requirements for such a career path. Minimum of five NEWTs of exceeds expectations or higher and a stringent series of character and aptitude tests. “It’s a difficult career path, Potter. They only take the best,” she warned. “In fact, I don’t think anybody has been taken on in the last three years. I’d say your chances of succeeding are very high, however, given your always exemplary marks.” She then went on to detail the classes he would need to take to have a good shot at becoming an auror.

Umbridge interrupted to question Harry’s aptitude for being an auror, which McGonagall did her best to dismiss and ignore as the woman pressed harder and harder, pointing out his low Defense marks this year, as though that had anything to do with his skill in the discipline when she graded only on understanding of a single defense text and allowed no practical at all. Even her essays only sought knowledge of ministry approved defensive actions in any situation, which seemed to mostly entail crossing your fingers and hoping that the aurors showed up quickly.

It soon after turned into a loud and rather entertaining argument between Headmistress and Deputy Headmistress regarding Harry’s chances of becoming an auror. It quickly devolved into Umbridge accusing McGonagall of wanting to replace Fudge with Dumbledore and take on the Senior Undersecretary position and Headmistress of Hogwarts for herself.

McGonagall dismissed him at that point and Harry excused himself, dawdling just a little to enjoy more of the undignified shouting match, but he did make sure to leave before either of them could remember him and start assigning detentions.

That evening, Fred and George dropped out in rather dramatic fashion when Umbridge agreed to sign permission for Filch to whip them. It was entirely epic and would probably live in Hogwarts lore for the next century. And watching Umbridge losing her mind was eminently satisfying.

The whole school had been inspired by Fred and George's rebellion and taken to making Umbridge's life harder in any way they could manage without getting expelled.

Someone left a niffler in her office and it had apparently trashed the place and tried to chew off her fingers to get to her rings when she'd entered the office. Dungbombs and stinkpellets were thrown around so thick that students had taken to wearing bubble-head charms at all times in the corridors. The Inquisitorial Squad were getting hexed at every turn, and Umbridge struggled to keep anyone in her classes with how many skivving snackboxes Fred and George had left behind.

And, of course, she'd alienated all of the staff badly enough that only Filch was exerting himself to assist her with everyone else generally taking what opportunities they could to make things harder on her. It was an unprecedented amount of collaboration between students and teachers.

During the final quidditch match of the year, Hagrid showed up and lured Hermione and Harry into the Forbidden Forest to meet his half-brother Grawp, whom he'd apparently abducted from his home with the other giants because he was getting bullied. And he was now holding him hostage here in the Forbidden Forest. It's why Hagrid had been turning up with injuries all year. The giant apparently didn't know his own strength.

Curiously, Dante didn't seem to mind the big guy, sniffing at him and wagging his tail with mild enthusiasm.

Harry wasn't thrilled with the wrongful imprisonment stuff, honestly, nor with Hagrid's complete failure to understand that a hit that gave Hagrid a black eye would almost certainly kill Hermione – or Harry as far as Hagrid could know. Still, what were friends for, he supposed, but to help each other commit crimes?

Then Hagrid went to wake the giant so that he could introduce them. The giant was truly massive and alarmingly fast when he wanted to be. Hagrid was massive and his brother positively dwarfed him.

Hagrid went about explaining that Harry and Hermione were friends, and that Hagrid might have to go on a little trip, but it was hard to tell if the giant was actually understanding anything he was saying. He did finally manage to get Grawp to notice them, which was a somewhat alarming prospect as the giant lowered himself to the ground so that he could more easily peer at them. They must look tiny to him.

When Hagrid got around to introducing Hermione, Grawp immediately reached out with that shocking speed as though to grab her. Harry immediately snatched her up and spun them both behind a thick tree trunk while Hagrid went about scolding the giant. Hermione was shaking and breathing heavily as she clung to Harry behind the tree, and they listened to Hagrid's scolding until it cut off with an exclamation of pain.

Harry kept a hand on Hermione to keep her where she was as he leaned back out around the tree to find Hagrid lying on his back, his hand over his nose.

Grawp seemed to lose interest in him and straightened up again to play at pulling the pine tree.

Hagrid got up with a bloody nose and Harry took a steadying breath, wondering a bit hysterically why he was friends with this man. The hit that Hagrid just took would have undoubtedly killed Hermione and Hagrid didn't seem to understand that.

Hagrid must have been hurting as he quite briskly started them back toward the castle and no one spoke for quite some time. And then Harry caught the musky, equine scent that could only be centaurs. He was slowing as Hagrid knocked a bolt in his crossbow.

They came through the trees to see half a dozen centaurs looking none too pleased to see them. "I thought that we told you, Hagrid, that you are no longer welcome here?" the leader addressed him.

"How are you, Magorian?" Hagrid greeted warily.

Magorian and the foul-tempered Bane that Harry remembered from his first year were foremost among the centaurs. Both spoke to Hagrid, yet gave Harry and the area occupied by Dante frequent, uneasy glances. The centaurs hadn’t seemed any too wary of him when he’d been a first year, but he supposed he’d come a long way in his inhumanness since then. Also, Dante. And the fact that Harry could assume a similar form to the hound. He wondered if they could sense that.

Magorian declared that they would let Hagrid go this time because he was accompanied by "young". Bane didn't look happy about it, but with many nervous side-eyes toward Harry, he kept his mouth shut. He did snort rather disbelievingly at the "innocent" monicker that Magorian attributed to both Harry and Hermione, which... Well, it wasn't like Harry's hands were clean, so whatever. Probably fair.

By the time they emerged from the forest, Hermione looked frightful, bits of leaves and twigs in her hair, her robes ripped in several places, and numerous scratches on her face and arms. Harry frowned unhappily at that and glanced down at himself to find a totally different story. He didn't seem to have a stitch out of place. He supposed his magic had been protecting him from the brambles. He wondered if he could figure out how to extend that protection to Hermione. And Ron, probably, if they were really going to end up spending the rest of the school year making trips to visit Hagrid's brother.

Merlin, the crap Hagrid got them into...

Hermione fumed about Hagrid talking them into this nonsense all the way back to the castle, and that evening, they pulled Ron aside to fill him in. Gryffindor had won the match, in large part due to Ron, who'd apparently played his best game ever at Keeper. Strangely, the boy wasn't celebrating with everyone else. He'd just settled down in front of the fire and stared moodily into it. When they explained the situation with Hagrid, he hardly even seemed bothered that they'd missed his big win, just shrugging it off without much apparent care, which was... understandable, but worrying. He agreed to help out with the newest Hagrid situation with some exasperation and only mild reluctance.

"Okay, but you guys have to promise me that you will never go to see Grawp without me, right? Not even into the forest. Please?"

Hermione and Ron exchanged a look, but then Hermione nodded, "Of course, Harry," she agreed. "With your magic, you're obviously much more able to keep anything from going wrong."

Ron tipped his head in agreement. "Yeah, mate."

Harry nodded in satisfaction since they both seemed to be telling the truth. He just hoped they wouldn't find any pressing reasons to change their minds at any point. Hermione could have died today had Grawp gotten his hand around her. And if either of them ran into Bane, there was no telling if he'd stick to Magorian's decision about foals.

And then it was time to begin their OWLs, which was just... It felt like the last thing they should really be worrying about. Which, considering that this was a school, was very backward, but Hogwarts always seemed to work out that way, somehow. That there was always something more important than school to be about.

Hermione, of course, had her focus on her schoolwork, but Harry was having a hard time worrying about OWLs while living in a police state headed by someone who had a personal grudge against him. Not that he cared much about his OWLs anyway, since he wasn't planning on staying in the wizarding world after graduation. Or, if he did, it certainly wouldn't be in Britain. And it wasn't like he was going to get your regular sort of job, either. He'd do something that put his ridiculous magical core to work or he'd just study magic and live off his family wealth.

Ron continued to worry Harry and Hermione when she took her head out of her own books long enough to pay attention to him. He seemed... depressed, honestly. It wasn't that he wasn't doing anything. He attended quidditch practices with a single-minded determination. He paid attention in class. More or less. Probably more than he did before. He sat down for homework and studying, but seemed to spend most of his time just staring into space. He didn't talk all that much. He played chess against the set Harry had gotten for him, but he never asked anyone to join him.

He was just... worrying.

For his part, Harry put in some effort when it came to studying for his OWLs. He wanted to be sure to score highly enough to continue in the classes that he wanted to keep taking. He'd continue with the auror-requirement courses that McGonagall had mentioned because it would be best if people like Dumbledore went on believing that Harry wasn't planning on fleeing the country. Harry didn't think the headmaster would approve, and as he'd told the twins, it was in his best interests if Dumbledore didn't realize that Harry might not follow orders. The man had far too much control over Harry's life while he was a minor. Beyond the classes needed to be an auror, Harry planned to continue in Runes, because it was just really useful. He was dropping Care because animals were increasingly skittish around him, and he didn't need to be displaying his oddities any more than he could help.

So the OWL exams passed fairly similarly to any other end of year exams for Harry, apart from sitting with Ministry examiners rather than professors. Most of them were terribly impressed by his practicals, at least. He was confident that he did well on all the subjects he wanted to continue in. Even potions, which was sure to annoy Snape, even if the man probably wouldn't say much about it. Not anymore.

Potions went well, Harry thought. He'd studied all weekend for the theory portion, and he'd put his full concentration into the practical, which he rarely did in class since Snape was such a berk that it was hard to care that much. Even if it meant dealing with Snape for another two years, Harry did want into the class. Potions were useful and if Harry was going to live mostly in the muggle world after school, it would be handy to be able to brew most of his potions himself as getting to an apothecary if he was living in America would be a pain.

The Astronomy exam turned out to be the most exciting of the lot, though that had nothing to do with the exam itself and everything to do with the fact that Umbridge led a half dozen aurors to apparently arrest Hagrid going by how he picked up his dog and ran for it, stunning spells bouncing off his thick hide. When McGonagall showed up and tried to defend him, she ended up hit by so many stunners, she may not survive it.

Dante peered over the side of the tower with Harry and growled so low that it was more felt than heard until Harry motioned him to silence when those nearest began to look a little terrified. Harry's magic was prickly and on edge, but Harry held it back from trying to intervene in what was happening below. Hagrid looked to be fine and as for McGonagall... Well, Harry honestly didn't like her well enough to risk his Secret on her account. She was a decent head of house, but she'd never done anything for him or his friends, even when they'd tried to go to her for help. He hoped that she survived, but he wouldn't risk himself for her.

The spectacle no doubt hurt everyone's marks on that exam since it so thoroughly distracted them, but it wasn't a class Harry planned to continue, so he wasn't overly fussed about it. It was also easy enough to self-study via books later if he decided that he wanted to.

The final exam for Harry was History the day after Hagrid was chased away and McGonagall viciously attacked. There was no word on her condition beyond that she'd been taken to St. Mungo's, which was chilling. Madam Pomfrey could handle a great deal of injuries and illnesses. For it to be serious enough to require the magical hospital, she must have been in real danger of death or serious complications.

It was after dinner that night that Malfoy's little Inquisitorial Squad showed up to "escort" Harry to Umbridge's office. Inside, Harry was manhandled into a seat facing the vile witch while her loyal lackeys arrayed themselves against the wall behind her, smirking at him smugly.

"Is there a problem, Headmistress?" Harry asked as politely as he could manage while keeping a firm hold of his magic as it was doing a good imitation of Dante, who was baring his terrifyingly large fangs at the group arrayed against him.

"Yes, Potter," she said in her faux sweet voice. "There is a problem. You are, by all accounts, a confidant of the fugitives Dumbledore and Hagrid as well as far too close to McGonagall and other suspected conspirators, including Sirius Black himself. You have been given ample time to speak up and you have chosen not to take it. So I'm afraid the time has come to force your compliance," she gave that revolting girlish giggle as though this were the highlight of her year.

"How do you plan to do that?" Harry asked tightly.

"Mr. Malfoy. Go and fetch Professor Snape for me," she said with her amphibian grin. She waited for the blond git to leave the room before she continued. "Now, Mr. Potter, I believe that I will hold onto your wand for now," and she held out her fat digits expectantly.

Harry gritted his teeth and drummed his fingers on his thigh a moment before reluctantly drawing his wand and handing it over rather than cursing her. He was pretty sure that his wand wouldn't be necessary if she meant him real harm. Or if he decided to do her harm. His magic was eager to take a crack at her. Harry just wasn't sure if she'd survive it and he'd be in trouble if he let it loose. But fuck did he want to.

She closed her fat claw around his wand and walked back to her desk, sliding it into her robe, then folding her fingers in front of her while they all waited in silence until Malfoy returned with Snape in tow.

"You wanted to see me, Headmistress?" Snape inquired, glancing at Harry with near perfect indifference, broken only by the ever-present wariness that he had for Harry.

"Ah, Professor Snape," the toad smiled widely, standing to her unimpressive full height. "Yes, I would like another bottle of Veritaserum. Quick as you can, please."

"You took my last bottle to interrogate Potter," Snape replied cooly. "Surely you did not use it all. I told you that three drops would be sufficient."

Umbridge flushed.

Harry was thankful he hadn't drunk that tea. That much of an overdose could have been fatal. Well, maybe not for him, but in general. What a lunatic.

"You can make some more, can't you?" she demanded in that sweet, girlish voice that made Harry want to gag.

"Certainly," Snape said, his lip curling, "It takes a full moon cycle to mature, so I should have it ready for you in around a month?"

"A month?' she demanded. "But I need it this evening, Snape! Potter has withheld his knowledge quite long enough!"

"I see," Snape said coolly. "Well, as I have already told you, I have no further stocks of Veritaserum."

"You are on probation!" she snapped. "You are being deliberately unhelpful. I expected better of you. Lucius Malfoy always speaks most highly of you! Now get out of my office!"

"Very well," Snape said smoothly and turned for the door, casting one last, lingering look at Harry, and then he was gone.

Harry took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, struggling to control his temper while Umbridge muttered nonsensically to herself, clearly trying to work her tiny brain around an alternate plan of action. Snape had been afraid, Harry thought. He hadn't been able to see it, but he could hear it the way he could hear lies. He could almost feel it. Too bad no one currently sharing the room with him had that kind of instinct when Harry's magic was looking to do murder.

Umbridge was muttering now about how she had no other choice and this was a matter of more than school discipline, but Ministry security as she drew her wand.

Harry's apprehension rose as his magic tensed further. She seemed to be talking herself into something and he doubted it was going to end well for him.

"You are forcing me, Potter," she informed him. "I do not want to."

She was lying.

She continued muttering while Malfoy looked on rather eagerly. That boy had issues.

"The Cruciatus Curse ought to loosen your tongue," Umbridge said at last and Harry's eyes widened because... what?

There was a nasty, eager look on Umbridge's face. Excited as Harry had never seen before. What was with this school and hiring psychopaths for teachers?

"Cornelius will understand," she muttered rather mentally to herself. "They're all bleating about silencing you, Potter – discrediting you somehow – but I shall be the one to succeed. The dementors didn't work, but this shall."

Harry felt a chill despite the fact that he'd mostly already known. The way she spoke of people – presumably at the ministry – wanting to silence and discredit him... Yeah, this country was fucked up and he couldn't wait to leave. He half wanted to let Voldemort have it. If not for his friends, he might. They fucking deserved him.

Then Umbridge took a deep breath, pointed her wand square at Harry's chest, and cried out, "Crucio!" rather exultantly.

And the pain was excruciating. There was no question about that, but it wasn't on Voldemort's level.

And as the pain sliced through his entire body, his magic would no longer be contained. It burst from him and everyone in the office slammed against the nearest wall behind them.

The pain was gone instantly, and Harry lurched out of the chair. He lunged across the room to where Umbridge was held against the wall, staring at him in shock and fear. He wrapped his hands around the sides of her face and stared directly into her eyes, pressing his magic on her.

Her wide mouth opened and closed repeatedly, as though she wanted to speak, but couldn’t find the words.

"You will feel every hurt that you have ever caused another," Harry snarled at her. "You will never willfully harm another person again." He didn't know fully what he was doing except that he was pressing his magic on her and demanding that his words be enforced. It seemed quite... gleeful to obey.

The woman immediately began moaning and writhing as though the pain she'd inflicted on others was beginning to come back to her already.

Good.

Harry stepped back and pulled his magic back by degrees, allowing her to slump to the floor. He then looked around at the Slytherins in the room.

Crabbe and Goyle had both sunk to the floor was well. Goyle had his arms over his head as though to shield himself. Crabbe was sobbing rather pathetically. Pansy was staring at him like he was her nightmare come to life. Warrington seemed to have frozen like he thought he might go unnoticed if he was still enough. Draco was so pale he looked like he was going to faint.

Every one of them would love to ruin his life. The question was whether he'd frightened them enough that they wouldn't dare. Well, he supposed he could try pressing his magic on them as he had on Umbridge.

His magic snapped to obey, clearly weary of the leash he'd kept it on all year. "You will never speak of what happened here today," Harry said forcefully, sharing a threatening look around all the Slytherins. "Tell me that you understand."

He got a lot of various nods and snapped, "Verbally!" which resulted in a lot of simultaneous agreement. He didn't hear anything that sounded like a lie in it, though that could just be because they were momentarily terrified. He supposed it was the best he would get.

Harry forced himself to take a breath and draw his magic back further. It was... an effort. His magic had enjoyed being put to use and wasn't eager to go back to sitting quietly, but it did obey, if somewhat sulkily. Feeling as put together as he was going to get, Harry snatched his wand back from Umbridge’s pocket, and let himself out of the room without looking at anyone else.

The sound of Umbridge’s weeping followed him down the corridor.

Chapter Text

Year End

After the scene in Umbridge's office, Harry went to bed early. He wasn't remotely tired, but he needed to not deal with people anymore. Dante settled on the foot of Harry's bed and Harry called out Kaa, who quickly wound his way through Harry's limbs until he decided that he was comfortable. If he lived in the wild, Harry suspected that Kaa would be the sort of snake that hung out in trees. He certainly enjoyed being tangled around Harry's limbs, anyway.

Despite a marginal amount of faith that his magic had adequately enforced secrecy about the entire affair, Harry was a little worried that he would go down to breakfast in the morning to find half the auror corps waiting to arrest him.

"They will not be," Kaa informed him with certainty. "Your magic will have done as you commanded."

"Okay..." Harry let himself believe that for the moment. "But even so, what if they notice that Umbridge was attacked and the aurors can trace my magical signature or something. I didn't even think about that."

Kaa adjusted his coils so that he could put his face right in front of Harry's and tap Harry's nose with his tongue, "What will you do if it is so?" the snake posed. "If they are waiting for you in the morning?"

Harry frowned and let himself consider. "Well, I could let them take me in and escape from custody once they left me alone. I'm pretty sure Dante could lead me through the shadows. And even if not, I think my magic could probably overwhelm and destroy any wards they set, though it might take me a while." He thought about it a minute, then glanced at his wrist cuff. "Of course, if they search me, they'll steal all my stuff, including the library of Dark Arts books I've been collecting. That would be... frustrating. So I guess the best thing to do would be to just evade arrest like Hagrid and apparently Dumbledore have already done. They'd certainly let me hide out at Headquarters as long as necessary. And if all else fails, there’s the portkey to Bulgaria." Harry preferred not to use it. No matter what the Krums believed they owed him, Harry preferred not to be a burden on anyone. And surely if he turned up on their doorstep as a fugitive, it would be inconvenient for them.

"There, you have a plan. Now you have no need to worry further," Kaa declared with finality.

Harry chuckled quietly and gave the snake the scritches that he liked best. He did actually feel better having thought through the worst case scenario. He was fast and strong these days. He was confident that he could evade capture if necessary. And even without shadow traveling, he had his invisibility cloak and his broom. He'd be able to get to Grimmauld Place just fine. He knew that Sirius wouldn't hesitate to take him in. He'd undoubtedly love the company. And as for his legal status... Well, Harry wasn't planning to stay in Britain anyway. Maybe he'd try to talk Sirius into going to America with him. They got along pretty well these days and then Sirius could be free as well.

When morning came, Harry made sure that everything he cared about keeping was in his wrist cuff, including Sirius' communication mirror. He went down to breakfast tense, his magic coiled to strike. Dante slunk along in his shadow, fur slightly ruffled, though Harry was certain the hound had no idea what the danger might be. Only that Harry was ready for something, and he was going to back Harry up,

He really did love that Hellhound.

He wasn't sure if he was surprised or not when he entered the Great Hall to find nothing at all unusual. Well, apart from a few flinches at the Slytherin table when he glanced that way. Even if they couldn't talk about it, they could clearly still draw attention to the fact that something had happened. Though he supposed maybe he could play dumb in general. If his friends pressed, he might suggest it was accidental magic. It was sort of true.

Relaxing by degrees, Harry moved to the Gryffindor table and sat down with his friends for breakfast. There was a little talk about the fact that Umbridge was missing from the head table, but that was all and Harry relaxed further.

Before the bells rang to send everyone to their first class, Snape rose from the head table and called for everyone's attention. "Headmistress Umbridge's classes are cancelled for the day. If you were scheduled to attend one, please take it as a free period today." And then he turned and left the room.

There was a round of spontaneous applause in response to this news and a few scattered cheers as people began to rise and head toward their morning classes. Harry, thankfully, hadn't told his friends about being anywhere near Umbridge the previous evening, so he didn't have to face any pointed questions about whether she was fine last he saw her.

He did notice that the Slytherins that had witnessed his little display seemed too terrified to even look at him and tended to flinch whenever he got too close. But the rest of the Slytherins did not react in the same way. He got some wary, considering looks from them, but not like they knew what he'd done. More that they suspected he'd done something.

They ended up in the library during their Defense period, and Blaise didn't say anything, but he did draw Harry aside for some privacy as they were leaving. He led them into an unused classroom and warded the door before asking, "Any idea why the majority of the inquisitorial squad came back to the common room last night looking like they'd barely escaped with their lives? I ask, because they have neither spoken of nor even looked at you since."

Harry ran a hand nervously through his hair and paced away from Blaise across the room while he considered how to answer that.

"You don't have to tell me," Blaise said when Harry's silence went on too long.

Harry sighed heavily, frustrated with himself. "I love that you respect my Secrets, Blaise, but I think I'm using that as an excuse to keep you at arm's length, and I don't want to do that."

"You don't keep me at arm's length," Blaise frowned.

"No, I do," Harry countered. He thought a moment before explaining, "I've not had many people in my life that I really trusted." He considered that for a long while and amended, "No, really, I don't think I've ever fully trusted anyone. Not as long as I can remember. You're definitely the closest, and I want to trust you. I really, really want to trust you with everything, but-"

"Stop," Blaise interrupted, crossing the room quickly to cradle Harry's face in his hands and meet his eyes directly, "I am honored that you trust me so much. I don't need you to trust me with everything right now. When we're married, yes. I will expect that level of trust. But we're not even engaged yet. We have plenty of time to get there, okay?"

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Right. You're right," he allowed, feeling incredibly relieved.

Blaise wrapped his arms around Harry and drew him close and Harry let himself melt into the embrace. "You're perfect exactly as you are, okay?" Blaise breathed against his hair. "Don't go changing for me."

Harry blushed and his chest felt warm and his tense magic just wrapped itself around Blaise like it would be happy to stay there forever. Which was probably true because Harry certainly would. "Please don't ever get sick of me," he found himself saying. "Just, warn me if I'm getting annoying or frustrating or something, okay, because I don't know if I'll notice, and-"

"Hush, love," Blaise said softly, running one hand soothingly up and down Harry's back. "Never going to happen, but if It'll make you feel better, I promise. If you should ever manage to annoy me, I'll let you know."

"I can be very annoying," Harry warned.

"I'm not convinced," Blaise countered with a smile in his voice.

They just held each other for several minutes in companionable silence before Harry broke it to say, "Umbridge was convinced that I could tell her where Dumbledore and Hagrid are hiding. Snape told her he didn't have any veritaserum, so she used the Cruciatus Curse on me."

Blaise went very tense and slowly drew back to meet Harry's eyes, his expression something between shock and utter rage. "She what?"

Harry nodded stiffly, averting his gaze. "It, er... It was only for a second or two, then my magic... It sort of snapped. Threw everyone in the room around like ragdolls." He glanced briefly at Blaise to gage his reaction, but it hadn't changed much. Maybe it was slightly happier? "And, er... Yeah, so I may have... turned it on her. To ensure she wouldn't ever do it again. ...and then on the Inquisitorial Squad to ensure they wouldn't talk about it."

Blaise let out a slow breath, then pulled Harry into his arms again. "Good," he pronounced after a long moment. "That's good. Sounds like she deserved far worse than she got."

Harry relaxed in relief. He hadn't really expected Blaise to be upset with what he'd done. It was more his magic in general that Harry was worried about bothering the other boy. It wasn't normal, and he was sure plenty of people would be freaked out about it.

It was several more minutes before they reluctantly separated. "We'll miss lunch entirely if we don't hurry," Blaise lamented.

Harry nodded quickly in agreement, and they left the room, though their hands remained firmly linked all the way down to the Great Hall. Before going in, Blaise pulled him close for a kiss. "I adore you," he said again, fingers lingering gently against Harry’s cheek before parting from Harry to enter the Great Hall.

Harry took another moment to gather himself because Blaise was just... So much to handle. In all the very best ways. Parting from him was always unpleasant.

As he hurried to the Gryffindor table and scooped up some food before it could disappear, he found himself daydreaming about a time when they were married, and they could spend so much more of their time together. It was a pleasant fantasy that lasted until Snape called for attention just before lunch ended. Harry looked up to the head table and was surprised to realize that Snape was standing in front of the headmaster's seat.

"It is my duty to inform you that Delores Umbridge has suffered a sudden and violent mental breakdown, for which she has been moved to the long-term ward at St. Mungo's Hospital."

Before he could continue further, a riotous cheer went up from the student body, who quickly rose in a full-hearted standing ovation at the news.

Harry smiled and tried his best to participate as if he was not just learning that he was responsible for apparently doing a lot more damage than he'd imagined or expected. He wasn't sure which part of his commands had broken her mind. Was it the pain of her victims? Had she inflicted that much? Or was it the command to cause no harm that was so opposed to her personality that her mind couldn't reconcile it? Or some combination of the two?

Luckily, the cheering settled down quickly as Snape raised his hands for silence and the students were generally unwilling to risk his wrath by defying him.

"Your heads of house and the staff in general will be available to speak to you if any of you feel... distressed," he delivered so completely deadpan that Harry wasn't totally sure if he wasn't serious, though Harry doubted anyone on the staff could be ignorant of the almost universal hatred for Umbridge among the student body. "For the remainder of the school year, I will be serving as acting headmaster."

That wiped the smiles off a lot of faces, but even the Gryffindors didn't seem to find Snape as objectionable as Umbridge had been, which was... really saying something about Umbridge. Even Harry preferred Snape to Umbridge.

"I see no pressing need for the Inquisitorial Squad to continue their duties and it is thus disbanded forthwith," Snape continued. "Further, in absence of their progenitor, we will be ignoring all educational decrees that have been passed during Madam Umbridge's tenure in this school. You are all dismissed," and he flicked a hand negligently before leaving the Great Hall to the rising roar of excited students gossiping.

The final week of the school term was filled with much enthusiastic gossiping and many outlandish theories as to what had happened to Umbridge. The leading theory seemed to be that Snape had finally gotten fed up with her and poisoned her tea that he might take her place. No one seemed to believe she'd just succumbed to stress or something. When someone solicited Harry's opinion, he tended to just shrug and say that he was just glad she was gone, which was a fairly universal sentiment.

McGonagall came back a few days later, but she didn't take Snape's place as interim head, much to many students' dismay. She was walking with a cane and generally looked too pale, so Harry wasn’t surprised that she wasn't up to taking on any additional responsibilities at the moment. It wasn't like there was much of the year left anyway. Switching again would probably be more hassle than it was worth for the last few days of term.

When it came time to take the train back to London, Harry told Blaise that he wanted to sit with Ron and Hermione. "Ron's not been doing great," he offered as explanation.

"No, I understand," Blaise assured him. "I can't even imagine what I'd do if my mother was killed," he almost shuddered at the thought. "I'm very glad she's got nothing to do with this war. And a house in Italy if things get bad."

On the train, Harry curled into Blaise's side, and they all read in silence for a while, though Ron rather spent the time staring out the window, which kept distracting Harry as he really was worried about his friend.

Eventually, Hermione put her book away and asked with cautious brightness, "So, what's everyone's plans for the summer? I'll be spending the first half with my parents and the second half with Viktor's family again."

"I will be in Italy with my mother until August. We will return just after the harvest festival," Blaise offered, turning inquisitive eyes on Harry.

Harry shrugged, "I expect I'll be locked up with my relatives until sometime in August. Hopefully then I'll be able to get out of there for the rest of the summer."

Harry finished and they all turned cautious eyes toward Ron, who shrugged and looked back out the window.

"We'll be at the Burrow," he said gravely. "Probably listening to my mum cry herself to sleep every night again."

An awkward silence followed that proclamation, but Ron didn't seem to mind it.

Harry soon after invited Ron to play some chess with him, to which he got a disinterested shrug.

"Not really in the mood," was his reply.

Harry shared a mildly alarmed look with Hermione, because when was Ron ever not in the mood for chess? The rest of them eventually settled on rune dominoes, which didn't seem to bother Ron as he continued watching out the window as though they might go off course if he wasn't keeping an eye out.

Arriving in London was almost a relief after that train ride, even if it did mean that he had to go and spend weeks with the Dursleys. At least he wouldn't starve anymore. And he suspected that the Dursleys would continue to leave him alone after his little display with Vernon the previous summer. And he had plenty of books to read and magic to study, so he wouldn't be too bored. And he had Kaa and Dante and Hedwig to keep him company, so he wouldn't be too lonely.

Really, thinking about it, his experience at Privet Drive was so improved from the first couple summers there after starting Hogwarts as to be barely recognizable as the same place.

And so he was rather cheered by the thought as they stood to retrieve their luggage and exit the compartment. Harry and Blaise took their time, letting the others leave first. When Harry had closed the door behind Ron, Blaise immediately crowded him against it and kissed him thoroughly. "I’m going to miss you," he admitted when they separated.

"Me too," Harry sigh. "We should definitely try to meet up in London this time. I've gotten pretty good at sneaking out after everyone else goes to bed."

"I'll try," Blaise allowed. "It will depend on how bad things are getting politically whether my mum will put up wards to ensure I can't sneak out."

Harry sighed again, aggrieved at the idea of another whole summer without seeing Blaise, though he supposed he'd survive if it came to it. It was just this summer and next and then they wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. Assuming they were still together, and that Blaise was okay with leaving Britain with Harry, at least.

A Waking Nightmare

Harry's first couple days at the Dursleys passed as anticipated. The Dursleys seemed intent on pretending that he didn't exist. They continued to give him small portions of food each meal and he continued to vanish them and eat the food supplied by Dobby instead.

The spies also returned almost immediately, and Harry despaired of getting a good night of sleep as long as he remained that summer.

On his second night back at Privet Drive, Harry lay awake in bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling and trying unsuccessfully to avoid focusing on the spy he could feel watching the house. It was Tonks, he thought, by the feel of her. He wasn't sure if it was her magic that he was sensing or just her lifeforce. There was no way to know, and it honestly freaked him out a little to consider that he was feeling people's lifeforce, so he didn't spend a lot of time dwelling on it. Anyway, Tonks was outside the Dursley's house, parked under the tree on the lawn. He assumed that she was under an invisibility cloak or possibly disillusioned. And she was unfortunately diligent to her task, meaning that it was difficult to ignore her presence.

It was nearly two in the morning, the last time he looked at his bedside clock, and he must have dozed off at some point after that, because then he was flinching awake at the searing pain in his head. He lurched up in bed, clutching at his head as he heard Voldemort's malevolent laugh echoing around his brain.

And then he was looking through the eyes of someone who blasted open a door and barged into a bedroom in a muggle house. Harry was horrified to recognize Hermione flinching awake in the bed even as Death Eaters crowded into the room around Harry. One of them yanked off her covers and another hit her with a binding spell just as she was trying to lunge out of the way, launching rope from his wand that forcefully wrapped around her body and bound her arms to her sides and her ankles together. They laughed as she began to struggle, and another spell wedged a gag into her mouth when she began to scream.

She flailed in helpless panic as one of them dragged her out of the bed by the ropes binding her and slung her over his shoulder.

Harry could only watch as his bound and screaming friend was hauled down a stairway and into a muggle living room that was absolutely dripping in blood. Hermione went quiet and still at the sight and Harry realized that there were two bodies among the bloodshed, vaguely identifiable as a male and a female. Both were very obviously dead, their faces still distended in rictus snarls of agony and terror.

And Hermione went absolutely berserk, shrieking and thrashing like a madwoman.

The Death Eaters laughed and disapparated.

The next moment, Harry and the Death Eaters appeared in a huge room that he realized must be the Ministry atrium when he got a look at the gaudy fountain of all the creatures gazing adoringly on a wizard. He’d seen it in a book when he’d been researching the Ministry since learning how much they apparently wanted to ruin him.

He was unable to move freely about the memory and was instead tugged along, forced to watch through someone’s eyes as Hermione was hauled through the empty atrium and down a lift to the ninth floor, then down a staircase to a yet lower level. They passed through a room of doors, which spun around them. When the spinning stopped, they opened one of the doors like they knew where they were going. Then they moved through a room containing just an archway with a tattered veil hanging in it, then through a room full of clocks, and then entered a massive hall filled with shelves that contained fist-sized glass orbs. Thousands upon thousands of them lining huge shelves.

They moved to row 97 and dumped Hermione at Voldemort's feet. The Dark Lord laughed as he shoved her onto her back with his boot, then he seemed to focus on Harry and smirked evilly. "Come alone or she dies, Potter. And you'd better hurry. Your friend will entertain me until you arrive."

And then, with a sudden wave of dizziness, the pain and Voldemort's presence were gone.

Harry jolted and rolled out of bed, landing hard on the floor. He gasped for breath and rubbed at the phantom pain lingering in his scar as he tried to think rationally. He didn't know if this was real. Voldemort had obviously sent it to him, but had he showed Harry real events or was it made up?

It had certainly felt real. Hermione had looked and sounded very real. Harry’s magic was a writhing mess between Voldemort’s invasion into his mind and his emotional upset.

Harry shoved himself to his feet and opened his trunk. The first thing he grabbed was Sirius' communication mirror. He wasn't going to risk calling anyone just yet, but he'd hopefully get a chance to call the cavalry when Hermione was safe.

He honestly didn't know if the vision was real, but he couldn't take the chance. He had no reason to believe that it was false and if he ignored it and he was wrong... No. It didn't bear thinking about.

Worst case scenario, he got killed. And he obviously didn't want that to happen. He really, really didn't want that to happen. But he'd rather die than hide here while Hermione was tortured to death. If he died tonight, he'd deal with it. Hopefully his father could be bargained with if he ended up meeting him tonight.

Harry closed his eyes and took a moment to steel his nerves, then he let out a sharp breath as he opened his eyes and nodded firmly to himself. He draped his invisibility cloak around his shoulders, snatched up his broom, and started for the door. "Find me when I land," he instructed Dante, who was watching him with tense focus, then he let himself out of the Dursleys' backdoor since Tonks was still in the front.

He mounted his broom and concentrated on drawing up his magic and willing it to do his bidding. He wasn't too surprised when he felt the disillusionment charm splash over his body. It was a little scary how good his magic was getting at doing as he wished without need of wand or even spell. He was grateful for it tonight, though.

He pushed those thoughts from his mind as he drew up the hood of his cloak for an extra layer of coverage and took to the sky.

The flight to London was not long in this manner. Not with his Firebolt at full speed. His magic served to keep the wind from bothering his eyes or chilling his body. It was a little tricky to find the Ministry building. He’d looked it up on a map before, but he still landed in the wrong place twice when he mistook another building for the one he was looking for.

So it wasn’t too long of a trip, but with thoughts of Hermione’s situation at the forefront of his mind, it still felt like far too long before he was landing at the street entrance to the Ministry of Magic. Harry had never been there, but the method of entrance had been listed in the book he'd read. Hopefully, it was accurate.

Dante slunk out of a shadow just as Harry was entering the telephone box and they managed to fit into it together. The box was subtly larger on the inside than it should be, Harry thought. He dialed MAGIC on the phone keypad. When the automated voice asked his name and business, he hesitated a second before shrugging. "Harry Potter. I'm here to rescue my friend..."

And that seemed sufficient as it spat out a badge with "rescue mission" listed below his name.

Shaking his head, Harry stuffed the badge into his pocket and drew his wand as the box began to descend. He had no hope of getting through this without using his wand. He could only hope that it wouldn't register since he was within the Ministry itself. Would they even monitor for underage magic here? He wasn't sure, but he was sure that he was going to use it regardless. He could do a lot with wandless magic, but he wasn't going to try to face Voldemort with nothing more than that. It wasn't nearly fast enough or reliable enough, and he did hope to live through the night if he could manage it.

If nothing else, he had Dante and Kaa, neither of whom would be expected.

The telephone box stopped in an eerily empty atrium, and Harry cautiously surveyed the area, then removed his wrist cuff and widened the opening until he could slide his broom into it. He replaced that on his wrist, then took a moment to call out Kaa. Though the snake's body could be destroyed, he could not be killed. Destroying his body would just send his soul back into Harry and it would require another effort of Harry's magic to manifest him a new body, but the snake would be fine. Harry was not certain if a hellhound could properly die or not. Would he just go back to Hell, or would he like cease to exist? Harry didn't know. He could only trust in Dante's invisibility and shadow travel to keep him safe.

He kept a careful eye on his surroundings and his magical senses attuned for anyone, but he remained alone, so he took a moment to explain the situation to his two familiars, hoping that Dante understood, though the hound did seem very intelligent. And he seemed to understand Parseltongue as well as English – which was maybe a hellhound thing or maybe the hound's ability to understand him just wasn't rooted in language.

"I need to go and find Hermione," he explained. "It's obviously a trap and I don't know for sure if she's really here, but we have to go and check. I need you two to stay out of sight and back me up. When I find Hermione – if I do – I'll grab her and run for it. You two do your best to distract any pursuit, but be careful. Don't die," he directed at Dante. "Once I'm safe, if I don't have a chance to grab you, Kaa, let Dante bring you to me, all right?"

"We will devour your enemies, Master," Kaa promised.

"Just don't get caught," Harry cautioned. "I don't need to be rescuing either of you from the Unspeakables."

With no more reason to hesitate and far too clear an idea of what Hermione could be going through if Voldemort was really keeping himself entertained by tormenting her, Harry followed the path that the Death Eater's had taken.

In the lift, he took a moment to cast an impervious charm on Sirius' communication mirror and to ensure that it was safely ensconced in a pocket that it wouldn't fall out of, while still being simple enough to access in a hurry. He then cast a disillusionment charm on Kaa, since the snake did not have the benefit of natural invisibility like Dante. And though Harry could no longer see the snake, he found that he could still feel his general location.

Harry half expected to find himself confronted with Death Eaters when the lift opened, but the ministry continued to appear deserted.

With a steadying breath, Harry followed the path he'd seen in the vision, down the stairwell and into what could only be the Department of Mysteries. When the circular room spun around him, he let his magic examine the doors available to him. There were two that his magic straight up shied away from, which was worrying, but they were easy enough to avoid. Of the remaining, two of the doors seemed equally promising. After a moment of deliberation, he chose the one to the left and stepped through into a large room, the center of which was occupied by a very large glass-walled tank filled with what appeared to be brains with tentacles.

Harry found himself frozen for several long moments, just staring at the horrifying things. What the fuck even were those things? And what else might he find down here?

Shaking himself, he stepped back out of the room since it was not the one he'd seen the Death Eaters take. He didn't bother closing the door, just quickly moving to the second door that his magic had seemed to like. This time, he saw the room he'd been hoping to find. The large room held at its center a single stone archway carved with runes. And within the arch hung a tattered old cloth.

Harry had barely taken a step into the room when Dante suddenly sprinted past him and directly to the archway, stuffing his head through the veil and wiggling his whole body in irrepressible excitement.

Harry stared a moment in surprise before cautiously following the hound, who pulled his head out to give Harry an open-mouthed, tongue-lolling, canine grin for a moment before looking through again.

The veil swayed on an unfelt breeze and Harry suddenly caught a very familiar scent. Sulfur and ash. He looked at the veil in shock as he faintly heard tortured screaming and mad laughter. "Is that... is that home, boy?" he asked warily of the excited hellhound. The hound wiggled even harder, and Harry's magic wrapped itself around the archway.

It was... definitely Dark. And there was something almost alarmingly... beckoning to it. Like it wanted Harry to press closer.

Cautious but incredibly curious, Harry warily placed a hand on the archway. The moment his hand touched the stone, he felt a rush of what he could only describe as... welcome. It was Grimmauld Place times a hundred. He shuddered at his magic's complete contentment in response to that feeling.

Slowly, Harry reached out to push aside the veil and peer beyond. He was wary of being spotted by anything on the other side, but he relaxed on realizing that the arch seemed to look out into an impossibly massive cavern, but there was nothing close by.

He could hear the screams and the laughter distantly, from many different throats, like a constant background ambiance. And so many Halloweens of hearing it must have desensitized Harry because the sounds didn’t bother him nearly as much as they used to. The air smelled strongly of sulfur and ash, undoubtedly a result of the massive lake of hot lava that he could see glowing on the other side of the cavern. The temperature was quite warm – again likely for obvious reasons. The floor of the cavern below looked like some kind of city, filled with uncountable stone buildings of various sizes, separated by dark, narrow streets. Some parts of the city looked to be crumbling into ruin while others might have been new construction. The walls of the cavern itself seemed to be dotted with innumerable caves, some appearing rough and natural looking while others were carved and some even had balconies.

And on the far side of the cavern, beyond the lake of fire, stood a massive stone palace that must have been many times the size of Hogwarts and considerably more elegant in design. But then, Satan was said to be both arrogant and hedonistic, so probably not a surprise that his palace was... well, monumental in scope.

As for visible life, there was certainly movement on the streets, though no sign of any kind of vehicle or even carts that he could make out. There were a lot of things flying around, as though a considerable portion of the populace must have wings. Something like dragons were occasionally visible, though far more common were the man-sized things. Most had leathery wings like a bat or dragon, and some had tails while others did not – demons, Harry supposed. A few had feathered wings, which were perhaps the fallen angels. There were also many smaller creatures, the size of birds or actual bats, with leathery wings and most seemed to have long tails, though the shape of the tails varied.

His magic was eager to explore beyond the arch, but Harry held it back quite firmly. He wasn't going to risk spilling his magic out into actual Hell. It was far too likely that he'd catch someone's attention.

Harry allowed himself no more than perhaps a minute to appreciate the view of what could only be Hell, before he forced himself to step away from the arch. It really didn't appear to be as bad as he might have feared. If he could work out a deal with his father and hopefully not get on the bad side of any other residents, it might not be a terrible place to spend his afterlife. His magic, at least, seemed very fond of it.

It was a heartening thought, particularly as he turned his attention back to the night's mission. Though he did wonder just what the Department of Mysteries was doing with a doorway to freaking Hell.

Dante whined in protest when Harry began to turn away and he patted the hound's shoulder consolingly, "We're not going there tonight, buddy." Turning his attention to the door across the room, he couldn't help but add, "I hope."

The door led into the room filled with clocks that Harry remembered from the vision, though as he moved through it now, he realized that it wasn't just clocks. It was rather time devices. He was very tempted, when he passed a rack of time turners, to appropriate one, but the odds of getting caught seemed too high. And he really couldn't afford to give the Ministry a legitimate reason to chuck him in Azkaban.

When he opened the door on the other side of that room, he was confronted with the shelves lined with orbs. He took a shaking breath, knowing that he was close, and though he’d never been much for it, he had the bizarre urge to say a prayer. He resisted, since he wasn’t entirely sure that God wouldn’t rather seek to hasten Harry’s demise given his prophesized destiny.

"Keep a bit of distance," Harry murmured to Kaa and Dante as they paused in the doorway of the room where Voldemort had told him to come.

The room was massive, he noted as he slowly stepped into the space. It felt more like a cavern than a room, really, though it was filled with shelves that towered nearly to the ceilings and stood in orderly rows down the massive length of the room.

Heart pounding, magic writhing around him, Harry saw nothing of his quarry, but his hearing picked up multiple low voices and one person with labored breathing, releasing occasional, very quiet whimpers.

She was here, he was now certain.

Row 97 if the vision was to be believed.

He kept his pace measured and his eyes open for any sign of a surprise trap. Kaa was invisible, but he could feel the serpent slightly behind him on his right. Dante was ahead of him on his left, visible to Harry but naturally invisible to the rest of the world.

As he drew closer, he began to make out the quiet words ahead of him. The voices were low, presumably low enough that they believed themselves inaudible to him.

"Poor little baby mudblood," a woman crooned mockingly. "Does it hurt, little baby? Does it hurt?"

"Bella, be silent," a voice that was almost certainly Lucius Malfoy chastised harshly.

There was a wordless hiss that was presumably a reply, and then they fell silent once more, aside from a little shuffling and the continued labored breathing and almost silent whimpers.

When he came to row 97, he found a full dozen robed and masked Death Eaters surrounding Hermione's crumpled and bloody form on the ground. She was trembling violently, clearly having felt the Cruciatus curse, likely more than once. Her nightgown was torn to the point that she was using her arms to try to maintain some degree of modesty.

Harry's magic positively snarled at the sight of her. The one who must have been Bellatrix burst into maniacal laughter. Voldemort, himself, did not seem to be present, which Harry decided to take as a good thing.

"Potter," the masked Death Eater with long blond hair falling around his mask spoke in what Harry had suspected was Lucius Malfoy's cold drawl.

Hermione gasped and jerked to look at him and Harry felt his anger burn hotter at the sight of tear tracks on her bloodied face. "Harry, no," she breathed.

Harry forced himself to focus on Lucius instead of Hermione, "Malfoy," he greeted in reply as his magic burned like an inferno around him.

The aristocrat seemed to hesitate a moment before he pointed a finger at one of the orbs on the shelf across the aisle from Hermione. "Take the prophecy, Potter."

Harry's brow furrowed slightly as he looked at the orb in question. That's what this was all about? That fucking prophecy that Sirius mentioned?

Harry glanced at Hermione, then around at the waiting Death Eaters, their wands all drawn, then at the prophecy, and finally at Lucius. He suspected that the plan was the drag him to Voldemort once the prophecy was secured. Hermione would likely either be killed or dragged along to torment him with/force his compliance. In the end, though, he was sure they were both meant to die.

Luckily, he had two companions that his would-be captors knew nothing about. Kaa was creeping up behind him while Harry knew that Dante had continued down the next aisle to flank the Death Eaters. Harry just needed to buy him a little more time.

And so Harry slowly stepped forward and reached for the orb labeled S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D. Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter. He hesitated to actually touch the orb and Lucius barked a quick, "Now, Potter."

Harry clenched his jaw, but didn't outwardly react before reaching out to grasp the orb.

"Very good, Potter," Lucius said lowly. "Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."

Harry did turn slowly, his magic wrapping itself around each of the foul souls sharing the aisle with him, memorizing the feel of them to be sure that he could make them pay for this eventually. Today was going to be about survival rather than revenge, unfortunately.

"Give it to me, Potter," Lucius said more firmly.

"And then what?" Harry asked to waste time as he mentally ran through the makings of a plan. Kaa and Dante were nearly in place. They would attack on command and cause chaos. Harry would then have to grab Hermione and get to a safe distance. He could maybe use the shelves as cover, but it would slow down his route to the exit, and it's not like they didn't know where he was going. There was a good chance they could get ahead of him if he took too long...

"That's not what you need to be concerned about," Lucius snapped coldly. "You need to worry about what happens now if you don't comply."

And he turned his wand on Hermione.

Harry felt his fury burn down to an icy rage as he flashed Lucius and ugly smile and then hissed in parseltongue, "Now!"

And Harry lifted a shield around himself and Hermione as he stuffed the orb into a pocket. The Death Eaters very quickly grew distracted by the invisible beasts attacking them, and Harry didn’t waste a moment, immediately scooping Hermione into his arms and fleeing back toward the exit.

“Harry!” he heard Hermione gasp, but ignored her in favor of giving all of his attention to their flight. He cradled Hermione’s body in front of him, shielded from the spells sent after them. He trusted to his magic and his durability to keep himself safe as he ran. He changed direction as often as possible, cutting between the shelves to avoid letting any of the Death Eaters keep him in their sights as much as he could.

He felt more than one spell redirected by his magic so that it just skimmed by him instead of striking him. By the malevolent burn of the magic, he knew that he was lucky to have been saved whatever effect they were meant to have.

For once, he didn’t worry at all about concealing his Secret, choosing instead to use every bit of his superhuman speed and strength. It was an advantage that swiftly put distance between himself and his pursuers, but that only seemed to make them more reckless. The spells became larger as their distance behind him grew – spells that targeted an area so that they did not have to hit him precisely.

A massive ball of fire blossomed so close in front of him that he had no chance of avoiding it, and Harry instead curled himself more tightly around Hermione and willed his magic to protect her as he charged directly through the brilliant flame. Amazingly, the flames licked at his skin without effect as he sprinted through them. It felt hot, but not unpleasantly so. Some part of him made note of something else he’d have to investigate to determine if it was a momentary effect or a new quirk of his body. Most of him was more worried about the way his clothing had caught fire in more than once place.

He didn’t have time to try to figure out how to douse the flames without slowing or relinquishing his hold on Hermione, because he was not two steps beyond the flames before one of the massive shelves was crashing down onto him.

Harry did his best to catch and hold himself over Hermione as the weight crashed down on his back, but he didn’t have much time and he heard her cry out, though a quick check assured him that her head and torso seemed to be safe beneath him, so he hoped the damage was superficial. The orbs shattered on impact, scattering glass everywhere, which may have been what was hurting Hermione, though the shards crunched beneath his hands and knees without cutting his skin.

He knew that every second he wasn’t moving, the Death Eaters were going to be closing on him, so he wasted no time in working to free them. He pushed up, testing the weight, and found that he could move it, but not easily. With a deep breath and willing his magic to help, Harry gave a shove. The heavy wood above him cracked and splintered, as he forced his arms straight and got his knees directly under him. His magic put in the extra effort then and the wood broke the rest of the way, allowing him to stand. The sharp edges of the wood tried and failed to gouge his skin as Harry got himself standing, then stooped to lift Hermione into his arms once more. She screamed as he lifted her, then moaned in agony as he settled her in his arms, but she quieted against as he began running as quickly as he could manage over the remains of the damaged shelf.

He could feel Dante and Kaa among the pursuing Death Eaters, keeping them distracted so he only dodged a handful of spells before he was able to make it through the door back into the room of time devices. He kicked the door closed, but wasted no more time before throwing himself toward the other door out of the room. He truly did not want to know what kind of things could befall them if the Death Eaters started throwing around spells with such abandon in this particular room.

He did not slow in the next room, taking no time to even glance at the portal to Hell, though a part of him did wonder if he could return to the land of the living that way if he were to die. It was an experiment that he hoped he wouldn’t have to conduct tonight.

A few more spells narrowly missed Harry just as he was reaching the door back into the room of spinning doors. He leapt through and kicked the door closed, which set the room to spinning around him. Thankfully, his magic seemed to know exactly where he needed to go, so he didn’t have to hesitate on his way. As soon as the room stopped spinning, he moved to the correct door and hurried to close it behind him. With luck, the death eaters may be slowed down.

He gave a passing thought to hoping Kaa and Dante would get out okay, but he didn’t have time to wait around and make sure.

From there, the run back up to the lift was made without challenge, and he got the grate closed and the lift moving back to the atrium without any sight of his pursuers.

“Can you walk?” he asked Hermione over the soft music that filled the lift.

He could feel her shaking in his arms as she shook her head. “I could limp, maybe. I think I broke my ankle when the shelf fell,” she whispered, but Harry could still hear the tremble in her voice.

“No, I can carry you,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Hermione asked.

“You’re not heavy,” he said, because she really wasn’t. He wasn’t feeling any strain at all from carrying her weight.

“You’re stronger than you look,” she joked weakly.

“I think my magic’s helping,” he offered as explanation. Luckily, everyone had long ago accepted his magic’s strength and would thus dismiss a lot of his oddities as simply being due to the simple size of his magical core.

And then the lift was announcing the atrium level and Harry stepped out. A glance at the other lifts showed that another had just started up and Harry immediately began to sprint toward the Floos. Hermione gasped in his arms, doubtlessly not appreciating the jostling, but she remained otherwise silent.

Harry stepped into the nearest floo and carefully lowered Hermione to balance against the wall on one leg so that he could get the floo powder. Unfortunately, the thing wanted two knuts before he could get the powder he needed. Fortunately, his magic didn’t even wait for him to will it to do anything before it was attacking the thing, and the mechanism was dispensing the powder as if he had paid.

Harry heard the shouts of the Death Eaters leaving the lift just as he got the powder in hand, but before he could step back into the floo with Hermione, his magic screamed a warning and Harry spun around just in time to dodge the acid green of a Killing Curse.

His eyes lifted to find Voldemort had arrived. He was standing across the atrium as though he’d just stepped out of one of the floos there.

With only a second of thought, Harry slipped the communication mirror out of his pocket and handed it back to Hermione. He felt her trembling hand grasp it as she softly objected, “Harry, no!”

Harry didn’t heed her protest as he tossed the floo powder at her feet and called out, “St. Mungo’s!”

There was a flash of green flame as Harry drew his wand and stepped away from the floo to face Voldemort once more.

“How heroic,” Voldemort sneered.

Harry glanced obliquely toward the lifts where the Death Eaters were approaching. They slowed as they neared, clearly unwilling to get in their Lord’s way.

“Nothing to say, Potter?” Voldemort drawled. “You have caused me no end of trouble, boy, but it ends tonight.”

The Death Eaters reached them and began to fan out around them in a loose circle, leaving room for a duel but making it difficult for Harry to escape. Lovely.

“You should be joining me rather than fighting me, Potter,” Voldemort went on. “You do seem to have quite the skill with Dark Magic. Even as recently deceased as Krum was, bringing him back as swiftly as you did, without a ritual or components was very impressive. I can only imagine that you are quite the necromantic practitioner. Dumbledore would not approve, though I imagine that you know that. You did manage to conceal your deed from him, did you not?”

Harry responded with a tight smile and with deliberately overdone modesty, then lifted an eyebrow. “You can’t possibly expect me to incriminate myself in the atrium of the fucking Ministry.”

Voldemort’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Join me, Potter. I would make use of your talents. Talents that Dumbledore and the Ministry would condemn you for. The practice of necromancy will earn you a lifetime in Azkaban,  Potter, even if you’re only using it to save an innocent life. Surely these are not the people you wish to fight for.”

“I’m not interested in fighting for anyone!” Harry said, annoyed. “I don’t want to be your puppet any more than Dumbledore’s. I just want to fucking graduate and get the Hell out of this mad country!”

Voldemort’s brow rose in apparent interest, “Then perhaps a truce would be more to your liking, Potter,” he said smoothly. “A sort of… non-aggression pact between us.”

Harry barked an incredulous laugh, “After what Hermione went through tonight on your order? You expect me to just turn the other cheek after you murdered her parents and tortured her?”

“You should consider your options carefully, Potter,” Voldemort snapped. “It would be entirely too easy for me to pass word to the Ministry that you are a very Dark young wizard. Perhaps I will allow them to take care of you for me.”

Harry felt a chill fall down his spine despite being relatively sure that he could break out of Azkaban with minimal difficulty. Animagus forms worked in Azkaban, after all, and he was pretty sure that he could manage Dante’s shadow travel in short order if he was sufficiently motivated. He was not, however, entirely sure if it would be necessary to travel through Hell to use it, which was why he had yet to try it.

Of course, he did first have to survive tonight, which was not entirely assured at this point. Perhaps very far from assured, honestly. His best bet was probably to buy time for Hermione to send help his way via the mirror. “Why would you think that I would trust you to stick to any deal we made, anyway?”

“What choice do you honestly have, Potter?” Voldemort laughed derisively.

And Harry knew that he wasn’t helpless, but he hated the insinuation anyway. His extremely highly strung magic lashed out, knocking Voldemort back several steps and Harry was lifting his wand and casting before the Dark Lord could recover from the unexpected attack. And despite being in the ministry atrium, Harry didn’t hesitate to use his Darker spell repertoire. He was at a great enough disadvantage in this fight without pulling his punches. So it was a spell meant to stop the heart that Voldemort deflected at the last second.

And Voldemort was, of course, a much better dueler than Harry. He immediately moved from the deflection into a Crucio – suggesting that Harry had brassed him off – before following with a Killing Curse, the pair of them coming horribly quickly.

The back and forth took on a frenetic pace. Voldemort was unbelievably fast in his casting, the spells flying one after another much more quickly than Harry could hope to return, leaving him to dodging and diving as often as shielding and he still wouldn’t have been able to avoid getting hit if not for his magic helping to nudge some of the spells wide and sometimes swallowing them entirely if Harry didn’t manage to otherwise avoid them. And the shields that Harry did erect were incredibly powerful, absorbing numerous, highly powered spells before cracking.

Voldemort was clearly incensed by Harry’s continuing to avoid him, and he didn’t realize that an invisible hound was sneaking up behind him until Dante was already lunging to take a chunk out of his leg.

At the last possible moment, the Dark Lord snapped off a shield nearly point-blank to intercept the invisible beast. He gave the empty air a wary look, then let out a short shout of surprise as Kaa struck while he was distracted, sinking fangs into Voldemort’s flank. An instant later, a severing curse slammed into the snake and Harry gasped at the sudden tug on his magic.

Kaa’s body seemed to evaporate into a swirl of gray smoke that rapidly darted across the room and right up Harry’s sleeve. He felt the snake settle back into his skin and tried to shake off the unsettling feeling of the serpent’s… death or discorporation or whatever the proper term would be.

Harry lifted his wand to cast another spell but the fight abruptly ground to a halt as floos around the room began flashing with green flame and Order members began pouring out into the atrium, Dumbledore among them.

Voldemort immediately turned his attention to Dumbledore and watching the two of them duel was both awe inspiring and terrifying.

As the Death Eaters were occupied by the Order members, Harry seemed to have been momentarily forgotten, and he took the opportunity to extract another handful of floo powder and step into a fireplace. “St. Mungo’s!” he called out, the words easily swallowed by the general din of the battle taking place in the cavernous hall.

With a swirl of green flame, he was whisked away from the battle.

Chapter Text

Aftermath

Harry stepped out of the floo into some sort of waiting room. Harry approached the reception desk and smiled nervously at the woman seated there. She had black hair in a large bun on top of her head and alarmingly long eyelashes that must have been transfigured or something. Her eyes widened as she looked him over.

Harry glanced down at himself and winced. His clothes were burned through in places, and he was covered in soot and had smears of blood in places. “Er, hi,” he greeted awkwardly. “My friend Hermione came through a couple of minutes ago. She was hurt. I’m fine, though. The er… The blood’s not mine. It’s my friend’s, so…”

“Oh… Right. Your name?”

“Harry Potter.”

Her eyes widened a bit and she stared for a long moment before turning her attention down to her books, then she glanced up at him again. “Go on down that hallway until you see the waiting room on the left. Someone will come and get you when Miss Granger can have visitors.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, relieved that she didn’t seem intent on questioning his appearance or asking uncomfortable questions.

He found the waiting room easily enough. There were a couple of stressed-looking people already in there, and Harry got more wide-eyed looks for his appearance. Happily, there was a restroom just across the hall, and Harry closed himself inside it quickly.

He laughed in surprise at the sight of himself in the mirror. He recalled now that he’d been sleeping before all of this started. His hair was going in every direction, and his clothes had been rags before the fight. They looked frightful now. His face was streaked with both soot and blood, probably from when he’d been carrying Hermione as she’d had a lot of it on her.

He sobered abruptly at the reminder of Hermione’s condition, and he had to take sharp hold of his magic when the mirror began to rattle slightly on the wall. His magic was still extremely tense and ready to fight, not at all fatigued from what he’d just been through, it seemed.

“Shit,” Harry cursed softly as he finally realized that he wasn’t wearing his glasses. He’d not even picked them up from the bedside table. Before his magic had miraculously fixed his eyes, he’d not have been capable of forgetting them. He tried to think of the people that had seen him without them. There was Voldemort and the Death Eaters, of course, but considering that they knew he used Dark magic quite adeptly, the glasses issue wasn’t probably worth thinking of.

The Order members had more important things than him to focus on when they arrived, so they might not have noticed. Hermione was likely the only one he’d have to worry about.

While Harry turned on the faucet and did what he could about his appearance, he considered what to do about the glasses situation. Remaining without his glasses was out of the question. He really didn’t want to have to explain to all and sundry that his magic was so powerful that it had spontaneously corrected his eyesight in a moment of stress. That left the option of just leaving and going back to Privet Drive the same way he’d come to London, but that wasn’t something he wanted to do either. He couldn’t just leave Hermione alone here and spend maybe days wondering what was happening to her.

So he supposed he could transfigure himself another pair of glasses. With plain glass lenses, it wasn’t an overly difficult transfiguration to manage, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to push his luck by casting more spells out of school. Or he could ask Dante to go and fetch them…

He glanced around the brightly lit bathroom. Too bright for the kind of shadows that Dante would need to travel to him. The room was lit by two oil lamp sconces on opposite walls of the room. Hoping that they weren’t enchanted to remain burning, Harry lifted the glass of the nearest one and blew out the flame. He waited a moment, but it remained extinguished. He then repeated the procedure with the second sconce and marveled for a moment at how well he could see in the room that was now presumably almost pitch black but for the thin sliver of light coming in under the door.

He could tell that it was a lot darker, but he could still make everything out well enough that he didn’t really need the light.

Dante arrived while Harry was marveling over his night vision, and Harry went down to a knee to give the hound lots of pets and ear scritches for having done such a good job of distracting the Death Eaters and Voldemort during the fight. “Yeah, you’re a good boy,” Harry grinned as the dog leaned heavily into his hands.

After a minute of that, Harry looked the hound in his glowing red eyes. “Can you go back to Privet Drive and get me my glasses off the bedside table?”

Dante stared at him and slowly wagged his tail.

“But be careful with them, please. They’re fragile.”

Dante gave a low woof and then turned and disappeared into a dark corner.

Harry spent the wait at the mirror, doing what he could about his hair. He’d gotten his face and hands clean, at least. There wasn’t, sadly, anything to be done about his horribly scorched and ripped up clothes. Not without casting spells. If he managed to get through this awful night without getting expelled, he’d honestly be a little surprised. There wasn’t any reason to make matters even worse though. He didn’t think that Dumbledore wanted him expelled, so he was counting on the man to fight to prevent that, at least.

Dante returned after only a few minutes, Harry’s glasses held every so gingerly in his jaws.

Harry grinned and slipped them on before showering the hound with even more praise. He was truly a remarkable familiar and Harry was so glad that Dante had found him that Halloween night.

Harry was standing up to leave the loo when he felt the orb in his pocket. He’d entirely forgotten about the prophecy that Voldemort had apparently lured him to the ministry to retrieve.

Harry smiled a little meanly as he took it out of his pocket. He did enjoy foiling Voldemort’s plans.

He studied it for a moment, but he wasn’t sure how he was meant to make it play. He pressed his magic at it carefully – his magic was still a bit touchy, and he didn’t want it to explode the orb or something – and the contents of the orb swirled, then settled into a vaguely familiar-looking woman with very thick glasses.

She opened her mouth and an eerie voice emerged, “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him. Born as the seventh month dies. And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not. And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies.”

Harry stared at the orb, then prodded it to repeat that again.

Finally, he gave a bone-weary sigh and dropped it back into his pocket. “Well, it’s definitely not as bad as my other prophecy,” he told Dante, scratching at his ears again when the hound nosed at his hand. A battle to the death against a Dark Lord wasn’t much when contrasted against challenging God himself for his throne. Not that he wanted anything to do with God’s throne.

Harry had no intention of seeing that other prophecy through unless Fate made it absolutely impossible for him to do otherwise, in which case… No point dwelling on it.

He was slightly more keen to see this one through. Voldemort was a scary fucking dueler, but no one said he had to defeat the man in a duel. He wondered what it would take to assassinate the Dark Lord. And he’d have to make sure that he stayed dead this time, or that would just get tedious, killing him once every decade or so.

Harry continued to turn that around in his mind as he finally left the bathroom and returned to the waiting room. Hopefully no one had come looking for him while he was in there, but he thought it would probably be a little while. Hermione wasn’t in good shape when he’d sent her through, and it couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes before he’d followed her. Likely even less, though it had felt like an age.

Dante sat down next to Harry in the waiting room and, as other people came and went while he waited, no one sat anywhere close to Harry. Though that might have had something to do with his ragged appearance.

Harry considered the new prophecy while he waited. Neither can live while the other survives sounded pretty definitive. At least there wasn’t anything in the prophecy that was telling toward his Secret. There was the Power the Dark Lord knows not, but it wasn’t like someone was going to hear that and make the leap to Antichrist.

Harry honestly wasn’t opposed to the idea of killing Voldemort. The man was a monster, and Harry had a lot of advantages that most people didn’t. Like being stronger and faster and more durable. He also had incredibly powerful magic and two highly useful animal companions.

Harry didn’t feel at all inclined to help magical Britain’s government. It was a cesspit of bullshite that would honestly benefit the general populous if it went down in flames. But Voldemort very much was not the solution. No, Harry would kill Voldemort if he could manage it, but he wasn’t sticking around to see if the Ministry would venerate him for it or imprison him for not bending the knee to their regime. Given the last year, he strongly suspected the latter. They were just lucky that he wasn’t interested in leading a revolution.

“Mr. Potter?” a timid voice finally drew Harry from his reverie, and Harry saw a couple of people across the waiting room start at his name and give him wide-eyed looks.

Harry turned his lips in the direction of a smile as he stood.

“Are you okay, Mr. Potter?” the young man in bright green robes asked as he looked him over.

Harry nodded, “Yeah, I’m fine. How’s Hermione?”

“Right this way,” the young man said uncertainly.

Harry followed the young healer – or maybe apprentice? – down another long corridor, through two pairs of doors, and finally to a patient room. Hermione was curled in a ball of the bed sobbing, and Harry hurried to pull her into his arms. She clung to him and cried for a long time before she finally began to calm.

“They’re dead,” she finally said. “Those fuckers killed my parents,” she gasped the words out.

“I’m so sorry,” Harry whispered and rubbed her back. He hoped that he was doing the right thing, but it wasn’t like he’d been in this situation before.

From the corner of his eye, Harry noticed Dante slide out from the shadows under Hermione’s bed. The hound lifted his nose to sniff in their direction, then wagged his tail and moved to sit in a corner of the room, his eyes on the door.

“How?” she finally drew back to look at him. “How did you know that I was there? How did you get there?”

Harry took a breath and explained about Voldemort sending him a vision and then taking his broom into London.

“And you came alone?” Hermione cried, aghast.

“So he wouldn’t kill you. Yeah. I brought the mirror to call for help as soon as I could.”

“Merlin, Harry,” she wiped roughly at her face. “When I saw you there, I thought we were both going to die.”

“It worked out,” Harry reminded her.

“What happened after you sent me away?”

“Voldemort mostly just monologued at me, and then Dumbledore showed up with he Order, and I got out of there.” That was true. Ish.

“Oh. Oh, that’s good,” Hermione sagged a bit in relief. “I was so afraid…”

“I’m fine,” he promised.

Her eyes narrowed a bit at that, and she looked him over properly. “You are,” she conceded. “But, Harry… How? You put yourself between me and the Death Eaters. And that shelf fell on you. It just hit my ankle, and it broke it in three places, but it fell right on your back. And that fire… We went right through it! And look at your clothes!”

Harry blushed a bit and picked at a piece of lint on Hermione’s blanket. “It’s really not that big of a deal, Hermione. My magic protected me.”

“Yes, but how?” Hermione complained. “Surely you realize that it doesn’t really work like that right? Not for normal people.”

Harry blushed brighter, and silently cursed himself for it.

“Please don’t call me a freak, Hermione.”

Her mouth fell open. “Harry, Merlin, no! That’s not what I meant! Maybe I should have said ‘ordinary people’. Because I know that you’re extraordinary, Harry. Everyone knows that. Your magic is incredible. I just… I’ve never heard of anything like what you’re describing. Your magic just… protecting you… without you using any spells… I just don’t understand it.”

Harry sighed and let go of the mild affront he’d been feeling when Hermione had started calling him abnormal. The Dursleys had always valued normalcy above everything. To be abnormal was to be a freak. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do with Hermione’s definition.

“I don’t understand it all, either, Hermione. I just know how it works for me. When I really need something, my magic usually helps.”

Hermione stared at him, her brow furrowed for a long moment. “You weren’t wearing your glasses. Aren’t you almost blind without them?”

Harry sighed again. “My magic helps me when I need it.” He left it at that.

Hermione nodded slowly.

Before any more could be said, the door opened once more, and another healer entered. This one was a middle-aged man with black hair gone gray over his temples and dark blue eyes. He gave a restrained smile at the two of them.

“Hello, Miss Granger. My name is Healer Grayson. I am the senior healer on shift. I believe you told Healer Smythe that you were attacked. Is that correct?”

Hermione sat up straighter and nodded gravely, “Yes, sir.”

“It is hospital policy to summon aurors whenever a patient reports injuries are due to any kind of attack. Are you ready to speak with them now?” he asked kindly.

Hermione’s chin quivered and she blinked rapidly, but she nodded. “Yes, please,” she said quietly.

“Very well. I’ll tell them that you’re ready.” And he let himself back out of the room.

Hermione immediately reached for the bedside table and pulled open the drawer. “Here,” she passed him the communication mirror.

“Thanks.” Harry tucked it back into his pocket.

Hermione immediately took his hand when it was free and gripped it hard. “Please, don’t leave,” she entreated.

“I’ll stay,” Harry promised.

Hermione took a deep breath, and the door opened once more.

The aurors were wearing their bright red uniforms as they entered. First was a tall, thin man with sandy brown short hair that was neatly combed, and behind him came a much younger man with long black hair clipped back.

The elder man consulted a clipboard he carried before greeting Hermione, “Hello, Miss Granger. I am Auror Greengrass. This is Auror Wilkins. Who’s with you today?”

“Oh, this is Harry,” Hermione said. “He’s my best friend. He can stay, right?”

“If you’re comfortable with it,” Auror Greengrass assured. “St. Mungo’s contacted us because you reported that your injuries were due to an attack. Do you know who it was that attacked you?”

“Death Eaters,” Hermione said quietly.

Both aurors started a bit at hearing that. “Can you describe what happened from the beginning?”

Hermione took a breath, then went on to describe the scene that Harry had been privy to in his mind. She was woken up to men in Death Eater robes and masks barging into her bedroom. They bound her in ropes, and she was then carried out over one of their shoulders. She faltered when she got to the part when they carried her downstairs.

“My parents,” she whispered, and tears streamed from both eyes when she blinked. She had to take a slow, deep breath before she could continue. “They must have silenced the room because it didn’t look like it had been quick.” She paused again, clearly fighting to keep her composure.

Harry let her squeeze his hand as hard as she could, though he was glad that he was durable, or he suspected that it would have hurt. He moved his free hand to clasp the back of her hand as well and just hoped that he was helping.

“They were both dead,” she finished, then shook her head and bit her lip as her chin trembled again. “I think,” she forced herself to go on, “I think they must have wanted me to see. There’s no other reason for them to carry me downstairs before apparating.”

“Take your time, Miss Granger,” Auror Greengrass said compassionately.

Hermione nodded and looked down for a long moment. Finally, she swallowed and lifted her head. “They apparated with me into the Ministry atrium, then they took me down to the Department of Mysteries. I didn’t see anyone but Death Eaters in the ministry the whole time.”

The aurors exchanged grim glances, but didn’t offer an explanation, though it made Harry wonder where they’d been when Death Eaters were invading the building that held their offices. Had the aurors on duty overnight been killed? Or called off site for something?

“They took me to the prophecy room,” Hermione went on. “To row 97. Then they dropped me on the floor and surrounded me. They took turns cursing me, but they didn’t do anything to cause serious damage.”

When she trailed off, Auror Greengrass pressed, “How did you escape, Miss Granger?”

Hermione looked at Harry.

Harry sat up a little straighter when the aurors likewise looked at him. “Voldemort sent me a message that he had her and that he’d kill her unless I showed up alone.”

Both aurors started at Voldemort’s name, though the elder didn’t look frightened so much as startled that someone had actually said it.

“You’re Harry Potter,” the elder man realized aloud. “How did he send you the message, Mr. Potter?”

Harry shrugged, “Dark magic, probably. It came like a vision. Woke me up.”

“So you went to the Ministry. You didn’t try to call anyone for help?”

“He said that he’d kill her,” Harry said firmly. “I wasn’t willing to take a chance on her life. So, no. I didn’t go for help. I got on my broom and put on my invisibility cloak, and I flew to the ministry. I followed the trail Voldemort had shown me down to where they were holding her.”

“And how did you get away?” he pressed.

Harry sighed, really not happy with how much scrutiny he was enduring here. Dante seemed to notice Harry’s growing tension. He’d been watching the newcomers since they’d entered, but now he stood, watching them in utter stillness. Luckily, Harry had seen worse from him around Umbridge, so he trusted that the hound wouldn’t act without his permission. “I distracted them, then picked up Hermione and ran for it,” he explained.

“How did you distract them?” he pressed.

Harry frowned, but he supposed that he was probably going to be best served by giving them something sensational enough to distract them from the even more damning truths. “I have a spirit animal tattoo,” he admitted. “I disillusioned him and sent him to distract them.”

The aurors exchanged looks again.

“Can you manifest the animal for us?” Auror Greengrass asked.

Harry sort of wished that his spirit animal was anything but a giant snake. Well, no, he didn’t wish that Kaa was different. He just wished that Magical Britain didn’t have such ridiculous prejudices against snakes. He lifted the arm that Hermione wasn’t clutching and called for Kaa.

Though he believed, intellectually, that Kaa was fine, it was still a relief to see the snake slither out of his skin again, apparently totally unharmed.

“Master, we are not alone,” Kaa informed him as soon as he was free. His tone indicated that Harry was being very stupid.

Harry just pet the snake on the head, not sure that he wanted to add parseltongue to the situation right now, even though the Prophet had already run stories about it in their quest to discredit him over the last year.

Both aurors took a step back as Kaa wound himself around Harry’s torso and settled on his shoulders.

“I can see how that would be… distracting,” Auror Greengrass said, making a note of something on his clipboard. “So you picked up Miss Granger and ran. Then what happened?”

Harry briefly explained the rest of their flight up to the atrium. “So I set Hermione in the fireplace, then went to grab the floo powder, but the dispenser slowed me down. By the time I got back to her, Voldemort had arrived. I knew that he was after me and not her, so I threw down the floo powder and called for St. Mungo’s, then focused on Voldemort.”

Auror Greengrass was staring at Harry in disbelief now. “How did you survive that?”

“Well, he’s big on monologuing,” Harry shrugged. “I mostly just kept him talking until Dumbledore and some other people showed up to fight him.” It wasn’t as though Harry had actually dueled the man for that long. No point mentioning it at all, probably.

The aurors both were looking at him like he was mad, which confused Harry for a moment until he realized that it might have just been for the familiar way he spoke of Voldemort. The man had lost much of his mystique for Harry by this point, if absolutely none of his scariness. The scariness might be getting worse as Harry saw more of what he was actually capable of. Then again, Harry was a lot more capable of facing him now than he’d been as a first year, so maybe things evened out.

Harry didn’t leave Kaa out for much longer, not wanting more people to see him if a healer were to walk in or something. The snake grumbled a bit, but slid back into Harry’s skin without a fuss. Harry would call him again when he was alone later and explain things.

The questioning went on a little longer as they sought to clarify certain points, but as it wound down, Hermione finally asked, “What will happen to me now? I’ll be seventeen in September, and I can stay with friends until then…”

Auror Greengrass shook his head, “I will send someone from the Department of Child Welfare to speak to you as soon as the office opens this morning.”

Harry blinked, startled to realize that it wasn’t even morning yet. It felt like days since he’d woken to that vision.

“Do you have any family?” Greengrass asked Hermione.

She shook her head, “Not really. Some cousins in France, but I’ve only met them a couple times in my life.”

The aurors exchanged thoughtful glances, then the younger auror spoke for the first time, “Are you betrothed?”

“Yes,” Hermione said. “I am.”

The young auror nodded firmly, “Your betrothed’s family should be your next of kin, then.”

“Oh,” she breathed, and Harry could see some of her tension drain away with that realization.

Harry was very glad that Viktor had wanted the formal betrothal. Blaise had told Harry that the wizarding world took care of its children, but Harry honestly didn’t trust the magical British government to do anything by this point. Hermione was definitely lucky to have somewhere to go with people that she trusted in a place that she was comfortable. She was going to need all the support that she could get right now.

And, Harry realized, Hermione had just lost both of her parents and Ron had lost one of his barely six months ago. And why? What reason did Voldemort and the Death Eaters have for causing so much suffering? They didn’t even pretend that it was for the Greater Good. They were just sadists who wanted free reign to hurt and control everyone around them.

Merlin, that prophecy was sounding better and better.

Before the aurors could leave, there came another knock on the door, and this time it opened to reveal Albus Dumbledore, looking none the worse for the fight Harry had last seen him waging.

The old man greeted both aurors by their first names and bid them a good morning before turning his attention on his students. “Ah, Miss Granger. Mr. Potter. You have had quite the night, it seems. Miss Granger, I believe that you will be spending the night here?”

“Yes, sir,” Hermione said quietly.

“Mr. Potter, I will take you home by way of Hogwarts if you feel up to humoring an old man a discussion after such a trying night. I believe that it is long overdue.”

Harry wished that that was actually optional, but he very much doubted that it was. He turned first to Hermione, “Are you going to be okay without me?”

“Yeah,” she said with a slight hitch in her breath. “Yeah, I’ll just sleep a while.”

Harry didn’t need to hear the lie to know that there would be very little sleep for her this morning. Still, he hugged her again and stood.

Dumbledore gave him a sad smile and led the way back out to the public floos, where he directed Harry to use the address, “Headmaster’s office, Hogwarts!”

Harry stepped out into the office and tried not to shiver at all of the eyes watching him. Roughly half of them were sleeping, or feigning sleep. The rest were staring at him with varying degrees of pity or judgement. Merlin, he didn’t think he’d ever hold this job just for that. He didn’t feel the portraits’ stares as acutely as living people, but it still tingled at his awareness with a faint itch that would drive him batty after a while.

He stepped aside and Dumbledore promptly followed him into the office and invited him to sit as he moved to take his own seat. “Lemon drop?” he offered immediately.

“No,” Harry sighed and took the seat, at least. Amazingly, he didn’t feel physically tired, but he was becoming emotionally exhausted. He didn’t want to deal with Dumbledore, too. He really didn’t. “Sir, are you not a wanted fugitive anymore?” he had to ask first because the aurors hadn’t blinked at the sight of him.

Dumbledore looked momentarily surprised, then gave him a pleased smile, “Minister Fudge arrived with a large retinue just as I was concluding my confrontation with Voldemort. Consequently, the ministry has chosen to immediately drop all charges against me. I believe he reasoned that the public backlash against him would be even worse if he continued to prosecute me in light of Voldemort’s return.”

Harry rolled his eyes, though he honestly wasn’t surprised. He would be equally unsurprised to learn that there had been threats or blackmail from Dumbledore involved. Dumbledore seemed the sort to understand that morals became somewhat flexible when dealing with empowered criminals such as those running Wizarding Britain.

“Now,” Dumbledore went on when Harry didn’t question his explanation. “If you would be so kind as to explain how you found yourself in the situation in which I came upon you this morning?”

So Harry sighed and went through the whole thing again, telling Dumbledore as much as he’d told the aurors. He suspected the man may end up acquiring the auror report anyway, given the aurors that were part of his little club. Though Dumbledore didn’t need an explanation for how Voldemort had sent him the vision, at least. The old man probably knew more about that subject than Harry did.

“And the prophecy?” Dumbledore asked at last, apparently much less interested in Kaa than the aurors had been.

Harry fished it out of his pocket and set it on the desk between them.

Dumbledore eyes focused on it a moment before he looked at Harry again. And he was looking him in the eyes now, Harry noted. Something he’d not done for some time. “Did you listen to it?”

Harry nodded.

“Will you tell me your thoughts?” Dumbledore asked, watching him rather intently.

“I wish you would have told me sooner,” Harry frowned. “Like in first year. When I asked.”

“Should I have?” Dumbledore asked gravely. “Were you prepared to handle it?”

As though Harry hadn’t handled much larger realizations with much larger consequences at that age. “Yes,” he said definitively.

“Maybe you were,” Dumbledore allowed with a definite undertone of doubt.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Harry explained. “Voldemort’s been trying to kill me since I was a baby. All the prophecy really says is that I have a chance of being the one to survive between us. If anything, that’s encouraging.”

Dumbledore leaned back and seemed keen to really turn that over in his mind. “That is…” he decided, “a rather inspired way to look at it, Harry.”

Harry just shrugged, not entirely sure how to respond to that. He didn’t have a great track record with authority figures, and authority figures genuinely complimenting him was uncharted territory. Dumbledore genuinely complimenting him was, in Harry’s opinion, suspect.

Dumbledore having heard this prophecy did explain much of Harry’s life, however. Like why Dumbledore had so much to do with it. He wasn’t just protecting a war orphan. He certainly didn’t try to hover over Neville or Susan and worry for their summer plans. No, this had nothing to do with Lily and James or the last war. This was all about the next war. Voldemort’s ultimate defeat.

Merlin, it didn’t matter how awake he felt, he was bloody tired.

Harry hated having Dumbledore so focused on him. He didn’t trust the man as far as he could throw him. Dumbledore had his own goals that had nothing to do with Harry living a long or happy life.

“If you knew this since I was a baby, why not give me extra training so that I could be ready for it? Why dump me with muggles and ignore me for a decade, then let me just muddle through school with everyone else. Did you think Voldemort would wait until I could graduate and get through auror training before coming after me?” Harry couldn’t help but ask.

Dumbledore steepled his fingers on the desk in front of him. “I understand how strange it must seem to you now, my boy, but you must understand how little we knew at the time. Voldemort was gone, and though I felt certain that he would return, it wasn’t as though we knew when or how. Would my actions have been justified if I’d raised you like a child soldier and perhaps Voldemort didn’t return until you were in your thirties? The future was as uncertain then as it is today.

“At the time, I could only try to do my best for you. I couldn’t predict what would happen in ten or twenty years, but I could affect what would happen in the next year or two. I judged the best thing that I could do for you would be to give you a real childhood. Away from both the fame and the inevitable assassination attempts. No child should have to go through that. Yet my options were so few.

“As I said, we did not know where Voldemort had gone or when he would return, nor even for certain who were all of his agents that had evaded arrest. The safest place for you, then, was in the muggle world.”

Harry’s magic was still on edge from the night, and it was bristling now as Harry listened to the old man natter on about this bullshite. “Fine,” he interrupted before his magic could do it for him. “You left me with abusive muggles for my own good. Thanks.”

“Abusive?” Dumbledore asked, his brow lowered, and his eyes darkened with concern that Harry almost believed. Maybe it was even real, but Harry didn’t think for a second that the old man would do anything differently if given the chance.

“Yes,” Harry sighed for what felt like the thousandth time tonight. How he wanted to give the old man a list of grievances, but he restrained himself. Firstly, because it wouldn’t do any good. It wasn’t like he’d get a genuine apology out of it, and it was too late for him to need rescue. At most, he’d get relocated to somewhere more secure where he couldn’t as easily sneak about. Which also wasn’t something he needed right now.

“What do you mean, Harry?” Dumbledore pressed when Harry didn’t go on.

Harry scoffed in disbelief, “Oh, now you want to know?” He shook his head as his magic bristled. “Now that I’m nearly sixteen and they’re leaving me alone because I’m old enough to fight back? I needed you to ask that question when I was eleven. Or better, before I started Hogwarts, you might have checked on me once.” Harry cut himself off and took a breath as his magic started to grow concerningly agitated. He winced slightly as one of the trinkets on the desk rattled a bit.

Dumbledore’s eyes fell on it for just a second before returning to Harry. “It seems that I may have made more mistakes regarding your life than I was aware,” he said gravely.

Harry looked away and sighed. “Look, I’m tired. Can I just go to bed now?” he complained.

“Soon,” Dumbledore placated. “We do have a few more things to discuss first, my boy.”

“Such as?” Harry asked, tightening his grip on his magic as much as he could.

“Have you not wondered why Voldemort chose to lure you to take the prophecy?”

Harry took off his glasses for a moment so that he could scrub a hand down his face. “Do you know?” he prompted.

And so Harry found himself forced to endure Dumbledore’s extremely long-winded explanation of how he originally heard the prophecy from Professor Trelawney – which explained why the Seer had looked familiar to Harry – during a job interview that he was holding in a private room at the Hogshead of all places.

That someone – a young Death Eater who would, apparently, remain unnamed – had heard the first part of the prophecy and taken it to Voldemort, setting the Dark Lord on the path to kill Harry’s parents when Harry ended up being born at the end of July.

Dumbledore then belabored the mistakes that he had made with Harry in not being more honest with him. That perhaps he should have told him the truth sooner. He confessed that he’d guessed at Harry’s connection to Voldemort when Harry was one. That he had guessed that Voldemort would try to lure Harry into the Department of Mysteries. Apparently, Dumbledore knew everything, but chose to keep it to himself. And he was so fucking good at interweaving truth and manipulation that even Harry couldn’t fully sort out what parts of it reflected Dumbledore’s true feelings and which bits were told just slant enough to deceive without outright lying.

“Did you not wonder why it was not I who told you about my suspicions regarding your connection to Voldemort. Why it was not I who taught you occlumency?” Dumbledore probed.

“I assumed that you were busy,” Harry said, because he could lie without lying, too. His tone might suggest that he meant the statement innocently, but Harry truly had assumed that Dumbledore was simply too busy to bother with Harry when he could delegate. Because he knew that Dumbledore didn’t truly care about him. He never had. That bullshite with Figg had proved that more effectively than anything else could have.

Dumbledore didn’t seem to notice anything amiss as he went on to explain that he’d kept his distance because he suspected that Voldemort would soon be playing around in Harry’s mind, manipulating and misdirecting his thoughts, and Dumbledore was really doing a service by just ignoring the whole situation. So as not to encourage Voldemort to start any sooner than he otherwise might. That Voldemort might possess Harry in Dumbledore’s presence in order to encourage Dumbledore to kill Harry in hopes of getting Voldemort, too.

What a fucking joke. Harry didn’t doubt that Dumbledore would have arranged exactly that situation had he thought it would work. He didn’t believe for an instant that Dumbledore cared more about protecting Harry than about killing Voldemort, but again, it was phrased in such a way that he couldn’t be completely sure.

Dumbledore continued to explain in much greater detail than was really necessary, presumably to give himself more opportunity to skew the tale in the direction that he wanted.

“From the comments of some of the Death Eaters during and immediately following the battle,” Dumbledore went on, “I believe that Miss Granger was taken directly from her home and that her parents were killed?”

“Yeah,” Harry said hoarsely. The sense-memory of Hermione sobbing on his shoulder was still entirely too fresh. It was almost enough to make him glad that his parents were dead – or his mum and step-dad, at least. He’d never feel such pain in the way that his friends did. He’d been too young to understand at the time, and he’d had a lifetime to get used to their absence in his life by now. Even if he did eventually grow close to his real father, the man was immortal, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

“I am sorry, my boy. Your friends have suffered much in the last year,” Dumbledore said with watery blue eyes.

Harry nodded at his lap. He didn’t need Dumbledore’s sympathy, but he wasn’t prepared to totally alienate the headmaster just yet either.

“Miss Granger will be looked after,” Dumbledore promised.

“I know,” Harry nodded. He didn’t mention the betrothal. If they were lucky, she’d be long gone before Dumbledore could send someone to take her in. He didn’t know if Dumbledore would actually try to prevent her from going to Bulgaria with the Krums, but he didn’t trust the old man enough to risk it.

“I cannot say for certain how the Death Eaters tracked her in the muggle world, but I suspect that one of the Slytherin students may have pointed her out to their parents on the train platform in London. A simple tracking spell cast on her trunk or clothes would have been enough to let them follow her to her home at their leisure,” Dumbledore said.

“Why didn’t anyone think to prevent that?” Harry asked. “Why didn’t we think that she’d be in danger even outside the wizarding world?”

Dumbledore shook his head, “We thought that Voldemort would focus on you, I’m afraid. On the ministry and on ministry personnel and on the order. It seems obvious in hindsight, Harry, but so do all things.”

The floo flared green, interrupting the conversation, and Harry turned to see Sirius stumble out with wide, wild eyes, “Where’s Harry?” he demanded a moment before his eyes fell on Harry and he rushed forward to all but drag Harry out of his chair and into a tight embrace. “Harry,” Sirius gasped. “You’re okay.” He drew back suddenly and held Harry at arm’s length, scrutinizing his face intently. “You’re okay?” he made it a question this time.

“I’m fine, Sirius,” Harry tried to soothe the man. “I didn’t even get cursed this time.”

Sirius sighed like he was deflating and pulled Harry in for another hug. “Please stop scaring me like that,” he whinged. “My heart can’t take it, pup.”

Harry patted his godfather’s back somewhat awkwardly. First Hermione and now Sirius. Harry wasn’t equipped for comforting people. It wasn’t as though he had much experience with people comforting him. When he was upset around Ron and Hermione, Ron would just tell him that everything would work out and Hermione would usually just give him fretful lectures, which, though well-intentioned, didn’t make him feel any better.

“Sirius, perhaps you can return Harry to Privet Drive? I believe he’s quite ready to rest at this point,” Dumbledore said after giving them a few moments.

“Yeah,” Sirius said with a frown. “Yeah, all right. Are you ready to go, Prongslet?”

“More than,” Harry said. He glanced down at his clothes and winced slightly. Hopefully it was still early enough that no one on Privet Drive would be looking out their windows to see him show up like this.

Harry followed Sirius to Grimmauld Place via the floo. The moment that the floo released its hold on him, Harry felt the soothing Dark magic of the wards around him and his magic finally began to relax. He dragged his feet as much as he could while Sirius led him out of the house.

They stepped off the stoop and Harry felt the soothing magic of the wards fall away.

Sirius cast a discrete notice-me-not around them to ensure there wouldn’t be any muggles looking as Sirius took his hand and apparated them.

It only took a moment for Harry to recognize where they’d landed. It was Mrs. Figg’s garden. Harry clenched his jaw and felt his magic flare right back up in irritation at the reminder of Dumbledore’s actions against him growing up. To not only leave him with the Dursleys, but to set a spy on him who actively worked to make his life worse to please the Dursleys.

With the notice-me-not still active, Sirius led the way back toward Number 4 Privet Drive. “I wish that you could stay at Headquarters with me,” Sirius said as they walked. “Dumbledore says that you need to recharge the wards, though, and that’s going to take at least a couple of weeks. I wish that you didn’t have to be cooped up here after what you went through tonight.”

Harry shrugged, forcibly ignoring the “Dumbledore says” in Sirius’ sentence, “It’s not that bad anymore.”

They walked a bit in silence before Sirius said, “Promise me that you’re not going to do this again, pup.”

“I can’t do that, Sirius,” Harry said. “If I need to risk my life to save a friend, I’ll do it every time. Sorry.” And he was sorry that he was giving his godfather stress. That certainly wasn’t his intention.

Sirius groaned, but after a few moments, he nodded. “Yeah, I guess I can’t blame you for that.”

They stopped on the walk in front of Number 4 and Sirius pulled Harry into another tight hug. “Don’t be stupid, Harry. And for Merlin’s sake, use the mirror before you run into danger next time.”

Harry laughed quietly and patted Sirius on the back. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Sirius pulled away and gave him an exasperated look, but he didn’t press the issue.

Harry let himself into the still-sleeping house and heaved another weary sigh. He went to his room and gathered a clean set of clothes, then headed for the bathroom.

He nearly ran into Petunia as he stepped into the hallway and he realized it must be later than he’d thought if she was already up, though she was typically the earliest riser in the house. “Good morning,” he said neutrally.

Petunia’s very wide eyes ran down and back up his scorched and bloodied clothes.

“You really don’t want to know,” he said with an insincere smile when she met his eyes again.

He brushed past her into the bathroom before she could decide whether to comment or flee.

He supposed that he’d need to shower and then write to Blaise. He may have to send him a quick note via Dobby, then write him a longer one for Hedwig to deliver. He didn’t want Blaise reading about this in the morning paper before Harry could tell him that he was just fine.

Harry started the shower, deliberately turning it hotter than necessary. He was in the mood to leave Vernon with a cold shower before work.

Chapter Text

Visiting Hours

When he’d finished writing his letters to Blaise, Harry also wrote one to Ron to fill him in on what had happened overnight. Once the letters were sent off, Harry laid down and managed to pass out for a few hours.

He was up before noon, and he called Dobby to pop him to the Diagon Alley apparition zone, from which he went to the Leaky Cauldron and floo’d to St. Mungo’s. There was a different witch at the desk, but she didn’t more than glance at him before pointing him back toward Hermione’s room when he asked after her. Now that he was clean and dressed decently, he didn’t draw much attention.

Happily, no one seemed to be expecting him to show up, so he supposed that Hermione’s being here hadn’t made it into the Daily Prophet just yet.

He entered Hermione’s room cautiously, not sure what to expect after last night, but he found her seated in front of the little window in her room. She was dressed in what he guessed were hospital-issue robes, and her eyes were very red and puffy. She quickly wiped at her cheeks as he entered, then stood to greet him with a hug that was very subdued from the enthusiastic ones he was used to her bestowing on him.

“I didn’t expect you to come back today,” she greeted. “Didn’t you go back to the Dursleys?”

“Sure did,” Harry said lightly, “but it’s not like I’m locked in. And I couldn’t not come and see you.”

Hermione managed a weak smile. “The social worker came by early this morning. She contacted Mr. and Mrs. Krum. I haven’t talked to them, but she said they’d be by to pick me up and take me home. Probably quite soon now.” She pinched her lips together and fought for composure a moment before she continued. “I assume that they’ll help me to plan the funeral and take care of the house… I don’t… I’m just so glad that I’ve got them.”

“So am I,” Harry gripped her hand and squeezed gently. “I don’t mind if you cry, you know. I think you’ve plenty of right.”

Hermione gave him another pale shadow of a smile and shook her head, “No. I mean, yes, I’m sure I do, but… I need to get through the day. I cried for hours and I’ll cry hours more tonight, I’m sure, but I need to get through the day. I need to know that I can.”

Harry nodded. He understood, but he wasn’t sure what to say.

Hermione breathed carefully for a moment, then leaned in and hugged him again, holding him tightly. He felt her chest hitch a few times with stifled sobs, but she didn’t begin crying.

A knock on the door drew them apart and Harry turned with Hermione to see Mrs. Krum open the door enough to see in.

“May we come in?” she asked.

“Of course,” Hermione said quickly, drawing away from Harry, and moving to welcome the Krums into the room.

Mrs. Krum gave her a gentle hug, and then Mr. Krum gripped her shoulder supportively. Finally, Viktor entered the room and lifted her right off the ground into his arms.

Harry looked away and smiled a little to himself, momentarily aching to be in Blaise’s arms again. He pushed the thought away quickly to focus on the room.

“The social worker did not say what happened,” Mr. Krum spoke up when Viktor and Hermione finally parted. “He said that your parents were killed and you in the hospital, but he did not give any particulars.”

Hermione sent Harry an agonized glance.

Harry nodded and began to explain while Hermione hid her face against Viktor’s chest. “Death Eaters went to her house and abducted her,” Harry said gravely. “They killed her parents first, while she was still sleeping. They took her in order to lure me to the Ministry to try to kill me.”

“And Harry showed up alone and saved my life,” Hermione finished firmly.

Harry gave her a weak smile. “Of course, I did.”

“Harry,” Viktor drew his attention. “My debt to you is greater than I can ever repay. You have saved my life and now the life of my intended.”

Harry awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, really saving Hermione was completely selfish on my part. She’s my best friend.”

“Even still,” Mr. Krum spoke up. “Our family owes you much, Mr. Potter.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to do with the extremely sincere declarations, so he ended up just nodding awkwardly and getting out of there. He gave Hermione another hug, then shook hands with both male Krums, gave Mrs. Krum a nod, and finally made it out the door.

“Blimey,” he sighed as he made his way back out of the hospital. Genuine gratitude, like comfort, was something he’d not experienced enough to quite know what to do with. He did appreciate their acknowledging that he’d done something they appreciated, but he didn’t know how to respond once they refused his trying to brush it off.

He’d have to write to her in the next few days and ask her to pass on the funeral plans to him. He’d do his best to sneak away to attend.

Contingencies

It was the second day after the ministry debacle that the Prophet gave the names of the Death Eaters arrested at the Ministry. There were about half a dozen. The rest, presumably, having gotten away.

The most amazing story that Harry found was about Lucius Malfoy. According to the story in the Prophet, Lucius Malfoy had been a victim that night who had managed to survive against all odds. After having been Imperiused into taking the Mark and working as a Death Eater in the last war, the Death Eaters had targeted him again, abducting him and dragging him to the Ministry to get them through nighttime security.

Harry found himself something between in complete disbelief and utterly unsurprised. It was hard to believe that people were that stupid, but he wasn’t actually surprised that they might be that corrupt. Malfoy had been the ringleader that night, and he was apparently coming out of this looking like some kind of hero.

This country didn’t deserve to have someone sweep in and save them. They’d elected this corrupt cesspit calling itself a government, after all.

It was in reading that article that Harry really started thinking about Voldemort’s threats in the Ministry. Someone like Lucius Malfoy would be ideally placed to start spreading rumors about how Harry was using Dark magic into the right ears. Harry wasn’t sure if it was really possible for them to be out for him more than they’d been in the last year when they’d actually sent Dementors to his home in hopes that they’d take his soul.

Still… Putting into place a contingency or two to fall back on in case he was arrested would probably be a good idea. Like a way to access his Gringotts vault if he was a fugitive.

So Harry called Dobby as soon as he’d finished his breakfast and was quickly popped to Diagon Alley once more.

He went directly to Gringotts and at the teller, he asked after his account manager. He was taken down a hallway off the back of the lobby and led to an office, where he was introduced to his account manager, Oreblok.

“Do you ever work with muggle banks?” Harry asked once the bare minimum pleasantries had been accomplished and he was seated in front of the goblin’s desk.

“Of course, Mr. Potter,” Oreblok replied.

“What about in America?” Harry ventured, though he wasn’t hopeful.

The goblin paused a moment in well-banked surprise, but then responded, “We are entirely capable of providing you with a muggle bank card that will work anywhere in the muggle world. There is a small annual fee for the service, of course, and you will not be able to access your primary family vault until you turn seventeen.”

Harry blinked a little. He hadn’t really thought about the family vault before, though of course there must be one. Given the riches in the family artifact vault, it wouldn’t make much sense for Harry’s personal vault to be the extent of the family wealth. “I am allowed to know how much is in the family vault?” he asked, since his future plans would be influenced by that number. He expected that it would likely be enough that he’d never have to work in his life. Just given the looks of the artifact vault. But he didn’t want to make assumptions. For all he knew, the artifacts were retained from prior generations and the actual family wealth had dwindled.

“Of course,” Oreblok answered, standing to move to the back wall and retrieve a black leather-bound book. He placed it on the desk as he resumed his seat, and he opened it to the first page, then turned it around for Harry to view.

Harry’s breath caught a little at the sight of the number. Wow. Yeah, okay. He’d never have to work. That security was an amazing feeling. Particularly since he wasn’t sure how well he’d do at trying to settle down somewhere. If he ended up moving around a lot due to enemies or stalkers or anything, then this bank account was going to be vitally important.

“Some of this, as you can see,” the goblin pointed a clawed finger at the lines above the one that Harry had been most concerned with, “has been willed to you since your parents’ death. There is also the interest accrued,” he indicated another line.

“That’s great. Thank you.” Harry waited until the goblin put the book away before asking, “Okay, I’m not sure how it works in the magical world, but I know that, in the muggle world, there are circumstances in which the government can lock someone out of their account or even seize everything in them. How does that work here?”

“That is not a problem that Gringotts’ clients suffer,” the goblin said rather smugly. “Due to the treaties between the Ministry of Magic and the goblin nation, Gringotts bank is considered sovereign ground. Any attempt by the Ministry to influence or access our client accounts would be considered an act of war. Should that occur, our clients would suffer a little inconvenience in accessing their accounts due to increased security, but the accounts would still be available. There is a reason so many magical humans trust Gringotts with their wealth,” he goblin added with satisfaction.

Harry nodded, impressed. It was very good to know that this didn’t seem at all negotiable. Harry was not a trusting person by nature, and leaving all of his wealth in the hands of anyone that wasn’t him didn’t sit quite right, but between that assurance and knowing that his elves would be available to run to the bank for him, if necessary, Harry felt quite reassured.

“That’s great!” he smiled. “I’d like to get that bank card then. And is it possible to link it to my family vault so that I can access it as soon as I turn seventeen, even if I can’t get to the bank?”

Oreblok agreed and Harry was swiftly set up with the sleekest-looking bank card that he’d ever seen. It was plain matte black on both sides with no raised numbers or company symbols or anything. Just his name in a shiny gold that looked like it might actually be gold leaf and the faint outline of the magnetic strip. “It can be used at any business that accepts any kind of muggle card anywhere in the world. It can also be used in ATMs to withdraw funds in any muggle currency the machine allows. The machines will ask for a pin number. Simply select all zeros. The card will only work if you have just touched it.”

Harry thanked the goblin and pocketed the card. On his way out, he requested a trip down to his artifact vault, where he regretfully parted with the majority of his Dark Arts books collection. He liked having them with him to reference whenever the mood struck, but he couldn’t risk the whole collection getting confiscated if he did end up getting arrested. He could always send an elf to retrieve a book if he really needed to look something up. He kept the books that he hadn’t had a chance to read yet.

When he left the bank, Harry headed directly for Knockturn Alley. He may as well stop by the bookshop before going back to the Dursleys. He didn’t want to push his luck by sneaking out too often this summer. The guard on him had likely been increased after what had happened to Hermione, and Harry didn’t want to risk getting caught.

The less rebellious Dumbledore believed him to be, the more privacy and freedom he was likely to get, after all.

Knockturn Alley was a little darker and a little livelier than the last time he’d been there, he noticed right away. Voldemort was back and people knew it now, which was making Diagon more gloomy, but having the opposite effect in Knockturn. It wasn’t surprising. The Ministry had been violently repressing all things Dark since Voldemort’s fall. It had to feel liberating to have him back, even if most of these people probably had nothing to actually do with him.

Or rather because these people had nothing to do with him. Harry was rather certain that Voldemort’s direct followers weren’t feeling liberated right now.

Harry did notice that he was getting more dirty looks than he was generally used to in Knockturn, but he supposed that wasn’t surprising. Most people still saw him as Harry Potter, Vanquisher of You-Know-Who.

Harry ignored them and let himself into the bookshop that he’d come to like so much. The owner roused himself so far as to mutter a gruff greeting when he recognized Harry, but Harry just gave him a smile and retreated into the stacks. He’d ask after any books the man might have set aside for him when he checked out. At the moment, he just wanted to browse and do a bit of reading in the relaxing Dark magic that permeated the Alley.

Funeral

It was three days after Harry had last seen Hermione that the funeral took place. Harry, of course, had to sneak out to attend. He didn’t want to use Dobby or Winky to get out. There was a high chance that he’d be found out for this trip, and he didn’t want to give up the secret of his elves. It would be better if there was a traceable path that didn’t include them. Just in case anyone decided to trace it.

He could tell where everyone was in his vicinity thanks to his ability to sense people’s life force or whatever it was, so it wasn’t overly difficult to sneak away. His minder was under the tree in the front yard, which was a sensible place for him to be as the backyard was surrounded by a two-meter privacy fence. And they weren’t expecting Harry to be actively trying to sneak away, particularly not as he didn’t think he was supposed to realize that they were there.

Harry went into the back garden and grabbed the top of the fence, pulling himself up enough to peek into his neighbor’s yard. Finding that it looked empty and there were no faces at the windows, Harry easily pulled himself up and over the fence. With his ridiculous strength these days, lifting his own body weight wasn’t enough to cause him any strain.

He crossed quickly to the next street before anyone could notice him wandering around on private property, then just strolled in the direction of the train station. With his new bank card, it was nothing to purchase a train ticket into London. The taxi ride that followed was equally simple.

Harry tipped the driver, then entered the cemetery on foot. He kept his wits about him, wary for any Death Eaters who might have been planning to crash the party. Or even waiting to see if he would show up specifically, but he didn’t sense anyone suspicious around.

The gathering was easy enough to find. There were about thirty-five people and a corresponding collection of vehicles parked nearby. Harry suspected that most, if not all of the guests were muggles based on the fact that he didn’t recognize anyone and that they were all dressed quite appropriately.

Hermione was seated front and center with Viktor on one side of her and his parents on the other.

Harry stayed at the back, leaning against a tree and watching without going close enough that anyone would feel like they could talk to him.

It was a pretty nice ceremony. Several different people stood up to talk about their memories of the couple. A pastor gave a nice speech. Then the coffins were lowered into the ground together. Hermione seemed to spend a lot of time crying into Viktor’s shoulder.

When it was over, Hermione stood and endured condolences from the attendees as they slowly made their way to their cars and left. Harry did notice an invisible watcher arrive shortly after the funeral started, but he recognized Tonks by the feel of her, so he ignored it. He supposed that she was here in case any Death Eaters showed up – probably tasked with sending a message to Dumbledore if that happened.

When most of the muggles had left, Harry finally approached Hermione, who turned to him with an extremely strained smile, which melted into surprise when she identified him. She immediately threw herself into his arms and cried on his shoulder for a minute before she managed to pull it together.

Viktor placed a clean handkerchief in Hermione’s hand the moment she drew back from Harry, and she quickly wiped her face and blew her nose, then shook her head ruefully. “I’m sorry!” she said when she was done. “I didn’t expect you to actually show up, Harry. It means so much to me that you came.”

“Or course, I did,” Harry smiled softly, his brow furrowed in sympathy. “You’re my best friend, Hermione. They’d have had to lock me up to keep me away.”

“You idiot,” Hermione chastised with a weak smile. “You’re lucky nothing happened.”

“You’re worth the risk,” Harry said firmly.

Hermione sobered into sad fondness at his words.

Harry glanced at the grave. “So how are you holding up?” he asked.

“Okay,” Hermione admitted. “As well as I can be, I think. I’ve been talking to a mind healer. Just trying to come to terms with everything. It’s been… helpful.” She looked at her shoes a moment, then took a breath and said, “I’m not coming back to Hogwarts. Mr. and Mrs. Krum don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I agree,” Harry said firmly.

She looked up with surprise, as though she’d actually expected him to be angry about it.

“I’m selfish, Hermione,” Harry shrugged. “If it was up to me, I’d ship everyone that I care about far away. I am incredibly grateful that you won’t be in the middle of what’s coming.”

Hermione sagged at the reminder, “But what if you die because I’m not here to help?” she whispered.

“If I die, it won’t be your fault,” Harry said firmly, because that was a real possibility, and he hated the idea of Hermione thinking it was somehow her fault. “It’ll be the fault of whoever killed me and please don’t ever believe otherwise.”

Hermione hastily wiped at her eyes again.

“And it’s not like I can’t write and ask you questions,” he tried to soften the blow.

“I have an idea for that!” she said quickly. “I think I can make us notebooks connected with a protean charm so that we can write back and forth instantly.”

Harry grinned. “That would be great! I’m sure you’ll get it figured out.”

Hermione seemed to wilt again a moment later, her eyes drifting back toward the grave. A moment of silence passed before she quietly confessed, “My parents aren’t in there. They’re going to be interred on Krum land, for security.”

“Probably a good idea,” Harry acknowledged. He knew enough Dark magic to know how much could be done with the corpse or even skeleton of a direct blood relation. It made him wonder where his parents were buried. He’d probably have to ask Sirius when his sentence at the Dursleys was complete for the summer.

“This was just for my neighbors and my parents’ friends and colleagues. It would have been too strange otherwise. And they deserved a chance to say goodbye, too. We just told everyone that it was a home invasion gone bad.” She looked exhausted just talking about it. She glanced back at Mr. and Mrs. Krum, who were standing a respectful distance away now, letting her talk to Harry.

“Well, I suppose we need to get going,” Hermione said regretfully.

Harry nodded. “Yeah, you go ahead. Write to me when you feel up to it, okay?”

Hermione hugged him again and Harry said goodbye to the Krums, then turned back the way he’d arrived.

He wasn’t surprised when he felt Tonks join him as soon as they were firmly out of earshot of everyone else.

“Wocher, Harry,” she said when she was right next to him.