Harry had a bounce in his step as he arrived at the usual classroom.
“Enjoy the Samhain rites?” Crouch asked with a faint smirk.
“Very much.” Harry dropped into his seat. “The family magic was… something else.”
“I know… it was a relief for me, when I was younger. My Crouch ancestors were more fond of me than my own father.” Something a lot like vulnerability flashed across his face—there and then gone.
Harry studied him carefully. “Those protection runes felt… odd. Are they… human? Of human origin?”
Crouch sat up straighter. “Why do you ask?”
“Something about them felt… different from every runic language I’ve worked with. Like—whether it’s Tamil or Arabic or Sumerian cuneiform or Mycenaean Greek, the structure and meaning of the runes, the way they’re drawn, all of it feels like something a human mind could’ve thought up. Those runes didn’t. I can’t explain it better than that.”
“You are… remarkably astute,” Crouch said softly. “Do I have your word you will not attempt to study this subject without supervision?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. As best as we can determine, the protective runes originate with the sídhe, three thousand or more years ago.” Crouch’s pale blue eyes gleamed and his whole face came alight as he talked. “We don’t know much about them—ogham script seems to be a derivation or interpretation of a simple form of their written language, but what they were, where they went—no one has a clue. Some people believe they came from another dimension and hid the portals in the síd—the mounds of earth that dot the Irish landscape—for one reason or another. Others believe they were another native race of magical beings who died out for reasons unknown. A few druid cults worship them as deities. What we do know is that many of the síd contain ritual spaces, and on the floor are carved circles of those runes. Carved, not written in potion or chalk or salt. Whatever they were doing required strong magical anchoring.”
Harry was so caught up in the explanation he almost forgot to breathe. “The runes—they’re still there?”
“Yes, fortunately we’ve been able to protect the ritual spaces from the Muggles.” Crouch made a disgusted face. “And because I can anticipate your next question, yes, scholars are permitted to visit. I imagine a Runes Master of the House of Black would be approved.”
“I’ll jot it down in my ten-year plan,” Harry said with a smirk.
Crouch laughed, the long line of his throat gleaming in the witchlight. Harry stared. He’d never heard the other man laugh before. It was a shockingly free and uninhibited sound. Death Eater, foster son of Voldemort, and he was this… assured.
Someday Harry wanted to be able to laugh so freely without fear.
“Now.” Crouch grinned at him. “Runes of dubious purpose aside, how have your potions experiments gone this week? Did you try a granite cauldron for the veritaserum antidote?”
“Yes, and I think it made a huge difference. Here, look.” Harry whipped out his grimoire and undid its protections. No matter that he permitted Crouch to see inside it at every lesson, he reset the wards every time; it didn’t pay to be sloppy. “It shortened the brewing time by three whole days.”
“Fascinating.” Crouch leaned in and Harry let himself get lost in their conversation.
With a groan, Harry threw himself into his chair.
“Rough week?” Crouch said, raising an eyebrow.
“You would not believe…” Harry stuck his fingers under his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “The quidditch match is on Saturday and the whole school’s gone bloody insane. A dozen people went to the hospital wing just today. And my friends are being so weird—Theo and Hermione are dancing around each other, Daphne and I are still getting back to normal after we split, and I don’t think Draco and Pansy would last a year in marriage without trying to do each other in, but they’re still keeping up this pretense of dating anyway. It’s so… frustrating! And distracting.”
“Teenagers,” said Crouch sympathetically, but his eyes danced with amusement that made Harry scowl. “They’ll grow out of it… as you seem to have already done?”
“I don't know.” Harry paused and chose his words carefully. No sense giving something away, but it was… nice to have someone to talk to outside the internal squabbles of the school. “With my childhood I… sort of outgrew a lot of… they seem so childish sometimes. Not my circle for the most part but even my sensible friends go a bit silly over each other. It makes no sense to me.”
“For the longest time I thought myself incapable of true romantic attraction,” Crouch said slowly, and Harry tried to hide his sudden interest. “Perhaps you are… of such a persuasion? Or perhaps you are looking for love on the wrong side of the pitch, so to speak.”
Harry smirked faintly. “D’you know, it took me until this year to realize wixen don’t look down on gay relationships like Muggles do? Justin mentioned he might ask a bloke to Hogsmeade and it threw me off. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t discriminate, if you know what I mean, and I… I did feel something for Daph. It just wasn’t enough—we’re better as friends… Did you ever work it out? For yourself, I mean?”
Crouch hesitated long enough Harry wasn’t sure he’d answer, and then something gave very slightly in his posture and he gestured vaguely with one hand. “I was… involved… with Regulus Black, years ago, before… everything went to hell.”
“My condolences.”
Crouch inclined his head. “My interest lies exclusively with men and… those with whom I share an intellectual kinship. There has been no one since, however—I was, as you know, imprisoned for a long time, and none of my current… associates quite suit.”
The thought of whipcord-lean Barty Crouch with bloody Peter Pettigrew made Harry wince. “I imagine not… And dating opportunities must be thin on the ground, what with being, you know, a wanted fugitive,” he said with a smirk.
“Regrettably,” Crouch said with a bark of a laugh. “I have hope, though. My lord often says that opportunities arise from unexpected places… Personally I doubt he referred to matters of the heart, but that doesn’t mean it does not apply.”
“The Dark Lord with a paramour.” Harry tried to picture that, and couldn’t, for all the man had a certain… appeal.
Crouch mimed spelling his lips shut. “On such matters I’ll have to hold my peace, Hadrian.”
“I assumed no less,” Harry said drily. He tilted his head back with a sigh. “Let’s hope all the… hormonal nonsense dies down soon. It might be easier if I were interested in someone, but I’m just not.”
“I hate to break it to you,” Crouch informed him, thin lips twitching, “but the hormonal nonsense, as you put it, is only going to get worse over the next two years.”
Harry slumped down in his chair. “Kill me now.”
“Oh no, Heir Black, I couldn’t possibly.” Crouch’s eyes gleamed. “You’re far too interesting to kill.”
“Are you… well?” Crouch said, eyeing Harry.
“Yes.” Harry’s wand spun restlessly around his fingers even though today wasn’t a dueling lesson. “Just fine. Why d’you ask?”
“I heard about the incident at the match.”
Ah. Even half a week later, Harry’s magic was still restless, uneasy. A stray wad of used parchment had gotten flung his way in the common room last night and he’d lit it on fire without thinking, in front of a dozen people. “It was… not pleasant.”
“You are healed, I assume?”
“Yeah.” Harry let a mirthless smile cross his face. “All better. Got checked over for physical injury and shooed out of the infirmary. Not a thought from Pomfrey about why I had an explosion of accidental magic at my age.”
Crouch hummed a bit. “You know, when I was seventeen, a Hufflepuff lass slapped me in the face. My magic threw her halfway across the room. I healed her, and apologized profusely, but the House of Abbott still refuses more than high-formal relations with the House of Crouch. Trauma can train one’s magic to be… hypersensitive to certain things.”
“Muggles call them ‘triggers,’” Harry said hollowly. “Except it’s worse for us because, you know. Magic.”
“Would you care to speak of it?”
Harry glanced up at his—what even should he call Crouch? In a way the man felt like a friend—Harry liked him, found his company easy and his mind engaging. The oaths created a degree of trust Harry rarely had in other people yet Crouch was still a Death Eater and the protege of Voldemort himself. Technically mentor and teacher, Crouch often engaged with Harry as with a peer.
Could he trust Crouch with this?
“It’s complicated,” he found himself saying quietly. “My cousin… he and his friends played this game. Harry Hunting. It was worst during the summers. They’d chase me, and if they ran me down, they’d beat me up and… stuff… until they got bored and wandered off. I don’t… like being jumped.”
“Little bastards,” Crouch muttered. “I regret that you had to endure that.”
Harry shrugged. “I can’t really hate him, honestly… he was just a kid, and he had the worst possible role models. I mean, his parents encouraged it—well, his dad did, my aunt sort of just turned a blind eye.” He paused. “Looking back, I think… I think my uncle mistreated her too… some days, when he’d not been letting me eat, she’d sneak me into the kitchen and let me eat as much as I could stomach. And she always made a point of sending me to do outside chores on the nights when he came home in a bad mood. I’m not excusing it, she should’ve looked out for me more, but… sometimes I wonder if I might’ve had a family if that bastard husband of hers wasn’t around. He was the biggest problem.”
“Father figures are so complicated, aren’t they,” Crouch said with a grim smile. “It never fails to amaze me, what a son will do to win his father’s love and pride… or to differentiate himself from a father he can’t stand.”
Their eyes met, and Harry relaxed. Crouch understood. “Yours?”
“A bastard, too.” Crouch sighed. “Not overly physical—slaps, a paddling now and then. His was a more verbal and psychological form of torment. I was never… smart enough, never good enough… for a while I thought I could make him love me, if my grades were the best, if I said the right things. But it was never enough. I got almost record-setting OWLs and all he had to say was that he was disappointed I planned to drop Astronomy and Divination. That was when I knew it was… a hopeless battle.”
And that was how the Death Eaters gained a new recruit. Harry tilted his head and eyed Crouch. “You’re being very… forthright, Mr. Crouch.”
“Please call me Barty,” Harry’s instructor said with a truly wicked smile. “Surely we’re familiar enough by now for that, Hadrian? And as far as my forthrightness, my lord has ordered me to treat you as a potential long-term ally. One does not make such allies by deception.”
“The fastest way to earn trust is to give it,” Harry said, nodding. “And your honesty?”
“It’s nothing you couldn’t have guessed,” Crouch—Barty—said dismissively. “And I wouldn’t be telling you if I didn’t want to. There are other ways to get close to someone. As it happens, I like you… and we are similar, in many ways.”
Harry couldn’t deny that. “To shitty fathers,” he said, miming a toast.
Barty laughed. “May they rot beyond the Veil.”
Halfway through a dueling lesson, Harry’s shield shattered under a violently red curse. He had less than a breath to think shit before it hit him and pain overloaded his mind.
It was gone in as little time as it had taken to break his shield, but Harry was already down on one knee, panting, tremors wracking his legs. He looked up at Barty with a snarl. “What the hell was that? A fucking crucio?”
“You need to learn how it feels,” Barty said, shit-eating grin firmly in place. “Sadly I couldn’t get ol’ Dumblefuck to let me try that one on you lo—”
“Crucio!” Harry hissed.
A headache bloomed at his temples, but the spell connected, and Barty’s mouth gaped in a soundless scream. He staggered back and the spell died.
Still panting, Harry got to his feet, ready to curse or shield or dodge.
Barty steadied himself. Rolled his neck. Met Harry’s eyes and smiled. “Oh, somebody’s been practicing, haven’t you, Hadrian?” he nearly crooned. Harry hated that he liked how Barty said his name, his full name, as if each syllable was something to be carefully measured. “On what, pray—rats, mice, little things? You’ll need a bit more work to cast it on a wizard… but that was an excellent try.”
“You deserved it.”
Barty settled back into a dueler’s stance. “That I did. No more of those—although I won’t take imperio off the table. You must know how to handle it.”
“I can handle it,” Harry said, meeting Barty’s eyes across the space between them.
A smile tugged at Barty’s lips. “That I know.”
Somehow he did not seem to be talking only about the Imperius Curse, but then spells were flying thick and fast and Harry had no more time to think.
Holiday spirit infested the castle, and Harry found himself reluctantly swept up in it, even permitting Pansy to put the traditional wreath of holly on his head some evenings. She laughed and took pictures.
Feeling unusually mischievous, Harry wore his wreath, still bright green and glossy thanks to charms, to his last lesson with Barty before the break.
“Good to s—Merlin.” Barty cut off, staring, when Harry walked in. “I… is that the…”
“Yuletide holly? Yep.” Harry sat down with a smirk. “Like it?”
“Holly suits you,” Barty said, recovering enough to shoot Harry a wink. Abruptly Harry’s stomach felt warm.
“You flatter me,” he said in a deadpan voice.
Barty snorted. “Speaking of Yuletide, however, it is traditional for a master to gift something to their apprentice.”
“Oh?” Harry raised his eyebrows. He really needed to research the master-apprentice relationship in more detail over the break. Was he obligated to return the gift?
“Indeed.” Barty produced two wrapped parcels and laid them on the table. “Open this one first.”
Harry reached out with magic, not his hands, and drew the parcel Barty indicated to his side of the table. He kept his eyes on Barty all the while. Granted, there was… a degree of trust by now that went beyond the oaths, but it was entirely possible Barty had worked out a loophole. Or someone else had cursed the package without Barty’s knowledge.
“You are the most paranoid child I have ever met,” Barty complained.
“You spent a year screaming constant vigilance at me,” Harry pointed out. “And I think I’ve a right to paranoia. All things considered.”
Barty sighed. “I know Slytherin teaches everyone detection spells. Have at it.”
Harry started muttering detection spells. One after another after another turned up nothing. Barty had taken out a book and started reading, as he tended to do during any moment of spare time. This time it looked like one on a history of wards and their impacts on wizarding conflicts. Ravenclaws. Harry kept a close watch on Barty as he delicately used little slicing curses to lift the paper away. There was no indication that Barty was paying attention to the paper’s removal, no indication that he was waiting for a certain outcome.
Inside was a book, bound in plain purplish-black leather with charred edges. Harry squinted at it for a few seconds.
Then his eyes about bugged out of his head.
Barty cackled, sounding, for a second, like the Azkaban-mad fugitive people thought he was. “Recognize that, do you?”
“I can’t accept this,” Harry said flatly, recovering his composure. “This is—”
“One of a dozen remaining copies of Parselscript Rituals, yes,” Barty said. “Resistant to copybooks, only readable by your, er, bloodline.”
Harry’s eyes snapped up to him. This was a test. Of fucking course. “Riddle wanted to make absolutely sure, huh?” he said. “If I hadn’t been able to read this…”
“Seems you really are the Gaunt heir,” Barty said cheerfully. “Assuming my lord doesn’t have children. Which, frankly, is unlikely.”
“No blood adoptions for you, then?”
Barty’s expression darkened. “He offered. I declined.”
Harry raised his eyebrows.
“It’s unusual for someone to be able to hold two family inheritances at once. Usually that only happens when the family magics are of comparable… weight, I suppose. When they are similarly well established. Age is a factor, but not the only one… I suspect that you may have had to choose, upon your majority, between the Potter and Slytherin inheritances, but the Black family came here with the Romans two thousand years ago and should be able to coexist in you with the Slytherin magic, which is younger but incredibly rich in history and craft. Not to mention, both family magics will cling to you, as the last Heir.” Barty paused. “Crouch, on the other hand… is not as old, or established, as the Slytherin line. I would have almost certainly lost my family magics had I been blood adopted by my lord, and that magic was… the only source of comfort in my life for a very long time.”
“You didn’t want to give them up,” Harry said, understanding.
Barty nodded. “I am my lord’s foster son in all but blood and magic, and that is more than enough for me. Certainly it is an honor no other has been granted… though one came close.”
“I don’t know what I’d have chosen,” Harry admitted. “Between Potter or Slytherin… feeling the Blacks on Samhain was incredible, but I didn’t do the rite until after I was disinherited. If I’d had that kind of connection to the ancestral Potters for years, when my own father couldn’t give a fig about me…”
“Exactly.” Barty tried a smile that looked a bit painful. “Anyway, enough morose talk, yeah? Open this one.” He pushed the other parcel across the table.
Harry had forgotten it. He delicately re-wrapped Parselscript Rituals in its paper and set it aside, then drew the other package towards him, again magically. Barty’s eyes on him were a physical weight; when Harry glanced up, his expression was patient and calculating. Harry was suddenly sure this was a test or a trap. It would be clever to leave the first package harmless and fool him into a false sense of security regarding the second—but that would require Barty’s cooperation in handing him the un-cursed one first, which meant…
Which meant this came down to a question of trust.
Harry weighed his wand in his hand and considered the kind of message it would send if he chose to trust Barty in this moment. A tiny smirk tugged at the corners of his mentor’s mouth. He knew, then, what Harry was deliberating; he knew Harry had picked through the implications of this moment.
Slowly, Harry set his wand aside and reached for the package.
Barty’s smirk cracked open into a real smile. It was not kind or reassuring.
Harry touched the package and nothing happened.
He set about opening it, pulling the paper aside neatly. Inside was a quaffle-sized box of wood varnished to a warm dark brown. Green enameled leaves tipped with gold cupped the box’s corners and traced the outline of drawers in the front of it. Harry slid the top drawer open and found a small tray of green velvet. “A jewelry chest?’
“Did you have one already?” Barty said, still with that wicked smile.
Slowly, Harry shook his head. It would come in handy. He was accumulating cloak pins, cufflinks, and hat pins at an alarming rate, and he’d considered getting one or both ears pierced at some point.
“Open the next drawer.”
“You are so fucking dramatic,” Harry muttered, but he did as bade, and then his breath caught.
Once, Sirius had given him a gift Harry prized—a cloak pin with the combined Black and Potter crests. It was before his disownment, back when Harry was still a Potter, and the gift had meant the world to him. Though he could never wear it now, it still lived in his trunk, wrapped in an old sock and tucked into a pocket.
This pin featured combined family crests as well, but Potter was not one of them. Harry picked it up with steady fingers. The crossed athames and wand of the Blacks gleamed up at him in smoky silver-grey the precise shade of Sirius’ eyes on a black enamel background. An ouroboros wrought in the same smoky grey metal, each scale precise and individually carved, circled the Black crest. Two tiny emeralds gleamed in place of its eyes.
“I can’t accept this,” Harry said, and he really couldn’t. The book was a gift from his patriarch, technically, its value assayed by the fact that Harry had a right to heirlooms of the House of Slytherin. This, on the other hand—
“Yes, you can. I told you—it’s a master’s obligation to give a Yuletide gift,” Barty said, so innocently that Harry knew something was up, but he did know rejecting it was unspeakably rude and he didn’t want to actually snub Barty.
He slid the pin back into the chest and closed it. “It is well made,” he said, instead of thank you.
“I know,” Barty said. “Only the finest for the Heir of Slytherin, no?”
“Oh, bugger off,” Harry said irritatedly, and barely stopped himself from smiling when Barty laughed that damn infectious laugh again.
Harry cornered Pansy in the Knights’ Room. “I have a question for you about Yule gifts.”
“Oh?” She gave him a sharp look. “And here I thought I trained you in that already, Black.”
“Very funny. No, this is… sort of a specific circumstance.”
“All right, I’m intrigued. Ask away.”
Harry put up the strongest privacy ward he knew and said the password that would lock the Knights’ Room down from inside. Pansy’s eyebrows climbed towards her hairline. “...now I’m very intrigued. What, did you get a present from the Dark Lord?”
“Actually yes.”
Pansy’s eyes bugged out to the size of dinner plates. “You fucking what?”
“Come here.” Harry went and sat down in his usual chair. He dug in his bag as Pansy followed and found her own seat. “He sent me a book through my—my tutor. It’s a Gaunt family heirloom—or Slytherin, I guess. Only heirs of the bloodline can read it.”
Pansy nodded. “A test, then. Clever.”
“Right, so that wouldn’t count as a gift from my mentor?”
“No…” Pansy looked at him closely. “Did he get you something else?”
Harry grimaced and pulled the jewelry chest out of his expanded bag.
“Merlin!” Pansy took it, turned it over in her hands to inspect the working, and then tugged open the top drawer much like Harry had earlier that evening. “This is… very fine work.”
“Second drawer,” Harry said glumly.
Pansy slid it open and gasped. “Harry!”
Harry raised a hand. “Present!”
“You arse! This—this—” She whirled on him. “This is not a master-to-apprentice gift!”
“Yeah, I thought as much.” Why was his life so complicated? “What’s a master supposed to give his apprentice, then?”
“Something useful and related to one’s course of study,” Pansy said flatly. “A trunk if you haven’t got a good one. Books. Cauldrons and the like for a potions study, stuff like that. Not bloody jewelry!”
“So it’s… what is it? I never quite got the nuances of gifting.” Harry rolled his eyes at Pansy’s narrow-eyed glare. “You handed me a catalogue and said what kind of stuff is appropriate for a friend, remember? Small, casual, impersonal jewelry pieces for close friends or for an acquaintance if you want to tell them you’d like to be closer friends.”
“Right. That necklace you got me was perfect first year—you had an idea I’d like it but it was just a necklace, nothing too fancy.” Pansy smirked. “I still wear it.”
“How adorable,” Harry said in a baby voice.
Pansy smacked him. “Do you want my help or not?”
“Yes, yes, sorry Pans.”
“That’s more like it.” Pansy sniffed. “Well—listen. The more… tailored the gift, the stronger the ramifications, right? So when you got Neville a sketchbook and charcoals in third year, you’d noticed he liked doing Herbology and Care drawings, and how he doodled in his notes, and you thought he’d like to do more of it. I happen to know he still uses that sketchbook. That was a great gift for a close friend. Not too expensive, but it clearly shows you knew him and paid attention to what he’d like.”
“I get plenty of jewelry though.” This was turning into an even bigger headache than Harry had expected. “Cufflinks, an ankh pendant, that silver cuff from Justin last year—”
“Right, and that was all the sort of thing you’d get from a good friend. None of it was pricey, Harry, but—look. This?” She prodded the jewelry chest rather harder than necessary. “Acceptable. Barely. He doesn’t know you well, you literally met, like, three months ago, and he jumped straight to a high-end probably custom-made jewelry case? And not only that but the gift is a pin with your combined House crests on it.”
“Just spit it out.”
Pansy leaned forward and met Harry’s eyes very squarely. “Harry, the only real way to interpret this is as a declaration of intent gift.”
It was just fucking like Barty to go and dump a declaration of intent gift on Harry’s shoulders right before disappearing for an entire month.
Harry spent the first day home at Grimmauld Place researching courting protocols. It made his stomach churn with anxiety and—something else.
Finally, when he dragged himself down to dinner, he made himself ask Sirius, “What do I do if someone’s given me a declaration of intent gift?”
Sirius stared at him for a count of three. Then he burst into raucous laughter.
“Laugh it up,” Harry said, slouching back.
“No, no, this is priceless! I don’t think I got one of those until my sixteenth birthday! You are such a little ladies’ man!” Sirius paused and looked at him. “Or a bloke’s bloke, if you know what I mean, no judgment here. Who is it, a lady or a bloke?”
“The Bloody Baron,” Harry snarled.
Sirius pointed at him. “Not funny.”
“A bloke, then. Not telling you who.”
“You spoil my fun,” Sirius said with a pout. “Fine, what was the gift?”
“Don’t ask. Seriously. Just… what do I do?”
Harry’s voice came out a lot more desperate than he intended, and he flushed. Sirius’ teasing smirk faded and he settled deeper into his seat. “Well, first question is: do you want to encourage it? I’m guessing he’s older, if he made the first gesture… you can do nothing, which is a bit not the done thing but gets the message across you’re not interested. Or you can tell him point blank you’re not interested. Or, if it was a Yule gift, you can give him something super impersonal and casual, which is… not quite as blunt and obvious.”
“Okay.” Harry pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Okay. And… if I wanted to see where it went?” Sirius lit up. “Hypothetically!” Harry said loudly. “I meant hypothetically!”
“Suuuure you did.” Sirius wiped a manic grin off his face with visible effort. “‘Kay, well, hypothetically you’d give him something personal. Ideally also something that took some effort on your part. Family heirlooms are engagement gifts, so nothing with a Black crest on it, but jewelry and the like… c’mon, you won’t tell me who it is? Pretty please?” He batted his eyes.
“You really don’t want to know,” Harry said darkly.
Sirius scoffed. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s not like it’s a Death Eater, is it?”
Harry looked at him.
“...oh bloody hell, you got a gift from a fucking Death Eater?” Sirius threw his hands up. “Are you kidding me? I am not cut out for this—this parenting shit! I read books, okay, and none of them said what to do when your kid comes home with a beau who’s literally a member of a vigilante terrorist group—”
“Technically the Order are also a terrorist group,” Harry said drily. “Terrorists use targeted or systematic violence, threats, and fear in pursuit of specific sociopolitical goals.”
“Not the point,” Sirius hissed, sounding remarkably like Eriss. “Fucking hell, Harry. Which Death Eater? Please tell me it’s not one of that old grey lot. I think I’d have to lock you up like bloody Rapunzel.”
“No, he’s young. Promise.”
For a long moment, Sirius squinted at Harry, and then he groaned. “Oh, bloody hell. No. Nope. I’m done. Harry, if you’re courting Barty fucking Crouch Junior, I’m going to… to…”
“Yes?” Harry prompted, amused despite himself.
“Something! I’ll think of it later!” Sirius scowled at him. “Seriously? That man is deranged—he used the Imperius on children—”
“At Dumbledore’s behest, when Dumbledore thought he was Moody,” Harry said. “Half the school thinks he was the best Defense professor we’ve ever had for all he was a Death Eater in disguise. Why’s it wrong for Barty, but fine for Moody? Regardless of who he was, he taught us, and he did it well.”
“If you’re courting this wizard because he was a half-decent professor—”
“I’m not, I’m just saying. Merlin, you know what, forget it, I shouldn’t have brought this up—”
“No no no, sit down!” Sirius waved a bit frantically at him. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s just a lot for you to dump on me at once, all right?”
Harry took a deep breath and settled back in his chair with a stiff nod.
“Right.” Sirius looked up at the ceiling. “Okay. Do you like being around him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
It was Harry’s turn to stare up at the ceiling. This was far too much like talking about his feelings for comfort, but he had asked, hadn’t he?
“He’s smart. Clever—he thinks about things, doesn’t just take them prima facie. I never have to dumb myself down or—or hide any… part of my personality.” Harry closed his eyes and pretended he was alone. Only the familiar weight of Eriss around his shoulders allowed him to get the words out: “I like making him laugh. He makes me want to laugh.”
This was met with a ringing silence. Harry counted to fifteen before he broke and lowered his eyes from the exposed beams in the ceiling.
Sirius was just… staring at him, his eyes suspiciously shiny. “Yeah, pup,” he said hoarsely. “That’s… okay. I get it.”
“You… do?” Harry said.
“Well.” Sirius huffed. “Not really, I barely know the bloke and he was always just Regulus’ swotty friend. Fucking hell, that’s weird.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Okay… do you trust him, though?”
Harry winced. “Yeah, that’s… the problem. He’s… uh… on the inner side of Voldemort’s inner circle, if you know what I mean? Very close.”
“Like.” Sirius made a face. “How close?”
“What? Oh! Ew, no, not like that. More… I’m sure you can guess Barty Senior wasn’t the best father?”
Sirius looked grim, which was answer enough.
“Yeah, so near as I can figure, Barty fell in with… that whole crowd… around his fifth year, and the Dark Lord sort of took him under his wing. Like a foster father slash mentor kind of deal.”
“Gods, that is weird,” Sirius muttered. “Okay. Okay. So. You, uh, you’re considering…”
“I couldn’t very well kill him and be courting his foster son,” Harry said drily. “Well, I could use courting Barty as an excuse to get close enough to kill him, but—”
“But you don’t want to.”
Harry stopped and looked at Sirius, his body poised to run.
“I’m not an idiot,” Sirius said, his voice muffled, as he had planted his entire face into his palms and left it there. “I… you… the way you talk, your friends… I figured you’d at least be neutral in the war.”
“And you’re… okay with that?” Harry said. Eriss was with him. Theo’s emergency portkey was heavy against his skin.
“Hell, pup, it’s your call, isn’t it? Not like you haven’t been through enough.”
“You, too.”
Sirius picked his face up from his hands, and looked more like the shell Azkaban had left him than Harry had seen in a while. “Yeah. And whose fault was that? My brother in all but blood left me to rot, and Albus. People I—looked up to. Respected. Loved. What kind of… of good guys are they if that’s the kind of thing they do to their own? I’m not on board with, with genocide, but I’m, it seems like that’s not quite what the other side wants, and…”
“It’s not,” Harry said quietly. “I found some… old documentation. Prophet back issues and such. The Death Eaters were a political movement once. The Knights of Walpurgis. They rallied around some really concerning reports out of Brazil and Russia that the Statute of Secrecy is strained to the breaking point. As a whole piece of magic, it relies on Muggles assuming magic doesn’t exist, right? So individual Muggles can learn otherwise, when proof’s in front of them—anything that’s enough to even get them honestly wondering if magic exists can nullify the Statute’s effect on them. Mostly they’re oblivious and they’ll ignore or rationalize things they can’t explain. But when there’s some obvious bit of proof—when they start to doubt that assumption—it’s like a veil gets torn away from their eyes and they can see us. And if that happens to enough Muggles, the whole Statute could come crashing down.”
“Kreacher!” Sirius turned to the elf as he cracked into the kitchen next to them. “Two firewhiskeys.”
“Yes, Master,” the old elf said, popping away.
“Really?” Harry said.
Kreacher reappeared, holding a bottle. He snapped and two glasses appeared on the table.
“Yes, really. This calls for a drink.” Sirius knocked back a shot and poured another three fingers of liquor. “Sweet buggering fuck. The Statute could fall?”
“Yeah. They argued for…” Harry cycled through occlumency-reinforced memories. “The Muggleborn Protection Bill of 1967. It was inspired by the Muggle Civil Rights Movement in the States.”
Sirius snorted. “Ironic.”
“Right? I read it a few weeks ago, actually.” As he’d gotten to know Barty better, Harry had realized how imperative it was to educate himself on the Death Eater movement. “It was shot down by a coalition headed by Dumbledore—but it banned discrimination against Muggleborns, set up a standardized system of testing, instituted summer camps with funding for poor families and a pre-Hogwarts culture class meant to integrate Muggleborns earlier, resources for Muggleborn parents, positions for squibs and even the parents of Muggleborns so that a Muggleborn’s family could integrate with them, a foster and adoption system for the kids whose Muggle parents don’t want them.”
“Don’t want—? Really?”
“Twenty-five percent of Muggleborns have their cores bound at 11 rather than go to Hogwarts. Another fourteen percent opt into the procedure by graduation. Forty-two percent report that by seventeen they’ve lost contact with their families as a consequence of refusing to give up magic,” Harry said quietly. “For the ones that choose Muggle… A study in France found that binding one’s magic causes severe long-term mental health problems. Depression, psychosis, hallucinations, memory loss, dementia, suicide… Muggleborns who choose to have their cores bound, or whose parents choose for them, have a life expectancy of 29.”
Sirius finished his drink and eyed the bottle but didn’t pour more. “Hell…”
Harry nodded. It might have been his fate, in another world. Had Petunia and Vernon raised him as their own, and then asked him to pick—
What eleven-year-old would reject their loving parents like that?
“So there was no move to legalize Muggle-baiting?” Sirius checked.
Harry smirked. “Well, there was a clause permitting the Wizengamot to try and sentence Muggles for crimes committed against wizards, and another one allowing the use of nonlethal magic against a Muggle when under threat… which could be Muggle-baiting, depending on your definition. Then again the bill also standardized penalties for crimes committed against Muggles unprovoked and eliminated language that levied lighter penalties for purebloods. So.”
“Death Eaters as the good guys.” Sirius shook his head. “Merlin.”
“I mean, not completely. They did institute a campaign of targeted attacks against government officials to terrify people into enacting the policies they couldn’t get passed normally. Like the Muggleborn Protection Bill. Lots of people died—at the wands of both sides.”
Sirius batted a hand. “Yeah, I get the picture… this is just a lot to take in. I mean… Harry, that bastard killed Lily!”
“Yeah.” Harry laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, he did. James and Lily decided to have kids in a war zone. And instead of going permanently into hiding, or leaving the country, James kept fighting. Going to Order meetings. They were active combatants in a war, with kids, and they stayed in a war zone. For that matter, why the hell didn’t they move behind the ancestral wards at Potter Manor? Why was the Fidelius their only defense? And—” He lowered his voice. “I still have no idea why the Dark Lord tried to kill Jules that night. There’s literally not a single other mention of an attack on magical children, not even Muggleborns, unless it was someone underage fighting with the Order. The Longbottoms—there were standing orders not to harm them, but the Lestranges claimed a blood price for the death of Rabastan, and even then the Dark Lord set strict limits and told them not to touch their son. He didn’t make a habit of running around murdering kids. So why Jules? And for that matter, why haven’t the Longbottoms woken up?”
“I gotta tell you, pup,” Sirius said slowly, “I have no idea. There was something… Dumbledore and Lily and James kept having these serious closeted discussions, arguing in corners behind privacy spells… I asked, but James wouldn’t tell me. Lily wanted to but they had to swear oaths. That all started about six months before you were born. And then they put up the Fidelius weeks later… and everything was fine until I survived one attack too many and suggested they switch to Peter and make me the bloody decoy.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Sirius barked out a laugh. “The hell it’s not.”
“No, seriously.” Harry leaned across the table and grabbed his godfather’s hand. “It’s not. You had no way of knowing Peter wouldn’t stay true. None of this is your fault.”
“Yeah.”
Sirius obviously didn’t totally believe it. Harry squeezed his hand harder and let go and hoped one day the message would sink in.
“Anyway.” Sirius cleared his throat. “About… Crouch. Do you know…?”
“No, I don’t,” Harry said, rubbing his forehead. “It’s complicated! He just—he—if he were anyone else, I’d be interested, I think, but he’s close to… to Voldemort. And I don’t want…”
He trailed off, but Sirius shot him a knowing glance. “Me? Well, pup, you’ve got some strategic advantages, don’t think I don’t see it. Influence in Hogwarts, money, social position… I doubt Voldie would balk at finally having the direct Black line sworn to his banner. I…” He took a raspy, painful breath. “I’ll declare neutral, if that’s what you want, pup. He killed Lily and I can’t… I can’t forgive that, I’m not sure I could even be civil to his face, but you’re more important and if that’s what you want to do I’ll stand with you. I promise.”
“Okay.” Harry cleared his throat. “Okay… Sirius, I… thanks.”
“Love you, pup,” Sirius said.
Harry couldn’t say it back, but that was all right. They both knew.
A series of messages exchanged via journal and Harry arranged to meet Barty at Summerisles on the twenty-seventh. The trendy restaurant sat squarely in the middle of upscale Horizont Alley, off Diagon, and it was packed with post-holiday good cheer.
Barty had not said how exactly he planned to disguise himself. Harry stepped into the restaurant and looked around while he waited for the maitre’d, but Summerisles was designed with intimate little booths and tables sheltered by screens and dividers. “I’ve a reservation for Black,” Harry said.
The maitre’d blanched slightly. “Very good, Heir Black. If you’ll please follow me, your guest has already arrived.”
Of course he had.
The maitre’d led Harry to a table along the right-hand wall of the restaurant. A divider of warped stained glass protected it on one side and a tapestry on a freestanding frame guarded the other. Instead of Barty’s lanky body, Harry found a shorter, stockier man waiting, with wavy brown hair. His insouciant grace, though—that was the same.
“Heir Black.” Barty rose and gave a traditional half-bow.
Harry cast a privacy ward, wand hidden in the folds of his formal robe, and returned the greeting. “Heir Crouch.”
“I’m known as Aquinas today,” Barty said with a smirk as they took their seats.
“Very well, Aquinas. It was good of you to join me.” Harry hesitated. “I do wish that I could see your… more typical appearance.
Barty winked. “Perhaps later. I trust you enjoyed Yuletide?”
“Very much.”
A server appeared and took their order. Harry, still unfamiliar with wizarding drinks, allowed Barty to select a vintage from the wine list.
“Have you eaten here before?” Barty asked.
Harry shook his head. “Sirius still doesn’t like going out much in these kinds of places. He’s fallen in with a more… informal crowd.”
“Vanessa Tate,” Barty said. “Yes, they’re… quite a group.”
“Do you know them?” Harry said carefully.
Barty shrugged. “I did in school. Tate’s got a cousin I was quite taken with in third year. They seem like a good crowd for Black.”
“If things go as… planned… you’ll be pardoned or suchlike,” Harry said carefully. “And then…?”
“We’ll see who chooses the right side,” Barty said with a smirk. “Selected an entree yet?”
“Boeuf bourguignon," Harry said, tapping his menu. It vanished to the kitchen with his selection highlighted in glowing light. Barty selected some French dish Harry had never heard of.
“Try the wine,” Barty suggested.
Harry did so, rolling it around on his tongue. “Mmm… it’s almost sweet, but not quite. I’m afraid I have little experience with wine.”
“Well, stick around, and you’ll get used to the finer things in life.” Barty’s tone was low, rich, and sent a jolt of heat straight to Harry’s groin.
Slowly, Harry smiled around the rim of his glass, enjoying the way Barty’s eyes caught on the movement. “Oh, I’m sure.”
“You’re playing with fire,” Barty murmured.
Harry took another sip and savored it. Then, carefully, he opened his right palm, a tiny flame dancing in the center of it. “That’s my favorite game.”
Barty’s pupils dilated.
The conversation flowed lightly from there, avoiding heavy topics. Harry barely registered most of the words that passed between them, let alone his meal. He’d never felt this way around Daphne or any of his other friends. Not even on the occasions he and Zacharias Smith had slipped off into darkened corners and gotten each other off. The Hufflepuff’s mouth was infinitely better than Harry’s own hand, and feeling the other boy’s body go utterly helpless under Harry’s mouth was an exquisite kind of power, but this was… something else.
More.
At last, Barty left several galleons on the table and rose, offering Harry his arm in the position indicating equality of House and inheritance. Harry linked his elbow with Barty’s. Pansy had drilled this into his head: when the younger child of one House courted the Heir to another, the Heir took precedence and took their paramour on their arm, but two Heirs or two younger children had a different posture indicating their relative familial positions.
They strolled along Diagon, not talking much. The winter night was cold and snow crunched beneath their feet but between the glow of the wine and the heat in his abdomen Harry didn’t feel it.
He was so attuned to the controlled grace of Barty’s movements that he registered Barty’s hesitation instantly. Harry snapped to attention, scanning their environment. “Problem?” he said softly.
“Oh, no.”
At the tone, Harry looked up. Something glittered in Barty’s eyes. “I just had an… idea,” Barty said wickedly, cutting his gaze left, and—
Ah. Harry felt his own mouth curve into an answering smile. “You have the best ideas,” he said seriously, allowing Barty to tug him towards the alley.
Still, Harry palmed his wand, casting a silent homenum revelio as they slipped away from the lights and other pedestrians.
Barty spun them and backed Harry up against the freezing stone wall. “Don’t trust me?” he breathed against Harry’s ear.
A shiver made its way down Harry’s spine. “I’m no fool,” he whispered back, lifting his wand hand and winding it around Barty’s shoulders. The tip of his wand traced down the nape of Barty’s neck and when Barty shuddered Harry felt it in his whole body.
Merlin but he was on fire.
“Wait,” Harry gasped. “I want—your real face.”
“It would be my pleasure.” Barty rasped out an incantation Harry didn’t catch. Magic surged between them, and just like that, he was there. Storm-blue eyes, sandy hair, lean frame, familiar harsh features.
For a second, Harry could only stare.
Barty made an irritated sort of noise and pushed even closer. Harry was painfully hard, and he could feel an answering hardness pressing against his hip.
Rocking forward was pure instinct. The sound it drew from Barty—
“Tease,” Barty snarled, and then his mouth crashed down on Harry’s and there was no more room for thought.
His lips moved hot and demanding against Harry’s. It was all Harry could do not to whimper as his mouth opened of its own accord and Barty’s tongue slipped inside, tasting—
“You,” Barty said, drawing away, “have not,” he kissed the side of Harry’s neck, “done this much, have you?”
“N—ahhh,” Harry said as Barty’s teeth closed over his pulse point. Pleasure-pain raced like lightning up and down his nerve endings.
Barty’s hand closed around Harry’s left wrist, pinning it to the stone above their heads. A whispered sticking charm made sure it would stay there and Barty’s hand worked its way between their bodies. His fingers fumbled at the closure of Harry’s heavy wool robe.
He was distracted. Fast as Eriss, Harry closed his own teeth on Barty’s neck. He was not gentle. Another full-body shudder wracked Barty’s body and his hand, pressed against Harry’s cock through layers of robes, spasmed. It was enough to shake Harry loose as well and he nearly lost his balance. Only the sticking charm pinning his hand and the way his wand arm wrapped around Barty kept him upright.
“What are you waiting for?” Harry hissed, and for some reason, the words came out sibilant, rasping, Parseltongue coloring his voice—
“Oh, fuck, you have no bloody idea—” Barty kissed him again, hot and devouring. Harry returned the kiss eagerly this time. They bit at each other’s lips as Barty’s hands worked beneath Harry’s robes and Harry half-consciously sent waves of heat through his wand-tip into Barty’s spine. Each wash of magic sent shivers through Barty that Harry could feel.
He was burning from the inside out.
A warm palm closed around his length and Harry’s hips bucked forward. He swallowed down what would’ve been an embarrassing noise.
“None of that,” Barty all but growled, “I want to hear every fucking noise you make,” and he did some sort of twisting motion with his hand that tore a keen from somewhere deep down in Harry’s lungs.
“Fuck, that’s more like it—”
“You want to hear the noisssse I make?” Harry hissed into his ear, leaning into the Parseltongue, and it was Barty’s turn to make some indefinable sound, while Harry laughed darkly—
Then Barty’s left hand found Harry’s hair and yanked, tilting Harry’s head back; and Barty’s lips and teeth were on his throat, biting and sucking; and Barty’s other hand was working his cock, doing things Harry had never done or had done to him. Having one hand trapped was somehow a delicious kind of helplessness, just as his wand stabbing into Barty’s nape was power, and there was power too in the desperate little noises Barty made as Harry hissed wordless Parseltongue into the frigid air and sent wave after wave of his magic through his wand down Barty’s spine.
Barty was rutting against Harry’s hip now, his hand moving fast, frantic. Harry felt his release coming and leaned into it. He bucked forward into Barty’s hand with every stroke.
An idea struck him and Harry smiled. He captured Barty’s lips in a kiss, breathed “You belong to me” in Parseltongue right into Barty’s mouth, and then while Barty was distracted he set his lips close to Barty’s ear and whispered, “Fulminata.”
With only a touch of his power, the spell produced not a vicious slash of electricity but instead a faint pulse, sparks trailing from his wand and sinking into Barty’s skin.
“Fuck!” Barty groaned. “Harry!”
Harry’s release crested like a wave and he went boneless in Barty’s hold. Dimly he felt Barty’s hips stutter against him and fall still.
They panted, leaning together. Harry did not take his wand from Barty’s neck; Barty did not cancel his sticking charm.
“Sssso,” Harry said. Oh, interesting, he hadn’t been doing the sibilants that time on purpose. “Parssseltongue, hmm?”
“Yeah,” Barty said in a slightly hoarse voice. “That—yeah. Fuck.”
“You said that already.” Harry flicked his wand to end the sticking charm and rolled his wrist as he lowered it, feeling blood rush back into his fingers.
“So,” Barty said, mimicking him. “Restraint, hmmm?”
“Yeah,” Harry said. It surprised him, a little. He wouldn’t have thought the sense of helplessness would appeal, but somehow… “Maybe next time I’ll spell your hands to the wall, hmm?”
Barty’s breath hitched just slightly. If they hadn’t been pressed so close Harry never would have noticed. “Would you want to?”
“Have you helplessss while I take you apart?” Harry rolled his hips for emphasis. “Yesss, I think I’d quite like that.”
“If we do not leave,” Barty said, “I am going to do things to you that would make your godfather angry.”
Harry escaped Barty’s hold in a whirl of magic. He flexed his wand hand and a neatening charm Pansy taught him fixes the fall of his robes. A silent glamour charm erases every indication of the bruising he can already feel at his throat. “Maybe another day,” he said with a smirk.
Barty offered Harry his arm again. “Many other days?”
“At least one,” Harry said haughtily.
“All right.” Barty’s tone was solemn, though his eyes danced as they reemerge into the lights of Diagon proper. “I won’t push my luck.”
“I’ll set my mass-murdering godfather on you if you do. And then my friends.”
“Merlin forbid.”
Harry did not quite laugh. But he wanted to.
“How’d it go, pup?”
Of course Sirius waited up for him. Harry dusted Floo ash off his robe and cloak, grinning. “Quite well.”
“Oh, quite well, hm?” Sirius refills his empty glass and adds three fingers of firewhiskey to another, sliding it over to Harry. “Care to share? Did he ravish you in the Summerisles bathroom?”
“Not quite.” Harry sipped the firewhiskey, savors the burn. Then he cancels the glamor on his throat and tilts his head back with as shit-eating grin. “We made it out to the alley first. Proper young gentlemen would never do this in a bathroom.”
Sirius hooted with laughter. “Oi, pup, he really did a number on you! Was it good?”
“Very,” Harry said, with feeling. He took another drink. Still feeling warm and loose from the wine, the firewhiskey was hitting him hard, in the best way. He reached across the table and grabbed Sirius’ hand. “Way better than… uh, anyone else I’ve…”
“Look at my little heartbreaker.” Sirius leered playfully at him.
Harry gave a flourishing bow and nearly fell off his seat.
Harry was going to kill Lord Pritchard, and he didn’t care who knew it.
Barty took one look at his face the evening after Graham came to Grimmauld Place, and cast a strong privacy ward around what was becoming their usual table at Summerisles. “What’s wrong?”
It took a few minutes for Harry to describe the state in which he had found Graham, right down to the wand burns marching up and down his arms. By the time he was done, Barty’s face matched his, cold and hard.
“So, Lord Pritchard,” Barty said. “You have plans?”
“Do I hell.” Harry paused while the day’s waitress recommended a new Californian vintage that Barty approved. Once she was gone, he leaned forward slightly. “First of all, the Pritchards own a controlling stake in Custard & Son.”
“Do they now.” Barty’s eyes glittered.
“Yep. And as it happens, I own a controlling stake in Custard’s main competitor for mineral imports.”
“Farthing and Sickle?”
“That’s the one. My solicitor is working with the Farthing and Sickle executive officers on a hostile takeover. They can do it if they have an angel investor… yours truly.” Harry sipped his wine. It was quite nice. “Then I’ll do a stock reshuffle and ensure the Pritchards come out the worse.”
“An excellent first step.”
“I thought so.” Barty’s gaze was getting intense. “Second step is a bit more straightforward. Did you know they take accused Statute of Secrecy violations very seriously? I have evidence of Lord Pritchard’s proclivity for a certain brothel in Amsterdam. A Muggle brothel. A single packet of photographs and testimonies sent off to Amelia Bones and Pritchard will wind up with an enormous fine. And then I’ll ensure the photographs reach the Prophet, Witch Weekly… hell, the European Magical Newsnet.”
“Social and fiscal humiliation,” Barty said.
Harry paused and evaluated his expression. An idea was niggling at the back of his mind. “Yeah… but I’m not done. I highly doubt Lucille Pritchard will keep her DMLE position once Amelia Bones knows what kind of thing she overlooked at home. Marcine’s Wizengamot internship I’ll leave alone… well, aside from a quick word with Parker Darswaithe—he’s—”
“Head of Wizengamot Admin Services,” Barty said, nodding.
Harry grinned. “Right. He likes me, I’ve worked with him on Sirius’ behalf a few times. Shouldn’t take much to get Marcine relegated to the bowels of the building. Toby Pritchard… well, to be frank, my Vipers have put him down several times like the feral animal he is, and it hasn’t seemed to stick, yet. It doesn’t help he’s a minor. So I thought perhaps he could spend some quality time with his own wilful blindness. Did you know there’s a spell that severs the optical nerve? It’s relatively painless and the damage can be fixed in a month or so with a course of potions and a few wanded surgical treatments. But, of course, it’s quite expensive. Pity there are just so many Death Eaters running around these days… Imagine if one was spotted at the same time Tobias goes out in public and gets cursed. Such a tragedy.”
Barty’s smile was cruel. “And naturally Nedwin Pritchard will spend what little of his vault he has left on the treatment…”
“Two of his children with no income, one with no prospects, and himself poor,” Harry said with a nod. “The last step, though… I’ve been looking for a place to build a new warehouse for the Black Industries potioneering arm, the current facility in Leeds is wholly inadequate. Plus, it’s getting overrun with Muggles, and the spells to keep the sounds, potions fumes, and activity hidden, plus repel the Muggles, are getting ridiculous. But as it happens, there’s a wonderful large property right next to the Pritchard seat up for sale in the Muggle world! Rural enough to need few wards against fumes, lights, sounds…”
“You are vicious,” Barty murmured.
“And you like it.” Harry took another swallow of wine. He needed it, after today.
Barty took his hand, holding it facing up in one dry palm between them. His free hand traced lines of heat and spark up and down the inside of Harry’s wrist, down over his palm, back up… “Sometimes I wonder what these hands would look like bloody,” he said almost hypnotically. Harry can’t breathe right. “I picture you touching me, fresh from a duel… picture tying you down with the blood still on your hands, your face…”
“That… probably shouldn’t be as appealing as it is.”
“We are both what the world has made of us,” Barty said. He scraped his blunt nails lightly down the inside of Harry’s wrist, and Harry shivered. He was achingly hard under the table. “Would you like that, Harry? A competitive duel, or an unsanctioned one… and afterwards, you come straight to me?”
Fucking hell. Harry can imagine it all too clearly. The fight still buzzing in his veins, the adrenalin, the rush—and then going to Barty, having all the leftover aggression tied down, getting fucked while he still rode the battle high—
Barty whispered a spell. Harry abruptly choked as something squeezed his cock. “Barty what the fuck—”
“A simple pleasure spell.” Barty looked far too pleased with himself. “You’ll feel me, stroking you… and you won’t come until I let you.”
Harry bit back a moan. “You—arsehole.”
“Oh, but you like me cruel,” Barty purred, “just as I do you.” A particularly hard stroke of magic on his cock made Harry’s legs spasm. His knuckles were white on the edge of the table.
“Not—going to—beg.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Barty said with a vicious twist of a smile.
Their food arrived, a plate of seared Ahi tuna for Harry and Balsamic honey glazed pork roast for Barty. Harry’s hands trembled as he reached for his flatware.
“So, I was wondering,” Barty said casually, “have you made any progress translating that book you told me about?”
You’re a fucking bastard, is what you are. Harry forced his hands and voice steady as he answered.
Dinner was agony. Barty just made totally normal conversation that went right over Harry’s head. He barely tasted the tuna, which was a shame because it was done absolutely perfectly. All because of the delicious torture of his aching cock. Sometimes the magical strokes came firm and regular, which was a sweet relief. Other times the pressure would ease off slightly until Harry had just about got himself under control, and then his only warning would be a cruel glint in Barty’s eyes before it was back, hard and fast and unforgiving until Harry would’ve given just about anything for a release that never came.
The waitress came by for their dessert orders. Harry knew his eyes were glazed over; he tried to hide it, and fortunately Barty ordered dessert for him.
“Do you want to come, Harry?” Barty said when the waitress was gone.
Harry gritted his teeth and reached for his groin. His robes would hide the movement, it wasn’t like anyone could really see, not with the intimate design of the restaurant—
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Barty hissed out another incantation and Harry found his wrists pulled behind his back by what felt like a silken cord. It wasn’t too tight, or harsh, but it bound him, and oh, God, fuck, he was absolutely fucking throbbing with need. “You don’t get to touch yourself, Harry. Not right now.”
“Barty. Fuck—you’ve got to—I can’t have my hands fucking—hnnngh—tied behind my back when she—brings dessert—”
“Can’t you?” Barty’s smile grew.
She came into sight.
Fuck. Harry adjusted so he looked like he was just leaning back on his hands. Not quite proper posture, but better than her knowing—
Two plates of lemon cake were set on the table, and fucking Barty just had to make fucking small talk with her, and all the while Harry was in agony—
Finally she went away again. Barty took a bite of his lemon cake. “Mmm, this is quite good. Want a bite, Harry?”
“No,” Harry snarled. He really, really wished they were somewhere with a bed right now.
Distantly, he knew he could sever the bonds with wandless magic if he needed. It was the only thing keeping the helplessness from tipping over into real panic instead of—whatever this pleasure was.
“Guess I’ll just have to… help.” Barty smirked, speared a bite of Harry’s lemon cake, and offered the fork to Harry.
Just as it touched his lips, Barty murmured something. Harry bit down convulsively as orgasm tore through him. His vision actually whited out for a second and he tasted blood as his teeth closed on his own lip. It was all Harry could do to keep himself from moaning.
Barty’s pupils were so large they’d nearly swallowed his irises. “Fuck, Harry, you look—I want to take you right now, on this fucking table.”
“Don’t think—that’s quite—proper etiquette,” Harry ground out. His hands trembled as he took his fork from Barty and reached for another bite. Then he realized he was still tasting blood.
Glancing to the left, at the restaurant proper, it was clear no one was paying too much attention to them. Harry leaned forward, beckoning, and Barty followed suit, his every expression alive.
Harry pressed his lips chastely to Barty’s. And then he turned the kiss into something hard and biting and utterly unchaste. Practically inviting Barty to taste Harry’s blood.
Deep in his throat, Barty groaned.
Harry pulled away abruptly and popped his bite of lemon cake into his mouth.
Barty’s glare could’ve peeled paint.
“Belated Yule gift,” Sirius said with an evil grin.
Harry took the book-shaped package with some caution. This was a Marauder.
Nothing bit, so he peeled back the paper, and—
“Sex magic? Really?”
Sirius roared with laughter.
Stage one of Ruin Nedwin Pritchard went into effect a few days after Harry returned to school. He opened the letter from his solicitor and smiled.
“Uh. Harry. What’s… got you so happy?” Theo said, eyeing the letter like it was about to explode.
Harry handed it to him, and Theo’s face grew flinty with satisfaction. “Good.”
“Yes, quite.”
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