Harry approached the classroom where he usually met Barty. It was the first such lesson since Yule break and he wasn’t certain what to expect.
As soon as he pushed open the door, Barty’s head snapped up. He was standing next to the table instead of sitting at it and he stepped forward. “Close the door.”
Harry did.
Barty strode towards him. As he reached out, Harry twisted them both, pinning Barty up against the door. Their lips crashed together. One of Barty’s hands was fisted in Harry’s hair; the other stroked down his back to cup his arse. Harry grunted and rocked his hips forward. His own grip on Barty’s shoulders was tight enough to bruise.
A thought occurred to him and Harry grinned. Barty pulled back. “Something funny?”
“Imagine if Snape knew,” Harry gasped out, and then he was—maybe not laughing, but chuckling, something, at the frozen look on Barty’s face, and then Barty was laughing, the sound bright and hard like a bell.
Harry’s chest felt warm and it had nothing to do with lust.
“Cease your foolish adolescent pawing at once,” Barty said in a passable imitation of Snape’s voice, “and you, Bartemius, have you no decorum, he is a student—”
Harry wheezed and laughed harder. “Black, you will be in detention for a month—”
“Okay, okay, enough!” Barty, still cackling, shoved Harry off him. “C’mon, we still have your project on Buoyancy Brew to get through, and then you wanted to discuss On Politics by Lucretia Wiggenwald.”
“Oh, so we will be working,” Harry drawled. “I wasn’t sure.”
Barty shot him a heated look as he returned to his seat at the table. “Well, you could always tell Severus our lesson ran a little long. Something tells me you’ve no issues creeping about after curfew.”
Harry was tempted, but— “Not tonight. Theo and I are working on a… translation project.”
“Extracurricular?”
“Naturally.”
Barty grinned. “Who am I to keep you from your extracurricular studies?”
Harry bit his lip, drawing Barty’s eyes down. “Mmm, if anything you’ve added a new subject to study lately…”
“One of these days I’m going to bend you over this table,” Barty said very seriously.
And didn’t that just send a shiver down Harry’s spine. He gave as innocent of a smile as he could and pulled out his grimoire. “Right, so the Buoyancy Brew… here. I brewed it correctly a few days ago.”
“How was it?”
“Not that challenging, honestly, but I had Graham there helping prep the ingredients.” Harry hesitated. “I think he… sort of sees me as an older brother-type figure.”
“Makes sense,” Barty said absently, perusing the brewing notes. “You did save him from his fucked up family… mm… oh, clever, shredding the mint instead of mashing it… kelp?”
“Well it’s a water plant, right? And it floats, when it’s not rooted.”
“Did it work?”
“The brew lasted five percent longer when consumed, but I had to include ground freshwater dragonfish scale to balance it and you know how hard that is to get.”
“Probably not worth it, then. What’s this note about gillyweed?”
Harry grinned. “I want to make a potion that lets you breathe underwater.”
“Why not just eat gillyweed?” Barty said.
“Unpredictable. You have about an hour, give or take. Here.” Harry pulled out a scroll he’d ordered from the Malaysian magical government and passed it over. “A study on gillyweed—the effective time varies depending on the plant and your body size, and it’s almost impossible to pin down exactly how long in advance. But if you incorporate it into a potion, you could feel if the plant is weaker or stronger than it should be, and compensate. Not to mention storing fresh gillyweed is a bitch. Potion could be brewed in advance and kept in stasis for months, maybe a year if brewing in a nickel cauldron helps with preservation.”
Barty whistled. “Not bad. Commercially viable, certainly. You look a bit smug. Is there something else?”
Harry’s smile widened. “Oh, yeah. See, Muggles have done tests on marine mammals that dive into the deep ocean—whales and dolphins and such. They found that these animals’ lungs actually have a section that collapses under the pressure and one where surface-pressure air is stored. Then the blood passes through the collapsed section and doesn’t absorb gaseous nitrogen, so when they surface, there’s no air bubbles in the bloodstream to cause decompression syndrome.”
“And you think a potion with gillyweed could replicate this effect?” Barty took the stack of Muggle paper Harry passed over. Justin had asked his parents to print out the articles and owl them to Hogwarts. “Enabling us to dive…”
“Daphne’s cousin Anthony and his friend want to make a spell that would keep the wixen body from crumpling under deep-sea pressure. The problem is they’re trying to do it by wrapping the body in a thin skin of surface-pressure air, and build in an air exchange with something floating on the surface. But that could fall apart at distance, or the exchange mechanism could get swamped on the surface if a storm comes up, and gillyweed just lets your body extract gases from the water like fish do, it doesn’t solve decompression problems. If I can fix the breathing problem, they’ll only have to solve the pressure problem. Can you imagine if we could free-dive to the bottom of the ocean? There are kraken down there, Barty, and Merlin knows what else.”
“It would be fucking incredible. All right. Let’s look at this.” Barty tapped the page. “Gillyweed, though. It’s not cooperative for potions—why d’you think no one’s done this before? If it doesn’t react with other things by going inert, it just blows up.”
“Right. That’s where I’m stuck.”
“Nice to know I can help,” Barty said drily.
Harry hesitated. “Uh—before we do that, I have a question.”
“Sure.”
“You’re, well, quite a bit older than I am. Does that… bother you?”
“Bother me?” Barty snorted. “Merlin’s wand, Harry, no. No it doesn’t. Look. Wixen live quite a bit longer than Muggles, so we often wind up in relationships with larger age gaps than they do, at least according to what I know of them. You're more mature than plenty of people who are technically of age and I have no doubt you'd hex me in the bollocks if I touched you in a way you didn't like. Which I absolutely invite you to do." He looked carefully at Harry. "Does it concern you?"
"No, not really." Harry had given it some thought. "I'm confident I'm not being coerced or--or groomed, anything like that. And I know you, ah, appreciate me for my mind as much as anything else."
"I'm quite fond of your body as well as your mind," Barty said with a smirk, "and I expect that both will only grow more captivating as you age. We can wait for sex, though. If you want. Traditional courting protocol leaves the choice to the participants."
Harry nodded; he'd read as much. "I think I'd prefer to wait. No sense rushing things. Let's just keep on as we have." And that way, if this went wrong, he wouldn't forever associate his first time with a situation that was already, for Harry, uncomfortably emotionally fraught.
"I agree. All right, let's tackle this gillyweed problem of yours."
-----
“Seriously. A dog. And you couldn’t obliviate it at all.”
“Barty, shut the fuck up.”
“Good thing you have me around.”
“I will poison you.”
-----
“We found Graham Pritchard sliced half to pieces in an upstairs corridor today.”
Barty’s hand jerked, spewing ink across his parchment. He looked up. “Say again?”
Harry told him, in a dull, flat voice, what those older boys had done. “It’s… infuriating. I’ve been working on the Pritchard problem. Lucille’s job is shot, Marcine should be reassigned soon, and he’s been leaking money like a sieve ever since I restructured Farthing & Sickle, so it’s nearly time for some evidence to find its way to Madame Bones’ desk. I can’t believe I just forgot about Toby.”
“What did you do?” Barty said in a low voice.
A cold smile twisted Harry’s lips. He knew the broken part of him was rising to the surface and didn’t try to stop it. Let Barty see—let him know what he was courting.
If Harry was right, it would not bother him in the slightest.
“We obliviated them—well, Pansy and Draco and Theo did—but before that… I had some fun. So did Theo.”
“Did you now.” Barty’s head was tilted to the side and he had a raptor’s patient stillness.
Harry told him. Theo’s careful application of sliced tendons, bludgeoning hexes, the way he’d grown Carmichael’s teeth down into his jaw and fractured Devlin’s shin and pulverised the alveoli in Pritchard’s chest like popping grapes one after another after another. And then what Harry had done. Taunted them. Twisted Devlin’s shin, directed his Vipers to wipe their minds.
By the end, Barty looked hungry.
“I let them keep their fear,” Harry said softly. “I shouldn’t think any of that lot will bother us again. Serves them right.”
“Harry,” Barty said in a strangled voice. “I am going to—are you occupied after our lesson tonight?”
Adrenalin thrummed in Harry’s veins. Merlin, he could use a release valve— “No.”
“Good” was all the warning he got, and then Barty was yanking him up out of his chair, kissing him roughly.
Harry gripped Barty’s short hair, wrenched his hair back, and bit ungently at his neck. For the space of a few heartbeats he held Barty there, prisoner to Harry’s lips and teeth, before Harry had to pause for air and Barty tore himself away.
Eyes wild, hair mussed, lips swollen and wet, he looked wrecked, probably no more than Harry himself, and Harry was seriously tempted to disregard the limits he himself had set—
“What are you waiting for?” he said in a raspy voice halfway to Parseltongue.
Barty smiled cruelly. Slammed Harry back against the classroom wall, seized his wrists, and stuck them to the stone over Harry’s head with a roughly incanted charm.
“Fuck,” Harry hissed, lapsing all the way into Parseltongue, and Barty made a sound deep in his throat as he went back to kissing Harry, hands fumbling between them at Harry’s robes.
Chill air washed over Harry’s stomach as his robes opened. He gasped into Barty’s mouth. Barty laughed, and then he pulled away, went to his knees—
Fuck, Harry thought, but couldn’t even get the word out, not with Barty looking up at him like that, one hand on Harry’s cock and the other pinning his hips viciously to the wall. He leaned in without breaking eye contact and wrapped his lips around him.
Harry whimpered.
He could barely think, but—if Barty is doing this—well. Harry has some spells he’d like to try.
The incantation came out hissed. Somehow it worked anyway, magic surging down Harry’s fingers. Barty froze with Harry’s cock in his mouth and groaned so loudly Harry felt the vibration.
Harry looked down and smiled wide at Barty’s unbelieving eyes. “Didn’t think I’d learn?” he taunted. “After what you did in Summerisles—”
Barty took his whole length deep in his mouth in one long swallow. A torrent of incoherent Parseltongue slipped past Harry’s lips— “Yes, fuck, yes, don’t stop, oh God—” and it only made Barty work his mouth faster. His hand fell from Harry’s hip and vanished beneath his own robes.
Harry half-hung from his own wrists, feeling the burn of the charm. It was a different one this time, it felt like bands of magic wrapped around his arms instead of sticking his skin to the wall. His legs were going weak and it was all he could do not to thrust uncontrollably into Barty’s mouth.
And then release barrelled into him, leaving Harry gasping and shaking and hanging from the wall.
He heard Barty grunt and gasp. Felt the way he shuddered and collapsed into Harry as he came.
It took Harry a few tries to get words out. “I should… should torture people more often.”
Barty laughed as he unsteadily got to his feet and canceled the spell on Harry’s wrists. “Yeah, you really fucking should.”
-----
Telling Theo he was courting a Death Eater should’ve been harder. But all Theo did, when Harry admitted in the Chamber that he was courting his mysterious tutor, was smirk and ask if the sex was any good.
“We haven’t yet,” Harry said. He paused. “Other stuff, though. It’s… excellent.”
“I’m not sure I’m… interested,” Theo said thoughtfully. “In sex. Romance. All that sort of thing.”
“Really?”
Theo shrugged. “Just doesn’t interest me, you know? Celesta and I fooled around, and you know about Hermione, and there’ve been some… moments… with Justin. But it just didn’t… work. My brain was always thinking about something else I could be doing. As for romance…”
When Harry thought about it, he couldn’t really picture Theo going on a date, either. Or holding anyone’s hand.
“I have to produce an heir, but I might just blood adopt a kid and tell everyone their mother died mysteriously,” Theo mused. “And anyway that’s all years away.”
“You’ll always have me.”
Theo looked over at him, eyes glinting. “Oh, I know, Harry. And you me. You know… I saw it, back in first year. Your… magnetism. If I was interested in anyone like that, it would be you.”
“If you were,” Harry said, “I would say yes.”
-----
Barty knew more than Harry, but not a lot, as he had not been able to study much in Azkaban or his father’s house, and more and more their lessons felt like joint research projects than a mentorship. Harry made progress with stage one of the gillyweed project, namely creating a potion that replicated gillyweed’s effect. Barty argued with him about political philosophy at every turn.
And every day, they danced around the subject that sat between them like a boulder.
Barty was a Death Eater. Harry’s brother was the Dark Lord’s great enemy.
It was more than a little awkward.
-----
Jules did an interview. Harry had to put down Seaton’s little challenge in the common room. That night he dreamed, and in his dream, he knew where he aimed as he cast “Incremo!” In his dream, he watched and did nothing while Crabbe senior burned alive from the inside out. In his dream, Harry felt very little.
Harry was the wild one in his next meeting with Barty, pinning his partner’s hands behind his back with a snarled spell and working Barty with his mouth until he was a gasping, boneless wreck spread out on their usual table.
-----
Harry took exception to Umbridge’s reign of terror. These were children, most of them innocent if unlikeable. If she’d only been going after certain of the people on Harry’s list, he might not have stepped in, but as it was…
“Why are you so tired lately?” Barty demanded.
Rubbing his aching eyes, Harry admitted he and Pansy and Hermione were up at all hours brewing healing potions and teaching the kids how to stay safe on top of all their usual magic. It had only gotten worse once Harry started passing out his own modified brews to Patil for the DA.
Barty sighed. “And you’re helping your brother’s silly little vigilante club why?”
“They’re innocents,” Harry repeated himself. “Those kids don’t deserve the shite she does. And—Hogwarts was my first home. Umbridge is ruining everything I love about this place, piece by piece.”
“She’s not one of ours,” Barty said quietly.
Harry went very still. That was… more than he’d expected to be told. “I would have thought perhaps there was some… ideological harmony.”
“In the broadest strokes, maybe, but she’s… you know my Lord values nonhuman elements of the magical world very highly.” Harry nodded; he had read the original Muggleborn Protection Bill and the blanket Rights of Sapient Magical Beings Bill put forward by the Knights of Walpurgis decades ago; he had seen the reciprocal oaths signed between the Dark Lord and a growing number of werewolf pack elders. He had been given the blueprints for heavily warded magical enclaves the Dark Lord wanted to build.
“Well, Umbridge wants to destroy them. Lycans, centaurs, goblins, Mer, she loathes them all and wishes to eradicate their influence from society. Muggleborns most of all. She is a… useful political chip, as she believes the Light propaganda that my Lord’s movement wishes likewise to kill all those types off. I believe Dolohov handles her.”
Harry was silent for a few seconds, absorbing that. “At least the curse on the DADA post should take care of her for you. Of the last few professors here, one died, one got his memory wiped, one was run off in disgrace for nearly infecting three kids with lycanthropy, and you were an escaped felon in disguise.”
Barty laughed. “I daresay losing her Ministry influence might be an inconvenience, but if you wish to assist that curse in its work, I shan’t be stopping you.”
-----
“I spoke with Bellatrix.”
Harry sat up straighter. “Did you now.”
“She hadn’t thought about it in years,” Barty said. “Azkaban did a number on her. We have several master Legilimens from around the world helping with—recovery. My lord finally got a clear answer out of her. There’s no way with the spells they cast that Frank and Alice ended up permanently insane.” He went quiet, looking down at his hands. “I wouldn’t have stood there if that’s the way Bellatrix and Rodolphus took it. I—Alice killed Rabastan but it was a war, and they were always decent in school.”
The ring heated up a little at the last bit, and Eriss stirred. Harry wondered whether the whole wouldn’t-have-stood-there routine was fake or just the very last part about Frank and Alice being decent. It didn’t matter. “Most likely theories?”
Barty held his gaze over the desk for almost a full minute. He was completely unreadable. Thin, hollow-cheeked and razor-edged, still in a way that wasn’t quite human. Harry wondered if Barty had always been like this or if it was Azkaban and then nearly a decade under the Imperius that caused it. Where Harry was broken on the inside, Barty was just empty.
“Someone did it deliberately,” he finally said, so softly Harry almost didn’t hear. “My lord believes that’s the only possible answer.”
It hung between them—the mutual awareness of who had most likely done it.
“Why?” Harry said.
“At first they were brainwashed schoolchildren, but then… they learned some things. Frank was a Selwyn as well as a Longbottom. Augusta taught him to be more—open-minded than some of his peers. He and Alice learned some things, changed their minds. My lord hoped to turn them, but then Alice got pregnant, and that—no one wants to raise a son in a war zone. They were negotiating for neutrality,” Barty said. “Alice reached out to us. They were going to swear neutrality oaths in exchange for one from my lord promising safe passage to the mainland and a free pass from any and all Death Eater interference for their son’s and future children’s natural lives. They wanted him to go to Hogwarts, so they had to be able to safely come back someday, but they didn’t want to live in a war zone even if they were neutral.”
It felt like Harry’s entire body had been doused in cold water. Not anger this time—that would come—but shock.
Even after everything else, somehow he hadn’t completely believed… but it made sense. Other atrocities just as serious had been waved away in the name of this war. Losing the Longbottoms would seriously damage morale. It couldn’t happen. And once Jules defeated Riddle—once the war was temporarily won—the Longbottoms might have turned into political dissidents. Popular, powerful, and influential political dissidents.
“Do you have proof,” he whispered.
Slowly, Barty nodded. “It’ll take time, but I can get it to you.”
“Thank you.” Harry offered his hand, and Barty took it, interlacing their fingers.
“Your brother is a pawn in this game,” he said softly. “You are… perhaps not. More to the point, no one has quite figured out what color you are yet.”
Harry grimaced. “I think you know my—reservations.”
“Julian.”
The name fell between them like a stone to earth.
“He’s my brother. I really thought—maybe…”
“I don’t really understand, I’m an only child, but… I’ll ask if… if there’s a way.” Barty’s face was grim. “My Lord doesn’t want to alienate you, Harry. You wouldn’t have to take the Mark. Neutrality would be acceptable, but you’re powerful, intelligent, and… of import to me.” He looked as uncomfortable as Harry felt. “My Lord also prefers to persuade rather than coerce people. If an… arrangement… could be made regarding Julian…”
“That would be… more than acceptable,” Harry said.
Barty lifted Harry’s hand and kissed just the tips of his fingers, a gesture somehow weighted with meaning. Something flowed between them. Magic, ancient and solemn.
Hope flared, even though Harry usually tried not to feel it.
-----
Harry was going to kill Andromeda Tonks for this.
Jules, okay, he was reckless and a fool but also still young. The adults should have known better. The adults should not be using Jules or Harry as bait. But no, when the swap failed, they hadn't just aborted the plan. They'd thrown Harry and Jules to the wolves.
Not that Harry was in all that much danger, mind, but they thought he was and they did it anyway.
As Harry ran and fought, cursed and dodged, he tried not to think about the thing he and Barty had been dancing around all spring. It was kind of hard to ignore. Barty himself was probably somewhere in this mess. Robed and masked and out to kill. Or be killed, if some members of the Order had their way. Harry had seen some of them throwing the kinds of curses that broke shields and bodies alike.
The fight spilled over into the room with the whispering death arch. Harry's heart went cold at the sight of it. Something about that thing--
He needed to get Jules and get the hell out of here.
A rough voice was yelling his name. Harry snapped out of it. He knew that voice.
Theo was shaking his shoulder. "Jules is in here, up ahead!"
"Fuck," Harry hissed, plunging back into it. Behind him, Theo whispered spells--some kind, others… less so. Harry knew which group got the ladder.
He battled his way down to the lowest level of the room, looking for Jules or Barty. Hermione had joined him and Theo at some point.
A Death Eater reeled out of the ill-lit chaos and jerked his wand aside as he realized who it was. Hermione made a small noise of surprise but the moment was already gone. "Harry, what--"
"I'm just here for Jules," Harry said tightly.
A blast of magic sent a shock wave through the room. Harry stumbled. His ears rang. Hermione and Theo were gone and he couldn't see.
"Ventus!" someone shouted. Magical wind shredded the smoke to ribbons. Not ten feet away, a tall figure loomed over someone on the ground, someone Harry knew—
Neville screamed.
Harry shot off a curse without thinking. Kingsley Shacklebolt howled as the skin was flayed off his wand arm, and he reeled backwards, vanishing into the crowd. Harry crouched over Neville. He was curled up in a ball and whimpering.
“Fuck.” Harry looked around. Spotted familiar blonde hair. “Luna!”
“Yes, Harry?” Somehow, despite dusty and torn robes, her face was totally serene.
“Har—ahhh,” Neville rasped.
Harry cast a few spells in rapid succession. “Luna, protect him—keep him stable, get him to a Floo if things quiet down—and stay safe, okay? You should be all right as long as you don’t curse anyone.”
“Yes, Harry.”
Then Harry spotted something else that made his heart nearly stop.
He didn’t even think before conjuring the mask and robe. And then he was running, vaulting up the tiers of the room, wand out and curses on his lips. The two Order members crumpled. “Barty,” Harry said. It was all he could do not to kiss Barty senseless right there.
“Impeccable timing, you—” Barty coughed. “You absolute madman. You do know that was Alastor Moody?”
“Oops.” Harry shouldn’t be flippant, he knew that, there was still a battle on, but Barty had just nearly died—
“Boneburn Curse,” Barty sneered, kicking Moody viciously in the ribs. “Hypocritical fuckers. I think I’m… not much good, though.”
If it was the Boneburn Curse, yeah. “You need treatment,” Harry said firmly. He risked reaching out to cup Barty’s cheek, felt the fine tremors wracking his lover’s body. Harry pressed his fingers closer and hoped that said everything he couldn’t put into words right now.
Barty pressed his own hand over Harry’s, against his face. “I’ll be fine. Find your brother.”
“Don’t you dare die,” Harry said, and then he was on autopilot again, diving back into the crowd. His mask was as good as a free pass, as long as he shielded against the Order’s comparatively lighter spells. Getting back to Luna and Neville was easy.
Once they were sent on their way, Harry whirled, searching.
There.
Sirius. Harry plunged between two furiously dueling groups of people.
His idiot godfather was here, sprinting down the seats and batting spells aside, Vanessa and Hazel and a man Harry had met once named Ian on his heels. The other three got hung up when the Death Eaters turned on them but Sirius made it through.
“What are you doing?” Harry said, heart pounding wildly. He didn’t stop scanning for Jules but the only light was spellfire and it was almost impossible to pick anyone out. Somewhere he thought he heard Bellatrix’s cackling laugh.
“You said you wanted your lawyer,” Sirius said, like it was obvious. “Vanessa Flooed me.”
Someone screamed. He was frozen for a long second. Sirius had come. Sirius had come for him.
A spell shot by close enough to ruffle his hair and Harry snapped out of it. “Stupefy,” he hissed, aiming back at where the spell had come from, and followed it up with a cutting curse and a really vicious bone-breaker. At least something connected because there was a grunt and a body staggered backwards.
“Cousin.”
Sirius and Harry spun around in unison.
The battle had left a weird little bubble around them, probably the don’t-kill-Harry-Black order. Bellatrix was ignoring him too. She had eyes only for Sirius.
“Hey, Bella,” he said, knuckles white on his wand. “It’s been a while.”
“Two years,” she singsonged. “Two years since I heard you screaming…”
“Speaking of which, you seem saner than I expected,” Sirius commented. “Can’t really go to St. Mungo’s and all.”
“Noooo, but I do serve a master Legilimens,” she crooned. “He pieced my mind back together. Mostly. And the dementors had a deal to let us off light if we had this.” She waggled her left arm tauntingly. Her robe sleeve slipped up and showed the Dark Mark. “You probably benefited a little, cousin, seeing as you bunked with us for so long… how’d it feel to be treated like one of the scum?”
“Awful,” Sirius said. “How’d it feel to bust out?”
“Wonderful,” she said.
They circled for another second.
“Sirius,” Harry said in a low voice.
Sirius’ eyes were for Bellatrix alone, hard as black diamond. It was like the progress had all been stripped away and he was a terrifyingly thin step away from the madness Azkaban left in him.
The madness Bellatrix was clearly even closer to.
“It’s all right, widdle Harry,” Bellatrix said. “Blacks don’t kill Blacks.”
“Blacks don’t let other family members disgrace our name either,” Sirius said. “Isn’t that what you told me when I went Gryffindor?”
“It’s what I said when you befriended Potter,” she said. “And look how that went.”
“Sirius,” Harry said, harder.
“It’s okay, widdle baby Bwack, I know dear cousin Siri’s gone neutral.” Bellatrix’s smile was wide and manic. “Finally standing on his own feet as a Lord of the House of Black should—”
“Padfoot!”
Oh, fuck.
The force of James’ spell sent Harry flying and he landed on his arse. Just in time to see James facing off with a wary Sirius, Bellatrix having fallen too.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” James seethed.
Sirius’ knuckles were white on his wand. “James—”
“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you haven’t betrayed me. Actually, go on, prove it, she’s right there!”
Bellatrix paused, halfway to her feet. Those grey eyes focused on Sirius.
“Blacks don’t kill Blacks,” Sirius said, his words heavy and final like the tolling of a bell.
James let out an incoherent snarl and attacked.
Shrieking, Bellatrix leaped aside. She raised her wand at James, but another spell shot by her and she turned to engage that person.
Harry’s hands shook. He was going to jump in—
“Hey! Scum!”
The curse hit him just as Harry remembered he was wearing a Death Eater mask.
Pain bloomed between his shoulder blades. Harry hit the ground and rolled; another spell shot over his head. All the while he tried to catalogue what had hit him. Localized pain—it wasn’t spreading. Moving hurt but not too bad. He could feel his feet. Okay. Okay. He was probably fine.
Breathing deeply through the nose, he pushed to his feet and returned fire. His opponent yelled, but she was good, fast and forceful for all her hair was silver.
He sneaked a glance to the side. James and Sirius dueled fiercely; somehow they’d wound up on the dais by the arch. Bellatrix was shrieking “Semper pur!” somewhere but Harry couldn’t see her.
Dodge. Shield. Decutex. Crucio.
Someone screamed. Spells stopped coming at him. Harry cast as powerful a Notice-Me-Not as he could and ripped away the disguise, breathing harshly. He was tiring.
There was a flash of green light in his periphery.
Harry turned, as if in slow motion, and saw it barely miss Sirius’ ribs. That was a killing curse. Too many people in the way—he stunned someone in a mask and shoved through the gap it created.
“—kill me for the crime of neutrality?” Sirius taunted. “So noble of you, Prongs—”
“Fuck you Death Eater scum!” James screamed, and cast it again.
Harry’s blood ran cold.
No.
It hit.
No.
Sirius toppled backwards, surprise on his face. His wand went flying even as he fell through the arch.
Harry couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. His whole body was seized up in anticipation. Any second now Sirius’ body was going to hit the floor on the other side.
Any—second—now.
It didn’t.
Someone seized his arm, tore him backwards. Harry turned on them with a furious snarl and drew up short when he met Bellatrix Lestrange’s eyes.
“Ickle baby Black,” she said, breath hot and face alight with battle-fever. “Ickle Lord Black. Remember—Blacks stand together.” Deftly, she kissed the air above one of his cheeks, then the other. Harry was too stunned to stop her. “My Lord,” she murmured, and then she was gone again.
Harry turned back towards the dais. He had a mission. He had someone to kill.
“Harry?”
Even Jules couldn’t distract him now.
Harry shoved his brother to the ground and was off.
But there were shouts of “Dumbledore is here!” He could hear James rallying the Aurors, see James retreating up towards the doors with bandages spinning around his thigh.
James was limping. James was vulnerable.
Harry took off without thinking.
Through the spinning room. Into the lifts. Waiting for them to empty in the Atrium was torture.
When he got there, it was empty, fire already dying in one of the grates.
No.
“Harry.”
“What do you want,” Harry spat, whirling on Jules.
His brother raised his hands placatingly. “Harry—look—”
“I don’t want to hear it. That was the fucking Killing Curse. James just killed my Lord Father.”
Harry didn’t know where the words came from, but they felt right.
“Your—Sirius was just your godfather! And I know you’re upset but you have to know what he was—he went neutral, he didn’t fight Lestrange, I saw it—”
“C—”
A boom shook the atrium. Harry's back screamed in pain when he landed right on the injury he'd all but forgotten. A cold voice echoed across the marble floors.
"Mr. Black. Mr. Potter. That is quite enough."
Harry nearly screamed.
He rolled over and staggered upright. Albus Dumbledore stood by the statue, frowning at both boys. "Mr. Black. What spell did you just attempt to cast?"
"Crustis," Harry said, naming a painful but ultimately harmless curse that made the top layer of the victim's skin dry and crusty.
Jules shot him a disbelieving glare.
"Very well. Mr. Black, I believe you require medical attention? And you, Mr. Potter--"
"Albus! What in the name of Merlin--"
Oh, fuck, if he had to deal with Fudge's toadying--if he had to sit around and listen to this bullshite while Sirius was dead and James had done it--
"Harry," someone said, close to his ear, and Harry relaxed before he consciously registered the voice as Theo’s. He let his friend tow him backwards. Let Theo take Harry's wand and guide him towards the Floo.
A pinch of powder later and he was at St. Mungo's.
Harry didn't see it as the nurses bustled him upstairs, or feel the potion they made him drink to absorb the residual curse magic, or notice the pain as they rubbed healing salve into his back. He didn't register any of it.
Sirius was dead.
-----
A week in hospital. A whole week of mind-numbing loneliness, since his ward was family only and Harry didn't have any such thing. Not blood family at any rate.
They had to let him out sometime, though. Harry took the Floo back to Grimmauld Place and stood in the kitchen. Empty. Silent. Too silent.
Kreacher appeared in a pop that rattled the china. "Master is returning, yes, little Master is now proper Master, Master Lord Black--"
"Firewhiskey," Harry said, and then, "no, wait--tea. My sleeping blend."
"Kreacher will do as Master wishes. Yes. Master is going to bed now."
What was there to say to that? Harry pressed fingers to his dry, burning eyes. Bed. Yes. Bed he could do.
Kreacher met him in his room. The wizened old elf took one look at Harry sitting there in his robes staring blankly into space, and chivvied him off to wash and change. He was still there when Harry came back, having turned down the sheets, dimmed the lights, and placed a glass of water and a wand next to Harry's bed. "Master's Theodore is bringing Master's wand, yes he is, Kreacher is keeping Master's wand safe for Master."
Harry's throat worked for a second. "Thanks. I'm, uh, going to… sleep." Or try, anyway. He sipped at his tea more out of habit than desire.
Kreacher looked at Harry sideways. "Kreacher is mourning Master Sirius too. Kreacher is not liking Master Sirius when he is a boy, oh no, but he is not being a disgrace to the House of Black now, he is trying to be Lord and he is giving the House of Black a strong heir."
Probably as close to sympathy as Kreacher was ever going to get. Harry dully thanked him again and lay back in the silence following his departure.
Even the feeling of magic flooding into his wand wasn't enough to help. Harry wanted Barty to lie with him. Maybe hold his hand--neither of them was fond of cuddling. Harry would never ask, but… it sounded nice.
-----
As a minor, Harry had to be in school, but as the Lord of the House of Black, duly accepted by the family magic already settling on him, he had certain privileges. Harry exercised one of them to avoid going back.
It's not like he still had exams or any real reason to be there.
So Harry was not present to witness Neville exploding at Theo one evening. Nor did he see the intense and wary current flowing between certain students--those who were, so to speak, "in the know." He stayed in his house and he mourned.
-----
Barty came on the last day of school.
Harry was waiting in the kitchen for his summer wards to arrive by Floo when Kreacher alerted him to a guest at the front door. Once Harry might have hesitated to let a Death Eater in the house, but now--
He looked up when Barty came down the stairs from the entrance hall. "Harry?"
"Never seen you at a loss for words." Harry’s tone fell a little flat.
Barty came around the table slowly. "I'm not much good at platitudes."
"Wouldn't want you to be. Just… I’m glad you're here." There, that was gratitude without actually saying thank you.
"Glad to be here." Barty took a seat and turned one hand up in question.
Harry took it. Laced their fingers together and held on. It hurt a bit but the pain was good, it distracted him from memories of Sirius in this kitchen, Sirius alive and laughing, Sirius telling Harry he'd written his cousin Narcissa with an offer of neutrality--
"Who's coming here for the summer?" Barty said abruptly.
Grateful for the distraction, Harry told him about Veronica Butler, child of normal but busy Muggle parents; Graham Pritchard, who had been following Harry around since Yule; Dylan Worple and Rio Ingram, whose stories were unclear but who needed somewhere safe to go. And of course Vanessa Tate and Hazel Laurens. "I'm not sure if… if they'll still want to stay. I mean, this is…"
"You should have them, if they still want to," Barty said. He wouldn't look at Harry. "Sometimes you want to be on your own, but when you need people, it's easier to just have them around."
"I have so much to do," Harry said in a near whisper. "Summer projects, patenting the Blood-Replacer and getting it tested before Ministry approval, my wards, my Vipers, and now the mantle of Lord Black…"
"It sucks. You'll do it, though," Barty said. "You think I'd court just anyone? Not hardly. I'm sure your ducklings will help. So will I."
Harry tried for a smile. "Want to meet them?"
"Uh." Barty gestured to his undisguised self. "Like this?"
"I find I don't much care anymore."
"Suit yourself."
In the end, it went well. Veronica asked a few pointed questions, and Graham seemed to maybe put the pieces together, but no one was alarmed.
Barty had to leave before long on an "errand" (this explanation accompanied by a pointed glance at his left arm). Before he stepped out, though, Harry tugged him into the pantry and snogged him senseless.
It was a relief to feel alive.
-----
He was not going to set the paper on fire. He was not.
“Harry?”
Veronica’s hesitant voice snapped him out of it. Harry flexed his fingers and frost cracked away from them as he set the paper down. That was new. In the past, he had usually conjured fire in moments like this.
“Apologies,” he said.
“It’s okay.” Veronica slid the paper gently away and looked at it. She winced. “Oh, ouch. I see why you’re pissed.”
Graham leaned over her shoulder and read aloud, while Rio and Dylan paused their consumption of breakfast to listen. “‘James Potter Speaks: The Death of Lord Sirius Black. Once best friends, these two powerful Lords of the Wizengamot were separated by an impassable rift—Lord Black’s pursuit of the Dark Arts to fight Death Eaters having driven him from Lord Potter’s trust. Just last week, Lord Black perished in the battle at the Ministry, slain by an unknown Death Eater’—what!”
“Oh, yes,” Harry said bitterly. “They’re just going to merrily pretend my birth father isn’t a murderer, and sweep this all under the rug.”
“Is it because…” Graham bit his lip. “He used Dark magic?”
“There’s no such thing as dark magic,” Harry said harshly. “Only magic that goes deeper, draws on older powers. The Ministry doesn’t like when it can’t control people, so it labels as Dark what it’s afraid of. After all, if you have to pay them for the privilege of buying a blood-bound prosthetic, you’re registered, and they control and license anyone legally allowed to perform the binding ritual.” Suddenly not hungry, he shoved his plate away from him.
The kids were quiet for a minute.
“But some magic is… pretty much only used for harm,” Dylan said in a questioning voice.
Harry reined in his icy temper. “I know, Dylan. But think of it this way. The flaying curse. Decutex. Interestingly, it was designed to be used with a powerful numbing potion to harvest and regrow the hide of animals like cattle or some magical snakes without causing the animal pain or having to kill it. With that in mind, it has a mild cauterizing effect to prevent rapid traumatic blood loss. Used as a curse, it’s a shield-breaker. Anything less than a Protego argentum will just shatter under it. It causes instant, debilitating pain but it’s not actually hard to regrow skin that’s been cleanly sliced away.
“Meanwhile, if you hit someone with a simple slicing hex, which is technically legal, you could sever a limb or major artery and watch them bleed out in seconds. Or possibly leave puncture wounds in the gut that cause sepsis even an experienced healer would struggle to fight off. Now, imagine you’re in a fight. Someone’s jumped you, they’re a good dueler, and you need to protect yourself or maybe a friend or family member. What do you do?”
“I guess… the flaying curse,” Dylan said. “I mean, it’d suck to see them scream, but…”
“Exactly.” Privately Harry thought he would not be opposed to listening to, among others, James Potter screaming under a nice decutex. “If it’s just one person, you’ve got a good shot of putting them down with one curse, at which point you can stabilize them and call the Aurors. If you’re facing multiple people, you force the others to choose: do they shield their fallen ally and try to get him to safety, or keep fighting? Even if they pick the fight, that second of hesitation, of distraction, is an opening you can’t pass up, especially if you’re outnumbered.”
“It’s like when you had us practice taking stinging hexes and bludgeoners,” Rio said.
Harry tried to smile at him. “Yeah, neither one causes much damage—stingers none at all, really—but you have to know how to not freak out when something hurts. And I mean really hurts, not just “ow I stubbed my toe” kind of hurts. You’d be amazed how many experienced professional duelists flinch and lose because something mild and “harmless” sneaked past their sophisticated guard.”
This was good. Talking theory like this—it helped. Harry breathed, in through the nose out through the mouth.
Luckily Veronica tucked the paper away as she and Graham turned the conversation back towards lighthearted stories of Vipers meetings. Harry listened with half an ear and picked at the remains of his breakfast.
Sirius’ absence was a gaping hole in the world.
-----
“Come on.”
Harry looked up. It took a few seconds to refocus his eyes away from the photographs held in his trembling grip. “What?”
“Come on,” Barty repeated, looking annoyed. “We’re leaving.”
“Where? I’m busy.”
Barty pulled his wand. “Do not make me hex you, Black. Leave the book and come with me. You need to get out of this fucking house.”
Harry really, thoroughly did not want to go anywhere, but since every trick stair and quirky artifact carried memories of Sirius, he knew on some level it would be good for him. Plus it was never fun to argue with Barty when he had that look on his face. It wasn’t his “I’d love a fun debate” face, it was the one that said “come hell or high water, I’m getting my damned way.”
Barty could be very ruthless.
“Okay, fine. Coming.” He slid the book on soul magic away and climbed to his feet. “Do I need to change?”
“Nope. Casual robes are fine. With me.”
Harry followed Barty through the house. He poked his head into Graham’s room on the way by, letting him know Harry was going out and Graham and Veronica were in charge and no one was allowed in the basement, potions lab, or library without someone older in the house.
Instead of the Floo, Barty took Harry out the front door. “Hold tight,” he said, wrapping an arm around Harry’s waist, and Apparated.
The disorienting crushed-through-a-drinking-straw feeling left Harry lightheaded. He blinked a few times after his body reformed. Consequently, it took him a few minutes to realize they were in… a forest?
“Barty, what the hell?”
“No questions! Come!” Barty set off up a rough, rocky trail, smirking over his shoulder.
Thank god for quidditch, was all Harry had to say, because the trail was steep and he was panting within minutes. “Why the fuck are we walking? Couldn’t we have Apparated all the way?”
“Can’t hear you!”
“You are really bloody annoying sometimes.”
Harry did feel slightly better, though. Less dead.
After thirty or so grueling minutes, the trail took a sharp right turn and came out in the sunlight. Harry blinked spots from his eyes and gaped.
Not four paces in front of him, the ground simply dropped away, plunging at least fifteen feet down into a pool of deep, perfectly clear water. A waterfall fed the pool. Judging by the way the waterfall only took up one corner of the deep section, which fed into a shallower, more typical river-depth channel downstream, Harry could tell this fall had been here for centuries, eroding the lip over which it spilled even as its force pounded out the deep swimming hole below. As it moved back, the churning whitewater below the falls moved with it, leaving still, clear water behind.
He turned to Barty, who was… half-naked?
Harry stared for an embarrassing few seconds. He’d never seen Barty like this, in the sunlight, with no one around and no reason not to look. His body was lean and whipcord-strong, just barely on this side of underweight with not an extraneous bit of fat anywhere. A few scars flecked his stomach and several more on his back. Harry understood. He had matching remnants of lashings long past on his own skin.
“Come on,” Barty said, with a reckless, fey grin. “We’re going swimming.”
“Uh… isn’t it cold?”
“Coward.”
“I’m not a Gryffindor, that won’t work on me.”
“You sure?” Barty stuck out his tongue and stepped backwards, almost to the edge of the drop.
Harry felt a real, genuine smile tug at his lips for the first time in weeks. He liked this devil-may-care version of Barty. He would do quite a lot to see it again.
His fingers were undoing his robe before Harry knew it. He slipped it off his shoulders, laid it carefully over a large, clean stone, and yanked his undershirt over his head. His cotton shorts followed, then his smallclothes, and lastly his socks.
When he looked up, Barty was trailing his eyes down Harry’s body in blatant appreciation.
Something about his look made Harry feel warm, almost uncomfortable. He knew he was attractive, but he also knew scars weren’t quite the desired thing, and he had several more than Barty. They also stood out more on Harry’s comparatively darker skin.
But Barty didn’t flinch. Just kept looking at him with that steady, unashamed appraisal, and when he met Harry’s eyes again, it was with a challenging smirk.
Harry glanced down: Barty was already half-hard.
Well, the water would probably fix that. “Shall we?” Harry said, with a courtly bow, holding out his hand in the manner of a wizard asking for a dance.
“See you, loser!” Barty hooted, and then he jumped backwards off the ledge.
Harry followed without thinking. If he thought about it, he’d stop, and he knew now Barty was right, he needed this, so he just plunged forward, took the space of half a heartbeat to aim for deep water, and then he was falling, twisting his body into a ball.
The impact was a shock so startling Harry couldn’t move. He plunged into a cool, still, dim world, and for a moment there was no up or down. He fought down a brief instinct to panic, held still until his body stabilized, and then he kicked for the surface.
As he broke through, water droplets sprayed and caught the sun, shining like diamonds. Everything seemed unusually bright and clear. “FUCK!” Harry shouted, shaking his head. “It’s fucking cold! You arse!”
Barty splashed him in the face.
Harry sputtered, yelled, and splashed back.
For a few minutes they fought back and forth. Fingers grasped for water-slick bodies and neither of them could get a hold. The air rang with splashing and shouting. Then Harry didn’t quite duck fast enough—even after the Tournament, he’d never gotten great at swimming—and Barty reeled him in with an iron grasp on his wrist.
The kiss was a wet slide of mouth on mouth. The cold water on Harry’s abruptly feverish body felt marvelous. He grabbed Barty’s shoulders and kissed back so enthusiastically he didn’t notice they were sinking until the water rose up over his nose.
Underwater, they broke apart. Harry kicked back to the surface and coughed and snorted; he’d inhaled a bit of water and his sinuses stung. Barty was in the same position. Except he was also busy laughing. “Merlin, your face, you look bloody offended.”
“You’re a prat,” Harry said seriously, and then he took a huge breath, dove, and wrapped himself around Barty before his partner could react.
Barty’s whole body jerked as Harry sucked his cock into his mouth. It was fast and rough, since Harry’s oxygen was running out with every second, but he got a good thirty seconds before he had to break away and surface.
Barty’s pupils were blown wide and his mouth worked wordlessly.
“Payback,” Harry said sweetly.
-----
Harry left the Ministry patent offices with a spring in his step. After a week of Barty, Graham, Theo, and Hermione pestering him, he’d finally taken his Blood-Replacer potion in for testing. Today was the first step—registration of a proprietary brew and enrollment in the process of experimental trials. Harry already knew perfectly well how it worked, but none of his own experimental data was legally acquired, so he had to wait.
It shouldn’t take too long. True to form, this Ministry office, like many others, was irritatingly corrupt. Harry had dropped his name and a few galleons to the clerk, another handful of gold to the official responsible for scheduling the trials, and he walked out with an assurance that the potion would be tested as soon as possible.
He strongly suspected Lord Hadrian Black’s potion would be approved as long as it wasn’t blatantly harmful to the user. Yet another thing he wanted to fix about this Ministry.
The kids were off at Appleby Stadium for the third day of a weeklong quidditch program Harry had found for them. It was exactly the sort of thing Rio and Veronica would never have been able to access through their parents alone, and Little Appleby, an all-magical enclave like Riasmoore, had a reputation for being “dark” that would’ve kept Graham and Dylan away as well. It was all nonsense, Little Appleby’s residents were just a bit more traditional than average.
The town itself didn’t have the protection of an old family’s wards like Riasmoore did. Consequently, Little Appleby had to pay serious taxes every year for the Ministry warders to come out and shore up their protections against Muggles. The trade-off was that Little Appleby could happily ignore any law that a solicitor could argue was aimed towards protecting or hiding from Muggles.
Maybe Harry would surprise them when they came home. He smiled a bit as he turned down Charing Cross Road, taking the Muggle way to Diagon instead of the Floo just for a bit of a change. It was… odd, to think that after just half the summer, Grimmauld Place felt like home for all of them. The Black halfway home for mistreated magical children. Walburga Black was probably rolling in her grave.
The absence of Sirius hit him, as it still did sometimes, like a lorry. Harry stopped dead on the sidewalk and closed his eyes. For a second he couldn’t breathe.
I’ll have my vengeance, he silently repeated, as he did whenever the grief hit him. And oh, but he would. Plans were already underway. Just a few loose ends to tie up.
He slipped through the Leaky as quickly as possible given the attention Hadrian Black tended to get in public. No one came up to him; it was curiosity, wariness, intrigue, not the kind of hero worship Julian got.
Harry’s jaw tightened at the thought of his former brother.
No. Today wasn’t about Julian, or James, or anyone else. Today was about Harry and his merry band of misfits. Today was going to be a good day, dammit, or he was going to find Fate and curse her.
At Quality Quidditch Supplies, he sidled up to the wall of specialized eyewear. Proper quidditch goggles were expensive. None of Harry’s wards owned a set. Would it be too much?
Eh. Who cared. Harry selected four pairs. Each one came with a range of sixteen possible colors for the straps, ranging from a demure dark brass to a few shades of violent neon, waiting to be selected at home. The spell would only work once but it was a handy bit of customization. Not to mention, they were self-sizing, another enchantment that worked only once but made it easy to shop for other people.
He rang up his purchases and checked his watch on the way out of the store. Harry still had almost an hour before he had to meet Lord Tiberius Ogden for a discussion of the situation in the Wizengamot, so he turned up the street towards Flourish and Blotts, which had a new book release event today.
As he walked, he turned over the political snarl in which he’d landed. The Blacks were an ancient House with allies, feuds, business partners, and grudges dating back centuries. One such feud was with the Ogdens. Some Black had snubbed some Ogden in the sixteen hundreds over an Abraxan mare they both wanted. Purebloods got hung up on the stupidest things sometimes. Harry was hoping to patch it up, though, because Tiberius was a cornerstone of the Light alliance, and if Harry could convince him to break away, it would seriously tip the power balance.
A familiar mane of hair caught his eye as soon as Harry stepped into Flourish and Blotts. “Hermione,” he called.
She looked up, blinked, and saw him. “Harry! Hello! Come see!”
Some things never change. All the decorum drilled into her by the Greengrasses was totally gone, and Hermione was practically bouncing in front of the display of books with covers featuring an eerie display of moving strings of numbers. “It’s Thomas Loving’s latest on occlumency for the arithmancer! I can’t believe it—he’s talking about a lot of the same ideas as you see in Muggle computer science, except for the mind.”
Harry blinked, suddenly glad he’d come. “Oh. Well then. That’s… going to change some things. I wonder if you could use arithmancy to encrypt your mind, instead of shielding it using traditional Occlumency.”
“Merlin, I didn’t even think of that.” Hermione grinned. “I was… well, wondering about how much easier advanced Arithmancy would be.”
“Well, that too. Bookworm,” Harry said, with a teasing note in his voice.
Hermione blushed furiously. “Harry Black, are you flirting with me?”
“I assure you, I’m quite taken.”
They both blinked. Hermione looked as surprised as Harry felt.
Did he really just say that?
“Are you… really?” she said suspiciously. “Who?”
“Uh.” Fuck. “I’ll tell you later.” No way was he breaking this news to Hermione in a public place.
Maybe the grief was messing with him more than he’d thought. Of everyone, he was most anxious about discussing his… loyalties… with Hermione and Neville. Hermione was generally more rigid but could eventually be swayed by logic. Harry hoped. Neville was generally more easygoing in terms of his principles, but in this case, there was a complication in the form of the Lestranges and Barty. Harry had a bulging envelope of evidence that he hadn’t examined yet. It was for Neville.
“Hmmm.” Hermione looked even more suspicious. Then her eyes slid past Harry, over his shoulder, and she winced. He started to turn. “No, Harry, don’t look—”
It was too late. Harry’s eyes landed on the distinctive figures of James and Julian Potter. Icy rage flooded his body and he couldn’t quite feel his fingers.
“Bollocks,” he heard Hermione whisper.
“Ah, Mr. Blotts!” James beamed as one of the two owners hurried from the offices behind the checkout counters, just to the left of the entrance. They must have some kind of monitoring spell, Harry noted distantly, so they could hop to it as soon as an important person came in.
Mr. Blotts, a slightly pudgy man with ink-stained fingers, went up to James with an obsequious smile. They shook hands and Mr. Blotts led James straight to the New Releases shelf labeled Defensive Magicks.
Figured.
“Harry, just go,” Hermione hissed, “I’ll buy you a copy of the Loving book—”
“I’m not getting run out of a store just because of a couple of puffed-up toadstools,” Harry said, but quietly. He snatched several copies of the book and turned towards the counter.
Behind him, Hermione snarled, “God save me from Slytherin pride.” Her footsteps followed.
Harry did not so much as look in the Potters’ direction as he got in line for the counter. A display of wizarding fiction stood to his left, waiting to catch the eye of anyone queued up. One of the books on it was the latest in a series Harry knew Graham and Rio loved. He grabbed two copies of it—one for each—and then, to balance things out, he asked Hermione what she would recommend for Veronica and Dylan.
Looking at him the way you might a hippogriff of dubious temperament, Hermione quickly found a stand-alone mystery novel for Veronica and a collection of short stories for Dylan. She shoved them into Harry’s arms.
“I’m sure they’ll appreciate it,” Harry said tightly.
The line inched forward. Then again.
Harry stepped up to the checkout counter as soon as he could. A charming smile had the young wizard behind it blushing and avoiding eye contact. Hermione tapped her toes behind him, clutching her own copy of Occlumency Techniques for the Ambitious Arithmancer.
Harry’s grip on the books tightened as voices approached from behind.
“—keep up with new Defense releases.” James. “After all, sometimes the best way to win a duel is know some tricky, rare spell! Can’t tell you how many Dark wizards I’ve taken down with the soapy-mouth jinx, ha!”
“Dad.” Julian, embarrassed.
Harry kept his eyes on the clerk. He was blushing still, looking between the Potters and Harry, and seemed to be trying to add up the books’ prices as quickly as he could.
“Naturally, naturally,” said Blotts. “Step this way, Lord Potter, I’m sure you have things to be doing, wouldn’t want you to wait—Eddard, set those aside, would you, I’ve got the Potters here—”
Sorry, Harry mouthed at Eddard, as James and Jules came up on his right.
“Thank you, Mr. Bl—Harry?” James demanded. Julian’s face went white. James glared, then looked suspiciously at the titles Harry was trying to gather into his bag. “Not reading up on the Dark Arts, are you?”
“I assure you, we carry nothing of the sort!” Mr. Blotts squawked.
“Dad, it’s just fiction novels,” Jules said loudly.
James snatched one off the counter, already cracking the cover. “Is it now?”
“Yes,” Harry said tightly, “it is, and I’ll thank you not to rifle through my belongings.”
“Merlin, it’s just a kids’ book,” James said, “here, have it back—not quite what I’d have expected of you, Harry, I hear quite some rumors about what you get up to at school, and I have every right to ensure you aren’t getting into things you—”
“You have no right.” Harry knew his voice was glacial and didn’t even try to dampen down his eyes. “You gave up all right to me, Lord Potter, when you left me with Lily’s family. In case you forgot, I was adopted. My name is Black and I am no son of yours. As for the books—” He snatched it back from James’ hand. “I’m buying gifts for my wards. Eddard, how much will it be?”
“Oh—er—” Eddard quailed under Blotts’ glare, but he squeaked out, “F-forty two galleons and nine sickles, please, L-Lord Black.”
Harry began counting out coins.
“He’s not Lord Black, he’s underage,” Julian snapped. “And what d’you mean, wards?”
“He is too Lord Black. The Blacks don’t care about age,” Hermione said from behind them all. The Potters spun around to stare at her but Harry ignored them all. If he could just pay and get out of here— “It’s enormously rude of you to treat a fellow Peer like this, Heir Potter.”
Julian had the grace to flush, but James’ face darkened. “Seems about right for the Blacks—that a child of mine would be part of such a Dark family—”
“For the last time, I am not your son.” Harry slapped the last galleon down on the counter. “Keep the change, Eddard, as an apology for having to put up with this little display.” He cut one last sneering glare at the Potters and turned to go.
Once in the Alley proper, Harry tucked himself up against a building with a Notice-Me-Not and tried to get himself under control. The barest sight of James made him want to kill things. Actually conversing—seeing the casual entitlement as they skipped the queue, the way Julian shifted closer to James even as he refused to meet Harry’s eyes—it tested the limits of his iron mental discipline.
Hermione stepped outside a minute later, searching. Harry called out to her, allowing her to see past his charm, and she stalked over to him with a thunderous expression. “That man!”
“Yeah.” Harry looked down at his hands. Frost coated the two books he still held.
“That’s new.” Hermione poked the frost and it sloughed away under her finger.
Harry breathed and the frost receded. “I’m working on it.”
“You’re hiding from your grief in thoughts of vengeance,” she said bluntly.
For a second, Harry stared at nothing. Was she right? Maybe. Kind of. “I… those are two unrelated things.”
Hermione turned to face him and raised an eyebrow that said, I’ve got all day.
Well, yeah, he could probably use the input of someone with a more normal emotional range. Merlin knew Barty would be of no help. “I haven’t really… processed the grief all the way. It still just hits me. I’ll be doing something totally normal, walking through the bank or… and then I remember he’s gone and it’s like the whole world gets knocked off-kilter. I can’t breathe, or move, and for a second it all just washes over me… and then it’s gone again. And I also want revenge. But those aren’t related. I’d want revenge even if I was already getting over his… his death.”
“From what I know of memory formation it’ll be a while before it integrates properly,” Hermione said softly. “You… he was the only adult in your life who you let yourself trust. Even love. I know he wasn’t exactly a father but he wasn’t just a friend, either. And then, after a life of trauma and abuse and loss, you had him for a brief time, only for him to be snatched away again. It’s normal for that memory not to… sit right.”
“Not going to comment on the revenge bit?”
Hermione snorted. “I’m not an idiot, Harry Black. You are going to ruin James Potter’s life and I am going to help you. Which reminds me. You mentioned some… legislation that your, ah, tutor showed you. I want it.”
It took a few seconds to process all of that. “Okay, one, your help is appreciated because you are a bit scary, and two, why?”
“Because I am not an idiot.” Something not quite anger was hardening her face. “I can see you slipping towards one side of this little war. I consider you a friend and… and the Vipers are the first real friend group I’ve ever had. I can’t in good conscience follow you unless I believe in where you’re going.” She smirked. “I already owled the Wizengamot Administration Office about those old bills and voting records from the sixties. They sent me a polite no. So I made Daphne send the exact same letter. Copies will be arriving within the week.”
Harry let out a strangled sound that might have been a laugh if he were anyone else. “Only you, ‘Mione.”
“Owl me.” She poked him lightly in the shoulder, telegraphing every movement, which Harry appreciated. “And now you should be going home before those… people leave the store.”
As he walked away, Harry thought that Hermione and Barty would probably get on like a house on fire, if they managed not to kill each other.
-----
Justin came to stay at Grimmauld Place in the beginning of August. He brought with him a state-of-the-art trunk and entire dossiers on different wizarding businesses. Harry, who preferred politics to finance, found himself going over the Black account books in detail that impressed even Griphook. Then Draco came over and spent eight hours holed up with Justin in the parlor. Even Kreacher couldn’t eavesdrop on them. Harry tried not to be amused about Draco Malfoy, pureblood prince, and Justin the Mudblood being so close. He failed.
-----
“Something wrong, Harry?”
Harry didn’t quite slump into his chair, but it was a near thing. He waved halfheartedly as Barty came all the way into the study. “Oh, no, nothing’s wrong, it’s just Neville got back today and he saw me help you against Moody last spring.”
Barty paled. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Barty sort of threw himself across the chaise below one of the study’s two large windows. “I’m guessing that went poorly.”
“He was furious. He threw his Vipers ring at me.” Harry picked it up off his desk, where the little silver ring with inlaid basilisk scale gleamed tauntingly, and held it up to the light. “I don’t know… what to do.”
“Is he bound by oath?”
“Some oaths. He can’t take people to the Chamber—I’ll change all the passwords anyway, as soon as we’re back at school.” Harry rubbed his dry and itchy eyes.
“You gave him the evidence?” Barty said.
Harry made a sound that was almost a laugh. “Oh yeah, and he didn’t give a shit. The memories, the letters—he knows his parents were negotiating neutrality. He knows the Lestranges didn’t go overboard and didn’t leave his parents the drooling wrecks currently wasting away in the hospital. But the thing is, he doesn’t care. They still tortured his parents. They still—you still did that. And he can’t forgive it.”
“I’m not sorry,” Barty said slowly, “for the blood price we enacted. It should have caused no lasting harm and it was just recompense for the loss of a brother. But I am sorry for what it cost you personally. I… do you… regret this?”
For a long minute, Harry looked at him. Barty’s face gave nothing away.
“No.” He half smiled. “That’s the worst part. I’d do it again. You offered me—knowledge I couldn’t get elsewhere. Another perspective on the war when I needed it most. Even without… what’s happened between us… my reasons at the beginning were sound. I regret that it hurt Neville, but I made the best decision with what I knew at the time and I stand by it now.”
Barty stood and moved towards the desk, a strange expression on his face. Harry set the Vipers ring aside. Slowly, Barty touched his cheeks, slid a hand under Harry’s chin, tipped it up, and leaned down. His lips pressed against Harry’s, formal, chaste but weighted with meaning.
Harry’s heart thundered in his chest as Barty pulled away. Once again the Death Eater was unreadable. Something had changed but he didn’t know what.
“Can I help?” Barty said, looking away. The tension bled out of the room.
“Er… yeah.” Harry shook his head slightly and glanced over his desk. “I—well, I’m going through some of the older laws on the books. There’s any number of loopholes purebloods use to get out of criminal consequences, and it just foments resentment from Muggleborns, drives them back to the Muggle world… I know you’re not overly interested in dry legal texts—”
“It’s not my area of expertise, but I was studying for a WOMBAT in Political Science,” Barty said drily. “Gimme.”
Grinning, Harry showed him his place in the Ministry of Magic’s legal statutes. Barty winced when he realized the reams of parchment strewn everywhere were all part of the same project. “This is a nightmare.”
“Tell me about it.”
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