“What have I told you about sneaking in my lab?” Harry snapped.
Graham was busy pinning Rio’s shoulders to the table so he didn’t look up. Harry could still see his wince. “I—we were just working on the curriculum for this year!”
Rio moaned and his body twitched as he attempted to arch off the table. “Immobulus,” Veronica said again, her hand shaking but voice hard. The spell caught, barely—something about Rio’s potions accident was keeping the normal first-aid charms from working right—but it was just enough for Harry to direct a flow of Null-Essence into the wounds crisscrossing Rio’s bare torso.
The boy shuddered and went still.
Thank Merlin. Harry’s hands didn’t pause. He flicked his wand to clear away the blood and began the intricate motions of a healing charm. Graham let go of Rio and grabbed an anti-scarring salve, one of Harry and Barty’s developments, meant to be applied at the same time as healing spells with no interference. Harry nodded without a pause in his incantation. Graham slowly spread the salve into the small shrapnel-wounds while the slowly building healing spell settled into place.
Harry finished the incantation and released the magic with relief. Healing wasn’t his forte and it was a bit taxing holding such a long spell—the ash wand especially wasn’t suited for it. But it had worked. The injuries were knitting before his eyes, the salve absorbed into Rio’s skin so there would be no trace left over. Already the boy was slumping into a potioned sleep.
Good enough. Harry methodically cleaned up, cast a cushioning charm so Rio wouldn’t wake up sore, and only then did he lift his eyes to Graham and Veronica.
They both looked scared.
“We’ve talked about this,” Harry said flatly.
Graham nodded. “S-sorry, Harry…”
“I can only assume you weren’t thinking, because if you had been, then you would’ve known not to bring someone in an experimental potions lab who doesn’t have the power to do a body-shield yet.”
Veronica winced. “It… I didn’t…”
“Think?” Harry said acidly.
They both drooped.
Fucking Merlin’s balls on a pike. Harry missed Sirius so much it tore at his insides. Sirius was a terrible responsible adult but he was at least chronologically an adult. Harry? He was still not quite sixteen. And standing here acting like a fucking parent.
“Okay. I’m warding the lab against you both,” Harry said, thinking about what Sirius would’ve done, about what not to do as evidenced by James and Dursleys. “No coming in here except with my supervision or Barty’s. I’m going to confiscate your brooms until we go back to school.”
“But quidditch!” said Veronica.
Harry pinned her with his eyes. “At present I’m not convinced you’re responsible enough for playing quidditch anyway.”
“But—”
“No buts. Again, you should have thought of all this. You’re both fucking lucky I was home, and that his injuries weren’t worse. This was a harmless potion turned toxic by your experiments. If it were any other house in the country, there’d be no Null-Essence, and Rio would be at St. Mungo’s right now. Not to mention he’d have scars. You would have permanently scarred your classmate and friend because you were careless.” He paused. “Which reminds me, where’s Dylan?”
“He didn’t know,” muttered Veronica.
“No, naturally, or else he’d have thought about it, and told you this was stupid.” Harry squeezed his eyes shut. “Just. Don’t do this again. You have to think.”
They both promised to be more careful. Harry studied the slump to their shoulders and misery on their faces, decided they both felt sincerely guilty.
Later, he cornered Graham. “Got a minute?” Harry said tactfully.
Graham looked up from the equivalent of a wizard choose-your-own-ending novel with animated pages. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
Harry came into his room and shut the door. There was a chair in the corner that he appropriated. “You’ve been sullen all afternoon. Have it out.”
“No I haven’t,” Graham said, sullenly.
Harry stared at him with eyes that watched his birth father murder his adoptive father, and waited.
Graham caved in less than a minute. “Fine, okay, look, just—you were acting like it was on me, you kept glaring at me earlier even though you were chewing us both out—’Roni’s my age! We both fucked up, I get that, I’ll never do it again, but you were more mad at me. And it’s not fair. And don’t just tell me life’s not fair, I fucking get that!” He blew out the rest of his breath, angrily, and glared. A few seconds ticked by. “Say something, alright!”
“You done?” Harry said patiently.
“Bugger off,” Graham said, but without any heat.
Harry nodded. “I was more upset with you than Veronica, yeah. I know you’re the same age, but… Graham, you’ve got more to deal with than she does. It’s not right, it’s not fair, but people who grow up like we did—the stress of dealing with shit kids should never have to deal with makes our brains develop faster. You are closer to an adult than a healthy, well-adjusted boy your age should be. You’ve got an awareness of the adult world, and therefore you have ideas that other kids wouldn’t.” He paused, choosing the words carefully. “You also have more responsibility for your choices. I have to hold you accountable now, because there are risks you might think to take that Veronica wouldn’t, and because you are going to have to learn some other things earlier than you should. About consequences, and adulthood. That’s just the hand you’ve been dealt.”
Graham visibly thought this over. “I… guess… it’s just…”
“Not fair?” Harry said dryly.
“Yeah… yeah.” Graham slumped a bit.
“I learned the hard way,” Harry said softly. “Slytherin beat those lessons into me, and before that, it was my aunt and uncle. But those lessons aren’t enough. School is one thing—detentions, suspension, points, those are minor consequences, and anything short of straight-up murder won’t get your wand rights revoked. Even that’s dubious. If you get expelled you can still self-study and take your NEWTs and OWLs on your own sickle—it’s a hell of a lot harder when you have to hire a private wand-use supervisor, but people have done it. You and I… we test the rules more, we… are at risk of getting complacent, when in the real world, rules are stricter and consequences harsher than they are at Hogwarts.”
“Who taught you that, then?” Graham said. “Sirius? Barty?”
Harry grinned. “Bit of both, really. Sirius…” Merlin, even saying his name cut to the quick. “He grew up like us, only he didn’t have someone to tell him where the line was. He drew his own line and it was pretty much whatever he had to do to defend his chosen family.”
“The Marauders,” said Graham, who had heard many of Sirius’ stories.
“Yeah. And when James fucked up, when he wasn’t one of Sirius’ family anymore, Sirius dropped him like that.” Harry snapped his fingers. The sound echoed oddly. “But being reckless and careless got Sirius landed in Azkaban unjustly. It cost me my childhood—I don’t blame him for it, but that was an accidental consequence of his decision to go chasing after Peter. Although in his defense he was prioritizing me until Hagrid showed up and promised to get me to safety.”
“Barty?”
“He’s still learning,” Harry said, “but as he’s already a wanted fugitive, all he has to do is not get caught. And depending on how this war goes, any punishment short of the Kiss would be temporary. Lines are a little different.”
He didn’t say that he and Barty were sort of learning that together. Growing to check themselves against the other’s lines, the other’s rationality. Barty was mercury to Harry’s ice, lately, quick and bright and gleaming, impulsive in a way that Harry needed even while Harry steadied him in return.
“I like him,” Graham said abruptly. “Barty, I mean. Sort of didn’t expect it, what with…”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Graham laughed. “But he’s, y’know, funny and he answers my questions about classes and he reads a lot, he and Dylan got into it about Muggle mystery novels the other day ‘cause apparently Muggles have a lot more of ‘em than we do, and Dylan promised to go out and get him a whole bunch of books by this lady author—”
“Agatha Christie?”
“Yeah, her, and I just… a Death Eater, and Muggle novels? It’s weird.” He paused. “Nothing’s how I used to think it was.”
“It’s a strange world, and it gets stranger by the day.”
Graham fidgeted with his book. “I… Harry, can I be… really blunt?”
“Welcome to it.”
“Are you gonna be a Death Eater?”
Wow, that was indeed blunt. Silence settled between them, heavy and freighted with meaning.
“I don’t know,” Harry said, slowly. “I don’t fancy losing the Vipers to… but I… don’t fundamentally disagree with… Barty’s liege lord’s ends, nor his means, at least not what I’ve seen of them.” He paused; Graham seemed to be following, hearing what Harry didn’t quite put into words. “Provided I don’t sacrifice my political and individual autonomy, provided I can still protect the Vipers… I wouldn’t be opposed, if he asked.”
“I think he’s gonna ask,” Graham said, with all the confidence of the very young, and Harry was reminded that for all his speech about Graham having had to grow up too fast, he was still a kid in a way Harry wasn’t. “You’re—you. Potions prodigy and Barty’s basically his son, so if you and he are like, long-term, then he has to acknowledge you.”
Harry nodded. “Technically I am also his heir in blood and magic, so.”
“Oh, Merlin, I’d forgotten.” Graham cackled suddenly. “Life is bloody weird, isn’t it? Harry Potter, now Black, the Heir of Slytherin… can’t believe everyone thought it was your brother.”
“Do you miss your family?” Harry said, and knew at once he’d struck on the thing Graham wouldn’t voice, the reason he brought up Harry’s former family so often, when Graham’s whole body locked up and his eyes began to glisten. “Hey, it’s okay, Graham.”
Shifting to sit next to Graham on the bed was the work of but a moment. Harry tentatively wrapped an arm around Graham’s shoulders as he’d seen Hermione and Neville (oh, Merlin, Neville) do for people and was rewarded when Graham leaned into his side and began to shake.
For a long few moments, Harry just sat like that, taking some of Graham’s weight and letting him cry the quiet tears of someone who had long learned to vent their pain in silence.
“I hate them,” Graham finally said in a harsh whisper, “but I miss them. How… how fucked up is that?”
“It makes sense. They were… all you knew,” Harry said. Fuck, this conversation was a minefield. He wanted Barty, even though he knew, by all rights, Barty would be worse at this than he was.
Barty would’ve probably suggested a spot of cathartic torture aimed at the other Pritchards. Lord knew he’d already offered to help kidnap them if that’s what Harry or Graham wanted.
“I shouldn’t miss them, I know it, but I know them so well and it’s so hard to not love someone you know that well… Lucy used to make the best hot chocolate, wouldn’t let the elves do it. Toby taught me the levitation charm before first year, before I was sorted. He was so bloody proud when I got my wand… and then… I don’t understand how they all just started being suspicious of me, and then they’d isolate me, and I’d snap back ‘cause they were bloody arseholes, and then they’d just assume I was being an evil snake, and… it got worse and there was nothing I could do! And now they’re gone! They let Father do—do that to me—the burns and the—everything, they just… they knew something was up, Toby saw the burns and he just…”
Fuck it. Harry was going to take Barty up on his offer.
“Just take it one day at a time,” he said, helplessly. “I know it’s hard but… you have other people who care about you, now. It sucks and it hurts but it’ll get better. You’ll make new memories to add to those old ones.”
“I already am,” Graham said, sniffling, and oh, Christ and Merlin and anyone else listening, Harry had an idea but he really needed to talk to Barty about it first.
“You’re family,” he said instead. “I’m not always the best at this comforting thing but I’ll protect you. I’m here.”
“I dunno,” Graham said, “you’re not doing too bad right now.”
Harry’s arm tightened a bit, involuntarily. He was a little uncomfortable having someone who wasn’t Theo, Barty, or Pansy up in his space like this, but it was worth it to feel like he was actually doing something, like he made a difference. Harry would probably never outgrow the unloved orphan boy’s determination to be important and valued. He would make himself valuable if he had to, force them to respect him, need him—but it was nice, sometimes, to be valued for a relatively pure reason.
“Thanks,” Graham said eventually.
“No problem. Just don’t get Rio poisoned again, yeah?”
Graham laughed weakly. “Promise.”
-----
Harry wandered into the library and found Theo and Barty in the middle of a vicious debate about arithmancy and Muggle computing, of all things. “I like him,” Barty said, later, lying half-clothed with Harry in the master suite.
“Yeah?” Harry ran a lazy hand up and down Barty’s arm: he was learning to touch, and be touched, casually, affectionately.
“His mind is… interesting.”
This from a man who has no interest in others unless their minds appeal to him. “We’ve always worked well together.”
“Mmm.” Barty turned half on his side and worked his free hand into Harry’s hair, fisting and tugging lightly, which sent a jolt of pleasure along Harry’s nerves. They hadn’t had sex, yet, but they’d done basically everything else, and Harry still wasn’t used to this feeling. “I can see why. You ever… experiment with him?”
Harry thought about Theo’s lean body, his deceptively delicate dueler’s grip on a wand, his dark hair and cruelty and smile. “He’s not interested.”
“In you, or in guys?”
“In anyone.”
“Pity.” Barty tugged harder, until Harry tilted his head back, baring his throat, and Barty settled his other hand there, drawing light fingers up and down the column of Harry’s jugular. Harry found Barty’s upper thigh and gripped it tightly, part warning, part anchor. “He seems like your type.”
“And you’d—ah—” Barty grinned and pulled his hand away from that one spot below Harry’s ear— “you’d want to, what, watch me with him?”
“Or invite him into our bed.” Barty ducked, bit ungently at Harry’s throat. “It’s certainly big enough.”
Harry honestly hadn’t thought of it. He could see the appeal, but— “I’m not enough for you, huh?”
Gratifyingly, his tone came out light and unbothered, but Barty knew him well enough to know everything Harry wasn’t saying. He twisted and wound up on top of Harry, pinning him down, in a heartbeat, dark eyes boring into Harry’s with a bright gleam in them. “You are more than enough,” Barty said lowly. “Never doubt that, Hadrian Black.”
Fuck. It felt like more than—it felt heavy. Harry lifted the hand Barty wasn’t holding to the bed and traced Barty’s sharp cheekbones, the shadows under his eyes, the harsh curve of his jaw. When his fingers found Barty’s throat he dug his nails in and scratched lightly down the length of it, a warning, a promise. Barty shuddered. Ground down against Harry’s thigh.
“I don’t,” Harry assured him.
“Good.” Barty’s grip on his hair tightened further, turning almost cruel, but the pain was far from bad and Harry arched into it, tightening his hold on the muscles in Barty’s neck until he was sure to leave the marks of his nails behind.
Quick as lightning, Barty leaned down, into Harry’s grip, and kissed him roughly. It was all teeth and clumsy in a way they usually weren’t but something about it turned Harry to a puddle. He felt—wanted. Claimed. And he gave as good as he got, biting Barty’s lower lip, feeling the cracks on his own lip split open; this was a two-way fucking street.
Barty finally pulled away, but not far, resting his forehead on Harry’s. This close it was impossible to focus his eyes. Harry’s world narrowed to the pale blue of Barty’s gone dark with desire.
“I’m not gonna get it up again for a while,” Barty admitted, and Harry was startled into a short burst of laughter, which in turn elicited a pleased smile.
“Old man,” Harry taunted.
Barty ground his hips down and even having just come twice in the last hour Harry still bucks up involuntarily into the pressure. “Who’s just barely keeping up with whom, here?” Barty said smugly.
“Oh, fuck you.”
“Soon,” Barty said with a leer.
Harry let himself laugh again. Not long, not much, but Merlin, it was real.
Barty rolled off again and lay beside him, carding his fingers through Harry’s hair, and yeah, he seemed to have a thing for it. Harry considered growing it out.
“I don’t do things by halves,” Barty said, a while later, into the darkness. They’d shut off the lamps when Barty decided to stay the night. “Keep me around much longer and I won’t want to let you go.”
The words were spoken lightly but Harry heard the warning, the almost-threat, running under them like a riptide.
“Back at you,” he said, just as intent. He didn’t do things by halves either, weren’t the Vipers proof enough? Wasn’t Graham, wasn’t Sirius?
Harry knew what it was to have nobody, and how, when you suddenly had somebody, you clung, drawing blood, leaving scars. He knew he probably couldn’t hack it with anyone who didn’t grip back just as hard. Daphne, for all her steel, hadn’t.
Barty did. Theo did.
“A year and a day,” he added eventually.
“I’m not marrying you at sixteen,” Barty said flatly.
Harry grinned. “Merlin, can you imagine the society pages? ‘Black Heir Weds Deranged Murderous Felon.’ ‘Hadrian Black Wanted for Questioning.’ And the obligatory mention of the Black madness.”
“We’ll renegotiate,” Barty said. “Sometime around next Yule. Long courtships are—normal. But, Harry… you should know by then whether you want this thing to go the distance, or not. I won’t be the only party interested in your answer.”
“Do not,” said Harry in a chilly voice, “take me for a fool.”
Barty snorted. “Never.”
“Guess I did inherit some of that madness, after all,” Harry said.
“Madness enough to take the Mark?”
Deliberately, Harry ran a hand down the inside of Barty’s left arm, hissing nonsense in Parseltongue that never failed to pull a sound from his lover. The Mark, a dark spill of ink across pale skin: it may be invisible in the nighttime but Harry could picture it in his mind clear as panes of stained glass.
“With certain… conditions,” he allowed.
“It’s—” Barty swallowed, hard. “It’s different. Depending on… the person. There’s contracts on Gringotts parchment—binding, tailored. He’d—for my—write one for you, negotiate to some degree. It’s all based on liege oaths.”
“I’ve been reading up on them.”
“And that is why I like you,” Barty said, while Harry wondered if he’d imagined the slight pause on like, if Barty had meant something more, if Barty was capable of something more, if Harry was. “Your foresight.”
“And my dick.”
“That too,” Barty said, and Harry could hear the leer in his voice. It made him smile.
“I imagine something like… the oaths between a king and an autonomous city-state would be… analogous?” Harry said. “Obviously I don’t rule a fief, but.”
“No, that’s a good starting point. Pay your dues, provide support, but be granted general autonomy… just… I want you. He wants you. Not just because I do.”
In a flash, Harry got it, how Voldemort drew people in. He made the outcasts feel wanted and they got addicted to the one source of validation in their lives.
It wasn’t even the one source in Harry’s life and it was still a bloody magnet.
He waited a long moment, testing himself, to be sure—and only once he knew he could say no, when he felt the wave crest and break on his self-control, did he say, “I know, and I… I could get behind him, provided I have some… assurances.”
“You’ll be negotiating with him as my paramour and the Lord of the House of Black,” Barty said, with a laugh in his voice. “Trust me. There’ll be negotiations and assurances and—thank you.”
“I’m not allying with him for you,” Harry said, “but the Mark… if you ask, and if negotiations go well, I’ll do it.”
Barty kissed him, which was, Harry figured, a good enough answer.
And it turned out he wasn’t completely spent for the night after all.
-----
Summer dripped by in fits and starts. Harry handled the enormous amount of financial and legal paperwork that was Lord Black’s day-to-day problem and tried not to think about how he was supposed to do all this while in bloody classes. Graham and Veronica didn’t complain a peep about their broom privileges being revoked, while Rio forgave them easily and asked Harry to teach him a shield strong enough for potions experiments. Harry, oddly proud that Rio had even been able to ask, happily spent an afternoon doing so.
His inner core of Vipers revolved around him, orbits tightening, plans firming in subtext and implication. They were Slytherins. They rarely said anything outright.
Theo spent an increasing amount of time with Harry and Barty, who didn’t say another word about inviting Theo to join them but watched Harry and Theo brewing together with something hungry in his eyes.
“He’s fucking brilliant,” Theo said, when Harry asked. “And he’s yours, so.”
“You were mine first.” Harry knew his own tendency to see people as objects, but he’d only recently stopped hiding it around Theo and some of the others.
Theo didn’t seem to mind, favoring Harry with an uncomplicated smile Harry didn’t see often enough. “I know. I’m not jealous, Harry, I hardly feel driven away because he’s around.”
“...Did you? When it was Daph?”
“A little.” Theo leaned back on the couch and kicked his feet up in Harry’s lap; Harry rolled his eyes and swatted at him, which nearly made them both spill their firewhiskey. “She felt threatened.”
“I… didn’t notice.”
“No offense, but you’re fucking clueless about this stuff.”
Harry grimaced and took a drink. “Point.”
“Doesn’t matter now,” Theo said, smirking. “I’m just glad, is all.”
“I wouldn’t want to be with someone who pushed you away,” Harry said with care.
Theo’s smirk softened a bit. “I know.” He paused. “Means a lot.”
There was a lot they weren’t saying, but that was okay. Harry knew what it was and knew Theo did too.
“More firewhiskey?”
“Please.”
So three-way duels and evenings spent doing paperwork while Barty read and Theo worked on the arithmancy project he and Hermione had cooked up over a bottle of Ogden’s finest and a Muggle computing textbook became the status quo. Just as normal was the younger set trooping in and out, and Veronica getting into rows with Kreacher when she tried to make her own tea, and Dylan’s ongoing feud with the portrait of a Black ancestor who’d been a famous artist but was a total snob about teaching anyone else her techniques. It was all so bloody normal that Harry was utterly shocked to realize he had to pack because the Express left tomorrow.
Barty watched him pick clothes and books to put in his trunk. “You look tense.”
I’m fine, Harry almost said, but—this was Barty. “Never had much more stuff than I could fit in my trunk,” he admitted. “And now it’s… everywhere.”
“That’s normal.”
“I know. It’s…”
“Yeah, I know. You get used to it.” Barty’s jaw worked for a second. “When my father threw me out—Mum bought me a few minutes to throw some things in a bag and leave. A photo album, some keepsakes, as many books as I could fit. My wand, obviously. Not much else. I’d always had—stuff, but… Father liked to… when he was angry, when I’d let him down, he liked to set my books or robes or—or whatever, keepsakes, stupid kid stuff, he’d take it outside and make me watch him set it on fire. I didn’t get attached to things because I couldn’t. And then—then my room at my Lord’s residence, it was warded against everyone but me and the house-elves, and after two years there, I had… things to leave behind when I went back for seventh year. I trusted they’d stay where I left them. Nearly had a panic attack when I realized.”
Harry had sat back when Barty started talking; now he looked at the stiffness in Barty’s hands and shoulders, and went to him, sitting instead on the floor by Barty’s chair so he could press one shoulder to Barty’s knees. They were facing the same direction now and looking at the wall instead of in his face made it easier to say, “Until I was eleven, I lived in the boot cupboard under the stairs. My aunt and uncle hate magic—you know that much—and they hated me, and… I didn’t have stuff at all. Just some broken toy soldiers my cousin tried to throw out, a few books I stole. My aunt had me wear his old clothes, too big, ugly. He’d wear them out on purpose, you know? And if I ever had anything half-decent he and his gang of hooligans would steal it and wreck it and I’d get the blame.”
“Sounds like a right piece of work.”
“No kidding. He’s probably in juvie by now—juvenile detention, for kids who break the law,” he explained, when Barty looked confused.
“You know it’ll all be here when you come back.”
“Yeah. I know. It’s just…”
“Weird.” Harry rolled his neck. “Do you have a room at… elsewhere?”
“My lord has a… a place.” Barty made a face; oaths at work, probably. “I live there.”
His voice was a bit tight. “The others?” Harry said just as delicately.
“Obnoxious toadying pricks, most of them. Disloyal and crawling and—bloody—I can’t name names.”
“I know.” They’d been dancing around the subject all summer: things Barty wouldn’t say, things he couldn’t, questions Harry knew not to ask and others that he threw out there faux-casually just to test.
Barty threw him a look that said he’d noticed the probing. “It’s irritating. The constant—they test me. I occupy a… favored position, you might say, and… some… know better than to question it, but other young… participants think they’ll gain favor by taking it from me.”
“If you ever need a space to get away, come here and ask Kreacher,” said Harry, confident in the knowledge that the old elf would handily put down any threat to the House of Black and thus his house was safe if Barty came there for a few hours or overnight.
“You’re sure?”
Harry nodded, tipping his head back. It hurt and Barty slid down onto the floor next to him, ran his hand playfully through Harry’s hair. “Thanks, then. I promise not to burn the place down.”
“Kreacher would probably kill you.”
“You know, I think he actually could? Reg taught him some, uh. Interesting magic.”
Harry was suddenly overcome with the mental image of Kreacher bent over an ancient tome in the library as it used to be, all gloomy and badly lit. It was so like a Muggle caricature of evil magics that he wanted to laugh. “Merlin.”
“Yeah.”
-----
The Hogwarts Express filled up with laughter and chatter and the slamming of trunks and hooting of owls. Harry, there early and already ensconced in his usual compartment, mostly just found the noise grating.
They were all so bloody young.
Theo, as always, found him first. He settled in next to Harry with their legs just barely brushing and cast a spell on the door to keep out anyone without a Viper ring. Harry pressed his shoulder to Theo’s for a moment in silent gratitude.
Daph and Hermione showed up next; both girls noticed the way Theo was all but shielding Harry from the door but didn’t comment. Astoria stopped by with her gaggle of younger Slytherins—Harry favored Ginny with a smile—but they didn’t stay long. Justin, Draco, and Pansy arrived all in one group and filled up the compartment almost all the way.
Neville’s absence was like a missing tooth: impossible to ignore, a space you couldn’t help poking even though it stung every time.
Hermione only mentioned it once the train started moving. “Neville?”
“Won’t be joining us,” Harry said flatly.
Loaded looks went around the compartment.
“What’s the problem?” Justin asked.
Harry chewed on that for a minute. Covered by their robes, Theo’s foot pressed against his, silent support. “He… knows who my tutor was last year.”
“Ah,” said Draco, in the tones of someone who’s just figured something out. Theo shot him a quelling glare.
“And it’s… a problem?” said Daphne.
Harry nodded, once. Then he made a snap decision and pulled the ring out of his pocket. “He gave it back.”
Showing them that he was carrying the cursed thing around felt like a weakness but Harry honestly didn’t care in this moment. If Neville wanted it back—if he changed his mind—
“Oh, Harry,” said Pansy softly. “Are you alright?”
“Fine.” He slipped it away again. Shrugged. “Or I will be. It’s not exactly unexpected.”
“Still won’t tell us their name?” Daphne said, half tease, half challenge.
Well, what the hell. Harry let a smirk slip onto his face, soft as first snow. “Barty Crouch.”
There was a pause.
“Oh, fuck,” said Pansy.
“Language!” Daphne shrieked, and they both giggled with the high-pitched abandon of masked anxiety.
“Waitwaitwait,” said Hermione suddenly. Her sharp brown eyes locked in on Harry’s and he could practically see her brain tick-tick-ticking through the facts. Teaching her to turn her mind into a computer using occlumency had maybe not been the best… “Is he your…”
“Gryffindors,” snarled Theo, “so bloody tactless.”
Because of course none of them was stupid and that half-voiced question was enough to prompt the rest of the group. Shocked silence fell.
Harry grimaced.
“Sorry,” Hermione whispered, blushing bright red.
“It’s fine.” Harry rubbed at his forehead and resigned himself to an explanation.
-----
Fortunately, they accepted the idea of Harry and Barty with few questions. Justin and Daphne both seemed to be reserving judgment, but it wasn’t the sort of thing Draco cared about, and Pansy and Blaise’s loyalty was never much about morals. Hermione… Harry wasn’t sure where Hermione stood. She kept shooting him intense looks and he was pretty sure she was doing statistical analyses in her head.
Bloody occlumency.
Theo, of course, already knew. Theo’s stance had never been in doubt in the first place.
Harry let the hours slip by, meditating for a while before pulling out some of the endless documents that needed the Lord Black’s attention. This time it was a series of tenancy agreements in Riasmoore that were up for renewal, and he had to go over the mind-numbingly dull contracts line by line. (A remembered warning from Sirius: Never sign anything binding unless you know every bloody word in it. Fuck, Harry’s heart hurt.) If not for occlumency he’d never have been able to sustain his concentration for so long. As it was, a migraine threatened by the time they got to Hogwarts.
Seeing Jules across the Great Hall did not help. God, his smug fucking face, like Harry’s but not, round and soft and weak and Harry wanted to curse him until his blood boiled out of his ears. Jules had lived his whole life with a father. Harry had gotten one only to lose him. He knew better than to think life would be fair, but--
"You can't curse him with this many witnesses," said Pansy.
Harry frowned at her.
She pointed a fork laden with lettuce at him. "Eat your vegetables and stop trying to eye murder your brother, Black, you're frightening the Hufflepuffs."
It was true. A couple younger badgers in Harry's line of sight looked distinctly anxious.
"If you want to murder him, I'll hold him down," said Daphne cheerfully. Next to her, a seventh year edged away.
"Not yet." Harry took a thoughtful bite of pea salad.
Theo, at his right hand, smiled. "Too obvious."
"Pritchard doesn't look so hot," was Blaise's contribution, and Harry delighted privately in the older Gryffindor's obvious misery.
"Guess seeing daddy naked with three Muggle whores wasn't fun," Draco sneered, referencing the Prophet spread from two weeks prior. Most of the images refused to reveal themselves to minors. Harry had saved several commemorative copies and owled one, anonymously of course, to Lord Gaunt with a handwritten note in the margin: you're welcome.
Lord Pritchard had been a crucial investor in the largest publishing house in magical Britain, a fact Harry had only discovered in the Blacks' extensive files that summer. With him gone the publisher needed an angel investor to stay afloat. Harry was only too happy to provide. He'd already green-lit half a dozen book proposals that had been shelved for being at risk of incurring Ministry fines or censorship. Harry could afford the fines and he'd pay lawyers if the Ministry tried to get them on "seditious material" or whatever was their bullshit this week. He understood better with every passing day just why the Blacks' enemies tended to be reduced to smears on the wallpaper.
And he knew he had just increased his already substantial value as an ally.
Basking in Pritchard's misery and debating Creed's potential as his next subject was a nice way to distract himself from the sight of Neville, sitting over in the lions' territory well away from Hermione or Jules' crowd. Hermione was alone and kept looking unhappily towards Daph. Neville, meanwhile, chatted casually with some fifth years and didn't look over towards Slytherin once.
Creed, Harry told himself. Think about Creed.
It wasn't hard to summon up some anger. Creed had already made a vulgar gesture towards Peregrine and frankly his table manners were bad enough to warrant a spot of torture on their own. And it worked, for a minute, before Harry's gaze was dragged like a magnet back to his once-friend--
Leaving was a relief.
"He'll come around or he won't," Pansy said quietly, pausing where they’d have to split between girls’ and boys’ dorms. “Either way, it’s not on you. He makes his own choices.”
“I went behind his back,” Harry said, which wasn’t all of it, not even close, but he couldn’t have spelled it out even if Pansy needed him to, which she didn’t.
Daphne turned and stepped hard into his space, so Harry was forced to meet her eyes or back off. He lifted his chin and felt Merlin knew how many generations of Black arrogance settle in his bones at the challenge.
“There it is. Don’t doubt yourself, Lord Black.” Daphne tilted her head towards him, eyes glittering, before she stepped back and fell in with Pansy.
In their room, Harry stopped by his bed and stood while Goyle and Crabbe crawled into their beds and Blaise and Draco immediately took off to duel over who got the mirror with the best lighting. Quiet.
Harry only realized his eyes had shut when he felt hands on his shoulders. It almost made him jump out of his skin, but of course it was only Theo, facing him from a safe distance with a question in his eyes.
Slowly, Harry reached up until his fingers encircled Theo’s wrists. He didn’t pull away, though, just kept a soft grip and leaned forward until his forehead rested on the taller Theo’s jaw.
They didn’t speak. Just stood, Harry clinging to control and stability and peace, not quite leaning on Theo or letting Theo hug him but—close enough. It helped.
He ran his fingers briefly up the outsides of Theo’s arms as he let go.
-----
Having Snape as the Defense professor was great. Unfortunately, Harry was much less fond of his replacement in Potions. He learned within two days that there had been some kind of lunch meeting on the train, to which “promising young students” (said Draco with a sneer) were invited. Jules was there, and Ginny, who Slughorn had seen casting her signature bat-bogey hex. Invitations for Harry and Blaise had not found their way past the warded compartment door, for which Harry is retroactively grateful.
Slughorn sounded annoying.
He couldn’t avoid the man forever, though, and Harry trooped into the first potions lesson of the year half determined to blow his mind and half dreading the experience. Four cauldrons burbling on tables at the front of the room caught his eye: a silver cauldron, so probably Veritaserum, and while the smells in the room were too distorted to pick up on the others, that was an interesting way to start the lesson. Slughorn was nowhere in sight.
“At least there’s no Jules in this class,” said Theo, who’d been stubbornly dogging Harry’s heels all week. Whenever people tried to pester Harry about being Lord Black now, Theo would just sort of look at them until they went away. It would’ve been funny if Harry had the energy for amusement.
Theo was right, though; the only lions here were the Gryffindor Patil twin, Dean Thomas, and of course Hermione, who’d already plopped down next to Daphne. Patil sniffed disdainfully and Hermione glowered.
Harry looked around as he took a seat. NEWT Potions students brewed individually instead of in pairs, like the younger years usually did, so the tables were larger to accommodate four stations instead of two. Theo sat next to him and Blaise across from Theo. Pansy had already been pulled down next to Daph. Most of the others in the class were the usual suspects of top students and Auror wannabes: Ernie Macmillan, Susan Bones, Sally-Anne Perks, Anthony Goldstein, Terry Boot, Madelyn Brocklehurst, and—
The Ravenclaw Patil twin thumped into the seat across from Harry with a brilliant smile. “Hi, Harry, how was break?”
“Should I take care of this?” Blaise said conversationally.
Patil’s smile turned brittle and she spoke softly through her teeth. “Look, I’ll owe you, just don’t make me sit with her, okay? This was the first empty spot I saw.”
Harry waved off Draco, who’d been angling for that seat and now looked vaguely homicidal. “I had an excellent summer, thanks for asking.”
“I’d want to avoid such company too,” Theo said with a smirk, looking at the table where the frustrated other Patil sat with Macmillan and Perks. “How’d Macmillan even get in this class? He’s about as creative as a dead stump.”
Patil shrugged over her cauldron. Harry eyed the tools she lined up neatly next to it: fine make, well used, well cared for. “Slughorn accepts E students, not just O. He’s less strict than Snape.”
“Ah,” said Theo, and that did in fact explain a lot, but Harry was too busy being horrified to pay attention to his friend or even to their corpulent professor’s grand entrance because if this class took E students—
Slughorn gestured grandly at the class just as the door slammed open at the back and two people rushed in.
Hermione let out an audible groan and then blushed fiery red. Harry felt like doing the same. Instead he just slumped a little as Julian and Ronald practically fell into seats across from the table occupied by Goldstein, Draco, and Brocklehurst.
Slughorn descended on them like a locomotive wrapped in green velvet. “Merlin’s balls,” Harry hissed. “Just one class. That’s all I wanted. Just to have some peace and quiet in my favorite class. Do you know how much I’ve been looking forward to this year?”
“I’m sure you’ll survive,” said Blaise, visibly trying not to laugh.
Theo sighed and patted Harry on the shoulder, which elicited nothing but a scowl of impotent fury before Harry remembered Patil and schooled his face.
“I’d give a lot to have some classes without Parvati either,” said Patil drily, “but our parents insist we take all the same ones.”
“Makes you look better, doesn’t it? Being the smart twin and all,” Blaise said with a charming grin.
Harry resolutely did not pay attention to Slughorn getting Jules a used textbook, asking if he needed anything, fawning all over the Boy Who—
“It’d be nice to be judged on my own merits for once.” Patil’s voice was flat and her eyes lingered knowingly on Harry. “I imagine you know what that’s like.”
“Don’t presume familiarity with someone you barely know,” said Theo, soft and deadly.
“It’s all right.” Harry turned a cutting smile on Patil and enjoyed her barely-there flinch. “Family’s a complicated thing, isn’t it? Twins even more so. Tell me, Patil, can anyone even tell you apart if not for your ties?”
Her lips twisted and she looked away. “Usually not.”
Harry hummed thoughtfully.
Slughorn clapped his hands together, calling their attention again. “Welcome, welcome, boys and girls, to NEWT Potions! I must say, it is a delight to see so many of you—Mr. Macmillan, I hope your uncle is well—Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, no doubt it would give dear Severus a coronary to see you here, but I’m sure we’ll have a grand old time together—now, then! I’ve prepared some potions for us all to look at, a sort of teaser,” he winked and leaned forward, so the buttons of his waistcoat strained, “of the year to come! These are the kind of challenge you’ll be able to brew by the end of this class. I’m sure you’ve heard of ‘em, excellent students as you are—who can tell me what this first one is?”
Hermione’s well-practiced hand hit the air first. Slughorn pointed at her. “Miss…?”
“Granger, sir. It’s Veritaserum, a colorless, odorless potion and the most powerful truth serum in the world.”
“Excellent! Five points to Gryffindor.” Hermione beamed. “And this next one?”
This time, he pointed at Harry. “Oh-ho, Mr. Black! Care to try your hand?”
“Polyjuice Potion, sir,” Harry said politely, smoothly, and Slughorn awarded him points to Slytherin before looking away.
Rather quickly, in Harry’s opinion.
Blaise and Theo shifted. They’d seen it too.
The third potion was amortentia, identified by Goldstein. Harry wanted to test its scent the way Odysseus wanted to listen to the Sirens. Theo, however, looked down as soon as Goldstein called out its name.
And the fourth…
Harry’s eyes were not the only ones to fill with hunger at the sight of a small golden cauldron bubbling with equally gold Felix Felicis. The pinnacle of luck potions and almost impossible to brew on account of the demiguise cerebrospinal fluid required: trade in demiguise parts was highly restricted and wildly expensive.
“And that,” said Slughorn, “is what I will be offering as a prize for this lesson.”
Harry’s fingers twitched.
“One tiny bottle of Felix Felicis,” said Slughorn, taking a minuscule glass bottle with a cork in it out of his pocket and showing it to them all. “Enough for twelve hours’ luck. From dawn till dusk, you will be lucky in everything you attempt. Now, I must give you warning that Felix Felicis is a banned substance in organised competitions … sporting events, for instance, examinations or elections. So the winner is to use it on an ordinary day only … and watch how that ordinary day becomes extraordinary!” He gave an oily smile. “So! How are you to win my fabulous prize? Well, by turning to page ten of Advanced Potion-Making. We have a little over an hour left to us, which should be time for you to make a decent attempt at the Draught of Living Death. I know it is more complex than anything you have attempted before, and I do not expect a perfect potion from anybody. The person who does best, however, will win little Felix here. Off you go!”
Everyone jumped into motion at once. Harry and Theo didn’t need to share a word: Theo took off for the ingredient cupboard to get the few things they didn’t already have for Draught of Living Death, while Harry started setting out their tools, summoning things from Theo’s bag since they were working separately this year. “Get mine?” Blaise said, and Harry nodded curtly. Blaise vanished on Patil’s heels and Harry started summoning Blaise’s ingredients from his top-of-the-line kit.
It was a bit nicer than Harry’s, actually, and the stylized Z carved on the lid looked very old. An heirloom of sorts, possibly.
Theo was first to return. He shoved a vial of infusion of wormwood and another containing preserved hearts of pipistrelle bats at Harry, taking the asphodel and valerian Harry tossed back. Harry poured the infusion of wormwood into the cauldron immediately and set it to heat faster than the book recommended: his own copy of Advanced Potion-Making was annotated to hell and back, and in his grimoire he’d recorded another set of experiments with Dreamless Sleep, another potion that used the wormwood. Its potency increased if you heated it slower but you had to add the valerian root twenty-one seconds before it boiled instead of immediately after. Figuring out how to feel for that sweet spot had taken him hours of sweaty, exhausting work.
Valerian reduced to a fine powder, Harry turned to the pipistrelle hearts. He kept a feel on the infusion of wormwood and paused in his quartering of the hearts to dump the valerian in. Three deosil stirs and he pulled the lead stirring rod out of the cauldron, going back to the hearts. The book called for sloth brains but pipistrelles were the best hibernators native to Britain and at Barty’s suggestion Harry had experimented with them last year.
Next to him, Theo was doing the same. Blaise had stuck with the sloth brains but appeared to be julienning them instead of reducing them to cubes as in Borage’s instructions. Patil was giving him a side-eye, but Harry saw her reach for a lead stirring rod instead of the standard glass one and smirked a bit over his bat hearts.
The room filled with blueish steam within minutes. Harry added half the asphodel and stirred on a steady deosil beat, seven seconds per rotation with a three second pause between each. The potion was a lovely rich blackcurrant jelly color with just a hint of a silver sheen.
All four of them crushed the sopophorous bean instead of cutting it. Harry separated the solids and poured the juice into the potion with one hand while reducing the heat with a twist of the ash wand in his other. Now the potion was a nice lilac and the shimmer was more pronounced; silver steam wafted off its surface, but it was a shade too dark. He peered at it. Perhaps the pipistrelle hearts? Heart tissue imparted more intensity than brain, generally, but the sopophorous should’ve countered it…
“Fifteen minutes!” Slughorn bellowed.
Harry thought quickly. Slowing down the reaction… he stirred gently widdershins with one hand and sifted through the things on his table.
The answer was so simple he nearly laughed. Ice—naturally. Harry poured a vial of distilled water out in midair, caught it with wandless magic, and froze it with a charm in a series of motions so smooth it happened almost all at once. He held the perfect ball of ice over the cauldron and shattered it with a pulverizing spell that reduced it to a gentle rain of shards so fine they were nearly snow.
As the bits of frozen liquid settled gently onto the potion’s surface, he kept stirring smoothly widdershins. Lilac lightened and reddened with every stir. He barely registered that he was smiling as the snowfall continued.
When the potion was the silver-tinged pink it should be, he swept his hand over the cauldron, dispelling the remainder of the ice.
Time to let it simmer gently. He reduced the heat further and paused to look around. Hermione’s was giving off silvery steam but she was frowning, so something had to be wrong. Harry knew the level of experimentation and intuition required of advanced potions wasn’t really her wheelhouse, nor Daphne’s, truth be told, but Pansy seemed to be doing more than fine. Theo’s and Blaise’s were excellent and Harry was vaguely impressed by the rich pink Patil’s had come out. “What’d you do?” he asked quietly, nodding to it.
She gave him a suspicious look. “Peppermint. I think it’ll make it easier to wake up, after.”
“Might reduce shelf life.”
“Who just keeps this stuff around?” she said.
Harry quirked an eyebrow but let it go. He turned to check on the Gryffindorks instead. Weasley was cursing over his cauldron, predictably, but Jules… his cauldron was emitting perfect silvery steam. And Weasley kept shooting him confused, angry looks.
What the hell?
Something about his potion shifted and Harry turned his attention back just in time to add three drops of dew collected under the light of a full moon—for peace and tranquility. “Moondew. Eases the impact and the waking up,” Harry said to Patil’s questioning glance.
She cursed quietly. Next to her, Blaise grinned.
“Time!” Slughorn called. “Stop stirring, please, let’s see how you all did!”
Harry methodically began to clean his tools as Sluggie went around the class. Malfoy’s potion got an approving nod, as did Pansy’s and Hermione’s. He winced at Weasley’s but stopped next to Jules. “Oh, my, what have we here? A clear winner, Mr. Potter! Good Lord, it’s clear you’ve inherited your mother’s talent, she was a dab hand at Potions, Lily was—my, so perfect a drop could kill us all!”
“No it couldn’t,” Theo hissed.
“Sir,” Patil said loudly, as Slughorn reached for the pocket that held the Felicis and Harry’s grip on his dish of unused valerian tightened to the point of pain. “Sir, shouldn’t you check the rest of them?”
“Hm? Oh, yes, of course, silly me.” Slughorn stopped reaching. Harry’s grip relaxed and he looked curiously at Patil.
She smiled with some bitterness. “He’s not the only son of Lily Potter here.”
Harry gave her a slight nod.
Slughorn’s eyebrows rose when he stood over their table. “My, my, four wonderful aspiring potioners here—Mr. Black, Mr…”
“Nott.”
“Nott, ah, yes, of course.” Slughorn didn’t quite meet either of their eyes. “Excellent work, the both of you… but a bit strong, perhaps… it’s supposed to be easy on the system… pipistrelle hearts, you see…”
“An extra half measure of asphodel, to temper the heart’s intensity, and moondew to ease the transition,” said Harry smoothly, with a deferent, hopeful look.
“I used the moondew but no extra asphodel,” Theo added.
“I see.” Slughorn breathed deep of Harry’s potion and blinked hard. “Well then. Good work. The other Miss Patil, I presume? Do I smell peppermint? An interesting addition. And… I can’t quite determine what you’ve done, Mr…?”
“Zabini, sir.”
“Fascinating. It feels rather faster-acting than usual. Not ideal for the drinker.”
Blaise’s expression said pretty clearly he hadn’t had the comfort of the drinker in mind.
“Well!” Slughorn stepped back. Wet his lips. “I think… very difficult decision… but I think the victory must go to Mr. Potter for sheer ingenuity—the simplicity of the modifications to your stirring pattern, quite brilliant, never seen a student do so well—here you are!”
Jules, typically, had the most infuriating smirk on his face as he took the small vial.
“Harry,” hissed Theo.
Harry looked down and snatched his hands back from the table but the damage was done. A rime of frost had crept from his fingers and gotten to the cauldron. Draught of Living Death had to cool slowly and naturally, or it would go utterly useless—as his own had now done. The silver steam was gone and it felt dead, inert, lifeless at the bottom of his cauldron. Its magic ruined.
“How did he do that,” Blaise said under the noise of people packing up. “He’s an average student—you spend all your summers experimenting—”
“I don’t know,” said Harry, locking eyes with an equally irate Hermione, “but I’m damn well going to find out.”
Patil shifted a bit, eyeing them both. “I could ask Parvati.”
“Why would you do that?” Theo asked, looking at her with a predator’s stillness.
“I owe you, remember?”
It eased Harry’s ire somewhat. He appreciated people who paid their debts for all he hadn’t really meant to hold her to it so explicitly. “If it wouldn’t appear suspicious.”
“You lot aren’t the only ones who can do subtle.”
“We know,” Blaise said with the ghost of a smile.
-----
"I am not your owl." Snape gave Harry a baleful look as he slid an envelope across his desk.
Harry slipped it into a pocket and replaced it with a book. "For your trouble."
"Where did you get this?" Snape flicked through its contents hungrily. "These notes are… is this Old English?"
"Yes." Harry smiled. Pre-Norman potions texts were rare, but the Chamber was a veritable time capsule. He could spare a copybook or two if that's what it took to stay in touch with Barty.
Snape set the book down. "I cannot sneak him into the school this year. The Headmaster has seen fit to tighten the wards."
"I wouldn't ask more than for letters to find their way past scrutiny."
"Very well." Snape hesitated. "I have heard… tales of Potter's sudden and unprecedented success in Potions."
"Yes." Harry's jaw clenched. It had been days since the incident and he was still furious. Hermione ranted about it at the slightest provocation and had sworn to figure out the mystery but both she and Patil reported the boys were being oddly tight-lipped.
Snape frowned at him. "You mean to tell me that Potter's Draught of Living Death was somehow the best in the class? Yourself, Nott, Zabini, Patil, Malfoy, Parkinson, Granger—none of you surpassed him?"
"Theo, and myself certainly did at least as well. I expect it of Draco as well though I didn't get a good look in his cauldron. Blaise… his potion was fast-acting but would've been an unpleasant user experience and Slughorn didn't approve."
Snape looked faintly amused. "I imagine they had differing priorities."
"Quite."
"Did he increase the quantity of sloth cortex?"
"I think so. I saw him julienne it instead of cubing."
"Mmm, yes, larger pieces, higher surface area to mass ratio. Yourself?"
"Theo and I both substituted with pipistrelle heart balanced with extra asphodel. I added moondew as well."
"Ingenious. How did you slow the reaction?"
Harry described his trick with the improvised ice dusting.
"Ten points to Slytherin for not killing yourself," Snape said. "Heart tissue is almost as bad as primary feathers for unnecessary power."
"I cut off the aortas, sir."
"I trust you all had the sense to crush the sopophorous beans?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Obviously. Patil did, too. The Ravenclaw one."
"And despite all this, your erstwhile brother bested you."
Snape was pushing for a reaction Harry wouldn't give him. "Slughorn appears to… have an aversion towards me. I don't know why."
"Mmm. I expect you to acquit yourself well on your NEWTs." Snape gave him a pointed look. "And determining the source of such unexpected competence would not go amiss."
"Already on it, sir."
"Very good."
Harry stepped out and found Theo waiting in the hall; the rest of their DADA class had cleared out for lunch. "All good?"
In answer, Harry flashed the envelope tucked into his pocket.
"Brilliant. Book was a good bribe, then?"
"He nearly drooled."
Theo smirked. "Figures."
"So I had an idea for the dueling club's next lesson."
"Tell me."
-----
Harry:
I hope the school year is going well for you thus far. Do tell me about Slughorn. He was teaching in my day, and he'd been around to teach my father as well. We both think his name is comically apt. I was advised as a student that he is amenable to bribes, particularly candied fruit and expensive liquor. Do with that what you will.
I don't think I have ever missed anyone before now. It's an unsettling feeling and I anticipate seeing you over the Yuletide holiday. Knowing you are walking around that school surrounded by people who haven't a clue you're taken is frustrating. Perhaps when you return I'll tie you to my bed and remind you.
Yours in trust,
B.
B,
Slughorn seems to have developed an acute antipathy towards me. I haven't a clue why—perhaps a bribe will help. I've placed an order with Gwendolyn's Luxuries.
In a similar vein, Julian somehow won an impromptu potions challenge in the first lesson. I've attached the notes Theo, Draco Hermione, and I put together about everyone's work that day. He wasn't as clear a winner as Slughorn made it sound but he was a contender and we can't determine how. The Gryffindor boys from his dorm are being unusually quiet on the subject. The girls are certain they've got a secret, but it seems the Potters convinced Dumbledore to ward their room against every person and animal who isn't the residents or their pets. I can't send Eriss to eavesdrop and when Hermione put one of the twins' prototype bugs on Finnegan's cat's collar, the wards fried it. Ideas would be appreciated. He's done just as well in every class since and now I have to live with knowing he's walking around with twelve hours of bloody Felix Felicis in his pocket. The idiot doesn't need any more cursed luck, good or bad.
I miss you too, and I agree, it's odd. I want to touch you and also just to sit with you in my study or be doing experiments in the lab. Just two more years and I won't be at boarding school anymore—would you come to America with me, while I work towards my Mastery?
Last night I came to the idea of being tied to your bed. I imagine you'd use that spell you like so much—the one that won't let me come until you do. I imagine you'd torment me for a long time. I already know how I'll return the favor.
(Snape, if you cracked the wards on this envelope, you deserved to have to read that.)
I can't wait for the holidays.
Harry
-----
Somehow, Harry and Jules had gone the first month of the school year without talking to each other once. Harry had been avoiding him, but not that attentively, which could only mean Jules was doing the same.
That all changed as October blew in on cold northern winds. Harry was coming in from quidditch practice, having stayed late for a quiet few minutes of drifting flight over the lake, when a hand shot out of a dark alcove and grabbed him.
Reflexes honed by Barty kicked in. Harry twisted, stepping out of the likely path of any curses even as he closed the distance. His wand stabbed into someone's soft gut just as he felt wood jab hard into his jaw.
"Jules?" he said incredulously.
The Gryffindor looked around. "Shhh!"
"What the fuck," Harry hissed, following him into the shadowed alcove. Jules pressed his foot into the corner and a narrow gap appeared in the stones, leading to a passageway; Harry committed it to memory as he'd never seen this one before.
"Goes towards the staff quarters," Jules said to the question Harry hadn't asked. "Uh. I just. I wanted to talk to you and I didn't want to… make it weird with the other snakes."
"So you jumped me in the hall. There's no one around, idiot, you could've just said my name. I nearly cursed you."
"Nearly killed me, you mean. With the kind of magic you use." There was something dangerous in Jules' eyes that made Harry renew his grip on his wand. The ash felt cool and eager.
"What did you want to say?"
"Don't turn into him."
There were a number of people that could refer to, but Harry had a pretty good idea who Jules meant. His fingers felt like ice. "Don't get murdered? Is that what you're trying to say?"
"No! I mean—he wasn't murdered!"
"Oh, right, I forgot. It was a Death Eater. Casualty of war, am I right?" A hit: Jules flinched. Harry sneered. He felt ugly and cruel and all twisted up inside. Violence hummed in his fingers. "Spit it out already."
"Don't get—get seduced by that kind of magic," Jules said through gritted teeth. "Merlin, Harry, you fought like a fucking Death Eater! But—look, I don't, I'm not saying you're evil. I know it's—you probably hear people telling you to do that kind of magic all the time but it's not safe, okay, I just want you to be safe—"
"I'm going to say this once only so listen up." The ice was in his throat now. Every word was an effort. "Sirius didn't corrupt me or seduce me to the dark side or any such stupid thing. He loved me and he protected me and for that your father killed him." And Jules looked so fucking much like James that every time Harry saw his stupid fucking face he saw it all over again: green light. Sirius falling.
He didn't say that bit.
Jules opened and closed his mouth a few times in silence. Then: "I'm… I know he loved you, Harry. I'm just. I don't want to see you in Azkaban, okay? I lied! I covered for you, I told them all it was a Death Eater, and if I hadn't you'd have been in so much trouble, and—"
He stopped, biting his lip and looking away. Harry didn't know what to say either.
"Sirius wasn't your fault," he said finally. "But I won't hear a word against him from you."
"That's—" Jules looked at him and changed tack rapidly. "—fair, yeah, okay, fine. Just… stay away from that kind of thing. Please."
"I'll do what I have to do to bring me and mine through this safely. And if you have any sense, you will too."
"Can you do that and not become one of them?" Jules said angrily. "Fuck, Harry."
"Of course I can," Harry said. I might become one of them anyway, but not for that reason.
"I can't keep lying for you."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Then don't." I just won't let you see.
"Right. Uh." Jules shuffled his feet.
"Quite a performance you've got for Sluggie," Harry said when the silence became unbearable. "How'd you do it? Sneak a tutor in on the weekend? Cheat sheet?"
A smirk worthy of Malfoy crawled across Jules' face and God Harry wanted to punch him right in the ego. "I have my ways."
Harry filed away his reaction to examine later.
"He really does not like you," Jules added.
"I can't figure out why." Harry shook his head; he had a theory but not one he'd be sharing with Jules. "Doesn't matter. He'll eat it when I break the record for youngest Potions master in Britain."
"Oh, that'll piss off Sniv—Snape."
Harry sighed but didn't call him on it. "Alright, this has been fun, but I need to shower, so now that we've established I'm not going to curse you in the halls…"
He turned to go.
"Harry."
Harry turned back.
"Some of the others… think you’re … dangerous. Past saving." Jules looked him hard in the eyes. "Are you?"
"I don't need saving," Harry said coldly, and left before his temper snapped like rotten ice.
-----
"Oi, Hermione. It's not a tutor."
"How do you know?" The Gryffindor waited for him to catch up.
Harry grinned. "Jules accosted me after practice. I bugged him about it. He didn't react when I said tutor but he did flinch when I said cheat sheet."
"He hasn't gotten any unusual owls, but there's other ways to get letters in and out." Hermione raised a pointed eyebrow, to which Harry offered a look of blindingly false innocence. "Still, that level of skill indicates help from a true master, and I can't think of anyone who'd be willing to share proprietary modifications to the recipe with him."
"Snape would literally rather eat his own left arm," Harry said.
"Maybe the Headmaster ordered him to?"
Harry shook his head. "Snape all but ordered me to suss out the cause, remember? I think he's personally offended that a Potter is the star of his favorite subject. He'd have at least hinted if Dumbledore made him help."
"Could Dumbledore have gotten Snape's notes himself?"
"I'm reasonably certain Snape's wards would've killed him for trying. I have it on good authority that the Dark Lord would struggle to crack them."
"I just bet you do," said Hermione tartly. Harry smirked. "All right, then. So it's not Snape. Between Parvati and me, we can keep an eye out for anyone slipping him anything, but it's not a sure thing. How'd you get her to help anyway? She hasn't said."
"Padma owed me for letting her sit at our table in Potions that first day." The Ravenclaw had often sat with one of the Vipers since then, proving herself both decent company and a good potioner.
"I see." Hermione paused while they passed a group of younger Gryffindors hurrying the other way. "They don't always get on well. Parvati said once she asked for Gryffindor so she wouldn't be in the same house as Padma."
"That fits. They don't seem as bad as Jules and me, though."
"That's a high bar."
Harry grinned. "No kidding." He gave her an abbreviated version of his conversation with Jules.
By the end she was fuming. "That… condescending twat!"
"Language!" Harry taunted.
Hermione stuck her nose in the air. "He deserves it."
"Mmm, too true."
She elbowed him. "Imagine if he knew how literal your seduction to the Dark side was."
"Insist I was under imperius, probably. James would have a stroke." There was a meditative pause. "Maybe we can arrange for him to find out. It would be entirely not my fault if he died of a stroke upon learning who my boyfriend is."
Hermione glanced around. Harry noticed the way she was scanning for portraits and cast a privacy ward Barty taught him and in turn had learned from one of the Lestranges. "It'll move with us and anyone listening will be utterly convinced we're discussing something boring like the quality of Hogwarts' shepherd's pie."
"Appalling, and you will be teaching me that nifty spell, Black."
"Naturally. What's up?"
Hermione bit her lip. "You're kind of… banking on a certain side winning here. Your boyfriend… he's… bluntly, he's kind of screwed unless You-Know-Who wins."
"I know." Harry watched her in his peripheral vision and waited. Hermione could never stay silent long.
"The Lestranges," she burst out. "Neville, he—he told me about what you gave him."
"And?"
"And… I don't know!" Hermione threw her hands up helplessly. "In some ways it seems idiotic—torture as a blood price for someone dying? But I know there's plenty of places in the Muggle developed world where people still do that sort of thing, I just—but thinking someone else interfered to keep his parents injured, because they were going to go neutral and flee… both sides did awful things that seem utterly senseless but I find his side less senseless, mostly, and do you know how much I hate that?"
"What do you want from me?" Harry said.
Hermione sighed. "I don't know. Between Daphne and Draco, I think I have a handle on the ideology, and I don't outright disagree with the idea… it seems like a whole faction got pushed utterly out of the political process, at which point I understand how extralegal action and even revolution happen. They're dubiously terrorists, but every group fighting for civil liberties or independence has been labeled terrorists at some point or other… terrorism being just the use of violence and fear in pursuit of sociopolitical aims, in which case so are the Order. I guess I want to know what they'd do if they win."
"Want to write Bob?" Harry said, using the hilariously unsubtle alias they'd chosen for Barty so as to never say his name inside the school. Well, Harry thought it was hilarious. Barty had threatened to leave him with an unrelievable erection for the entirety of the Malfoy Yule Ball. Harry had written back that wasn't much of a deterrent.
"Would he mind?"
"Absolutely not, he likes smart people and he'll enjoy debating with you."
Hermione smiled, catlike.
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