Barty's next letter contained a surprise.
Harry handed the contract over to Snape after they both put up the strongest privacy wards they knew. "He suggested you present it to the Order, instead of me."
"Potter will not permit his son to sign this," Snape said. "Total neutrality—no political opposition, no combat—it castrates the House of Potter as long as the younger one is its Head."
"James is young. He won't expect to die anytime soon," said Harry. "He might let Jules sign it because James can keep fighting politically, on battlefields, whatever. And—sir, look. He's offering to guarantee no unjust persecution of Muggleborns or magical creatures as long as he's in power."
"An easy promise to make."
Considering Voldemort didn't plan on persecuting Muggleborns or magical creatures, yeah, Snape wasn’t kidding. Not to mention unjustly meant as long as Voldemort could argue it was just persecution, the terms of the contract wouldn’t get him.
Harry did not plan to point that out.
“Very well, I suppose I will bring this… offer before the Order.” Snape rolled the scroll with decisive movements. “How, precisely, did you entice such terms?”
“Arcturus Black never agreed to follow the Dark Lord,” Harry said conversationally. “He paid lip service, of course, and he didn’t stop his progeny from taking the Mark, but he also didn’t disinherit Sirius for running away. He covered all the angles.”
“A very Slytherin thing to do.”
“Mmm. Arguably, it’s also a Slytherin thing to throw one’s whole weight behind ensuring one is on the winning side.”
“Knowing when to commit is a challenge.”
“I believe I’m up to it, sir.”
Snape raised an eyebrow. “You are certainly far closer to the throne than any child ought to be.”
Harry smiled. “It would be bad form to publicly fight against my potential adoptive future father-in-law, wouldn’t it?”
The look on Snape’s face was priceless.
-----
Severus had not expected this to go over well. Somehow he was still surprised by the vehemence of the Order’s reaction. Half of them were on their feet, shouting in fury; the other half were already embroiled in argument.
It was the outliers you had to watch for in moments like this. Albus, naturally: he was not speaking. Notably, neither were Andromeda Tonks or Remus Lupin. The wolf and the former Black traded a look that spoke volumes. Watching without seeming to, Severus mentally connected them and wondered when that alliance had formed.
Clearly he hadn’t been spending enough time at these meetings of late.
Ethan Thorne, usually very collected, had the hair-trigger temper of a man recently released from Azkaban and he was showing every iota of it in a screaming match with Benjy Fenwick. The Prophet editor seemed to be intrigued by the contract. Thorne wanted to burn it with fiendfyre.
At last, Albus shifted in his seat and said, “Enough.” He wasn’t loud but his voice sliced the squabbling like a steel knife and people settled slowly down.
Severus cleared his throat into the silence. “If I may continue?”
“Yes, please, go ahead, Severus.” Albus waved a tired hand.
Andromeda watched him steadily as he spoke. “As near as I can determine, the contract is offered in reasonably good faith. The Dark Lord…” how to put this… “has seemed unsettled of late, resistant to the urgings of some to pursue widespread Muggle-baiting and other such crimes.”
“The assassinations,” someone said. “Disappearances. He’s killing people.”
“But not like before,” said Shacklebolt. “The disappearances are all political opponents; their families remain unmolested, and few actual bodies have turned up. We are protecting the Wizengamot as best we can but we’re stretched too thin to cover all the Ministry personnel.”
“Isn’t he in with the Ministry, though?” This from Dorcas Meadowes, a cold-eyed shark of a woman who always made Severus want to take a shower.
Severus shook his head. “He has people in the Ministry. I know not precisely whom; I avoid being asked to take part in raids due to my value as a potioner, but for that very reason I cannot always discern the identities and positions of my… colleagues. Information is compartmentalized and the Dark Lord would not place his unmitigated trust in someone of my position, no matter that he believes I am on his side.”
“Oddly reasonable for him,” said Andromeda.
“Quite. Severus, my boy, would you say he appears… more sane than previously?” Albus asked.
Severus pretended to consider it. He was quite sure that the Dark Lord had, in fact, been doing something of late—there had been murmurs, Bellatrix mentioned retrieving something from her vault, Lucius disgraced for losing an item of enormous value, the Dark Lord departing alone on a few mysterious journeys. And his sanity did indeed seem to be returning. The wizard’s appearance remained the same but something of humanity had come back to his eyes. Some of the bloodthirstiness shed like old skin. “I… would say so, yes. I know not precisely why. Perhaps a new advisor—perhaps the potions he asks me to brew are working better than I anticipate.”
“Why can’t you just poison him?” asked Fenwick.
Really, such an idiotic question? “He is layered with so many artifacts and spells that any poison would evaporate before it touched his lips, and then I would be dead and you short a spy.”
“Severus is right,” said Lupin, and Merlin’s balls, the sound of his name from the wolf’s lips made Severus want to throw curses. “He’s better off listening, for now. Besides, we’ve no guarantee a poison would even work.”
“Convenient.” Severus couldn’t quite determine who said that, but his spine stiffened. He said nothing.
Half the time he didn’t know what side he was on. Naturally, nobody else did either.
Albus looked disapproving. “Now, now, Severus is trying his best. I trust him.”
No one else did, but if Severus cared what these utter idiots thought of him, he’d have simply offed himself years ago.
“We’re getting off topic,” snarled Thorne. “This fucking farce—” he stabbed furiously at the contract— “is a lie! A trick—maybe we can’t see it, but Voldemort wouldn’t just offer us peace like this, he just wants to fucking neutralize our best shot at winning!”
Andromeda sighed. “That very transparency is its genius. He freely admits by way of this offer that he at least wishes to avoid a fight with Jules, perhaps even fears him. He believes as we do that the Boy Who Lived can win. Yet he tempts us with something superficially of equal value. Do we sacrifice Jules’ ability to vanquish him in favor of ensuring a magically binding promise to stop the persecution of Muggleborns?”
“It’s a lie! It has to be!” insisted Molly Weasley.
“It’s certainly dubious. Unjust persecution. Possibly if he truly believes the persecution is just, then the contract would not penalize him for breach… but that’s a gamble he may not be willing to make.” Andromeda studied the words for a few seconds.
“And if there’s no outright persecution, people might just accept Him out of fear,” said Shacklebolt grimly. “It’s hard enough already to recruit anyone, what with the leftover terror from the last war… no one wants to come home and find the Dark Mark in the sky. If they start to tell themselves maybe it wouldn’t be so bad having You-Know-Who in charge—”
“Isn’t persecuting Muggleborns what we’re trying to stop, though?” asked Maria McKinnon. Last of her clan, save an aging great-aunt who never leaves a manor warded to the stars, she looked fresh-faced and innocent compared to the rest of the people at the table. Severus was struck suddenly by the lack of young Order members.
Albus was clearly having recruitment problems.
It was difficult not to feel smug.
Hestia Jones cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Do we tell Jules?”
-----
Harry was not particularly surprised to learn that the Order had unanimously agreed not to let Jules see the contract. He was even less surprised that Snape assigned him detention and then left him alone in his office “pickling slugs” with the contract lying unprotected and obvious in the middle of his desk.
“Black stole the contract and gave it to Potter” was a flimsy excuse, but Harry figured if Snape was leaving it around like this then he knew what he was doing, so Harry duplicated it with a flourish of his wand and had Hermione slip it to Jules the next day.
“Nev still isn’t talking to me,” she said, when she was done and they gathered in the Knights Room.
Harry sighed. “I know. I think… I don’t know what he’s going to do.”
“Don’t trust him,” said Daphne. “Seriously. He’s betrayed, alone—we were his only real friends, Thomas is a bad substitute. When he sees you happy and successful and… don’t trust him.”
“I don’t want to think he’d—” Harry stopped, because voicing it felt like admitting it was a real danger.
“None of us does, but we have to think it anyway.” Theo held his eyes as he spoke.
“I know. I’ve changed all the passwords, shifted the locations of the Chamber passageways where I can, the dueling club schedule is totally different—what else is there to do?”
“Nothing except keep tabs on him, which we are doing,” said Pansy, gesturing between herself and Blaise. “It’ll work out, and if it doesn’t we’ll handle it.”
Harry pretended he was convinced.
-----
Dealing with Jules was much easier than the Neville problem, or at least more predictable. He found Harry after just two days of wandering around in pointedly public areas with no one else in sight.
“You did this,” Jules said, waving it in Harry’s face.
“Announce it to the whole school, why don’t you,” Harry snapped, shoving Jules backwards and out of the arterial corridor that led to the owlery stairs. Two Hufflepuffs looked at him funny as he followed Jules into a twisty side passage leading nowhere but some dusty unused storerooms. A quick glance over his shoulder showed no one in sight; a quick muffliato guarded against outside ears.
Jules flushed. “I know you gave it to me! Ethan told me he told Dad about the meeting but no one wanted me to know. Where’d you get it?”
“Nicked it off Snape’s desk,” Harry said with perfect honesty. “I don’t know, maybe he left it out for me to find, but I guessed they wouldn’t tell you. They have a habit of keeping secrets.”
“Well… thanks. I think.” Jules scowled. “Did you ask for this?”
“Right, yeah, I just sent off an owl. ‘Dear Dark Lord, I’d love it if you wouldn’t kill Jules Potter, even though he’s your prophesied nemesis and you know it. Sincerely, Harry Black. P.S. No, I’m still not interested in being a Death Eater, sorry!’ I’m sure that would go over so well.”
Of course, it was more or less what had happened, minus the sarcasm and disrespect, but Jules bought the lie. “Fine, fine, okay, I just—why now?”
“The war’s heating up, and maybe he just doesn’t want people to die? We lost thousands in the last war, and the population’s only just recovering.”
“Ethan said Snivellus thinks Voldemort’s not insane anymore.”
Harry shrugged. “I don’t know, not like I've ever met the man. Well, except for that one time, but we weren’t exactly carrying on a polite conversation over tea. If he is, what of it? He’s willing to sign away his ability to persecute Muggleborns and magical creatures, which is, what, eighty percent of the Order’s problem with him anyway, so…” Jules’ eyes widened, and Harry paused. “You are going to sign it, right?”
“What? No! Or—I don’t know!” Jules backtracked quickly at a look of what Harry could only assume was rage on his face, because he was suddenly, blindingly, freezingly furious. “It’s too good to be true, you know it is, this is Voldemort, and if I can’t kill him no one can! And then he’ll—you know it has to be me!”
“No it doesn’t!” Harry yelled. “Let someone else bloody kill him if he has to die so fucking badly! Or put him in a fucking prison! You’re sixteen! It’s not your fucking job! You’re letting these people turn you into a soldier before you’re even a legal adult!”
“It has to be me! The prophecy said so!”
Harry fell silent, because he’d been pushing for this, hoping Jules would let this slip, but suddenly—
He didn’t want to hear it.
“What do you mean,” he said quietly.
Jules looked around. “Um. Set up wards.”
Harry already had, but he cast more, layering three illegal privacy spells and one ward that required the tracing of runes on the floor with his toe. It actually kept any physical interchange between a space around the caster and beyond, meaning you’d suffocate if you kept it up too long, but it also conveniently stopped the flow of sound waves utterly and the radius of the ward itself was wide enough to include Jules and plenty of air and even a third person if Harry pushed enough power into it. They’d be fine. “Go.”
“You’ll need to swear never to tell anyone.”
Ash wand raised, Harry said, “I swear upon my life and magic that I will never share with anyone the contents of the prophecy Julian Potter reveals to me today, unless Julian Potter gives me permission to do so. So mote it be.” He pushed magic through his wand and its tip lit up.
Jules took a deep breath. “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not, and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.”
There was a heavy silence.
“That’s it. The end bit, Voldemort hasn’t heard it, and he can’t. So. It has to be me. It has to—there’s no other choice.”
“So you won’t sign,” Harry said woodenly.
Jules threw his hands up. “I dunno! I could—it would stop things! But I can’t—if I sign it then he lives! Forever, maybe, if—”
He shut up abruptly.
“If what?” Harry said.
“I can’t tell you that. No, seriously, I can’t,” Jules said. “Even with an oath. You’d act differently, and then if someone watching your actions figured out what you know, then we’d—I just can’t, okay?”
Harry could read between the lines just fine. He wasn’t trusted. They didn’t trust him not to let something slip, to find a way around any oath he swore. Which wasn’t even unfair, after all, but he had just learned that someone, probably Dumbledore, had ideas about the Dark Lord’s apparent immunity to dying, and also had ideas on how to defeat it.
“I understand. Promise me you’ll at least… think about it?” Harry searched for words, sickened by the horrible feeling that they wouldn’t be enough. “I don’t want you to die. And if he won’t—won’t be out murdering people in droves, then is it really such a bad thing… I don’t know, him being alive isn’t the same as him being in power. Someone could—capture him, put him in prison. Bury him under Azkaban if it worries you. But…”
“I’ll think about it.” Now Jules looked a bit suspicious. “You almost seem like you think he’s going to win.”
“I have to consider the possibility, and if he does, I can find a way out. But I don’t want you to die.”
“What do you mean, you can find a way out?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Are you an idiot? You lot have me playing pseudo-double-agent among the Slytherins here, fat lot of good it’s done, seeing as nobody with any sense lets sixteen-year-olds in on secret war councils—”
“Hey!”
“—all I’d have to do is keep doing what I’m already doing and they’d think I’m at worst neutral. I’m the Lord of the House of Black. I can fucking stay neutral if I want to.”
Jules fingered his wand. “Is that a threat? Are you turning coat, Harry? Going to take a deal like this?”
“I would do it if it would keep you alive,” Harry hissed.
They looked at each other.
“Guess that’s the difference between a lion and a snake,” Jules said bitterly. “You’d compromise the most important stuff, just for—what? You’ve said yourself we aren’t brothers anymore—”
“I said I’m not James’ son anymore, those are not the same thing—”
Jules blew up. “I don’t mind dying!”
“Well you fucking should!”
“You sound like Voldemort,” Jules spat. “You know, I’ve been learning about him, he was terrified of dying, still is really, you sound just like him and it’s fucking funny ‘cause you look like him too when he was younger. Slimy and dark and—and—”
Abruptly, he looked like he was about to cry, but Harry was past caring. He’d gone past calm debate, through the land of anger, and come out on the other side in someplace that was almost calm again. “I,” he said precisely, “am not Voldemort. I’m not you either. I am my own person. I am doing what I must to protect your ungrateful arse.”
“I’m not ungrateful!” Jules rubbed his eyes. “I know you want me to live! But there’s more important things than living—not when staying alive costs everything you… everything that matters.”
“As long as you’re alive, there’s hope.”
Jules shook his head. “I don’t agree, okay?”
“That’s that?” Harry said, disbelieving. “Really? You’re just going to throw this chance down the toilet?”
“I said I’d consider it, didn’t I? And I will. I just… I have to think about it. And as for the rest—Harry, if it comes down to me or him, you have to let me die, okay? If it has to happen that way—fine. I’m fine with that.”
Another, heavier silence stretched out, like the whole world was holding its breath. Jules wore Harry’s face, but in that moment, he looked so utterly unfamiliar he might as well have been an alien.
“It’s your life,” Harry said at last. “Throw it away if you want to.”
“Thanks for… for trying.” Jules tried to smile; it fell flat, but Harry sort of appreciated the effort. “I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah.”
In the corridor, Harry gathered himself, sliding his mask back over his features and setting off at an unhurried pace for the Knights Room. He could not afford to let anything seem off. Not one of the portraits could report any oddity back to the Headmaster, since Jules was sure to run straight to him and tell him Harry knew the prophecy.
He said the password in an even voice and stepped between the three suits of armor standing guard. Thank Merlin no one else was in the room. Harry slumped into an armchair.
There was a tingle of magic and Theo appeared from the layers of disillusionment, sound-dampening, and notice-me-not charms they’d cast together that morning. “Fuck,” he said, with feeling.
“Yeah.” Harry kicked at the armchair next to him and Theo slid down into it.
“Do we tell anyone?” Theo said with his face in his hands.
“No. Not yet. No one can know you know.”
Theo nodded. “I’ll keep it secret until you…”
Need it went unsaid.
“I wouldn’t ask it of anyone else,” Harry said softly. “Or trust anyone else with this.”
“I am honored by your faith,” Theo said, looking up, meeting his eyes, and his voice was heavy with meaning, and Harry couldn’t help reaching for him.
They sat for a while with their fingers interlaced.
-----
Harry was so busy he barely noticed the time slipping by until it was mid-November and documents for the winter solstice Wizengamot session started circulating. Most of them were tedious—the agenda, the schedule, a few minor adjustments to membership—but the list of pending votes was… odd. Harry found himself returning to it more often than he should.
By all rights it looked as simple as the rest of the preparatory paperwork. The first vote: an initiative from the Department of Games and Sports to assess Muggle flying machines and how to best avoid them on broomstick. The second: a formal request for funding from the Garden Gnome Resettlement Task Force. They went on like that, bureaucratic tedium, until the one thing everyone was looking forward to, a new Wand Rights Amendment that Harry already knew he’d be voting no on.
So why did it feel like some kind of trap?
“Need help?” said Justin, wandering over to Harry’s corner of the Knights Room. The core group of Vipers still often hung out there, since it was much easier to access than the Chamber, where the dueling club met four days a week.
Harry rubbed his eyes and handed over the list. “Confidential, don’t pass it on. Not that it’s exactly a matter of national security, but…”
“I know what you mean, sometimes my parents get sent things they really shouldn’t be seeing,” Justin said absently, scanning down the list. “Boring, boring, intriguing, boring, hmm, appointing a new head of the Goblin Liaison Office, wouldn’t that influence interest rates?”
“Well, it might, if the goblins decide they hate him, but Dirk Cresswell’s been the deputy for twenty years and outlived that many Heads of the Office, so I think he’ll be fine. At least he actually speaks their language, which is a leg up on the last three.”
“They appointed someone who doesn’t speak the language as the head of a liaison with a sovereign magical species who controls all our money? Are they stupid?”
Harry looked at him.
Justin winced. “Right. Moving on. Let’s see, boring again, also boring, what’s this one about Community Safety Officers?”
“The one right before the Wand Rights issue?”
“Yeah.”
“Er, it's like Muggle Neighborhood Watch, I think. Funding for these little alarm wards that summon the Aurors.”
“You think?”
Harry scowled at Justin. “I’m not done going through the list.”
“Don’t bite my head off.”
“Just sit down,” Harry muttered, pulling the relevant stack of bound parchment out of his bag and smirking at Justin’s horrified expression. “Oh, yeah, this is volume six of the Ministry of Magic Legal Statute in its entirety. Welcome to hell.”
“Is, uh, how many volumes are there?”
“Fourteen.”
“Fuck me.”
“No thanks, I’m taken.”
Justin snorted. “Yeah, I’m not pissing him off. Show me this hell statute, my friend.”
Harry flipped to The Auror Corps, Section 1. “You can thank me later.”
Time passed, marked only by the turn of pages and occasional grumble of complaint. Blaise came in around the hour mark and settled in with only brief instructions. Hermione and Daphne showed up next, and Hermione promptly abandoned her History essay in favor of the project, though Daphne rolled her eyes and pointedly slammed Binns' textbook down on an adjacent table.
It was Justin who eventually made a pleased noise noise and pointed to a subsection regarding contractors. Harry found a separate one regarding confidential informants and Hermione a third covering financial awards that could be awarded for tips. Harry used a copycharm to put all three sections into one scroll and then went at it with a quill and red ink while Justin picked at the statute and most of the others amused themselves with actual homework.
Harry was getting a bit concerned about his.
He sat back after another hour of work to find that his notes took up twenty-four inches of parchment and there was copious red ink on the bits of the statute he'd been working on. The conclusions were unsettling.
"Separately none of this is that weird," Harry explained when he'd gathered the interested parties again—the same group plus Theo and Pansy, who'd brought dinner after a message from the journals requested somebody bring food. "But put it together and it basically, at least I think, means the Aurors can have a network of people specially trained to look for and report crime. The DMLE is authorized to offer everything from gold to legal pardons as recompense for tips, assistance, whatever."
"So like Neighborhood Watch," said Hermione.
"Sort of, except these are technically independent contractors for the DMLE—no parchment contract, no salary, but they get perks. Training, invites to Ministry events, sometimes equipment. There's no accountability. No system for filing reports that go to the whole Corps, or an equivalent of calling 911, or even disclosure of who these people are.
Hermione and Justin both looked grim. “So it’s a network of secret informants,” said Hermione. “How… authoritarian.”
“What’s the funding even for, if they don’t get paid?” said Theo.
Harry looked back at the text of the proposed funding change. “It’s not very specific. ‘Organization, training, and coordination of.’”
“I’m going to dig into powers of the Chief Auror,” said Hermione grimly. “This is… I can’t believe how much they’ve just added to bureaucratic guidelines and… how can I even get my hands on the regulations for the Aurors? Most of those are just made by the DMLE, not the Wizengamot, they’re not public record!”
“I’ll put in a request,” said Daphne.
“Oh, Merlin, thank you.”
“I think I need to poke around with these people more,” Harry said slowly, still looking over the scroll describing the Community Safety Officers. It was the same one that had been presented to the Wizengamot when the program was piloted. The date was summer 1982. No new information had been provided since but surely he could find mentions of these people in the Prophet.
And, really, he’d needed more work like he needed a bludger to the skull, but something about this didn’t sit right with Harry. Someone had gone to a lot of work to make this all look like so much bureaucratic tedium. The funding increase was at the tail end of a whole lot of boring nonsense, and right before a highly anticipated, highly distracting vote on a controversial issue. No one would be paying attention by the time they got to that entry on the list of scheduled votes, or the actual vote on the day of.
He shoved everything else aside for the next three days except homework due imminently and dived into the law books. Hermione helped immeasurably, and the others kept them in snacks and water when they didn’t leave the Knights Room for hours on end.
Harry knew he was on to something when his research on day three of Prophet back issues turned up a mention of an older witch in Wales who’d reported her neighbor for seditious material and he’d gotten arrested for possessing a book of blood magic. Harry used a copycharm on the article and set it aside. By the end of the day, using a word search charm Hermione taught him to scan for keywords, he’d found over a dozen more, dating back to the end of the first war. Stringing them out chronologically showed a disturbing pattern: the earliest ones were pretty standard, just concerned citizens reporting screams, suspicions of domestic violence, and in several cases pretty bad Statute of Secrecy violations. As the years passed, though, they were different—too often, the Community Safety Officers were just “suspicious,” and the Aurors investigated and then found something.
The somethings they found were, to Harry’s eyes, often quite flimsy.
But it wasn’t until 1991 that the number of CSO mentions in the Prophet really picked up. Harry went through the Wizengamot rolls for the year (absently nibbling on a sandwich Pansy left by his elbow as he worked) and found a request for a funding increase submitted by none other than Lord James Fleamont Potter, the newly named Chief Auror, in the winter of 1990.
Between 1990 and now, the funding for the program had quadrupled. The new proposal would increase it by another thirty percent. Prophet reports of the CSOs tended to get spottier, too, rarely listing names or photographs anymore. They started calling them “concerned citizens” instead of the actual title but Harry found enough instances of both to know that the former was a euphemism for the latter. And everyone knew the Prophet was basically a Ministry mouthpiece.
If this was a benign program, someone wouldn’t be trying so hard to keep it out of scrutiny.
He took a break from the claims of “seditious content”, which didn’t seem like it could possibly be illegal, and found it was near curfew on Thursday. Hermione had her head down over a scroll that spilled off her table and onto the floor, dense with cramped handwriting in multiple ink colors. Daphne had fallen asleep in an ungraceful sprawl across one of the armchairs, head tipped back and mouth half-open, and Draco had lingered too, writing a letter.
“Theo’s in the dorms working on your essay for Slughorn tomorrow,” Draco said when he noticed Harry’s attention. “He asked me to keep an eye on things here.”
“Fuck, the essay.” Harry rubbed his forehead. He owed Theo something nice; he’d forgotten completely.
“Are you at least finding something?”
“I’m tugging on the strings.” Harry looked over the sprawl of papers on his table and winced. “Uh. Here.”
A bit of shuffling, and he’d pulled out the relevant bits—timetable, notable names, and a quick summary of Harry’s analysis of the changing patterns in CSO media coverage. “Not a lot is publicly available and at a certain point I have to start reading between the lines in the Prophet, but what I can find is… damning. This seditious content thing is my sticking point. I can’t work out the law that actually defines what seditious content fucking is or says owning it is illegal.”
“It’s not a law.”
Both boys jumped and turned on Hermione, whose face was grim. Bags shadowed her eyes and her hair was frizzier than Harry had seen it in ages. There were ink stains on her nose and cheek where she tapped her fingers while she thought.
“Explain?” Harry said, wondering why Draco appeared suddenly tongue-tied.
“Look.” Hermione found a second, shorter scroll next to her monster one and spread it out on the table. Harry and Draco crowded closer. It was a list of DMLE regulations pertaining to the Chief Auror’s office.
“Everything comes back to James,” Harry said softly.
“You have no idea,” said Hermione. “Okay, first: the seditious content thing? It says here, an addition from 1943, that the Chief Auror is responsible for the final determination of culpability on anything the DMLE is authorized to judge. A few cases that have gone before Wizengamot panels upheld the Chief Auror’s right to decide, for example, if something is a Dark object or a dangerous magical act or whatever. Down here, from the 1920s, are a string of regulations approved by the Wizengamot but not officially canonized into law that broadly criminalize ‘seditious content’. They’re aimed at the propaganda being spread by Grindelwald around that time—he hadn’t broken out into violence yet, he was still a young man and a popular public figure.”
“But they were never taken off the books, and no one specified what counts as seditious content,” Harry breathed. “Fuck.”
“So the Chief Auror can have someone arrested on suspicion of sedition, as reported by the creepy little people you found,” Draco nodded at Harry, “and then if there’s anything even borderline, it’s up to the Chief Auror to determine if it’s worth arresting them for?”
“It gets worse. Down here.” Hermione tapped the scroll. “The Chief Auror is authorized, in times of national risk, to create a clandestine task force of Aurors oathbound to secrecy at the direction of either the Minister or the Chief Warlock. Look—it says ‘This task force is to be organized for the defense of magical Great Britain from threats within and without.’ There’s no accountability, no requirement for disclosure, nothing. The DMLE has their own fucking secret police!”
Her voice rose enough to wake Daphne, who transformed from sleeping girl bent in odd directions to an upright predatory wariness. “Wazzup?” she slurred, wand in hand, eyes darting around.
“Hermione’s getting mad about civil liberties again,” said Draco.
“I’m going to make you read Muggle political philosophy,” Hermione said threateningly.
Draco put his hands up. “Okay, okay, no need for violence.”
“There’s some other stuff, too. Um… the DMLE is responsible for ensuring Ministry diplomats don’t bring ‘unclean’ print or artistic materials back from abroad, again dating back to Grindelwald… independent foreign news publications can’t be redistributed here… foreign print matter can only be imported by Ministry-licensed booksellers, and the DMLE is also responsible for the copyright spells they lease out to publishing houses annually…”
“There’s only four printing presses owned by magicals in Britain,” said Daphne, stifling a yawn as she peered over Hermione’s shoulder at the parchment. “The Prophet’s, the Ministry’s, the Fawley family’s, and old Xeno Lovegood’s. Father wants to buy it from him but the codger won’t sell.”
Harry cocked his head as an idea occurred to him. He’d need to talk to Justin. “So the DMLE is also the Ministry department with de facto control over all published books and articles?”
“Everything really does come back to Potter,” said Hermione grimly.
“Who’s head of the DMLE right now?” asked Daphne.
Draco grinned. “Gawain Robards, but he’s a moron. Everyone knows the real power in the Department is with the Chief Auror. Has been since the first war.”
"Neutralizing James Potter would do a lot to curb the Headmaster's influence," Harry said.
The other three swapped loaded glances. "Er, by neutralize, do you mean…" Draco trailed off.
"If he's killed, he's a martyr." Harry stared at the scroll without seeing it. "I'd rather humiliate him first. Scorch the fucking earth."
"How are you going to do that?" Daphne asked.
Harry grinned. "I've got six months and plenty of smart people. I'm sure we'll think of something."
----
He and Hermione spent the weekend writing up all the threads they could find of the web Dumbledore had woven around the Chief Auror's office. It was a tangle. He'd started back in the fifties, carefully moving pieces, building on the Ministry's long established editorial control of books and news printed in the UK, positioning loyalists in the Prophet, the Floo Authority, the Aurors, the Prosecutor's Office, the Wizengamot Administration Service. Only the Department of Mysteries seemed exempt. Harry knew there was probably a lot more than two students could turn over using old newspapers and publicly available Ministry regulations, but that was why, once they had everything they could find neatly written up and explained and cross-referenced and cited, he made a duplicate of the whole package and sent it off to Barty.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Hermione said when Harry came back from giving the heavily warded bundle to Snape.
"I know you see the problem with everything we just found. Hermione, the good guys aren't the good guys."
"Neither is the other side."
"There's no such thing as good guys. Only power and what you do with it. Dumbledore hasn't done anything I agree with."
"What if the other side starts doing the same? Or worse?"
Harry touched her shoulder, light and quick. It earned him a smile. "I'm the Lord of the House of Black. I won't let them."
"God help me, but I believe you." Hermione took a deep breath. "Alright. I'm in."
"I feel like the time to make that call would've been before we sent that package off," Harry said dryly.
"Oh, hush, you."
Barty wrote back two days later passing on his own and his Lord's gratitude as well as a carefully worded line about preparing for the winter solstice session that told Harry Voldemort was rallying his people's votes.
Snape held Harry back after DADA. "You're playing a dangerous game."
Samhain was passed, the ritual done and veil restored, but in that moment Harry swore he felt two thousand years of his ancestors within him, their certainty filling his bones with the iron that filled their namesake stars. He was the heir to a legacy that had written history more than once.
He was a Black and Blacks did not yield.
"I'm winning," he said.
Snape looked away. "That arrogance wears better on you than your predecessor."
A pang seized Harry's heart. He took the compliment for what it was, though, and left before he and Snape brought up any more of each other's grief.
Quietly, he put the word out among his trusted Vipers to think of ways to neutralize James Potter as an individual and as a political actor, that they'd have a strategy meeting on the subject after the holiday. Theo and Daphne took to it with alacrity; he caught them whispering in corners more than once as the Yule break approached.
Harry was privately a bit concerned about what they'd cook up.
Getting on the train was a relief. Compartment warded, assured of some peace, he didn't have to think about Jules' continued excellence in Potions or Tiberius Ogden playing hard to get or the problems associated with buying a Muggle printing press. Harry let Graham talk him into a game of Gobstones with him and Veronica plus Ginny's crowd.
Even the distraction of trying to spell stubborn black ink off his face couldn't kill the anticipation, though, and he was on edge as the Express approached the platform. Harry checked in with the kids—Veronica was going home for the holidays but Rio, Dylan, and Graham were all coming back to Grimmauld Place again. Harry made sure Ginny knew the wards would accept her if she needed an escape from the Burrow.
James was there on the platform. Harry resolutely did not look at him or Jules. The contract was valid through Beltane. There was time.
They got to the Floo and Harry ushered the kids through first. Rio, then Dylan, then Graham with a smirk back over his shoulder, and then Harry was stepping in the flames. “Grimmauld Place!” he said, the fire swallowed him, the wards whispered over his skin saying homehomehome, and he was stepping out into his kitchen.
Barty was there waiting. Leaning up against the counter listening to Rio tell him about how he won points off McGonagall with that transfiguration trick Barty showed him, wearing dark robes that hugged his lean body and buttoned up high to his throat.
“Congrats, kiddo,” Barty said, clapping Rio on the shoulder when the story was done. Rio beamed. “Not an easy thing, getting points off her for Slytherin.”
“I was the only one to get more than two points at a time from her all month,” Rio bragged.
“He’s turning into an ace,” Harry said.
Rio blushed a bit, grinned. “I can keep practicing over the hols, right?”
“Of course,” said Harry.
“Great, thanks! Hey, Graham, guess what!” Rio tore out of the kitchen.
They were alone, suddenly, and Harry found that it was difficult to breathe.
“I missed you,” Barty said, stepping closer.
“Yeah?” Harry did the same. They met in the middle of the kitchen. Hands ghosted over hips. Goosebumps rippled up his arms as Barty’s fingers dug into his pelvic bones. “I seem to recall you were going to do something about that.”
Barty’s eyes darkened. He leaned in, dragged his nose along the side of Harry’s neck. “Don’t tease.”
“Wasn’t teasing,” Harry said, and then turned his head to bite down on Barty’s pulse point.
Barty let out a moan and yanked Harry against him. “Come with me?”
“Always.”
Barty kissed him before Harry could really register how bloody sappy that was, and then he didn’t care, not when they were taking the stairs two at a time and Barty’s hand was hot on his lower back, the house almost warping around them in response to Harry’s desire to just be there already.
The door to the master suite clicked shut on Barty’s heels and Harry didn’t think anything else for a while.
-----
Later, after they’d cleaned up and had dinner with three smirking teenage boys, they retreated to the study. Harry skipped his ostentatious chair behind the desk and curled up on the couch with Barty’s head in his lap, carding his fingers through sandy blond hair.
“He wants to meet you,” Barty said into the quiet.
Harry’s hand didn’t pause its repetitive motions. “When?”
“Day after Yule. Not for the Mark, not yet. Just to… solidify… this alliance. And probably talk about our courtship.”
“Up for renegotiation in January?”
“Yes.”
“Feels like a lot more than a year’s gone by.”
“A lot’s happened.”
Harry smiled faintly. “King of understatement, you are.”
“At your service,” Barty said, looking up at Harry through his eyelashes. A jolt of heat went straight to Harry’s groin.
Focus, he told himself. “Where?”
“There’s a… place.” Barty grimaced. “I’ll take you there. Can’t tell you in advance.”
“No problem.” And it wasn’t. Harry trusted Barty not to apparate him somewhere awful.
“You’re all right with this?” Now Barty was looking at him not with lust but calculation.
Harry felt nothing but cool certainty. “Yes.”
Barty turned his head, pressing his cheek into Harry’s hand.
-----
Theo spent nearly every day at Grimmauld Place as Yule and the gala approached. Harry found he was glad of his oldest friend’s presence. Theo was so easy to be around that Harry and Barty started snogging on the couch once and went twenty minutes before they realized Theo was still in the room.
“Yeah, don’t mind me,” Theo said dryly when they both froze. He hadn’t even looked up from his book. “Just plotting to kill James Potter over here.”
“Is he joking?” Barty said.
“No, I asked everyone to spend the holiday thinking of ways we can humiliate and possibly kill him.”
Barty looked at Theo, then back at Harry. “Fuck it.” He pulled Harry back down on top of him.
Theo made a sound like stifled laughter and stayed right where he was.
“I was watching,” Theo said, later. They’d wound up coming into each other’s hands, and while robes had stayed on, Harry was pretty sure there wasn’t much left to the imagination. “Does that… bother you?”
“I didn’t intend to make you uncomfortable,” Harry said carefully. He wasn’t sure if it would make Theo feel out of sorts to witness something he didn’t want.
Theo smirked. “I wasn’t uncomfortable at all. Just. Wanted to make sure you weren’t.”
“I’d fuck him in front of every single one of the Death Eaters,” Barty said from the hallway, sticking his head into Harry’s study with a grin.
Harry threw a book at him, knowing Barty would catch it, which he did, laughing.
“Did you like watching?” Harry said, when Barty had left again.
“Sort of? It wasn’t—I didn’t—react.” Theo gestured vaguely towards his own waist. “I jerk off, sometimes, but more because it’s… it’s like eating or sleeping or… just something my body wants sometimes. Nothing very special. I don’t really get aroused. But I liked… seeing you so… open. I liked that you both trusted me with it.”
“I liked that you were there,” Harry admitted. He thought back to the way Barty had changed after they realized Theo was in the room. How his moans got louder, his movements almost… theatrical. Exaggerated. “I’m pretty sure Barty did too. Which is good, considering how often you’re around.”
“I’m not going anywhere unless you want me to,” said Theo. For all his lack of sexual desire his eyes were black with something in the low candlelight. Harry’s breath caught.
He didn’t know how to say all the things he was feeling. Eventually he settled on, “I can’t imagine sharing you with anyone else.”
The next day, when all three of them were in the lab, Harry waited for Barty to reach a pause in his brewing before reaching under his robes in one smooth motion. Barty twitched as Harry’s hand wrapped around his cock. “Fuck—”
Harry smirked at him.
Barty nearly growled, well on the way to fully hard, but he glanced at Theo.
It’s fine, Harry telegraphed with his eyes, and then he sank to his knees and replaced his hand with his mouth.
Somewhere far away he registered Theo stepping closer, felt his attention, but most of Harry’s mind was taken up by the thick hot weight of Barty in his mouth, the musk-salt taste of precome. He swirled his tongue against that one spot and Barty shuddered, moaned, leaned back against the table.
There was a hand in his hair as Harry worked his mouth and tongue. He looked up: not Barty’s.
“Don’t you dare stop,” Barty gasped. His knuckles were white on the edge of the table.
Harry hummed. The vibration made Barty twitch. Wandlessly, Harry cast a charm he’d learned to eliminate his gag reflex and took Barty all the way in.
“Fuck,” Barty said again, and thrust forward hard. Theo stepped up behind him more and his grip on Harry’s hair tightened to the point of almost-pain. Harry leaned back against his thighs as Barty fucked his mouth. Senses overwhelmed with Barty, pinned between Theo and his lover, he knew a touch was all it would take to get himself off, and fumbled for his robes.
Barty’s hips snapped forward extra hard. “No,” he panted, “wait,” and Harry stilled, reaching one hand behind him and one forward, gripping Theo’s calf and Barty’s hip.
He anchored himself there as Barty came. Harry had barely swallowed when Barty yanked him to his feet and kissed him desperately, reaching down for Harry’s cock, whispering a spell against Harry’s lips as his fingers found their mark. Electricity danced between them and Harry came so hard he saw stars.
When his eyes focused again, he found himself slumped forward against Barty, who in turn was leaning on the table and breathing hard. Theo had propped a hip against it scant inches away. One of his hands was tangled in Barty’s.
“You good?” Barty said with a smirk.
“Arsehole,” Harry said, but affectionately.
Theo grinned at them both. “Your potion’s about to boil over.”
“Fuck!” Barty shoved Harry off him and whirled around, reaching for the stirring rod. Behind him, Harry looked at Theo looking at him, and smiled. Mine, he thought. Both of you, mine.
-----
The meeting was set for the day after Yule.
Harry had a hard time thinking of the annual Yule Gala, hosted this year by the Malfoys, as very important in the face of what he had to do two days afterwards, but he was the young, untried Lord Black, which meant he had no choice about putting on a show. His robes were traditionally cut in a green that brought out his eyes and embroidered with a pattern of flames in golds and reds. They managed to be both apt for Yule and also quite nice looking.
They didn't announce people, as in the really old days, but there was still a stir when Harry walked into the grand ballroom. He mingled with Theo at his side. You wouldn't catch some of the progressive families dead at this particular party, but plenty of the more open-minded moderate Houses showed up. Harry had lots of schmoozing to do.
Twenty minutes’ conversation with Lord Tiberius Ogden and Harry was pretty sure they were well on the way to ending the rift between their Houses. The old man introduced Harry around to a number of the Wizengamot’s oldest members—Griselda Marchbanks, Elenor Fenwick, Hoster Burke, and Marius Shafiq among them, all neutral, all conservative of temperament and keen of eye. Harry spoke to them about reforms at Hogwarts and discrimination against magical creatures and his experiences as a Slytherin, and he saw their interest grow.
“Why don’t you come by next week for a chat,” suggested Ogden, when Harry politely excused himself to go speak with Jaqueline Dagworth-Granger. “Say, Thursday or Friday, around tea time.”
“That sounds wonderful, Lord Ogden.” Harry smiled like a fox as he turned away. Speaking with the renowned Potions Mistress was certainly a boon, but the real goal tonight was what he had just accomplished.
Towards the end of the evening, Lord Nott found him outside, enjoying a breath of fresh, cold winter air on the mostly-empty terrace. “Blessed Yule, Hadrian.”
“Blessed Yule,” Harry said. “How are you tonight, sir?”
“Quite well, thank you.” Lord Nott studied him for a long moment.
Harry waited patiently under his scrutiny.
“You and my son are close,” Lord Nott said in a heavy voice.
“We have been for some time. I consider him the first and best of my friends,” Harry said, with perfect honesty.
Lord Nott nodded slowly. “He will need an Heir someday, you realize.”
“As will I.” Harry sipped at the wine he’d been nursing. It was only his second glass in as many hours, and the alcohol was a barely-noticeable buzz, not enough to diminish his faculties. “Merlin willing, blood adoptions will be legal again soon.”
“As indeed I believe they will be,” said Lord Nott with a thin smile. “Stand by him, Lord Black, as he has stood by you.”
“Always.” Harry held the older man’s eyes. Blacks are made of iron, Sirius said once, and Harry felt it in that moment, the Black in him immovable and strong.
“Very well. Mother Magic bless you on this long night,” Lord Nott said softly, and then he was gone.
Harry tilted his head back and looked at the stars.
-----
Snow crunched under his feet. Other than their breathing, it was all Harry could hear.
Barty had apparated him to the middle of a snowy forest. Leafless oak trees and looming evergreens stood out against a cloudless sky of cold winter blue. Despite the sunshine, nothing about this day was cheerful. A sense of menacing power twisted through the forest like a snake.
A gentle elbow nudged his side, but Harry had already seen the first of the dark-robed figures ahead, standing silent sentinel among the trees. Two of them turned to face him as he and Barty passed. Bone-white masks stared at him. Harry’s face was no more expressive as he looked back.
Just past the line of watchers, they came upon a clearing. Harry didn’t let his steps falter as a circle of more robed, masked figures parted.
In the middle of the open space was an ancient holly tree, gnarled and thick and heavy with red berries. Dark green leaves glistened. And in a cleft in the trunk, as though the tree had grown around him, sat Lord Voldemort.
When Harry last saw him he was a man. Red-eyed, yes, with an aura of immense power, but a man nonetheless. The thing before him was not. His ink-dark hair, his skin pale and cold as ice, his red eyes the precise shade of holly berries; and the way he sat, still and predatory, all had the effect of an ancient fey creature waiting for its dues. Holly, King of Winter, Harry thought with some amusement.
He and Barty came to a stop ten feet in front of what was undeniably a throne. No one spoke.
Barty bowed at the waist, deeply, the bow of a son to his Lord Father or a vassal to his liege. Harry copied him. Now there was a reaction: a susurration of shock went around the circle of watchers, quick as a whip.
“You do not kneel?” Lord Voldemort said in a voice like the creaking of cold branches.
Harry straightened and met his eyes. “I am Hadrian Sirius Lord Black, last of my line. I stand before you as suitor to Bartemius Crouch Jr., not a vassal nor supplicant. You are not my Lord and I owe you no obeisance.”
“Bold words,” said the thing on the throne, and then a legilimency probe like nothing Harry had ever felt slammed into his mind. It was all the dark confidence of winter, the implacability of cold. It demanded. It did not accept no.
Harry walled his mind and endured the assault. I am made of iron. I will not break, I will not bend, I will not falter. I am a Black. I do not yield.
The attack ended as quickly as it had begun.
“You come here to court my de facto son,” said Lord Voldemort. “Tell me why I should accept.”
“I am a parselmouth, a dueler of great skill, a potioner of ingenuity and some renown. I am Lord of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, heir to a legacy that predates the Roman conquest of these isles. And,” Harry smiled, “I am the last Heir to the House of Gaunt, your successor in the absence of any natural-born children.”
Voldemort’s thin lips split into a terrifying smile. “He does not fear me in the slightest, dearest Barty… ssssuch a prize.”
“Indeed he is, my Lord,” Barty said. He stood strong and firm at Harry’s side, hands clasped behind his back, unmoving.
A Death Eater off to the side tilted his head. Harry was suddenly certain it was Lord Nott.
“Bellatrix, what say you about your young patriarch?” Voldemort said, and though he did not raise his voice, it carried.
“He is strong!” cried Bellatrix from somewhere to Harry’s left. She giggled madly. “He is a Black, oh yes, a Black in blood and magic, he is iron and ice—”
“Thank you.”
Her mad words cut off. The same eerie silence fell again.
“I would Mark you, Hadrian Sirius Lord Black,” Lord Voldemort said in Parseltongue. “I would take you as vassal and ally. I would join the Houses of Gaunt and Black and found a dynasty to stand for an age.”
“I will not be a lackey or a sycophant,” Harry said in their shared mother tongue. It was impossibly strange to hold a conversation with another human like this. He missed Eriss but had been warned not to bring her. “I will not subjugate my House to you or yours. My Vipers remain mine, and can stay unmarked if they so choose.”
“I would grant the Mark to Theodore Nott and Draco Malfoy.”
“So long as they remain mine, I do not object.”
Voldemort tilted his head. “Why do you not fear me?”
“What is there to fear? I care for the man you call son, and he for me. Our ends are compatible if not identical. I see no reason for you to bear me ill will.”
“There is the matter of your brother.”
Harry felt the air grow colder. “My former brother, I think you mean, as I am no longer a member of the House of Potter.”
“Nonetheless, you would not see Julian Potter die at my hand.”
“I would not.” Harry took a deep breath. “And to that end, I propose a trade. I will give you the prophecy, if you give me your oath that you will do your utmost to fulfill it in a way that does not involve his death.”
Voldemort sat bolt upright. “You are in possession of the prophecy?”
“I can arrange for you to hear it in full,” Harry corrected. There was an edge of danger in the air now. Barty was giving him a concerned sideways look. He knew he had to step carefully. “I cannot tell it to you directly.”
“An oath?”
“Indeed.”
“I could simply tear it from your mind.”
“And break me in the process,” Harry said with icy calm. “Which I believe you will not do.”
Green eyes met red.
“Very well,” Lord Voldemort said, and switched back to English. “I vow upon my magic that should Hadrian Sirius Lord Black reveal to me the contents of the prophecy regarding myself and Julian Potter, I shall do my utmost to fulfill the prophecy in a way that does not result in death or permanent, severe disability to Julian Potter. So mote it be.” He waved a lazy hand and light gleamed in his fingertips. The Death Eaters shifted, murmured.
Harry took a deep breath and called, “Theo.”
A figure detached itself from the circle without hesitation and strode forward. They’d known Theo would be here tonight, known that if Lord Nott asked a boon his son and Heir would be granted leave to attend despite not being a formal Death Eater yet. Theo came to a halt on Harry’s left, removed his mask, and knelt.
“Rise,” said Voldemort. “Theodore Nott. You will tell me the prophecy.”
Theo stood, but remained silent. He turned to look at Harry, a question and an answer in his eyes.
Harry nodded once.
“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies,” Theo said, and Voldemort waved a bone-white wand, casting what Harry felt was a sound-blocking ward around the four of them. “And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not, and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives.”
“Ahhhhh,” Voldemort said, a relieved exhale. “And yet, we have both been living, these last ten years…”
“Perhaps it is metaphor,” said Barty. “Neither can entirely be free of the other, so long as you both live. It does not guarantee that he will vanquish you, only that he could.”
“And perhaps has,” Voldemort mused. “After all, the events of 1981 certainly count as vanquishing, however temporary… I was utterly defeated, cast out, a wraith barely clinging to this world… the mark of my equal may well be the scar he bears… but this power I know not…”
“Dumbledore thinks it’s love,” said Harry.
Voldemort scoffed. “Doddering old fool… perhaps the love of Lily Potter, but I have circumvented the blood wards on the boy, I have surpassed that obstacle… something to ponder. Nevertheless… the contract, Lord Black, should offer adequate protection, should it not? Julian Potter barred from ever acting against me…”
“You and he would live forever with the rivalry unsettled between you,” Harry said.
“What is that to me?” Voldemort said carelessly. “A Gryffindor, weak—yes, I know some members of that House have mettle, but the last Potter… no. He is blinkered by morality and rigid of mind. Neutered, he may live… he is already marked by my hand, he has, arguably, already ‘vanquished’ me, and if I may die at no hand but his…”
That was exactly the conclusion Harry had hoped he’d reach. He carefully packed away his joint-weakening relief. “My gratitude.”
“We shall settle the terms of our alliance sssoon,” said Voldemort. “Provide Bartemius with a draft agreement by Imbolc, if you would…”
“It will be done,” said Harry.
“You will attend the Litha rites with my people,” Voldemort said, his eyes burning into Harry’s, “and that night you shall take the Mark alongside Theodore Nott and Draco Malfoy.”
“As you will.” Harry bowed deeply.
Voldemort waved a hand.
Recognizing the dismissal, Harry and Barty retreated to the edge of the circle. Theo paced them a half-step behind and fell in at Harry’s left as they retraced their steps through the forest.
Barty seized Harry’s wrist as soon as they breached the ward line. With a crack, the two of them were sucked through nothingness, only to reappear in the alley behind Grimmauld Place, where a deceptively rotten-looking fence shielded the townhouse’s backyard from passing eyes. Barty crushed his lips to Harry’s in a fast, harsh kiss and then vanished again.
Shaking, Harry pressed the back of his hand to his mouth.
A second later, Barty and Theo apparated in. Theo instantly reached for Harry, who leaned into him and let Theo wrap an arm around his shoulders as the three of them squeezed through the crooked back gate. Grimmauld Place’s ancient wards brushed over Harry’s skin, welcoming, soothing. Around him the property fairly hummed in recognition of its Lord.
Kreacher had a fire going in the drawing room when they made their way inside. He set out hot tea and cakes with an unusually deep bow for Harry as the three men settled themselves onto sofa and armchair.
“He liked you,” said Barty after they’d inhaled some of the food and drink in silence.
“How could you tell?” Theo said.
Barty grimaced. “If he hadn’t, there probably would have been screaming.”
“Fantastic,” said Theo.
Harry ran his fingers over the inside of his left arm. “Does it hurt?”
“Like nothing else I’ve ever felt,” said Barty. “But it’s pleasure, too—so much you almost don’t want it to end. And then…” He shook his head. “It’s a vassal bond. There’s really no… nothing that compares.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” said Theo.
Harry nodded. There really wasn’t anything else to say.
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