Chapter Twenty-Seven of 'Wolf's Choice'- Heartbroken

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twenty-Six.

Title: Wolf’s Choice (27/60)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Main story is gen, a few GoF canon pairings mentioned
Content Notes: AU of GoF, angst, gore, violence, torture, present tense, minor character death
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU of GoF. Harry begins his summer with horrific visions that come true much faster than he was expecting. He’ll have to rely on his circle of friends, both his guardians, and all his allies to cope with the results.
Author’s Notes: This is a long fic that is a sequel to my fic Other People’s Choices. Make sure you read that first before you start this one.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Seven—Heartbroken

“Fenrir Greyback is dead?”

Remus’s face is streaked with the weary lines that he always gets after spending an evening transformed; it’s not just tiredness and it’s not dust, but Sirius has never figured out exactly why he looks so different. He reaches out and plucks the paper from Sirius’s fingers, staring at the picture on the front.

Sirius admires that picture. Someone snapped an image of Greyback’s burned corpse in such a way that it isn’t too graphic and the Prophet would publish it, but not so vague that you don’t know what happened.

It was Harry’s dragon. I know it was.

Of course, that does beg the question of why they had to find out from the paper and not Harry himself. But Sirius dismisses that suspicion. Harry was probably too much in shock yesterday to write to them. Either that or too caught up in a party in Gryffindor.

Oh, wait, no. He’s in Slytherin. Sirius frowns. He hopes there aren’t too many people in Slytherin who want Voldemort, and Greyback, to win, and that they’ll leave Harry alone.

He looks up to see Remus slump down over the paper. He looks devastated. Sirius stands up in alarm. “Moony, what is it? Are there—I mean, is it because you weren’t the one to take him down?”

“It’s because he got into Hogwarts grounds, Sirius! He could have done anything to Harry—probably would have if that little dragon wasn’t there.” Remus’s voice is choked, and he doesn’t take his eyes away from the slight wisps of steam drifting up from Greyback’s body in the picture. “How in the world am I supposed to be happy knowing no one prevented this?”

Sirius actually did manage to overlook that, and he’s not proud of the fact. He winces a little, but manages to rally. “Everything’s okay, Remus. That little dragon was there, and she saved Harry. So we’re going to take him out to Diagon Alley to make it up to him, right? Over the Christmas holidays? I know he has to stay for the Yule Ball, but there’s no reason he can’t come home afterwards.”

“Snape might have something to say about that.” Remus is still staring at the picture. “Why didn’t Dumbledore put up protections against werewolves?”

“You know that he still wanted you to be able to get onto the grounds and visit Harry, Moony.”

“He also knew Fenrir Greyback had scarred Harry. Why is me being able to visit him worth more than Harry’s safety from him?”

Sirius opens his mouth and then doesn’t know what to say. He is suspicious of Dumbledore now, he doesn’t like the way that he talks about Harry and Chaos, but he doesn’t really believe that Dumbledore wants Harry dead. “Maybe he never thought Greyback would get onto the grounds,” he finally says, and knows it’s weak even before Remus gives him an impatient, golden-eyed glance.

“Yes, of course he thought that. But he could have put the protections up anyway.”

Sirius hesitates. Then he says, “Dumbledore takes precautions, you know? But I think he’s so much an optimist that he doesn’t really believe the worse could happen until it does happen.”

Remus thinks through that, his fingers tapping in a drumroll on the table. Sirius watches him in fascination. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Remus act like this, especially so decisive right after a full moon right.

“Yes, you could be right about that,” Remus mutters. “He certainly never thought anything could go wrong with Pettigrew betraying James and Lily until it did.” He sits up. “Well, you need to tell him as Harry’s guardian that you want the protections lifted.”

“I’ll need Sniv—Snape’s agreement with me.”

Remus looks straight at him, his eyebrows rising. Strangely, Sirius wants to glance aside. “And do you really think he’s going to disagree with you about something that would keep Harry safer?”

Sirius fusses with his hair for a minute. Then he sighs and shakes his head. “Especially if he can use this to lord things over me.”

Remus rolls his eyes. “I’m sure that he’ll have bigger concerns. And of course we should invite Harry here, but we should send him letters first, telling him how happy we are that Chaos defended him and Greyback is dead.”

“And to figure out what Dumbledore is going to do next,” Sirius says, looking at the picture. There’s a glimpse of spangled robe in the corner of it, even though the photographer didn’t really want to take a picture of the Headmaster.

For some reason, Sirius is sure that Dumbledore is standing in a way that indicates tension, as much as he can tell that from the corner of a robe.

Sirius doesn’t like it.

*

Albus puts his head in his hands and sits there for a long time. Fawkes is singing softly on his perch in the corner, and he’s already flown over twice and settled on Albus’s shoulder, nestling his head gently against Albus’s cheek. It hasn’t managed to comfort Albus. He wants to weep.

He never wanted Harry to know the pain of murder, the shame of committing an act so terrible. He intended to help Harry with Voldemort’s demise or, if it really came down to the two of them and no one else, he would have had Harry sacrifice himself. Albus is sure that Tom would have used the Killing Curse. It’s horrible as all death is, but it’s painless.

Harry will suffer more from the death of Greyback than he would have if he had died at Voldemort’s hand. What nightmares will he wake from to the image of Greyback roasting in dragonfire? When will he begin to realize that standing by and letting someone else kill a person still taints you with guilt?

Albus was only a few years older than Harry when he realized that for himself—with Gellert and Ariana. Even now, guilt scores its claws down his soul. He hasn’t torn it with murder, but there are other wounds that strike as deep. Truthfully, he only spoke about Harry tearing his soul with murder because to speak otherwise would have meant revealing a piece of his past. Albus has no right to do that, not when it would disturb Ariana’s rest.

Fawkes lands on his shoulder and croons again. Albus reaches up and runs his hand through the soft feathers. Fawkes’s song finally begins to soothe the edge of the ragged wound that has been torn open again.

“There’s not much I can do to remove the dragon from him,” he murmurs to his phoenix. “And perhaps that was the wrong impulse in the first place. But I have to remind him of the costs of committing such an act.”

Fawkes begins to sing again, softly, sadly. Albus allows the noise to run in the background of his mind while he plans.

*

“Wanted to apologize.”

Harry stares in silent blankness at Goyle. He doesn’t want the other boy anywhere near him, really, and neither does Chaos, if the anxious way she shifts at his side is any indication. But Goyle looks like he wants to really talk, which is unusual enough that Harry just folds his arms. “Fine. For what?”

He’s aware of people spilling into the corridor behind him, and not just people on their way to breakfast in the Great Hall. He and Goyle aren’t taking up that much room. Some of them are his “followers.”

Harry hates that word. He can accept the reality, but he hates that word.

Goyle clears his throat. “You can’t be as dirty as I thought if you go around killing werewolves.”

Harry wants to bang his head against something. If nothing else, that particular set of words shows how ignorant Goyle is of current political realities, and the fact that Greyback was actually allied to Voldemort.

“Fine, thanks,” he says, and Goyle nods like he’s pleased and goes on to breakfast himself, running as if he thinks all the food is going to be gone. Harry ignores the staring eyes and walks in the same general direction.

That lasts until he gets into the Great Hall and there’s a sudden rush of whispers around him, everyone hissing as if they’re the ones who speak Parseltongue. Harry comes to a stop between one step and another, his eyes narrowed. Gazes and gapes follow him.

And someone at the Ravenclaw table stands up and asks, “How does it feel to be a murderer, Potter?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Harry says, holding a pair of black eyes in a face he doesn’t know. Someone who couldn’t be bothered to be sympathetic last year when supposedly an insane Death Eater was after him, or in second year when he was rejected for being the Heir of Slytherin. “Tell you what, though, when I’ve killed Voldemort the way you all want me to, I’ll come back and tell you.”

That makes another rush of whispers cross the Hall, when he says Voldemort’s name. Harry turns his back on them all in utter disdain and walks on to the Slytherin table. More than one person catches his eye there and smiles.

These aren’t people who usually support him, either. Maybe they’re like Goyle and just find it thrilling that he killed a werewolf. Or Chaos killed a werewolf. She’s swaggering along by his side, her wings cocked at a jaunty angle, though Harry’s come to accept that most people aren’t as good at interpreting draconic body language as he is.

“Let me get that for you, Potter.”

Harry stares as a Slytherin fifth-year girl leans across the table and fetches the plate of small sandwiches he was reaching for. He catches Theo’s eye and nods. Theo promptly casts a charm that detects hexes on the food.

“What are you—” The girl is rapidly turning a rainbow of colors. “I was trying to be nice!

“Where you never were before,” Theo says, in a bored tone that Harry wishes he could imitate. He nods to Harry in turn, and Harry picks up a sandwich and puts it on his plate. “Don’t pretend that you don’t know how this works, Eremina.”

“It’s different now!”

“Why, though? Is it because you know Chaos could burn you to death now instead of just suspecting it?” Harry asks.

Eremina, whatever her last name is, promptly turns pale and squeezes down away from him on the bench. “She could do that?” she breathes in what sounds like fascinated horror.

“Of course she could. If she would do it to one person who attacked me, she could do it to another one,” Harry says, with a stare, and then he turns back to filling his plate with food.

The Slytherin table seems to half-hover around him, the air buzzing with questions they aren’t brave enough to ask. Harry keeps eating as steadily as he can, ignoring them. Chaos is curled up under the bench, and now and then she radiates smugness at him.

It’s a different reception than Harry thought he would get. He just expected horror or maybe people hailing him as a hero again. They have a depressing tendency to think of him that way.

But if it’s like this…

Maybe he can live with this.

*

“We were displeased to hear that you had almost died.”

Harry scowls at Lyassa. She’s usually not the Speaker who comes when he has a lesson, but she’s here this time, and she’s assumed her completely serpentine form, that of an enormous green snake who glows like the leaves of the Forbidden Forest in sunlight. Harry would enjoy the color more if not for the scolding he’s getting. “You have no idea what Greyback would have done with me. He might just have taken me to Voldemort.”

“Just.” Lyassa emphasizes the word with a contemptuous snap of her tongue. “But he would have killed you in the end. You must be more careful.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “He was reaching through the scars on the day of the full moon to bring me to him! I didn’t even know he could do that. What was I supposed to do, cast a Greyback-Detecting Charm every morning the second I woke up?”

“Depend on your snakes.” Lyassa jerks her head at Lion, who is fluttering around the classroom near some high windows that look out over the Quidditch pitch. It makes Harry think a little wistfully of flying himself, but if he did that, the Slytherins would never leave him alone until he got on their team next year. “Lion and the others you have conjured.”

Harry blinks. “I don’t have any other permanent ones. I send them back into nothingness at the end of each lesson.”

“You do not have a network of snakes watching and helping you?”

“No. Why did you think I did?”

Lyassa doesn’t answer him. She turns away and begins hissing furiously to a green point of light in the air, something like the one that probably brought her here. Harry leans against the wall and just watches. He’s not sure what she wants him to say. Having a network of snakes could be useful, but it’s not something the Speakers have ever helped him with, either.

The green point flares, and then Asheren tumbles through, in his serpentine form. He converses with Lyassa in a low, buzzing voice that Harry can’t hear for a few moments, and he’s sure the inaudible nature of it is on purpose. Then he turns to Harry with a stern bob of his head. “We must begin defending you.”

“Chaos did a good job,” Harry says. Chaos doesn’t really understand Parseltongue, but she’s learned to recognize her name in both languages Harry speaks. Her tail twitches a little in her sleep.

“She is not as good as a network of serpents.”

Chaos opens one eye and regards the Speakers. They don’t seem impressed.

“I don’t really need them,” Harry says, in English, the way he always does when he wants the Speakers to know he’s serious. “I’d rather know about other things instead, like how Greyback was able to control me.”

Lyassa settles back on her coils like a dog sitting on its haunches, and Harry thinks she might actually be ignoring him. Asheren is the one who answers. “Someone who is scarred by a werewolf but not changed into one can be controlled by that werewolf. However, it’s rare. Most of the time, werewolves just bite humans and make them into copies of themselves. And the scars have to be given in a precise location.”

Harry licks his lips. “Let me guess. The face is one of those locations.”

Asheren bobs his head, while Lyassa arches off to the side as if she wants to look at Chaos from literally a different angle. “And preferably threatening the mouth or the eye, the way yours did.”

Harry reaches up to touch the scars, then forces his hand down. Professor Snape insists that the potions are making a difference and reducing how inflamed they look, although Harry isn’t sure. “All right. Um. But now that Greyback is dead, is there anything I have to fear from the scars?”

“Nothing more than the flares of temper and craving of raw meat that you have already been dealing with.”

“You do need a network of serpents, no matter how powerful your dragonet is,” Lyassa announces, leaning in so that she can study him again. She seems to be satisfied with whatever she was hoping to see from Chaos. “We will begin by testing your ability to conjure some of them. You have not been practicing that enough lately, anyway.”

Harry sighs, but from the sound of it, the Speakers aren’t about to let him out of these lessons. He draws his wand.

But he does wonder, as he begins casting, whether Greyback always intended to control him through the scars, and why he waited until a few months after he scarred Harry to try and control him.

*

Lucius falls to one knee as he bows his head before his Lord. “What do you require of me, my lord?” he asks, and his voice is calm and deferential. Just because Voldemort looks disgusting at the moment does not mean that he will always inhabit this degraded form. And in any case, Lucius is wiser than some of his fellow Death Eaters. He will not show his emotions.

“Greyback is dead.”

“Yes, my lord,” Lucius says, because the Dark Lord seems to expect some sort of answer. “I saw it in the papers.”

The Dark Lord makes a sharp, screeching noise that Lucius only realizes a second later is his teeth grinding together. “You will make the necessary arrangements, Lucius,” he says, standing and moving an arm that ends with sickle-shaped claws forwards. Lucius holds still, and his faith is rewarded; the arm continues past him instead of touching him. “Greyback entered Potter in the Tournament. We need his blood.”

“Yes, my lord. Do you want me to bring him to you?”

“No. We need his blood on a certain evening at a certain place and a certain alignment of the stars, Lucius.” The Dark Lord’s teeth snap again for a moment, making sparks fall. “I will want you to arrange that.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I will want you to contact your son and tell him that he must arrange it.”

Lucius does not move his shoulders or go taut, because he does not allow himself to. This is a simple matter of control, after all. “Yes, my lord. May I ask why?”

The Dark Lord leans towards him. His face is almost shapeless, drifting and dripping in currents of blood and rotting muscle, but Lucius ignores that. After all, this is only a testimony to the Dark Lord’s power, that he can survive in such a form. And he will not look like this forever. He will rise again.

Narcissa must come to believe that.

“There are rumors that your son is friends with the Potter boy. That he follows him.”

“He has made such mistakes, yes, my lord. Thank you for giving me the chance to win him free of the influence. I know that you might have asked me to slaughter Draco for his insolence.”

Unexpectedly, the Dark Lord laughs, and pulls back. “I am not foolish enough to require such a show of loyalty from you, Lucius,” he croaks, and waves one hand in a way that makes Lucius suck in a sharp breath. But the claws still slide past his face instead of cutting him. “I have learned from the first war. I will not ask of my followers things they cannot give. Your son has the chance to redeem himself.”

“Yes, my lord.” Lucius bows with his face to the ground before he is told to go and begin fetching the first of the Muggles that the Dark Lord will need for his new body.

As he leaves, Lucius can only marvel that none of the other Death Eaters have joined him. They are capable of figuring out where the Dark Lord is and seeing the rewards that will follow in his train. Where is Avery? Where is Macnair? Where is Tarquinius? Lucius never would have mistaken that man’s caution for a lack of ambition.

Ah, well. Lucius will be the one to prove his loyalty, and the one to have the rewards all to himself.

And Draco—who must chafe at the fact that he is not even the most favored of Potter’s followers—will have his own, too.