Chapter Three of 'The Parselmouth Promise'- The Calling Circle

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Two.

Chapter One.

Title: The Parselmouth Promise (3/20)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, past Harry/Ginny and Draco/Astoria, other canon pairings mentioned
Content Notes: Angst, divorce, Parseltongue, brief violence, ritual magic, not epilogue-compliant
Rating: R
Summary: Voldemort’s influence lingers after his death in the form of Parseltongue passed on to the children of everyone with a Dark Mark—or, in Harry’s case, someone who once hosted a Horcrux. As Harry struggles to be a good single father to his son, James, he inevitably runs up against Draco Malfoy, who’s not only a Parselmouth now but attempting to create a whole ritual and school system to benefit himself, his friends, and his son, Scorpius. No matter how much some people don’t like that.
Author’s Notes: This is probably going to be a medium-length fic of around 10-20 chapters. Note that it’s fairly angsty.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Three—The Calling Circle

“Harry Potter, I think you know Gregory Goyle and Pansy Parkinson.”

Harry nodded, keeping his face quiet and neutral. It was difficult. When he looked at Goyle, he remembered Crabbe burning to death in the Room of Requirement. With Parkinson, he could remember her voice demanding that he be thrown to Voldemort.

But they’d both been kids then—although it was a surprise to Harry that Parkinson had been Marked. Maybe it had happened near the end of the war.

“Hello,” he said, and rested his hand on James’s shoulder as his son tried to hide behind him. He wasn’t used to so many strangers. “This is my son, James Sirius Potter.”

Parkinson examined him, then looked around the large black ritual room in Malfoy’s cellars. (And that had been a treat, too, to come down the stairs and walk past the rooms where Harry and Hermione and Ron and Luna and Dean and Ollivander and Griphook had all been held). “His mother isn’t here?”

Harry shook his head. “Ginny and I divorced a few years ago.” With practice, he kept his voice neutral as well.

Parkinson frowned. “But what about—”

She cut herself off as Malfoy and his son came down the stairs. They were both carrying their snakes, and Harry looked a little off to the side to conceal his own negative reaction. That was when he caught sight of the small krait coiled around Parkinson’s neck and the large python crawling along to catch up to Goyle.

Doesn’t anyone have a non-lethal snake? Harry thought, but kept silent on that, too. Malfoy had made it very clear that his presence was necessary but only barely tolerated here. These were practicing Parselmouths who wanted to spend their lives immersed in snake magic. He wanted James to be one of them, but Harry never would be. It was only sense that he shut up and let them get on with it.

“We are here,” Malfoy began with a peculiar cadence Harry was instantly certain had something to do with the ritual, “to call a snake for James Sirius Potter. To find his Match if we can; to find a good snake for him to practice magic with if we cannot. He wishes to be a true Parselmouth, to stand among the Order. I chose you as the ones whose magic aligns most closely with mine.” He turned his head, and his eyes seared into Harry’s, even though Harry thought he should have been looking at James. “Harry Potter is here to lend his family magic to the calling circle and make things more familiar for his son.”

“Not to call a Match for himself?” Parkinson asked. Goyle just shifted and grunted.

“Potter has a Match, whom he has rejected.”

Malfoy’s voice could have cut through the black stone that made up the walls and floor of the ritual room, Harry thought. Parkinson gasped. Goyle stared at him as if he didn’t know what to do with that information. Harry folded his arms and glanced away.

“But why would you do something so stupid?” Parkinson asked. She didn’t wait for an answer before she turned back to Malfoy. “I don’t know if I can be in a calling circle with him. His stupidity might taint my magic.”

“Potter is here only to provide the familial support for his son, who is still young enough to be overwhelmed.” Malfoy shook his head when Parkinson opened her mouth again. “You remember, Pansy, that I was only the support when we called Charlie for Scorpius.”

“But you had already called your Match. This isn’t the same as working with someone untrained, who can unbalance everything!”

Malfoy hissed a sharp word that streaked past Harry’s ears like a bolt of lightning, and then the ritual room lit. The torches on the walls flickered with uneasy blue-white brilliance, like lightning itself, and the circle on the floor stirred.

“We shall have a circle that will make sure we are not unbalanced,” Malfoy said simply.

Parkinson and Goyle didn’t answer. They were too busy staring at the circle on the floor, which Harry hadn’t noticed so far because it was so perfectly black and blended in with the stone of the floor. James gasped as the black snake stretched itself, a long ripple that ran up its body and down without making the serpent let go of the tail it was holding with its mouth, and said, “Daddy, can we have one like that?”

It was Parkinson who replied, glancing at them out of the corner of one dark green eye. “I’m pleased to see that at least one Potter recognizes the value of the gift.”

“Daddy does, too!” James folded his arms and stomped one foot. “He talks to snakes when I ask him! He just doesn’t like it ‘cause that’s why Mummy left.”

Harry put a hand on James’s shoulder and just let it rest there. James bit his lip and glanced up at him. “Sorry, Daddy.”

“It’s all right,” Harry said in English, and ignored the cool way Parkinson’s eyes rested on him as he turned to Malfoy. “So what do we need to do?”

*

The calling circle certainly wasn’t a traditional one, Draco had to admit.

He had brought in Greg and Pansy because their magic was of the sort that would balance the circle. Greg, as one of the few Parselmouths who had a constrictor instead of a venomous snake as a Match, would provide the gentle intent of this ritual. Pansy would add the womanly energy that would somewhat substitute for James’s missing mother. Scorpius would be there because he was friendly to James and near the same age. Draco, as leader of the ritual, would do the actual Calling.

And in the meantime, Potter was there as the family and the foundation. Draco directed him to stand on the outside of the circle, behind his son, while Pansy, Greg, Scorpius, and Draco himself, with their snakes behind them, formed the four points inside. James sat in the middle, his eyes shining in a way that made Draco glad Potter had seen the necessity of securing teaching for him. He would be a powerful Parselmouth.

“If we’re ready, we can begin,” Draco said, with glances to everyone else.

He got nods from Pansy and Greg and an excited hop from Scorpius, but his son settled down when Charlie lifted his head and put it on Scorpius’s hip. James nodded and clapped, and then settled back himself.

Potter nodded. His magic was quiet and buried so deeply inside him that Draco couldn’t feel it. Draco tried not to frown as he faced the black wall of the ritual room that was the closest to the sunlight outside. He still didn’t know what to make of this strange Potter, who was like a cross between the boy he had known at Hogwarts—

And a man he hadn’t known at all, and couldn’t anticipate.

But for now, Draco closed his eyes and let his magic pour out of him, deep and cool enough to encompass the others like a pool of water. Pansy and Greg responded with tight points of light in return. Greg’s constrictor, Bael, hissed softly along, and Pansy’s Isabella dropped down, sharp and shrill, from the top of the height, magic puddling between them to join Draco’s.

Scorpius and Charlie didn’t provide much more than a contained pool of warmth, but that was all right. Draco smiled at his son, who was doing very well for his first calling circle. Scorpius beamed back.

“Think of calling your snake, James,” Draco whispered. He was the one who would perform that part of the ritual, in truth, but he wanted James to feel involved. And his desire for a snake would shape which kind responded. “You can do it.”

“I want a grey one!”

Draco bit back his amusement, and reached outwards with the flowing force of the magic shifting in a watery circle from him to Edwina to Isabella to Pansy to Greg to Bael to Charlie to Scorpius to James and back again. He felt a mind speak in answer.

And it was probably going to be a venomous snake, although Draco was sure that wasn’t Potter’s preference.

Fuck Potter, anyway, Draco thought, and opened his eyes as the first call boomed out of him, to see how Potter was taking this.

Potter stood still, his arms at his sides, except that he turned his head a little to follow the flows of magic with his eyes. Draco blinked and nearly dropped the strand that was unfolding in his mind. That was more participation than he’d expected.

And more strength. Why could Potter see the magic? Not even Draco could do that, and he was the most experienced Parselmouth in the circle, since the gift seemed related to the length of time that someone had borne the Dark Mark.

Potter would be more experienced than me, since he had that bloody scar when he was a baby.

Draco thrust the thought away as the current turned into a waterfall for a moment and Pansy gave him a sharp glance. He knew better than this. He knew that Potter wasn’t important right now. James was.

He turned his gaze back to the basalt walls and raised his mental voice, calling and calling, reaching for the snake that would best complement James Sirius Potter.

*

Harry could see it.

Power like water poured past him, and he found himself tensing his shoulders and shaking his head against it, without meaning to. The flows alternated between blue and black, water in the daytime and water at night, and there was a soft voice that flowed along with them, speaking words now in Parseltongue, now in English, seducing his attention.

Well, it might want his attention, but it couldn’t have it. Harry looked back to the circle and concentrated on keeping his magic flat like a floor to support James’s leaping flame.

James was laughing as the power surged past him. He was stretching out his hands and whisper-hissing, and Harry could almost hear the hissing of the snake that would come for him.

He ignored his own discomfort, the way he was ignoring the surge of power from the circle around them. All of this was weird. All of this wasn’t what he would have chosen for his son. But it was obvious that it had chosen James. So Harry would be the best father to a Parselmouth that he could be, even if he would never be a Parselmouth.

The power paused for a long moment, wavering back and forth, and then it leaped forwards again. Harry assumed it was reaching out in the calling, but then Malfoy gave a hoarse yell, and when Harry spun around to face him, he knew that something had started to go wrong. The cobra on Malfoy’s shoulder had turned a sickly yellow color, and so did the magic that was flowing from him to the others in the circle.

Parkinson shrieked next, her eyes wide, the krait on her shoulder opening its mouth as if to echo her, and then Goyle wobbled in place. Scorpius made a wounded sound, and James—

James screamed.

Harry reached without even thinking about it, seizing the flow of the magic and bending it to his will. It smashed against him and tried to flood his nerves with pain. Harry laughed at it with the silent scorn of someone who had faced the Cruciatus from Voldemort himself, and bore down on it.

In seconds, he saw the way it should go. It had been pouring in a smooth circle, with Malfoy as the beginning and end of the ring. Harry caught his eyes, which were blown wide with what might be pain or surprise, and tossed the cord of magic to him.

Malfoy fumbled for a second, then caught it. The yellow glow around his cobra faded. James stopped screaming, and something in Harry that had wanted to kill people until his son was all right relaxed.

The power bucked harder now, no longer painful but restless. Harry ignored that, too, and looped the others carefully back into it, the humans along with their snakes. Parkinson and her krait came back into it, and Goyle and his constrictor. For long moments, Scorpius and his boomslang remained outside it, but Harry smiled at him encouragingly, and finally the little boy smiled back and began to resonate with the power again.

James joined in with a pure note of song that made the circle quiver, and then a snake crawled into being over the edges of the physical circle on the floor, between one of its ripples and the next.

Harry gritted his teeth, but remained part of the circle, a conduit for it, and the snake came into the light.

It was a blue-grey color that Harry could have admitted was lovely if he was ever going to admit anything like that, interrupted by black bands. When it lifted its head, Harry could see that the head and belly were a soft yellow color. Its tail had an odd shape to it, but Harry couldn’t fully glimpse it from where he was standing.

Malfoy hissed in Parseltongue, “A banded sea krait.”

Harry twitched, but again restrained the temptation to throw everything up in the air, dart into the circle, grab James, and run away. But perhaps some of his curiosity came through, because Malfoy glanced towards him.

“Banded sea kraits can move on land, unlike some of their kin.” Malfoy gave him a harsh smile. “Venomous, of course.”

Harry just nodded. By now, he had given up on hoping that a non-dangerous snake would choose James. Although it would have been nice to have a little grass snake or something like that.

Malfoy had a strange tone in his voice when he spoke, too, but Harry managed to ignore that. Maybe he was just surprised that Harry had let the calling circle proceed instead of trying to wreck it.

James picked up the snake and cradled it in his hands, then announced, “I love him, Daddy.”

Harry nodded and smiled and waved a hand at James. Speaking in English would disrupt the ritual—Malfoy had made that clear before they started—and fuck everything if he was going to speak in Parseltongue.

“You will need to keep him in water most of the time,” Malfoy continued, his voice curling and seeming to ride the circle of power that went flowing past Harry rather than echoing from his mouth. “You should enchant a small container of water that can float beside you when you want to carry him with you.”

“I don’t have a wand,” said James anxiously, and turned to stare at Harry.

Harry would have challenged Voldemort’s heart not to melt at the look in his son’s eyes. He took a deep breath and spoke, “Yes, of course, I’ll enchant the water so that you can carry him with you. Have you thought about a name?”

“I want to call him Scorpius.”

Scorpius Malfoy laughed, sounding more surprised than anything. Malfoy raised his eyebrows, but then smiled. “Having more than one being in a circle called by the same name might be disruptive to the magic. Please choose something else.”

James pouted and sighed, but Malfoy obviously wasn’t going to be moved. He looked down at the snake in his hands. “What are blue things?”

“The sky,” said Scorpius.

“The ocean,” Parkinson offered. “Which would be appropriate since he’s a sea krait.”

“Sapphires,” said Malfoy.

James nodded. “I like that sound. His name is Sapphire.”

It could have been worse, Harry reflected. In fact, everything could have been a great deal worse, if the ritual going wrong had affected the calling of James’s snake. At least this way, if something was off, Harry couldn’t tell what it was, and he didn’t think Malfoy and the rest would have been so contented if something was.

The ritual ended with Malfoy softly chanting phrases that made the ripples fade and disappear, and the black snake on the floor went back to looking as if it was made of stone. Harry let the magic go with a relieved sigh. Carrying it around had been like carrying boulders with knives on the bottom that were planted in his shoulders.

Parkinson gave him a sharp glance before she left, and Goyle might have done the same thing if he was capable of it. Harry stretched his arms and waited until Malfoy escorted James out of the circle. Scorpius immediately bounced up to James and started chattering away, comparing their snakes.

Harry conjured an enchanted glass container of water, and let James place Sapphire in it. Then he turned as someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“We need to talk,” Malfoy said.

At least he said it in English, Harry thought. He nodded, though. He had probably screwed up the ritual in some way that wasn’t visible, although as long as it didn’t harm James, he wasn’t sure he cared. “All right. Let me get James settled somewhere and—”

“The boys can go to the nursery. Scorpius, take James to the nursery.”

Scorpius looked a little startled, but he trotted off to do that. James was so involved in watching Sapphire and asking him questions that he didn’t appear to have noticed. Sapphire answered in a soft voice that made Harry obscurely glad James didn’t appear to have attracted an arrogant snake.

He turned to Malfoy, and waited for his assessment of whatever he had done wrong.

But Malfoy said, “Do you know what you did?”

Harry blinked. “Interfered. Sorry. I didn’t think the ritual would succeed without it.”

Malfoy leaned towards him. “You handled that power like a Parselmouth who has a Match. And this.” He did something that felt like he was pushing a small wave of magic at Harry.

Harry let it wash over him. “This, what?”

“Your magic resonates with mine.” Malfoy smiled without using his eyes. “Potter, you must embrace your Parseltongue. Your snake, wherever she is. Do you understand how powerfully we can cast together if you do this?”

He sounded reverent. Harry stared directly into his eyes. “I’m grateful for what you did for James. And I’ll never keep him away from Parseltongue, or speak badly in front of him about it, or try to separate him from Sapphire. But the rest…”

“Yes?” Malfoy sounded breathless.

“Go to hell,” Harry said pleasantly, and walked out of the ritual room.