lomonaaeren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lomonaaeren) wrote2020-12-11 10:11 pm
lomonaaeren) wrote2020-12-11 10:11 pm
Entry tags:
[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Pythonicus, gen, PG-13, 1/3, sequel to Potens
Title: Pythonicus
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Mentions of Lily/James and Lucius/Narcissa, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Time travel, AU, present tense, Unspeakable Harry Potter, violence, gore, brief torture
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 6300
Summary: Sequel to “Princeps” and “Potens.” Harry has gained the loyalty of many of the young Slytherins, and others he never expected. Now he attempts to find and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes and protect and teach his students while avoiding Time’s plans—and his followers’—to make him into a Lord.
Author’s Notes: This should have three parts, and is part of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” series of fics, as well as a sequel to the first two parts of the series, “Princeps,” and Potens. The title is a Latin word meaning “prophetic” or “magical.”
Pythonicus
Harry Potter is getting tired of the chimes ringing from the walls.
No one else can hear them, so it’s not as if he has to deal with puzzled looks. (Just worshipful ones). But he knows that his mission to come back in time and change it so that the young Slytherins can stand independently of Voldemort and prevent the second war—and the deaths in the second war—has altered.
The problem is that he doesn’t know how far. And he neither wants to change his original intention to please Time or change what he is doing simply to spite this wearisome power of the universe.
But he does know that he’s going to do his duty as a professor, a protector, and a defeater of Voldemort.
In the end, teaching, protection, and war is what he knows best.
*
“Sometimes I think you are biased against me, Henry, my boy.”
Harry sighs and settles back into the chair near Albus’s desk. He’s had a few of these conversations over the past month, and they’ve only become more difficult since he’s realized that Time wants him to replace Dumbledore.
Sirius and James have sworn their oaths to him. Harry can see signs that Remus and Peter are drifting in that direction—although Harry has to admit, if only to himself, that he’s going to watch Peter damn carefully—and there are a few Ravenclaws who’ll probably get there before too much longer. The Hufflepuffs are taking longer, cautious about professors outside their Head of House when they’ve been put down so often, but probably when one of them comes, a whole bunch will.
Harry is pretty sure, from the way that Lily Evans narrows her eyes at him whenever she sees him, that she’ll demand an explanation from James soon, and then probably him, too.
There are Slytherins who are now fifth-years being led over by Regulus (pulled over, in some cases; Harry will have to speak to Regulus about that soon). Nearly every Slytherin student in sixth and seventh year is already sworn to him, and now some former Slytherins, like Andromeda Tonks and Lucius Malfoy. Lucius, in his last report, dropped hints that Harry is resigned to meaning that Narcissa Black will soon approach him.
This is not what he wanted. But it’s what he has, and he means to hold his oaths.
“Henry?”
Harry looks up. Albus appears genuinely concerned, and he might be. It’s just that concern is never far away from Albus’s notions of what he might have to do to win the war, and that’s what makes Harry cautious of him.
“I’m all right, sir.” Harry forces out a smile and sits up. “Just tired. It’s more challenging to keep up with NEWT students I trained myself.”
“Ah, yes. Your students are doing well in other classes, and applying the lessons that they have said you taught them to their classwork.”
Harry doubts this is the true purpose of this meeting, but it seems closer to it. He puts on a curious face. “Sir?”
“Well, for example, it seems that Mr. Prince has been telling Professor Slughorn that some of the teaching methods he uses, such as asking students to compete against each other for a potion as a prize, don’t work well. He shouldn’t make the students compete against each other, Mr. Prince says. He should have them work together.”
Harry holds back a laugh. Severus has mentioned that, but only in passing. Harry had no idea that he was carrying it further. “I haven’t observed one of Professor Slughorn’s classes myself.”
He drops back into silence. Albus’s eyebrows go higher and higher as he watches Harry. “And that’s all you have to say, my boy?”
Harry shrugs. “It does seem to me that we shouldn’t be encouraging our students to compete against each other, but to work together in the face of the war that’s coming. I have to admit that I don’t do anything to encourage the House rivalries and the like in my classes.”
“But you still split your students into teams and have them compete against each other.”
“Oh, of course. It’s the only way to learn some of the dueling procedures and what it’s like to actually face a coordinated group of enemies. But I split the teams up and switch members between each session, so that no one gets invested in feeling like part of a team fighting against the others. And team members are always from more than one House.”
“But marks—”
“I take the competitive aspect out of that as much as I can. I give exams, but they’re almost always practicals, and they take place in private. If students want to share their marks with each other, they can, but I don’t announce them.”
Albus only blinks at him. Harry shrugs a little. He hasn’t hidden what he’s doing. Students talk about it so much that he’s a little surprised Albus hasn’t heard about it before now.
Then again, does Albus listen to what students have to say, outside his own carefully-chosen group? Harry doubts it.
“I—I understand your desire to encourage both cooperation and an independent spirit in our students,” Albus says, picking his way carefully forwards, as if he doesn’t want to explain exactly what he thinks is “wrong” with the situation. Given that it would be hard to find anyone who agreed with him, at least among the Slytherins and most of the Gryffindors, Harry smiles at him. Albus sees it, and his voice firms. “But I must ask that you ask your students to desist from criticizing the other professors.”
“All right.”
Albus pauses. “Just like that?”
Harry shrugs. “I didn’t know they were doing that, and Mr. Prince, in particular, didn’t strike me as someone who would. I’ll ask them.”
Albus narrows his eyes. “Will they obey you?”
“I can’t promise that, Albus. Asking is all I can do.”
Of course, Harry could enforce obedience if he intended to be a lord like Voldemort wants to be, and like some of his people want him to be. All he’d have to do would be to slap a brand on some arms and threaten to bar them from his presence.
But he isn’t going to do that, no matter how smugly the walls are chiming at him right now and how thrilled it would make Regulus (and some other people). Time and teenagers will both have to live with what they’ll get.
*
“You want me to stop? But I thought you would approve.”
Harry leans an elbow on his desk and stares at Severus, who’s standing in front of him looking somewhere between agonized and furious. “I would have expected you to do it subtly, Mr. Prince. As befits the House you’re in and the talents I know you have.”
Severus blinks several times, hard. Then he says, “I never thought of it that way.”
Harry rolls his eyes a little. It was months before he decided that he could do that in Severus’s presence without the boy taking it the wrong way, but, well, now they have the kind of bond that means he can. “I do encourage you to use your minds. Simply not to—”
“Show other people we’re using them?”
“Irritate other people in their use,” Harry corrects, because the little smirk on Severus’s face is really too much. “Do, please, accept that Professor Slughorn has noticed and complained to the Headmaster.”
Severus nods, the smirk gone now. “I didn’t realize it would get you in trouble, my lord. I’m sorry.”
Harry stands up. He affects a tone of weary disappointment, not anger, because he knows it’ll work better. “What have I told you about using that title?”
Severus winces, but he doesn’t crumple the way he would have a year ago. He simply stares back, his chin rising a little. “With respect, Professor Salvare, we’re alone, and I think it’s time that we name the reality as what it is. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.”
“We can show respect to each other without ignoring reality. Just as I accepted your name change and haven’t slipped in it, I would think that you could call me what I prefer to be called.”
Severus’s face pales dramatically. “I—see. I didn’t think of it like that.”
Harry merely nods. “I didn’t think you had.” The only one who seems to call him lord on purpose while knowing perfectly well that he shouldn’t is Regulus, and Harry will simply continue having talks with him. “Now, as I said, please assert your opinion to Professor Slughorn without making him look like an idiot.”
“In private?”
“That would be a start.”
Severus grins and bows his head. When he looks back up, the grin is still there, but it’s altered a bit. “What would happen if Professor Dumbledore started paying too much attention to you, sir?”
“He might decide that I’m a threat in the same way that Voldemort is.”
Severus gulps. “I see. Something else I didn’t think of.” He straightens his shoulders. “Thank you, sir. You’ve given me a great deal to consider.”
He marches out of the classroom with a determined stride. Harry wonders for a second if he should be worried about Severus trying to get back at Albus, but then dismisses the thought. Even if he tried, Albus would see him coming a mile away, and he has a lot of tolerance for people who are still students in school, Slytherins or not.
*
Two things happen on Halloween: Lily Evans comes to him to swear her oath, and Harry cracks the use of Voldemort’s blood to find the Horcruxes.
He’s in the middle of drawing a huge series of loops all over the parchment spread out in front of him when he hears a knock on the door. Harry calls “Come in!” without looking up. No one will ever see anything but a few doodles on the paper unless they know exactly what he’s doing.
Lily steps in, smiles at him, and glances curiously at the parchment. “What’s that, sir? Some work with Arithmancy?”
Harry opens his mouth to answer, then sits back and takes a long, hard look at the parchment. It plots the places that the Horcruxes were in his first world—or used to be, in the case of the locket—and the loops are his attempt to make the splatters that Voldemort’s blood creates when he uses it make sense.
But what if it wasn’t a map? What if it was a graph?
Harry cackles a little maniacally as he draws a large line down the side of the paper, and then another line along the bottom, and grins as he sees the dots begin to line up. Then he manages to put it aside, and focuses on Lily, who took a step back at the cackle.
“Thank you, Miss Evans, you’ve helped me solve a problem that I was working on. What can I do for you?”
Lily glances at the parchment as if she assumes that it must be more important than she thought it was, but in the end, shakes her head and refocuses on him. Her eyes are bright. Harry thinks he knows the question that’s going to come out of her mouth.
In the end, he doesn’t.
“Why haven’t you joined the Order of the Phoenix, Professor Salvare?”
Harry settles back in his chair and considers Lily. She flushes under his scrutiny, but keeps looking steadily at him. She has the spirit that he’s been told about, and from what Harry’s heard, she’s managed a difficult balancing act between her boyfriend and her best friend since she started dating James.
“Has the Headmaster told you what the Order’s purpose is, Miss Evans?”
“To fight You-Know-Who.”
Harry nods. “But he isn’t doing it by partnering with allies, or reinforcing the Aurors, or trying to counteract the fear that Voldemort spreads.” He ignores Lily’s flinch at the name. Not everyone has to be the same in their bravery. “Even the Order’s clashes with the Death Eaters are rare. He thinks that creeping around in the shadows, whispering dire warnings about Voldemort, is the best thing to do.”
Lily wrinkles her brow. “Well…don’t we have to be careful around him, sir?”
“Of course, but fearing him too much doesn’t do anything to stop him. In fact, it’s more likely to make people give up on the battle before it even begins.”
“Why do you think the Headmaster is doing that, then, sir?”
“I think that he’s let understandable caution and the desire to keep the Order secret overcome straightforward battle tactics. If he stood up against Voldemort openly and had the Order members do the same thing against the Death Eaters, that would inspire people more.”
“I’ve heard about the duel that you had with You-Know-Who this summer. You didn’t kill him or anything.”
“No,” Harry admits. He doesn’t think he should reveal the Horcruxes to someone who’s not even sworn to him yet. “But I did wound him, and more, I made him look ridiculous in front of a lot of people. Some of the spells I used during the duel, and the fact that I wounded him with a knife, made sure of that.”
“Huh.” Lily puckers her brow harder. Harry finds himself watching her and wondering if he does that in a mirror, and then cuts himself off. He doesn’t need to wonder that, not exactly. “I suppose that is more than the Order does.”
Harry smiles. “I won’t stop you if you want to join them, Miss Evans. It’s not my place to say how you should fight in this war.”
“But you think I should?”
“You’re a Gryffindor who’s questioning me about me joining the Order,” Harry says dryly. “I think you’ve already made your decision.”
Lily smiles. “You’re right. And the Headmaster did send me an owl about a week ago telling me some of the information about the Order, and that you hadn’t joined it, and advising me not to join you. But I disregarded it. I think I know more about you than he does, after being in class with you for more than a year.” She draws her wand and stands tall. “I want to join you, sir.”
Harry can see that she’s visibly hesitating, and smiles encouragingly at her. “Are you all right, Miss Evans? Did you have something else you wanted to say?”
“You won’t Mark me, will you? Only James and Black were joking about that, and I can never tell what’s jokes and what’s not with the pair of them.”
Harry considers and then discards the idea of saying something about how he doesn’t think James is joking when it comes to his affection for Lily. No, he did not come back in time to matchmake his parents, thank you very much.
“No marks,” he says. “It’s one of the things that Voldemort does which I’ve always disapproved of.”
Lily gives him a sly smile as she holds out her wand to him. “You don’t seem like a very proper lord so far.”
“Thank Merlin,” Harry says, and if his fervency puzzles her, at least she makes the oath with what seems to be a light heart.
*
“Thank you for inviting me to come see you, my lord.”
“There won’t be many more invitations for you if that name keeps up.”
Lucius hides his smile behind his teacup. Harry shakes his head a little. He knows that Lucius isn’t that much older than the Slytherins that he has in his sixth- and seventh-year classes, but it still feels strange to see him act so young.
To get rid of that feeling, Harry asks, “You were able to get away without anyone suspecting that you were coming to Hogwarts?’
Lucius nods and puts down the teacup. “It helps that Narcissa and I have moved out of the Manor, and my father no longer has control of my day-to-day life. I told my father that I wished to achieve some more independence to look better to the Ministry,” he adds, before Harry can voice his question about whether Lucius is taking a risk. “That way, if he gets arrested for his position at Riddle’s side, I can still funnel money and information to Riddle.”
Lucius has refused to call Voldemort anything but “Riddle” since Harry told him the truth about Voldemort’s origins. Well, at least it’s an improvement on “You-Know-Who.” “Very well. What have you learned?”
“Riddle is furious, my lord.” Harry directs a slashing look at him, and Lucius rolls his eyes a little, but adds, “Professor Salvare, sir. He hates that you made him look bad in that duel, and more, that you won. He’s recruiting heavily for the Death Eaters, but he’s concentrating on people outside the school. He doesn’t think that most of the people he might Mark here would be able to escape your notice and Dumbledore’s combined.”
Harry sighs. That’s one relief, at least. He knows from his historical research before he came back in time that Voldemort did Mark some of the people who were in the years between Lucius and Severus. “All right. Do you have any names of the recruits?”
“Yes. Bellatrix Black, Rabastan Lestrange, Elbion Shafiq…”
Harry mutters under his breath as he writes them down. He supposes there was never a chance of rescuing Bellatrix, and he would have found it hard to be around her anyway, but he would have liked to try.
“Thank you,” he says as he finishes, smoothing down the parchment and casting a charm on it that will make it impossible to read for anyone but him. “It’s valuable information, Lucius.”
“My fiancée would like to swear an oath to you, sir.”
Harry nods, not really surprised by that. Both Narcissa’s fiancé and sister are part of his ranks, so it makes sense that she would ask for it. But the tense expectation in Lucius’s face says that there’s something more to this. “Is there something wrong with the request? Do you not agree that she should be part of our efforts?”
That wins him a brief smile from Lucius. “I’d like to see someone try and stop her, sir. No, nothing like that. Simply that she’s concerned about my Dark Mark.”
“I thought you were able to step around it, as you said.” Harry stares at Lucius with open concern, and tries to silence the calculation in the back of his mind that says this might be a way to get off the path Time has decreed for him. If Lucius needs to be released from his oaths… “Are you no longer able to be a spy?”
“Nothing like that,” Lucius says, with a sharp shake of his head. “She simply worries that the Mark can be used to punish me. She would feel easier if you either altered it or gave me a Mark of your own that would replace it.”
Harry tenses. “Mr. Malfoy, I sent you that book on the requirements of declaring oneself a Lord in Britain for a reason.”
Lucius blinks innocently at him. “I have no interest in declaring myself a Lord, sir.”
Harry groans and covers his face with one hand for a minute. Then he says, “I can alter the Mark. I won’t be giving you one of my own. Will that be enough to satisfy Miss Black?”
“Yes, sir. If not me.”
Lucius says the last words softly enough that Harry can pretend that he hasn’t heard them. He draws his wand and bends over the Dark Mark, studying it, figuring out the pulsing threads that lead back to Voldemort and might alert him if they’re altered, and the ones that won’t. The actual alteration will need to wait until he’s sure of what he’s seeing, but it can’t hurt to begin now.
*
Harry knew from the gleam in Regulus’s eyes when he came through the classroom door that day that he was going to try something, but he never suspected what it actually was. He asked Regulus to show off his defensive Transfiguration in a duel with another fifth-year Slytherin called Crystal Meadowes, and Regulus nodded obediently, but now he whips away from his opponent and launches a Tripping Hex at Harry.
Harry lets the edge of it catch his robe and make him stumble, although not more than that. He can’t afford to lose the respect of his classes, especially his Slytherins, but on the other hand, he thinks Regulus is trying to make him look him supernaturally competent to attract the loyalty of anyone who isn’t in Harry’s fellowship yet. Harry just wants to look a little ordinary.
Regulus grins at him, and Harry snorts. “Please direct your spells back at your opponent, Mr. Black.”
Regulus nods and does, but he sends a very obvious smirk at some of the other Slytherins, and a loud, “See?”
Ah, so that’s it, Harry decides. Regulus is securing his position among the fifth-year Slytherins by showing how powerful his spells are.
Or so Harry thinks, until he hears Regulus and Meadowes talking as they pack up their books to go to lunch. Maybe they’re only lingering because they don’t have another class to immediately run to, but Harry doubts it.
“And he really let you get away with it.” Meadows shakes her head, her frown in place. Harry knows that in his first timeline, she died among the Death Eaters in a battle two years before Voldemort’s banishing in 1981. He hasn’t approached her yet because she seems doubtful and more entrenched in blood purity than most of them. Besides, if he turns the most prominent and powerful Death Eaters, she’ll probably never get Marked anyway.
“Of course he did. I told you.”
“I mean, I know you told me. But I never expected it.”
Meadowes gives Harry one more curious glance, and then flushes when she realizes that he’s looking back at her. She leaves hastily. Harry turns to Regulus and makes his gaze go cooler.
That ceased to work on Regulus a while ago, more’s the pity. Regulus just grins at him. Harry sighs. “Mr. Black.”
“I told Meadowes that you would let me get away with tripping you in front of the class,” Regulus says. “She didn’t believe me. She didn’t think that a powerful wizard could put up with any kind of humiliation.”
“It was hardly a humiliation.”
“To someone like Meadowes, it is. And that means that she’s more likely to think of you as merciful, and someone worth following, instead of him.”
“I can actually do my own recruiting, Mr. Black. If I decide that I want to.”
“But we can help if we want to. Unless you’re going to forbid us that?”
Regulus has mastered the use of a trembling lip in a pout. It doesn’t work on Harry, but he can see the laughter in the grey eyes behind it, and that does. He rolls his eyes. “Of course I won’t forbid you, Mr. Black, and you know it. But has it occurred to you that I don’t want someone who has to be coerced into following me?”
“How is offering them persuasion and evidence coercing them?”
“Evidence of what? How much I let you get away with things?”
“Yes.”
Harry snorts before he can help himself. He has that reaction a lot around Regulus. He shakes his head. “Well, it’s true that I want to help and shelter as many people as I can. I don’t want anyone to be forced into serving Voldemort. But I don’t want to reach a particular number of followers or take Voldemort’s place.”
Regulus stops picking up his books, and gives Harry the most serious look he’s ever seen from him. “Professor Salvare, I think right now, more than most times in the last century, is a time for powerful wizards. There’s him, and there’s Dumbledore, and there’s ordinary people who don’t have a lot of protection from them. Can you blame them for seeking protection from a powerful wizard who won’t make them into slaves?”
Harry hasn’t considered it from that perspective, probably because sheltering behind a powerful wizard was never an option for him. He nods slowly. “You’re right, of course, Mr. Black. But another question occurs to me. If my value to you consists in the fact that I won’t make my followers slaves, why are you trying so hard to make me into a lord, which would ensure that that happens?”
Regulus’s jaw drops a little. Then he says, “You believe that. You really do.”
Harry frowns. “Of course I do. The requirements of becoming a magical lord or lady in Britain ensure it. That act of magic in public that will intimidate people, and the mark on their arms that would brand them—”
“There’s a middle ground,” Regulus interrupts, his eyes shining with devotion now. “Between lordship and slavery. I think your own nature would never let you become someone like him.”
Harry grimaces. He doesn’t have as much faith in himself as Regulus does. He knows what he can do. He knows what he came here to do, and even that has twisted off the path because of Time’s determination to put history back to what it used to be. He doesn’t think Regulus can confidently predict that Harry will always be a good person.
“I will still not become a lord, Mr. Black.”
“And I’ll still keep talking you up to the people who might want one but not the ones that exist, Professor Salvare. See you at lunch.” Regulus beams at him and swaggers out the door.
Harry waits until the door has closed to give a very, very long, and heartfelt, sigh.
There’s no chime from the walls, however, which is interesting. Harry wonders if that will only sound when he makes a move that is more openly towards taking Voldemort’s place.
With determination, Harry retrieves the graph he’s plotted of Horcrux locations linked by the swirls of Voldemort’s blood. It’s been difficult to work with, since the distances are relative to each other instead of absolute, but he thinks he has a lead on the first one.
Time to face the Gaunt ring.
*
Voldemort did move the ring from the shack, and now it’s located on a small, rocky island off Scotland’s coast, one that radiates a powerful Dark curse that makes anyone who approaches feel as if they’re about to come around a corner and face a man-eating predator. Harry’s impressed. It’s not subtle, but it requires more finesse than the spells that Voldemort is prone to using.
Of course, the island does have its guardians. As soon as Harry uses an incantation to turn the water between the small stepping stone he’s on and the main island to a solid floor, a tail lashes out of the sea and breaks the spell to pieces.
Harry smiles. He recognizes the gleaming green scales on that appendage, and he knows what sort of beast this is. “Will you listen to him?’ he hisses. “The one who enslaved you? Or me, the one who comes to set you free?”
There’s silence for a long moment, and then the sea serpent breaks out of the ocean in a dazzling arch, rising and rising, until the green-purple head is swaying a long way above Harry’s head.
It looks down on him, the pressure of the jade eyes overwhelming. Sea serpents actually hypnotize with their gaze more than they strangle with their bodies, which is the way that some Muggle media portrays them. But Harry isn’t affected by it, given his Parseltongue. After a long moment, the serpent tilts its head to the side and replies, “You cannot set me free. The binding goes down to the ocean floor.”
Harry smiles and sits down on the little stepping stone. He brought another toy with him from the Unspeakables; he’s been visiting the Department of Mysteries here every month or so, when he has news to exchange or listen to. He holds up the crystal sculpture of a serpent and watches the real one flick a tongue in doubt.
“What does that do?”
“It will take your place in the binding spell, so that you may be free and your enslaver will never know that there was a switch.”
The way the serpent dances in place tells Harry that his offering has been accepted. He nods and closes his eyes, holding the crystal model in his hands for a long moment, letting it absorb magic and warmth from his touch. Then he opens his eyes and casts it into the sea.
It dives and swims into the binding that coalesces around the sea serpent, and which Harry only sees then, a complex golden net anchored with something that looks like a trident; the water boils and turns transparent, and Harry sees the anchor through the model’s eyes. Then the crystal one nudges its head through the tines of the trident and swims between them, dodging back and forth, winding the net around itself.
Voldemort didn’t account for size, or the particular personality of the beast he trapped, or anything remotely similar that would tell him when someone has replaced it. There’s only an alarm spell if the guardian dies. Harry stands up, dusts his hands off, and smiles at the sea serpent.
“Done.”
The sea serpent turns its head slowly back and forth, reveling in its freedom. Then it shoots its body over the small rock Harry is standing on in a glittering rainbow, disappearing into the water on the other side. Harry laughs and wipes the water away, then once again turns the stretch of sea into a solid pavement.
This time, no one stops him.
He lands on the rocky island and feels the immediate pulse of the Resurrection Stone in the ring as it locks onto him. Harry shakes his head a little. The Deathly Hallows think he’s their master. Harry ignores their claim. It’s one of the reasons he became an Unspeakable in the first place, to figure out how to shed it.
The Elder Wand screamed when Harry used the Time Chamber and a jar of pickles to sever its claim on him in his first world, but that’s its problem.
He certainly isn’t about to take up the Stone now. He’s here for the Horcrux and nothing more.
Harry searches carefully, now and then letting the crystal vial of Voldemort’s blood he brought with him swing out like a pendulum, until he finds the ring, tucked in a golden box beneath an outcrop of stone. Harry snorts. Voldemort was smarter about the hiding place this time, but he still couldn’t resist the ornate box.
Harry kneels down next to it and closes his eyes. The Resurrection Stone trembles like a top in his mind, eager to obey him and destroy the Horcrux if he says so, but Harry is determined not to take up any titles, and that includes the Master of Death.
Instead, Harry draws on a pair of dragonhide gloves that he borrowed from Professor Kettleburn and modified with silk, then reaches out and flips the box open.
The ring glows at him, trying to compel him, but it’s not effective against someone who knows what the Horcrux is and about the wasting curse embedded in the ring. Harry uses his wand to Levitate the ring, and lift it up above the island until it’s a good distance from him and the box, both.
Then he stiffens his back and calls on Fiendfyre.
Confined to the small space of air between him and the Horcrux, the Fiendfyre can’t rage out of control and become large beasts the way it likes to do. It forms a thread-thin golden serpent with three heads, instead, and falls gleefully on the Horcrux.
There’s a burst of the black blood-like liquid that Harry remembers from the diary and a faint, thin scream. Then the ring disintegrates, and Harry deals with the Fiendfyre as it turns back towards him, hissing out a Parseltongue command. The three-headed serpent actually looks startled as it fades from sight.
The Resurrection Stone streaks straight towards him, seeking a bond through contact with his bare skin.
Harry holds up the dragonhide gloves. The Stone bounces off them and straight into the waves. Harry smiles a little as he watches it sink.
It calls to him, a sad tone that reminds Harry of a begging puppy, but he shakes his head. He’s not in this world to become the Master of Death. He’s here to defeat Voldemort, protect those who chose to swear to him, and make some lives happier.
“No time for your false promises,” he murmurs, and then conjures the straight path of water from the island back to his little stepping stone again. Voldemort’s spells mean that there’s no way to Apparate from the island itself.
*
“Good evening, my lord.”
Harry opens his mouth, but Lucius shakes his head from behind Narcissa’s curtseying shoulder. “She has her own sense of propriety,” he says. “And the Black family has been raised to address anyone who has a sufficient amount of power that way.”
Harry narrows his eyes. That would explain some of the problems he’s having with Regulus. On the other hand, Sirius and Andromeda don’t react that way, so he does wonder how much of that is just bollocks.
(From Lucius’s smirk, perhaps most of it).
Narcissa straightens up and stares at him. She has large blue-grey eyes and none of the expression of contempt or disgust that Harry saw most often on her face in the future—when he saw her at all. She looks tremblingly hopeful, in fact.
“You can get rid of Lucius’s Mark?” she whispers. “So that he need never regret his choices?”
“I could only get rid of it by giving him my own mark, Miss Black,” Harry says gently. “But I have come up with a different method that will protect him.”
“How?” And for all the hope in her eyes and the attempt to act like a young girl, Narcissa has the Black calculation down flat.
“I’m going to weave a spell around the Mark itself,” Harry says. “Isolate it from him, but not from Voldemort’s magic.” Both of them flinch, but keep looking steadily at him. Harry is just glad that the door of his quarters is firmly shut and he already told his students he would be unavailable to them this evening. He gestures for them to take the couch by the fire. “So his supposed lord will think that Lucius is still joined to him magically and nothing has changed, but the Mark will have no ability to affect his skin or anything else about him.” He nods to Lucius, who has extended his arm with (absurd) trust. “You will have to pay closer attention to the Mark, however, Mr. Malfoy. Otherwise, you could miss a summons that he’s issued to you. It’s going to dim the pain of that, too.”
“I can set up a ward that should do it,” Lucius whispers. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“How are you going to isolate the Mark, my lord?” Narcissa asks.
Harry sighs and lets it pass. “I will have to have your word after this that you will tell no one what I am about to reveal.” They nod eagerly, perhaps because of the idea that Lucius will be free and perhaps because it’s a secret. “I can bind a Mark that was created by a Parselmouth because I’m a Parselmouth myself.”
Narcissa settles back on the couch and puts her hand to her mouth for a second. Lucius bows his head, but not before Harry can see his eyes light up in a way he’s learned to dread.
“Just because both Voldemort and I are Parselmouths doesn’t make us worthy of reverence,” Harry snaps, feeling more than a little grumpy, and reaches for Lucius’s left arm.
Lucius still keeps looking at him as if that’s the case. Harry closes his eyes to escape the stare and seeks the Dark Mark out in his mind.
The heavy pressure of it on Lucius’s magic is like the smoke of a fire on a distant horizon. Harry spends a few minutes “breathing it in,” studying it from all angles, making sure that Voldemort hasn’t left some kind of a trap there that Harry isn’t familiar with. Then he exhales hard, and begins to speak in Parseltongue.
“Mark of the serpent and the skull, obey me. Hear me. You will not touch the skin of the man whose arm you rest on. You will not touch his magic. You will not touch his heart…”
Harry hisses out an exhaustive list of everything he doesn’t want the Mark to touch, just in case he’s forgotten something and the Mark will affect what he’s left out. When he finishes the list, he draws his wand and lays it on top of Lucius’s Mark, focusing his will through it.
There’s a long, surprised hiss from the serpent in the Mark, and then a shimmer of Dark magic that Harry wasn’t even aware of vanishes from the corners of his awareness. The Mark has gone dormant.
Harry sighs and releases his will, lifting his wand at the same time. When he opens his eyes, he nods in satisfaction. To all eyes, the Mark is the same as it was before; it hasn’t changed visibly. The connection to Voldemort’s magic should remain intact.
He glances up, and then away, uncomfortable with the open adoration on Lucius’s face. He stifles a sigh. Perhaps it’s too late once someone becomes a Death Eater and they’ll be a follower for life, but Harry does wish that Lucius would be able to stand on his own.
“Thank you, my lord.” Lucius rolls his sleeve down and tucks his arm back against his side.
“Are you too magically exhausted to take my oath?” Narcissa asked delicately.
Harry smiles. “No, it’s all right, Miss Black.” After he says that, Narcissa hands Lucius a significant glance, but Harry has not the slightest idea why. He decides to ignore it, and draws his wand for the oath.
Narcissa speaks the words fervently, staring directly into his eyes. Harry lets that pass, as well.
And he ignores the way that Time is chiming from the wall with noises that sound like a chuckle.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Mentions of Lily/James and Lucius/Narcissa, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Time travel, AU, present tense, Unspeakable Harry Potter, violence, gore, brief torture
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 6300
Summary: Sequel to “Princeps” and “Potens.” Harry has gained the loyalty of many of the young Slytherins, and others he never expected. Now he attempts to find and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes and protect and teach his students while avoiding Time’s plans—and his followers’—to make him into a Lord.
Author’s Notes: This should have three parts, and is part of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” series of fics, as well as a sequel to the first two parts of the series, “Princeps,” and Potens. The title is a Latin word meaning “prophetic” or “magical.”
Pythonicus
Harry Potter is getting tired of the chimes ringing from the walls.
No one else can hear them, so it’s not as if he has to deal with puzzled looks. (Just worshipful ones). But he knows that his mission to come back in time and change it so that the young Slytherins can stand independently of Voldemort and prevent the second war—and the deaths in the second war—has altered.
The problem is that he doesn’t know how far. And he neither wants to change his original intention to please Time or change what he is doing simply to spite this wearisome power of the universe.
But he does know that he’s going to do his duty as a professor, a protector, and a defeater of Voldemort.
In the end, teaching, protection, and war is what he knows best.
*
“Sometimes I think you are biased against me, Henry, my boy.”
Harry sighs and settles back into the chair near Albus’s desk. He’s had a few of these conversations over the past month, and they’ve only become more difficult since he’s realized that Time wants him to replace Dumbledore.
Sirius and James have sworn their oaths to him. Harry can see signs that Remus and Peter are drifting in that direction—although Harry has to admit, if only to himself, that he’s going to watch Peter damn carefully—and there are a few Ravenclaws who’ll probably get there before too much longer. The Hufflepuffs are taking longer, cautious about professors outside their Head of House when they’ve been put down so often, but probably when one of them comes, a whole bunch will.
Harry is pretty sure, from the way that Lily Evans narrows her eyes at him whenever she sees him, that she’ll demand an explanation from James soon, and then probably him, too.
There are Slytherins who are now fifth-years being led over by Regulus (pulled over, in some cases; Harry will have to speak to Regulus about that soon). Nearly every Slytherin student in sixth and seventh year is already sworn to him, and now some former Slytherins, like Andromeda Tonks and Lucius Malfoy. Lucius, in his last report, dropped hints that Harry is resigned to meaning that Narcissa Black will soon approach him.
This is not what he wanted. But it’s what he has, and he means to hold his oaths.
“Henry?”
Harry looks up. Albus appears genuinely concerned, and he might be. It’s just that concern is never far away from Albus’s notions of what he might have to do to win the war, and that’s what makes Harry cautious of him.
“I’m all right, sir.” Harry forces out a smile and sits up. “Just tired. It’s more challenging to keep up with NEWT students I trained myself.”
“Ah, yes. Your students are doing well in other classes, and applying the lessons that they have said you taught them to their classwork.”
Harry doubts this is the true purpose of this meeting, but it seems closer to it. He puts on a curious face. “Sir?”
“Well, for example, it seems that Mr. Prince has been telling Professor Slughorn that some of the teaching methods he uses, such as asking students to compete against each other for a potion as a prize, don’t work well. He shouldn’t make the students compete against each other, Mr. Prince says. He should have them work together.”
Harry holds back a laugh. Severus has mentioned that, but only in passing. Harry had no idea that he was carrying it further. “I haven’t observed one of Professor Slughorn’s classes myself.”
He drops back into silence. Albus’s eyebrows go higher and higher as he watches Harry. “And that’s all you have to say, my boy?”
Harry shrugs. “It does seem to me that we shouldn’t be encouraging our students to compete against each other, but to work together in the face of the war that’s coming. I have to admit that I don’t do anything to encourage the House rivalries and the like in my classes.”
“But you still split your students into teams and have them compete against each other.”
“Oh, of course. It’s the only way to learn some of the dueling procedures and what it’s like to actually face a coordinated group of enemies. But I split the teams up and switch members between each session, so that no one gets invested in feeling like part of a team fighting against the others. And team members are always from more than one House.”
“But marks—”
“I take the competitive aspect out of that as much as I can. I give exams, but they’re almost always practicals, and they take place in private. If students want to share their marks with each other, they can, but I don’t announce them.”
Albus only blinks at him. Harry shrugs a little. He hasn’t hidden what he’s doing. Students talk about it so much that he’s a little surprised Albus hasn’t heard about it before now.
Then again, does Albus listen to what students have to say, outside his own carefully-chosen group? Harry doubts it.
“I—I understand your desire to encourage both cooperation and an independent spirit in our students,” Albus says, picking his way carefully forwards, as if he doesn’t want to explain exactly what he thinks is “wrong” with the situation. Given that it would be hard to find anyone who agreed with him, at least among the Slytherins and most of the Gryffindors, Harry smiles at him. Albus sees it, and his voice firms. “But I must ask that you ask your students to desist from criticizing the other professors.”
“All right.”
Albus pauses. “Just like that?”
Harry shrugs. “I didn’t know they were doing that, and Mr. Prince, in particular, didn’t strike me as someone who would. I’ll ask them.”
Albus narrows his eyes. “Will they obey you?”
“I can’t promise that, Albus. Asking is all I can do.”
Of course, Harry could enforce obedience if he intended to be a lord like Voldemort wants to be, and like some of his people want him to be. All he’d have to do would be to slap a brand on some arms and threaten to bar them from his presence.
But he isn’t going to do that, no matter how smugly the walls are chiming at him right now and how thrilled it would make Regulus (and some other people). Time and teenagers will both have to live with what they’ll get.
*
“You want me to stop? But I thought you would approve.”
Harry leans an elbow on his desk and stares at Severus, who’s standing in front of him looking somewhere between agonized and furious. “I would have expected you to do it subtly, Mr. Prince. As befits the House you’re in and the talents I know you have.”
Severus blinks several times, hard. Then he says, “I never thought of it that way.”
Harry rolls his eyes a little. It was months before he decided that he could do that in Severus’s presence without the boy taking it the wrong way, but, well, now they have the kind of bond that means he can. “I do encourage you to use your minds. Simply not to—”
“Show other people we’re using them?”
“Irritate other people in their use,” Harry corrects, because the little smirk on Severus’s face is really too much. “Do, please, accept that Professor Slughorn has noticed and complained to the Headmaster.”
Severus nods, the smirk gone now. “I didn’t realize it would get you in trouble, my lord. I’m sorry.”
Harry stands up. He affects a tone of weary disappointment, not anger, because he knows it’ll work better. “What have I told you about using that title?”
Severus winces, but he doesn’t crumple the way he would have a year ago. He simply stares back, his chin rising a little. “With respect, Professor Salvare, we’re alone, and I think it’s time that we name the reality as what it is. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.”
“We can show respect to each other without ignoring reality. Just as I accepted your name change and haven’t slipped in it, I would think that you could call me what I prefer to be called.”
Severus’s face pales dramatically. “I—see. I didn’t think of it like that.”
Harry merely nods. “I didn’t think you had.” The only one who seems to call him lord on purpose while knowing perfectly well that he shouldn’t is Regulus, and Harry will simply continue having talks with him. “Now, as I said, please assert your opinion to Professor Slughorn without making him look like an idiot.”
“In private?”
“That would be a start.”
Severus grins and bows his head. When he looks back up, the grin is still there, but it’s altered a bit. “What would happen if Professor Dumbledore started paying too much attention to you, sir?”
“He might decide that I’m a threat in the same way that Voldemort is.”
Severus gulps. “I see. Something else I didn’t think of.” He straightens his shoulders. “Thank you, sir. You’ve given me a great deal to consider.”
He marches out of the classroom with a determined stride. Harry wonders for a second if he should be worried about Severus trying to get back at Albus, but then dismisses the thought. Even if he tried, Albus would see him coming a mile away, and he has a lot of tolerance for people who are still students in school, Slytherins or not.
*
Two things happen on Halloween: Lily Evans comes to him to swear her oath, and Harry cracks the use of Voldemort’s blood to find the Horcruxes.
He’s in the middle of drawing a huge series of loops all over the parchment spread out in front of him when he hears a knock on the door. Harry calls “Come in!” without looking up. No one will ever see anything but a few doodles on the paper unless they know exactly what he’s doing.
Lily steps in, smiles at him, and glances curiously at the parchment. “What’s that, sir? Some work with Arithmancy?”
Harry opens his mouth to answer, then sits back and takes a long, hard look at the parchment. It plots the places that the Horcruxes were in his first world—or used to be, in the case of the locket—and the loops are his attempt to make the splatters that Voldemort’s blood creates when he uses it make sense.
But what if it wasn’t a map? What if it was a graph?
Harry cackles a little maniacally as he draws a large line down the side of the paper, and then another line along the bottom, and grins as he sees the dots begin to line up. Then he manages to put it aside, and focuses on Lily, who took a step back at the cackle.
“Thank you, Miss Evans, you’ve helped me solve a problem that I was working on. What can I do for you?”
Lily glances at the parchment as if she assumes that it must be more important than she thought it was, but in the end, shakes her head and refocuses on him. Her eyes are bright. Harry thinks he knows the question that’s going to come out of her mouth.
In the end, he doesn’t.
“Why haven’t you joined the Order of the Phoenix, Professor Salvare?”
Harry settles back in his chair and considers Lily. She flushes under his scrutiny, but keeps looking steadily at him. She has the spirit that he’s been told about, and from what Harry’s heard, she’s managed a difficult balancing act between her boyfriend and her best friend since she started dating James.
“Has the Headmaster told you what the Order’s purpose is, Miss Evans?”
“To fight You-Know-Who.”
Harry nods. “But he isn’t doing it by partnering with allies, or reinforcing the Aurors, or trying to counteract the fear that Voldemort spreads.” He ignores Lily’s flinch at the name. Not everyone has to be the same in their bravery. “Even the Order’s clashes with the Death Eaters are rare. He thinks that creeping around in the shadows, whispering dire warnings about Voldemort, is the best thing to do.”
Lily wrinkles her brow. “Well…don’t we have to be careful around him, sir?”
“Of course, but fearing him too much doesn’t do anything to stop him. In fact, it’s more likely to make people give up on the battle before it even begins.”
“Why do you think the Headmaster is doing that, then, sir?”
“I think that he’s let understandable caution and the desire to keep the Order secret overcome straightforward battle tactics. If he stood up against Voldemort openly and had the Order members do the same thing against the Death Eaters, that would inspire people more.”
“I’ve heard about the duel that you had with You-Know-Who this summer. You didn’t kill him or anything.”
“No,” Harry admits. He doesn’t think he should reveal the Horcruxes to someone who’s not even sworn to him yet. “But I did wound him, and more, I made him look ridiculous in front of a lot of people. Some of the spells I used during the duel, and the fact that I wounded him with a knife, made sure of that.”
“Huh.” Lily puckers her brow harder. Harry finds himself watching her and wondering if he does that in a mirror, and then cuts himself off. He doesn’t need to wonder that, not exactly. “I suppose that is more than the Order does.”
Harry smiles. “I won’t stop you if you want to join them, Miss Evans. It’s not my place to say how you should fight in this war.”
“But you think I should?”
“You’re a Gryffindor who’s questioning me about me joining the Order,” Harry says dryly. “I think you’ve already made your decision.”
Lily smiles. “You’re right. And the Headmaster did send me an owl about a week ago telling me some of the information about the Order, and that you hadn’t joined it, and advising me not to join you. But I disregarded it. I think I know more about you than he does, after being in class with you for more than a year.” She draws her wand and stands tall. “I want to join you, sir.”
Harry can see that she’s visibly hesitating, and smiles encouragingly at her. “Are you all right, Miss Evans? Did you have something else you wanted to say?”
“You won’t Mark me, will you? Only James and Black were joking about that, and I can never tell what’s jokes and what’s not with the pair of them.”
Harry considers and then discards the idea of saying something about how he doesn’t think James is joking when it comes to his affection for Lily. No, he did not come back in time to matchmake his parents, thank you very much.
“No marks,” he says. “It’s one of the things that Voldemort does which I’ve always disapproved of.”
Lily gives him a sly smile as she holds out her wand to him. “You don’t seem like a very proper lord so far.”
“Thank Merlin,” Harry says, and if his fervency puzzles her, at least she makes the oath with what seems to be a light heart.
*
“Thank you for inviting me to come see you, my lord.”
“There won’t be many more invitations for you if that name keeps up.”
Lucius hides his smile behind his teacup. Harry shakes his head a little. He knows that Lucius isn’t that much older than the Slytherins that he has in his sixth- and seventh-year classes, but it still feels strange to see him act so young.
To get rid of that feeling, Harry asks, “You were able to get away without anyone suspecting that you were coming to Hogwarts?’
Lucius nods and puts down the teacup. “It helps that Narcissa and I have moved out of the Manor, and my father no longer has control of my day-to-day life. I told my father that I wished to achieve some more independence to look better to the Ministry,” he adds, before Harry can voice his question about whether Lucius is taking a risk. “That way, if he gets arrested for his position at Riddle’s side, I can still funnel money and information to Riddle.”
Lucius has refused to call Voldemort anything but “Riddle” since Harry told him the truth about Voldemort’s origins. Well, at least it’s an improvement on “You-Know-Who.” “Very well. What have you learned?”
“Riddle is furious, my lord.” Harry directs a slashing look at him, and Lucius rolls his eyes a little, but adds, “Professor Salvare, sir. He hates that you made him look bad in that duel, and more, that you won. He’s recruiting heavily for the Death Eaters, but he’s concentrating on people outside the school. He doesn’t think that most of the people he might Mark here would be able to escape your notice and Dumbledore’s combined.”
Harry sighs. That’s one relief, at least. He knows from his historical research before he came back in time that Voldemort did Mark some of the people who were in the years between Lucius and Severus. “All right. Do you have any names of the recruits?”
“Yes. Bellatrix Black, Rabastan Lestrange, Elbion Shafiq…”
Harry mutters under his breath as he writes them down. He supposes there was never a chance of rescuing Bellatrix, and he would have found it hard to be around her anyway, but he would have liked to try.
“Thank you,” he says as he finishes, smoothing down the parchment and casting a charm on it that will make it impossible to read for anyone but him. “It’s valuable information, Lucius.”
“My fiancée would like to swear an oath to you, sir.”
Harry nods, not really surprised by that. Both Narcissa’s fiancé and sister are part of his ranks, so it makes sense that she would ask for it. But the tense expectation in Lucius’s face says that there’s something more to this. “Is there something wrong with the request? Do you not agree that she should be part of our efforts?”
That wins him a brief smile from Lucius. “I’d like to see someone try and stop her, sir. No, nothing like that. Simply that she’s concerned about my Dark Mark.”
“I thought you were able to step around it, as you said.” Harry stares at Lucius with open concern, and tries to silence the calculation in the back of his mind that says this might be a way to get off the path Time has decreed for him. If Lucius needs to be released from his oaths… “Are you no longer able to be a spy?”
“Nothing like that,” Lucius says, with a sharp shake of his head. “She simply worries that the Mark can be used to punish me. She would feel easier if you either altered it or gave me a Mark of your own that would replace it.”
Harry tenses. “Mr. Malfoy, I sent you that book on the requirements of declaring oneself a Lord in Britain for a reason.”
Lucius blinks innocently at him. “I have no interest in declaring myself a Lord, sir.”
Harry groans and covers his face with one hand for a minute. Then he says, “I can alter the Mark. I won’t be giving you one of my own. Will that be enough to satisfy Miss Black?”
“Yes, sir. If not me.”
Lucius says the last words softly enough that Harry can pretend that he hasn’t heard them. He draws his wand and bends over the Dark Mark, studying it, figuring out the pulsing threads that lead back to Voldemort and might alert him if they’re altered, and the ones that won’t. The actual alteration will need to wait until he’s sure of what he’s seeing, but it can’t hurt to begin now.
*
Harry knew from the gleam in Regulus’s eyes when he came through the classroom door that day that he was going to try something, but he never suspected what it actually was. He asked Regulus to show off his defensive Transfiguration in a duel with another fifth-year Slytherin called Crystal Meadowes, and Regulus nodded obediently, but now he whips away from his opponent and launches a Tripping Hex at Harry.
Harry lets the edge of it catch his robe and make him stumble, although not more than that. He can’t afford to lose the respect of his classes, especially his Slytherins, but on the other hand, he thinks Regulus is trying to make him look him supernaturally competent to attract the loyalty of anyone who isn’t in Harry’s fellowship yet. Harry just wants to look a little ordinary.
Regulus grins at him, and Harry snorts. “Please direct your spells back at your opponent, Mr. Black.”
Regulus nods and does, but he sends a very obvious smirk at some of the other Slytherins, and a loud, “See?”
Ah, so that’s it, Harry decides. Regulus is securing his position among the fifth-year Slytherins by showing how powerful his spells are.
Or so Harry thinks, until he hears Regulus and Meadowes talking as they pack up their books to go to lunch. Maybe they’re only lingering because they don’t have another class to immediately run to, but Harry doubts it.
“And he really let you get away with it.” Meadows shakes her head, her frown in place. Harry knows that in his first timeline, she died among the Death Eaters in a battle two years before Voldemort’s banishing in 1981. He hasn’t approached her yet because she seems doubtful and more entrenched in blood purity than most of them. Besides, if he turns the most prominent and powerful Death Eaters, she’ll probably never get Marked anyway.
“Of course he did. I told you.”
“I mean, I know you told me. But I never expected it.”
Meadowes gives Harry one more curious glance, and then flushes when she realizes that he’s looking back at her. She leaves hastily. Harry turns to Regulus and makes his gaze go cooler.
That ceased to work on Regulus a while ago, more’s the pity. Regulus just grins at him. Harry sighs. “Mr. Black.”
“I told Meadowes that you would let me get away with tripping you in front of the class,” Regulus says. “She didn’t believe me. She didn’t think that a powerful wizard could put up with any kind of humiliation.”
“It was hardly a humiliation.”
“To someone like Meadowes, it is. And that means that she’s more likely to think of you as merciful, and someone worth following, instead of him.”
“I can actually do my own recruiting, Mr. Black. If I decide that I want to.”
“But we can help if we want to. Unless you’re going to forbid us that?”
Regulus has mastered the use of a trembling lip in a pout. It doesn’t work on Harry, but he can see the laughter in the grey eyes behind it, and that does. He rolls his eyes. “Of course I won’t forbid you, Mr. Black, and you know it. But has it occurred to you that I don’t want someone who has to be coerced into following me?”
“How is offering them persuasion and evidence coercing them?”
“Evidence of what? How much I let you get away with things?”
“Yes.”
Harry snorts before he can help himself. He has that reaction a lot around Regulus. He shakes his head. “Well, it’s true that I want to help and shelter as many people as I can. I don’t want anyone to be forced into serving Voldemort. But I don’t want to reach a particular number of followers or take Voldemort’s place.”
Regulus stops picking up his books, and gives Harry the most serious look he’s ever seen from him. “Professor Salvare, I think right now, more than most times in the last century, is a time for powerful wizards. There’s him, and there’s Dumbledore, and there’s ordinary people who don’t have a lot of protection from them. Can you blame them for seeking protection from a powerful wizard who won’t make them into slaves?”
Harry hasn’t considered it from that perspective, probably because sheltering behind a powerful wizard was never an option for him. He nods slowly. “You’re right, of course, Mr. Black. But another question occurs to me. If my value to you consists in the fact that I won’t make my followers slaves, why are you trying so hard to make me into a lord, which would ensure that that happens?”
Regulus’s jaw drops a little. Then he says, “You believe that. You really do.”
Harry frowns. “Of course I do. The requirements of becoming a magical lord or lady in Britain ensure it. That act of magic in public that will intimidate people, and the mark on their arms that would brand them—”
“There’s a middle ground,” Regulus interrupts, his eyes shining with devotion now. “Between lordship and slavery. I think your own nature would never let you become someone like him.”
Harry grimaces. He doesn’t have as much faith in himself as Regulus does. He knows what he can do. He knows what he came here to do, and even that has twisted off the path because of Time’s determination to put history back to what it used to be. He doesn’t think Regulus can confidently predict that Harry will always be a good person.
“I will still not become a lord, Mr. Black.”
“And I’ll still keep talking you up to the people who might want one but not the ones that exist, Professor Salvare. See you at lunch.” Regulus beams at him and swaggers out the door.
Harry waits until the door has closed to give a very, very long, and heartfelt, sigh.
There’s no chime from the walls, however, which is interesting. Harry wonders if that will only sound when he makes a move that is more openly towards taking Voldemort’s place.
With determination, Harry retrieves the graph he’s plotted of Horcrux locations linked by the swirls of Voldemort’s blood. It’s been difficult to work with, since the distances are relative to each other instead of absolute, but he thinks he has a lead on the first one.
Time to face the Gaunt ring.
*
Voldemort did move the ring from the shack, and now it’s located on a small, rocky island off Scotland’s coast, one that radiates a powerful Dark curse that makes anyone who approaches feel as if they’re about to come around a corner and face a man-eating predator. Harry’s impressed. It’s not subtle, but it requires more finesse than the spells that Voldemort is prone to using.
Of course, the island does have its guardians. As soon as Harry uses an incantation to turn the water between the small stepping stone he’s on and the main island to a solid floor, a tail lashes out of the sea and breaks the spell to pieces.
Harry smiles. He recognizes the gleaming green scales on that appendage, and he knows what sort of beast this is. “Will you listen to him?’ he hisses. “The one who enslaved you? Or me, the one who comes to set you free?”
There’s silence for a long moment, and then the sea serpent breaks out of the ocean in a dazzling arch, rising and rising, until the green-purple head is swaying a long way above Harry’s head.
It looks down on him, the pressure of the jade eyes overwhelming. Sea serpents actually hypnotize with their gaze more than they strangle with their bodies, which is the way that some Muggle media portrays them. But Harry isn’t affected by it, given his Parseltongue. After a long moment, the serpent tilts its head to the side and replies, “You cannot set me free. The binding goes down to the ocean floor.”
Harry smiles and sits down on the little stepping stone. He brought another toy with him from the Unspeakables; he’s been visiting the Department of Mysteries here every month or so, when he has news to exchange or listen to. He holds up the crystal sculpture of a serpent and watches the real one flick a tongue in doubt.
“What does that do?”
“It will take your place in the binding spell, so that you may be free and your enslaver will never know that there was a switch.”
The way the serpent dances in place tells Harry that his offering has been accepted. He nods and closes his eyes, holding the crystal model in his hands for a long moment, letting it absorb magic and warmth from his touch. Then he opens his eyes and casts it into the sea.
It dives and swims into the binding that coalesces around the sea serpent, and which Harry only sees then, a complex golden net anchored with something that looks like a trident; the water boils and turns transparent, and Harry sees the anchor through the model’s eyes. Then the crystal one nudges its head through the tines of the trident and swims between them, dodging back and forth, winding the net around itself.
Voldemort didn’t account for size, or the particular personality of the beast he trapped, or anything remotely similar that would tell him when someone has replaced it. There’s only an alarm spell if the guardian dies. Harry stands up, dusts his hands off, and smiles at the sea serpent.
“Done.”
The sea serpent turns its head slowly back and forth, reveling in its freedom. Then it shoots its body over the small rock Harry is standing on in a glittering rainbow, disappearing into the water on the other side. Harry laughs and wipes the water away, then once again turns the stretch of sea into a solid pavement.
This time, no one stops him.
He lands on the rocky island and feels the immediate pulse of the Resurrection Stone in the ring as it locks onto him. Harry shakes his head a little. The Deathly Hallows think he’s their master. Harry ignores their claim. It’s one of the reasons he became an Unspeakable in the first place, to figure out how to shed it.
The Elder Wand screamed when Harry used the Time Chamber and a jar of pickles to sever its claim on him in his first world, but that’s its problem.
He certainly isn’t about to take up the Stone now. He’s here for the Horcrux and nothing more.
Harry searches carefully, now and then letting the crystal vial of Voldemort’s blood he brought with him swing out like a pendulum, until he finds the ring, tucked in a golden box beneath an outcrop of stone. Harry snorts. Voldemort was smarter about the hiding place this time, but he still couldn’t resist the ornate box.
Harry kneels down next to it and closes his eyes. The Resurrection Stone trembles like a top in his mind, eager to obey him and destroy the Horcrux if he says so, but Harry is determined not to take up any titles, and that includes the Master of Death.
Instead, Harry draws on a pair of dragonhide gloves that he borrowed from Professor Kettleburn and modified with silk, then reaches out and flips the box open.
The ring glows at him, trying to compel him, but it’s not effective against someone who knows what the Horcrux is and about the wasting curse embedded in the ring. Harry uses his wand to Levitate the ring, and lift it up above the island until it’s a good distance from him and the box, both.
Then he stiffens his back and calls on Fiendfyre.
Confined to the small space of air between him and the Horcrux, the Fiendfyre can’t rage out of control and become large beasts the way it likes to do. It forms a thread-thin golden serpent with three heads, instead, and falls gleefully on the Horcrux.
There’s a burst of the black blood-like liquid that Harry remembers from the diary and a faint, thin scream. Then the ring disintegrates, and Harry deals with the Fiendfyre as it turns back towards him, hissing out a Parseltongue command. The three-headed serpent actually looks startled as it fades from sight.
The Resurrection Stone streaks straight towards him, seeking a bond through contact with his bare skin.
Harry holds up the dragonhide gloves. The Stone bounces off them and straight into the waves. Harry smiles a little as he watches it sink.
It calls to him, a sad tone that reminds Harry of a begging puppy, but he shakes his head. He’s not in this world to become the Master of Death. He’s here to defeat Voldemort, protect those who chose to swear to him, and make some lives happier.
“No time for your false promises,” he murmurs, and then conjures the straight path of water from the island back to his little stepping stone again. Voldemort’s spells mean that there’s no way to Apparate from the island itself.
*
“Good evening, my lord.”
Harry opens his mouth, but Lucius shakes his head from behind Narcissa’s curtseying shoulder. “She has her own sense of propriety,” he says. “And the Black family has been raised to address anyone who has a sufficient amount of power that way.”
Harry narrows his eyes. That would explain some of the problems he’s having with Regulus. On the other hand, Sirius and Andromeda don’t react that way, so he does wonder how much of that is just bollocks.
(From Lucius’s smirk, perhaps most of it).
Narcissa straightens up and stares at him. She has large blue-grey eyes and none of the expression of contempt or disgust that Harry saw most often on her face in the future—when he saw her at all. She looks tremblingly hopeful, in fact.
“You can get rid of Lucius’s Mark?” she whispers. “So that he need never regret his choices?”
“I could only get rid of it by giving him my own mark, Miss Black,” Harry says gently. “But I have come up with a different method that will protect him.”
“How?” And for all the hope in her eyes and the attempt to act like a young girl, Narcissa has the Black calculation down flat.
“I’m going to weave a spell around the Mark itself,” Harry says. “Isolate it from him, but not from Voldemort’s magic.” Both of them flinch, but keep looking steadily at him. Harry is just glad that the door of his quarters is firmly shut and he already told his students he would be unavailable to them this evening. He gestures for them to take the couch by the fire. “So his supposed lord will think that Lucius is still joined to him magically and nothing has changed, but the Mark will have no ability to affect his skin or anything else about him.” He nods to Lucius, who has extended his arm with (absurd) trust. “You will have to pay closer attention to the Mark, however, Mr. Malfoy. Otherwise, you could miss a summons that he’s issued to you. It’s going to dim the pain of that, too.”
“I can set up a ward that should do it,” Lucius whispers. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“How are you going to isolate the Mark, my lord?” Narcissa asks.
Harry sighs and lets it pass. “I will have to have your word after this that you will tell no one what I am about to reveal.” They nod eagerly, perhaps because of the idea that Lucius will be free and perhaps because it’s a secret. “I can bind a Mark that was created by a Parselmouth because I’m a Parselmouth myself.”
Narcissa settles back on the couch and puts her hand to her mouth for a second. Lucius bows his head, but not before Harry can see his eyes light up in a way he’s learned to dread.
“Just because both Voldemort and I are Parselmouths doesn’t make us worthy of reverence,” Harry snaps, feeling more than a little grumpy, and reaches for Lucius’s left arm.
Lucius still keeps looking at him as if that’s the case. Harry closes his eyes to escape the stare and seeks the Dark Mark out in his mind.
The heavy pressure of it on Lucius’s magic is like the smoke of a fire on a distant horizon. Harry spends a few minutes “breathing it in,” studying it from all angles, making sure that Voldemort hasn’t left some kind of a trap there that Harry isn’t familiar with. Then he exhales hard, and begins to speak in Parseltongue.
“Mark of the serpent and the skull, obey me. Hear me. You will not touch the skin of the man whose arm you rest on. You will not touch his magic. You will not touch his heart…”
Harry hisses out an exhaustive list of everything he doesn’t want the Mark to touch, just in case he’s forgotten something and the Mark will affect what he’s left out. When he finishes the list, he draws his wand and lays it on top of Lucius’s Mark, focusing his will through it.
There’s a long, surprised hiss from the serpent in the Mark, and then a shimmer of Dark magic that Harry wasn’t even aware of vanishes from the corners of his awareness. The Mark has gone dormant.
Harry sighs and releases his will, lifting his wand at the same time. When he opens his eyes, he nods in satisfaction. To all eyes, the Mark is the same as it was before; it hasn’t changed visibly. The connection to Voldemort’s magic should remain intact.
He glances up, and then away, uncomfortable with the open adoration on Lucius’s face. He stifles a sigh. Perhaps it’s too late once someone becomes a Death Eater and they’ll be a follower for life, but Harry does wish that Lucius would be able to stand on his own.
“Thank you, my lord.” Lucius rolls his sleeve down and tucks his arm back against his side.
“Are you too magically exhausted to take my oath?” Narcissa asked delicately.
Harry smiles. “No, it’s all right, Miss Black.” After he says that, Narcissa hands Lucius a significant glance, but Harry has not the slightest idea why. He decides to ignore it, and draws his wand for the oath.
Narcissa speaks the words fervently, staring directly into his eyes. Harry lets that pass, as well.
And he ignores the way that Time is chiming from the wall with noises that sound like a chuckle.