lomonaaeren

Chapter Sixteen.

Chapter One.

Title: Leopard’s Choice (17/60)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Mentions of canon background pairings, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Angst, AU (Harry Sorted into Slytherin at the end of second year), violence, gore, torture, present tense
Rating: R (for violence)
Summary: Sequel to Wolf’s Choice. Harry enters his fifth year with the Ministry demanding he retract his stories of Voldemort’s return, his allies demanding sacrifices he may not want to make, and the world becoming sharper with every breath.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to Other People’s Choices and Wolf’s Choice, and the third part of the Choices series. Seriously, don’t try to read this without having read the other stories first. I anticipate this being 60 chapters, like the others in the series. Also, please take the violence warning seriously. Like OoTP, this fic will get considerably darker than the others.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Seventeen—Folds

Severus paces distractedly in front of his desk. Harry sits quietly and watches him. He told Theo that since he was the one who angled to get himself into the same detention with Harry, he could explain the process to Severus, and convince him to let the detention go ahead, instead of canceling it.

“We need to know more about how she operates, sir.” Theo appears entirely comfortable sitting in the chair next to Harry. Harry envies him. Since his revelation about how much Severus worries over him, he’s felt guilty about the amount of pain he causes the man. “I sensed something behind her door that was deadly and would have caused my death if I opened it—”

“And you think that is an argument for permitting this ridiculous detention?”

“Yes. Because we haven’t sensed it other than that. How could she bring something like this into the school and we wouldn’t know about it, with the strength of the wards at Hogwarts? She might be more powerful than any of us thought, or she might have better allies. Obviously we need to figure this out.”

Severus spins to face Theo. “But you could have chosen some less dangerous method of figuring it out.”

“We have to make her think she’s winning, sir. That way, she’ll let her guard down.”

“We could have waited until the Weasley twins report what they know about her.”

Theo shrugs, his nostrils curling. “I don’t know how long it’ll take them to find that out or what they’ll consider important. If they find out how she hurt Harry, that would be valuable, but that doesn’t mean they’ll find the source of the thing behind her door or the extent of the danger she poses to Harry.”

Severus opens his mouth to answer, but someone knocks briskly on the door, and a voice announces, “Forge and Gred Delivery Service!”

From the way Severus grimaces, he’d like to curse the door, but he catches Harry’s eye and jerks his head a little, striding over to open it instead. George slips inside and glances around dramatically. Then he nods and turns to Severus.

“Forge is still keeping an eye on her,” he whispers. “But we found out something we thought you ought to know right away, professor.”

Severus nods curt permission to go ahead. Harry studies George’s back thoughtfully. He can’t decide whether George is being respectful of Severus as a professor for the first time, or if it’s just the news that he carries which made him decide it was better to use that kind of tone.

George turns his head enough to catch Harry’s eye and wink. Well, all right, Harry decides, whatever reason they have for doing this, it’s not enough to change them completely.

“We saw the Toad Monster in her office talking to a creature that’s entirely made of shadow,” George says, pausing at the end of the sentence as if to wait for admiring applause. When Severus glowers at him, he seems to remember where he is, and sighs and pushes forwards. “She was talking about how Harry was lucky for doing something and how there was no ritual or spell that could do it. We assume that means surviving the Dreaded Green Bolt o’ Light. And then she promised to do something.”

“That sounds like half a conversation,” Theo murmurs. He’s practically vibrating in his seat.

George turns his hands palm up. “We didn’t hear anything from the creature, but Old Toadmistress acted like she was listening and responding to things it said. Maybe it was talking right into her head.”

“That seems likely,” Severus says. He’s standing still, but Harry knows him well enough to see how much tension has gripped his frame. “What form does this creature take?”

“A giant cat,” George says promptly. “We don’t know exactly what kind. But not a little dainty kitty, that’s for sure. And not a Kneazle, either.”

“Could it be a leopard?”

George blinks at Theo as though noticing for the first time that he’s in the office, which Harry doesn’t believe for a second. “Maybe. You’d know what a leopard looks like, would you, Mister Slytherin?”

“Did it look like this?”

Theo’s expression is innocent as he slips to his feet, although George is eyeing him as if thinks Theo is going to draw his wand and cast a leopard-shaped curse at him. Instead, Theo dips his head and concentrates, and—

Becomes a leopard.

Harry swallows back his envy. Sirius told him that he could learn to become an Animagus if he wanted; it was just that with the magic Harry was learning from the Speakers and everything else, it fell down the long list of activities and lessons Harry had to master. Theo, though, has time to concentrate. A sleek leopard stands before George with its tail rippling.

George stares, and then gives a low bow. “Sorry for doubting you, Mister Slytherin, sir! Yes, Forge said it looked like that about the tail.”

Theo cants his head a little and gives a soft snarl. Then he changes back. His clothes smoothly make the transition with him, which Harry knows is a sign of a skilled Animagus. That’s not something Sirius said would happen even for people who were really trying on the transformation until the fifth or sixth month they were trying it, and this is Theo’s…well, his fourth.

“I did not know that you were so advanced in your transformation, Mr. Nott.”

Theo gives Severus the blandest possible look. “I was practicing, sir.”

Harry imagines how much practice Theo must have been giving to get this good, and gives a little shiver. Then again, he should know better than anyone how much dedication Theo can give to a topic when he wants to, and how frightening that dedication can be.

“Did you use the Animalium ritual, Mr. Nott?”

“The what?” Harry and George ask at the same time, although Harry is only confused, not eaten up by curiosity the way George appears to be.

“A ritual that can speed up the first successful transformation of an Animagus,” Severus says. His face is a little paler than normal. “At the cost of blood, or something else that most people would hesitate to give up for the sake of magic, making the ritual little practiced. But it is one that a resourceful Slytherin could have found. Did you, Mr. Nott?”

“No, sir,” Theo says gently.

Severus eases back onto his heels, and Harry realizes that however concerned he was about this ritual, he would have preferred that answer to a lack of one. “Then what did you use, Mr. Nott?”

“Time and dedication, sir.”

“I am finding your lack of an answer disturbing, Mr. Nott.”

Severus’s voice lowers, and the temperature in the room seems to follow it down. Harry shivers a little. No matter how strong and skilled and dangerous Theo is, he’s nothing compared to the real master of the room.

Or at least, Harry kind of hopes he’s not. He has no idea what he’ll do if it turns out that Theo is actually strong enough to challenge Severus.

“My apologies, sir. But I can’t tell you something that’s not true, as you would find the experience of being lied to disturbing, too.” Theo’s face remains placid, and if he’s nervous, Harry can’t tell. “It really was time and dedication. I worked on becoming an Animagus any moment that I wasn’t actually sleeping or figuring out a way to protect Harry.”

“How could you do it while you were eating?” Harry asks, since Theo seems to be counting meals as part of the time that he worked on it.

Theo smiles at him a little. “I can picture the difference between my teeth and the way a leopard’s mouth and jaws operate. And I can project myself into the imagined form of its body in the classroom, and so on. To be frank, most of the schoolwork here doesn’t challenge me much. It’s easy to slip away in my mind and think about something else instead if what I’m doing doesn’t shut my brain down or require absolute concentration.”

From the way Severus is scowling, he might be coming up with ways to “challenge” Theo further in Potions. George, meanwhile, jumps into the conversation again. Harry thinks that probably only fascination with what he was hearing kept him silent this long.

“That’s right bloody brilliant, that is,” George observes. “Forge and I work on our pranks mentally all the time, too, but there’s only so far we can go without people and things to test them on. If we worked on just developing them when we had nothing else to do, though…”

“Classwork in your NEWT year is nothing else to do?” Severus asks softly.

“Not really, sir,” George says, and grins at him a little. “I mean, not that we don’t learn things from your classes. But NEWTS don’t matter a whole lot to our ultimate goal of opening a prank shop.”

Severus opens his mouth, probably to scold George some more, but Harry interrupts. He’s already a little anxious about how much time they’re wasting in this conversation. “So, what should we do? Do you agree that it’s all right for us to go to this detention because Theo can turn into a leopard if anything happens?”

“When she has a powerful creature in the same room with her?” Severus stares at Harry. “You thought I would let you go after what Mr. Weasley here has said?”

“There’s still the same problem with you not being ready to face up to the might of the Ministry if—”

“You can let me worry about that, Harry.”

“No, sir, I can’t.” Harry ignores the way Severus scowls at him. “We don’t want to let on to Umbridge that we suspect anything’s wrong, not yet, not until we have to. I think Theo and I should attend this detention and just take precautions.”

Severus stands there for a long moment, fingers tapping on the edge of his desk. Then he glares at George. “Can you and you brother keep up the watch through the detention without her suspecting you’re there, Mr. Weasley?”

“’Course we can. She hasn’t suspected anything about how we do it yet.”

George is obviously waiting to be asked, but Severus turns away and nods. “Then go to the detention,” he almost snaps at Harry and Theo. “But keep in mind that nothing is worth your life.”

Harry bites down the impulse to take issue with the harsh tone, just reminding himself again that Severus is worried. He nods and stands. “Thank you, sir. We should go before she decides we’re late and assigns us another one.” He catches Theo’s attention, and for a second, he thinks Theo’s eyes are shining brilliant green.

Then Theo blinks and seems to shutter the color. “Yes, we should,” he says, and follows Harry out of the classroom.

“How much effort did it take you to transform like that?” Harry asks, when they’re walking up the stairs towards Umbridge’s office.

“Not enough that I can’t protect you if that leopard-creature with her tries anything.”

Harry just grimaces and nods. There isn’t any more time to play around with hoping that a different solution will suddenly show up. They’ve got to face the detention.

“I will protect you,” Lion announces from his shoulder, rearing up and proudly spreading his wings.

Harry touches his snake’s back in acknowledgment, but silently he wonders at how effective that’s going to be if Umbridge just insists on Harry putting Lion in the corridor again.

*

Dolores smiles as the two boys come through the door, but sighs as she sees the winged snake on the Potter boy’s shoulder. The creature she serves thought it might interfere in the taking of the boy’s blood. Dolores doesn’t believe so, but she obeys for the sake of peace, and the power that will be hers someday.

“Mr. Potter,” she says, voice as gentle as she can make it. “What did I tell you about the snake last time? You’ll need to put it out in the corridor.”

“Why?” Nott asks, watching her with the feral intensity that Dolores found so disturbing the one time she met his father. “Why should he, professor, when we’re only going to be writing lines? How would Lion interfere with that?”

“I never said that was all you would be doing,” Dolores corrects him. “And in fact, this detention will involve a little more vigorous exercise.” She needs to put them both in the circle to make sure.

“Oh? What is it, Professor?”

“I will explain after Mr. Potter puts the snake out in the corridor, Mr. Nott.”

Nott’s eyes widen and glimmer with something that looks like madness, but Potter moves forwards, shaking his head, before the other boy can speak. “Let’s just do it, all right, Theo?” Dolores hears him mutter. “I don’t want to be here longer than I can help.”

Dolores sneers a little, but decides it won’t help her goals to show she heard that. She sits there, smiling gently, until Potter has opened the door and let the snake out into the corridor. Dolores doesn’t imagine it goes far. Well, let it wait there for him. It won’t be able to do anything from outside, and it isn’t smart enough to guess or intuit what will take place here.

“All right, boys,” she says, when the door is safely shut. She makes her voice as gentle and caressing as possible, for her own satisfaction, since neither boy looks like he’s influenced by it. “Please go and stand in the center of the room. You are going to recite to me the rules of the school concerning respect for professors.”

“What, professor? Word-for-word?” Nott asks, without moving.

“You are saying that you don’t know them word-for-word, Mr. Nott?”

“I shouldn’t think anyone does, Professor Umbridge.”

Dolores smiles. “Then I will show you a copy of the school rules, and ask that you read from it. A simple detention, don’t you think, Mr. Nott? Very simple and straightforward.” Her voice frays a little towards the end, despite herself. Neither of them is moving towards the circle, and the shadows are stirring in a way that she knows means her master is impatient.

“Oh, come on, Theo,” Potter snaps, and starts towards the center of the room and the runic circle outlined with soft grey powder that’s not easily visible against the stones unless the light catches it just right. Needless to say, Dolores has made sure that the only light in her room comes from the low fire. “The sooner we do this, the sooner we’ll be out of the detention.”

“Perhaps not, with an attitude like that, Mr. Potter.”

Potter gives her a flat look from green eyes, and a second later, Nott does the same thing. Dolores hesitates. Were his eyes green when he came in here? It bothers her that she can’t remember.

“All right,” Nott appears to acquiesce, and he strides forwards. At the last moment, his foot shoots out and kicks aside a large portion of the grey powder, utterly damaging two of the most important runes.

Dolores leaps to her feet with a shriek of rage. Potter jumps backwards and draws his wand.

“Oops,” Nott says, softly, his eyes fixed on Dolores’s face.

Dolores shakes her head and forces herself to calm down. She can’t give things away by showing that the disrupted circle was actually important, and Nott at least is primed to suspect something even if Potter isn’t. She bares her teeth in a little smile and lifts one hand. “It’s all right, boys,” she says. “But I will have to ask you to stand still.”

She cries out to her master in her mind at the same moment. In the end, this won’t matter, because neither of them is going to remember what happens here tonight any more than Potter remembers his previous detention. But she needs to make sure that Nott is held and contained while she works on Potter.

*

Theo feels the air charge and twist in some way that he’s never felt before. The closest is the sensation he had when he stood outside the door of Umbridge’s office and felt that opening it would mean his death.

The air gathers and winds around him, then, and Theo finds himself standing in what looks like a huge fold of shimmery blue-green cloth. He stares around, and finds that he can see Umbridge and Harry, but only from a distance, as if they’re separated from him by walls of water. Theo immediately leaps towards them.

The wall doesn’t look solid, but it turns out to be, and Theo rebounds from it back into the center of the fold. He turns, half-hunched, his eyes darting around and his nostrils working. His senses have grown much keener since his first Animagus transformation, and now he knows that something is wrong, that he can feel the pacing of a creature coming closer and closer.

He forces himself not to look towards Umbridge and Harry. He can’t help Harry until he gets free, and he won’t get free unless he can overcome the challenge that’s heading towards him now.

It doesn’t manifest so much as appear in glimpses: a flash of shadowy fur there, a snatch of rank scent here. Theo thinks for a moment, and then decides that there’s no surprise or advantage to be gained by not transforming, and does.

He feels the start of surprise that ripples through the rank fur, and enormous golden eyes open in front of him, filled with devouring black pits.

Theo snarls, and springs to the attack.