lomonaaeren

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Chapter Six—Resistance

“And now, Mr. Potter. Let’s see you.”

Professor Flitwick had a very special voice when he was talking to Harry, Felix had noticed. It was softer and he turned as if he wanted to shield Harry from the rest of the class. Felix watched his brother worriedly as he drew his wand. Harry really hadn’t made much headway in the last four weeks.

But now, Harry looked at Professor Flitwick and said, loudly, “Lumos!” at the same time as he flicked his wand.

Ron gasped next to Felix as the tip of the wand lit up. Felix stared at his brother, feeling his heart pound wildly. It was working! Harry had finally bonded with his wand!

“Excellent, Mr. Potter!” Professor Flitwick hopped up and down in place, clapping his hands, more excited than Felix had ever seen him. “Oh, well done! Take ten points for Gryffindor!”

“Excuse me, Professor Flitwick,” Granger said in a loud voice. Felix grimaced a little. He knew Granger was smart, and he knew she probably hadn’t had many friends in Muggle primary with the way she acted, but she was still annoying. “Why does he get so many points?” It was more points than Granger had earned this week, Felix knew.

The Ravenclaws rustled in the corner of the classroom as if agreeing with her, but Professor Flitwick just beamed at Granger. “It’s taken him a long time, Miss Granger, but he managed it! Look at the way his charm is glowing!” And he gestured to the end of Harry’s wand, which was blazing with a light as brilliant as fire.

“I didn’t know he could do that,” Granger said, folding her arms. “He didn’t do that last class, sir.”

“And that’s precisely the reason why it’s worth celebrating now,” Professor Flitwick said, with a firm nod. Although he was always polite. Felix sometimes got the impression that Granger got on the professor’s nerves, too. “Continue practicing, Mr. Potter! Try to catch up to the other charms the class had tried.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harry sat back down. He was next to Neville, who gave him a timid smile and whispered something Felix couldn’t make out. Harry nodded back and replied, but Ron started talking then, so Felix missed what he said.

“You were right, mate. He just needed a little time to adjust.”

“Yeah.”

Felix said it absently, eyes fixed on Harry. He must have been practicing a lot by himself. Come to think of it, Harry hadn’t been around the Gryffindor common room much in the evenings for the last week or so. Of course, some of those evenings, he had remedial sessions with the professors, but not every day. Did he go off and practice on his own?

Felix wanted to tell his brother that he didn’t have to do that, that he could always practice in front of Felix if he wanted to.

Well, he would. Right after class.

*

“Congratulations, Harry! Did you start getting the spells last night?”

It was odd, having his yearmates pay this much attention to him, Harry thought. Well, sometimes he got that kind of attention from Nott, but not from most other people. The other Gryffindors surrounded him in a cluster as they left Charms, though. Patil and Brown were whispering, Finnigan clapped him on the back, Neville was still smiling, Ron grinned at him and mouthed something Harry didn’t catch, Thomas lingered near the back and looked as if he wanted to come up, and Granger had her arms folded and was huffing again.

But of course, they all fell silent when Felix said what he said.

Harry smiled at him. “Thanks. Yeah, I did.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Okay, but you can always tell me, you know that, right?”

Harry nodded and smiled some more. Of course he knew he couldn’t. He was lying to everyone right now, creating the supposed Lumos Charm that had appeared at the end of his wand with his fire magic. But did it really matter? Felix no longer looked worried, and the only person who seemed unhappy with him was Granger.

“But how did you get it?” Granger burst out. “I was tutoring you, and you didn’t tell me you got it!”

Harry held back his snort. Granger had offered her help with a lot of things, but it was mostly essays. And even the one or two times they’d sat down so she could help him with spells, she tended to get distracted by someone doing something against the rules in the common room and start scolding them. “I also had tutoring from the professors, Granger,” Harry said politely. “I think it finally paid off.”

“Professor Flitwick gave you a lot of points!”

“It’s not every day that someone stops needing remedial Charms tutoring. I’m sure that he’ll give you more next time.”

That seemed to be all Granger had needed to hear, because her expression cleared up and she headed off to lunch. Thomas took the chance to come up to Harry and murmur, “Your Lumos was pretty strong today. You must have practiced a lot.”

“Yeah.” And Harry had practiced, although it was at making the fire look more like light and hover near the tip of his wand than anything else.

“Do you think we could work together in Charms on Friday?”

Harry blinked, then smiled tentatively at Thomas. It was the first time that someone had offered to work with him other than offering to tutor him. He and Neville sat next to each other most of the time because everyone else had more or less pushed them together. “Sure, all right.”

“You can sit by me, too, Harry,” said Finnigan quickly.

“Thomas asked first.”

“Call me Dean.”

Something inside Harry relaxed. Maybe he would never fit as well into Gryffindor as Felix did, but Felix was beaming at him, and the others seemed friendlier now that they knew Harry wouldn’t be costing them points in class or be embarrassing because he couldn’t get something. He could have people who liked to be around him.

Maybe friends?

Harry was a little doubtful about that. Friends seemed a step too far. But as he walked into the Great Hall among a chattering, laughing group of Gryffindors, he thought it might come to that in the end.

*

“Congratulations.”

Despite what seemed to be Potter’s newfound popularity in Gryffindor House, it still wasn’t much trouble to catch him alone in the library. Theo watched Potter stiffen for a second before he turned away from the history shelves and nodded to Theo. He had a thick book in one hand that Theo didn’t recognize.

“Thanks, Nott.”

“Tell me how you did it?”

Potter watched him for a second in a way that reminded Theo of a wild animal. Then he relaxed, or apparently relaxed, and gave Theo a wide, happy smile. “It was nothing more than practice. That’s what the book on King Canute’s Disease said would do it. I practiced until I got it.” He shrugged a little.

“Bollocks.”

Potter’s eyes widened. Then he said softly, “Whatever you think you know, Nott, you should keep your mouth shut.”

“Of course I know. And I’m willing to keep it it quiet. But I just wonder what you’re going to do in Transfiguration? And if you’re ever going to tell your parents and brother the truth?”

Potter was still. Theo wasn’t bothered by that, though, not when he was like that himself a lot. He waited, and Potter finally snapped his teeth and said, “Not that it matters, but no, I’m not.”

“Why not? You don’t want them to respect you for what you can do?”

“I don’t care about respect, Nott. I care about survival and staying in the magical world.”

Theo blinked. Well, that explained a lot of things he had wondered about Potter. “I know you do. But you can go beyond that. Once you get your parents used to the idea that you’re capable of magic, just not the kind they thought you were—”

“Oh, and you’re such an expert on a good relationship with parents, are you, Nott?”

Theo swallowed his blinding anger, which he knew would give him a headache if he let it go on too much longer. “My father has never treated me like either your Muggle relatives or your parents treated you, Potter.”

Potter regarded him with brilliant green eyes, and then inclined his head slowly. “All right.”

“And my father would tell me to show off my magic if he knew that I had the gifts you have,” Theo said, his voice still a little rough with anger. “What happens if you keep pretending you’re just a wizard with King Canute’s Disease? Who’s happy?”

“Lily and James and Felix, because they think I’ve recovered and I’m a normal wizard.”

“But not you, I notice you’re not saying.”

“I don’t actually know what it would take to make me happy.”

“That’s—pretty sad, Potter.”

Potter shrugged and shoved past Theo, heading for the table in the library they had been sitting at when he told Theo about his elemental magic. Theo followed him and sat down across from him. “What are you going to do about Transfiguration?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Potter seemed to be absorbed in his history book, so Theo took out his Herbology essay. He sighed a little as he wrote it. He enjoyed the practical side of Herbology, and Sprout was a fair enough professor, not unduly taking points away from people or granting them just for someone she liked existing in her vicinity. But he didn’t see the point of writing essays that the professors could probably predict with their eyes shut.

And all on the same subject, too. Wouldn’t they get bored reading them?

Theo never wanted to be a professor.

“What do you know about the Imperius Curse?”

Theo glanced up carefully. Potter had turned to look at him, and the way he was looking didn’t tell Theo a thing about what he already knew.

Theo decided to answer honestly anyway, because he was coming to the conclusion that he wouldn’t learn much from Potter unless he took some risks. “I know that it can control someone’s will and it’s supposed to feel like the most pleasant sensation you’ve ever experienced, while someone whispers instructions in your ear. I know that certain people in the last war claimed to be under it.”

“Claimed.”

“That’s what I said, Potter.”

“One of them being your father.”

Theo smiled, and knew it was in no way a pleasant expression. Unlike almost everyone else he’d shown it to, Potter didn’t back away. He just tilted his head.

That impressed Theo enough to answer, “Yes, that’s what he said.”

“But you know the Imperius Curse doesn’t really work like that. Someone can’t just command someone to do so many complex tasks of the kinds a Death Eater would have to perform. They’d have to stand right next to them and keep holding it. Or they’d have to give them one command and then let them go after they’d finished that. Even someone as powerful as Voldemort.”

Theo hated the way he flinched at the Dark Lord’s name, but he calmed down as much as he could and took a deep breath. “If you know that much, Potter, then I’m surprised that you’re bothering to ask me.”

“I know what the books told me. But I’ve also noticed that some of them contradict each other.” Potter shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “Especially when they start talking about the way Felix defeated Voldemort.”

Theo was ready for it this time, or sort of, and only flinched a little. “I don’t think anyone really knows what happened that night, except perhaps the Dark Lord.”

“Too bad he’s not around so we can ask him.”

Theo choked on his own spit. He stared at Potter, who looked back at him with glittering eyes. Theo chuckled without meaning to.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Just wondering how you’ve managed to keep your cover around the Gryffindors,” Theo said, and made sure his voice showed his honest admiration. “How many times do you have to stop yourself from saying what you really think? How many times do you roll your eyes when they do something stupid?”

“They’re not always stupid. Granger’s plenty smart.”

“Not what I meant, and you know it, Potter. They’re not like us. They talk about childish things, and fight about childish things, and they’d be horrified if they knew you were even contemplating talking to a Death Eater’s son about the Imperius Curse, or saying it’s a shame we can’t ask the Dark Lord a question.”

“You don’t think I can ever be childish, Nott?”

“I know you can if you think it’d be useful. Otherwise? Give me some credit, Potter.”

*

Harry honestly didn’t know how he would react to that until he smiled.

In some ways, it was—it was refreshing to have someone like Nott that he could talk about these things to. He thought Nott was wrong about how every single person in Gryffindor would react to talking about the Imperius Curse. Some of the older ones, like Percy Weasley, would probably think it was interesting or at least lecture him about it instead of refusing to discuss it.

But he also knew what Nott meant. Harry had to watch every step he made, every word he said, in Gryffindor. He didn’t want people to think he was too weak, or too strong. They couldn’t think he was abused, or it would hurt the Potters’ long-term political goals for integrating with the Muggle world. He had to hide his elemental magic and his Parseltongue. He had to make sure that people saw him smiling and playing Exploding Snap and not reading about things that might be questionable, at least not when the whole book was just about that. He could read histories of the war all he wanted.

There was nothing to watch around Nott, because he already knew two big secrets about Harry, and he didn’t seem to care if Harry said the “wrong” things or smiled too coldly or speculated about things that weren’t true. Harry leaned a little back in his chair. “Yes, all right. I’m not—much like the other Gryffindors.”

“You should have let the Hat put you into Slytherin like it wanted.”

Harry rolled his eyes, even as he tensed. But he really thought one of them would have noticed if someone was standing close enough to hear that. “And had a miserable life with my parents suspecting me of evil tendencies and Dumbledore probably calling me into his office for a talk. Yeah, that would have been a great idea.”

“What about your brother?”

“I don’t know how Felix would have reacted. I don’t—feel like I know him well enough yet.”

“But you don’t want to lose him. Because he can run interference with you for your parents?”

“Not just that, you berk.” Harry thought about reaching across the table to shove Nott’s shoulder, but they weren’t close enough for him to chance it. “Because he’s my brother, and he was nice over the summer, and he can’t help it that he’s famous.”

Nott managed to put more skepticism into an eyebrow raise than Harry had known existed. “All right. And when the moment comes that you can’t conceal who you are from him any longer?”

“Then I’ll have to hope that we’re close enough that he’ll overlook it.”

Nott nodded, looking thoughtful. “Well, it’s your game, and I suppose that you have less ridiculous motivations for playing it than I thought you did.”

“What about you, Nott? Why are you so intent on following me around and partnering with me in Potions?”

“You’re the only slightly interesting person here besides Blaise Zabini. I expected to be bored at Hogwarts, but not this bored. It would be better if I could write to my father, but.” Nott shook his head.

“What? Why can’t you write to him?”

“Because the Figgs have a spell on me that monitors my post. They have lots of spells on me.”

Harry stared at Nott, appalled. He had acknowledged that the possibilities of people hurting you were worse with magic; he’d thought about what the Potters could do to him compared with the Dursleys. But he hadn’t known for sure it was happening to Nott. The bruise had made him think the Figgs hurt Nott that way.

“What other kinds of spells?”

Nott stared steadily at him for a long moment, then pushed up his left sleeve. Harry leaned closer. There was a bruise on Nott’s arm, a dark one that looked almost exactly the same as the last one Harry had seen.

“Are they coming here and abusing you?” Harry demanded softly, and a curl of flame came to life near his shoulders.

Nott’s eyes widened and darted back and forth between the flame and Harry’s face. “No,” he said softly. “They—they have a spell on me that renews the bruises whenever they start to heal. Along with the spell that brings all my post to them, and one that scorches my tongue whenever I say something critical about them or Muggles.”

“So your tongue is scorching right now?”

“Yes.”

Harry felt as though someone had filled him with boiling water. This was terrible. It didn’t matter that the Potters and Dumbledore might not know about this. The Figgs were still doing it, and that made them terrible people.

Nott had the courage to talk badly about them anyway, and seek Harry out, and poke and prod him for secrets. He was braver than Harry.

Harry took a deep breath and made a promise to himself. He was going to get Nott out of his situation. He was going to get him home to his father. His father couldn’t be a good person if he’d been a Death Eater and got out of being punished by claiming the Imperius Curse, but he wasn’t going to hurt Nott. Making things better for one person was all Harry thought he could probably do.

And, well, he’d made things better for himself already, hadn’t he? He had made the Potters and Felix and Dumbledore think he was normal. That meant they probably wouldn’t send him back to the Dursleys or despair of him and pull him out of Hogwarts.

He could try to help someone who understood him better than most people, who had some of his secrets and hadn’t betrayed them, and who was suffering some of the same things Harry had.

“I’m sorry, Nott,” Harry said quietly.

Nott sat up and stared at him. Harry waited. He thought he knew what Nott was looking for. Pity, or something like it. Harry would have been upset by pity, so he understood where Nott was coming from.

Harry just looked back at him, and understood.

Nott finally gave him a thin smile and nodded. “And, by the way? My name is Theo.”

Harry half-smiled. “Mine’s Harry.”

*

“You have not told me what your plan for Transfiguration is yet. You cannot use elemental magic to transform one object into another.”

Harry sagged against the back wall of Quirrell’s classroom, panting. Quirrell had just run Harry through a hard drill where he’d summoned fire and water and wind and made the stones in the floor of the classroom shift around. It had proven that Harry’s weakest element was earth, at least according to Quirrell. And it had made Harry’s stomach throb with what felt like a combination of pain and hunger.

He didn’t know if he was close to magical exhaustion, which some of the books had described, but it felt like it.

Quirrell was still waiting for an answer, staring at him with that cold, direct gaze he used whenever they were alone. Harry straightened up and managed to answer without his voice shaking. “I’m going to use illusions, sir.”

Quirrell’s eyebrows shot up. He smiled, but it wasn’t a nice one. “Accepting that you have other kinds of wandless magic beyond the elemental kind, Mr. Potter?”

Harry nodded.

“Show me.”

Harry half-closed his eyes and pictured the bruise he had seen on Theo’s arm, which was seared into his memory. Then he pulled up his left sleeve and turned his arm to show the bruise he’d imprinted there with magic to Quirrell.

Quirrell stood up and paced towards him. Harry coiled his magic around him and kept it humming just under his skin. He would strike if Quirrell tried to cast a spell on him or did anything else. Quirrell seemed to be teaching him because he was bored, just like Theo. But he wasn’t honest about his own secrets, the way Theo was.

Quirrell poked at the bruise. Harry jumped. Quirrell drew back with a faint sneer on his face.

“The jump would convince someone the bruise is real and you feel pain,” he said. “But it doesn’t feel any different from your skin. How are you going to make a matchstick feel like a needle, Mr. Potter? The moment Professor McGonagall picks it up, she would know that it is not the real thing.”

Harry licked his lips. He had hoped illusions would work well enough. “I don’t know, sir,” he said stonily.

Quirrell stepped back and considered him for a moment. “It may be that you don’t have the talent to get yourself out of remedial Transfiguration lessons this year, Mr. Potter.”

“Maybe not,” Harry agreed. Lily and James had written back to him sounding overjoyed about his performance in Charms, and in Defense, where he could use little blasts of wind to imitate Tripping Jinxes and the like. But if illusions weren’t going to be enough, he didn’t know what he would do about Transfiguration.

Quirrell rocked back on his heels and studied him. “I expected it to bother you more, Potter,” he said softly. “Have you no pride?”

Harry didn’t see what pride someone could have when they were struggling to survive, but he didn’t say that. Quirrell didn’t know about the Dursleys, or not more than the things he might have been able to pick up here and there. There was no reason to tell him.

“You have to learn to have bigger goals,” Quirrell said abruptly, in what Harry had privately decided to call his “lecture-voice.” He lectured all the time in class, but the stuttering made it hard to listen to there, and a lot of the time in private, he just gave Harry instructions. “You have to learn to think beyond the immediate day’s needs.”

“Why, sir?” Harry asked quietly. “I might have elemental powers and not King Canute’s Disease, and other kinds of magic, but why do I need to think ambitiously?”

Quirrell paused. His smile came and went. Then he said, “What do you think is the end purpose of these lessons, Potter?”

“To keep you from being bored, sir. And to have a secret that you can hold over other people’s heads.”

Quirrell’s eyes widened as he stared at him. Harry stared back, and kept his magic coiled. He could still burn Quirrell’s books if he tried to hurt Harry. Harry was getting pretty good with fire and conjuring more than a little coil of it.

Then Quirrell threw back his head and laughed. Harry lasted through it, although the sound was cold and unpleasant and made him feel as if his skin was coated with a thin layer of slime.

“That is the truth, Mr. Potter,” Quirrell agreed at last, as he finished chuckling. “But I also am interested in seeing what you will become, when you leave behind some of the clinging beliefs that make you weaker than you are.”

Harry watched him and said nothing. He didn’t know if Quirrell meant he wanted Harry to act more Slytherin, the way Theo did, or if it was something else. Sometimes Harry thought he would never understand the world he lived in now. His parents had abandoned him, Dumbledore wanted him not to tell anyone about the abuse, he had Parseltongue so sharp that other animals hated him but he couldn’t tell anybody, and the people who knew the most secrets about him were someone his parents would hate him being friends with and an insane teacher.

“You have given into the idea that your power must be used solely to defend yourself,” Quirrell said. “Who told you that?”

“No one, sir.”

“Then why do you behave that way?”

“I’m already lying to people. I’m lying to people about my elemental magic and how much I belong in Gryffindor. If I—I don’t know, try to be famous like my brother or something, then people are going to start paying enough attention to me to uncover my secrets.”

“There is a middle ground, Mr. Potter, between what your brother has and what you could have. You could become an accomplished dueler or an Auror or a magical theory researcher. Have you thought about what you might like to do after Hogwarts?”

Harry stared at Quirrell. The thought hadn’t so much as crossed his mind. Not really when he was living with the Dursleys, either, and didn’t know magic was real. He wanted to survive, that was all. And have a place where he could get enough to eat and have a bed he could sleep in and wasn’t mistreated. Then, when he found one, he knew what the Potters planned for him and assumed he would have to go along with it. What he “might like to do” hadn’t entered his head.

What did it matter what he did when he was seventeen or after, if he had to spend all his days in misery until then?

“You have not.” Quirrell was close to glaring at him. “Mr. Potter, I insist that you start thinking about it.”

“Am I allowed to think about how to make sure that I survive first? Sir.”

“Of course.” Quirrell stepped away and turned his back, and Harry felt the odd tottering sensation he often had when the professor did that. Harry was braced for what felt like a fight, and then Quirrell just—dropped it. “But I hope that you don’t intend to be another of the boring children who never think beyond Quidditch and their childish friendships and rivalries from school.”

What friendship? Harry nearly said, but that wasn’t true anymore. He felt like he had a friendship with Theo, even though it felt like a fragile one. And he had one with Felix, even if it was based on secrets and lies. And maybe Neville, too, and Granger wasn’t so bad as long as Harry let her tutor him. Neither was Ron if Harry wanted to play endless games of chess.

Rivalries, though…Harry didn’t have any of those. Most people didn’t notice him enough for it. Now and then Malfoy glared at him because of what Harry had said when he’d taken the git’s wand, but he didn’t come close. And Quidditch was a little thing, too little to care about.

He half-shrugged and said, “All right, sir.”

“Good. You will write an essay for our session next week in which you discuss at least two roles that an elementalist wizard could play in our world.”

Harry grimaced, but nodded. Sometimes Professor McGonagall set him extra homework, too. At least this essay sounded a little more interesting than just Professor McGonagall’s usual, “Tell me what went wrong with this Transfiguration.”

“And, Mr. Potter?”

Harry turned back from the door. Quirrell was watching him with a strange smile, a quill twirling in his hand.

“You might consider what others would gain from an elementalist wizard being widely-known and developing the other forms of magic he commands. What favors they would gain from him, or conversely, why they feel that they should push him into developing his talents.”

Because you’re bored and weird?

But Harry had the sense not to say it. He just nodded agreeably and let the door fall softly shut behind him.

*

Theo scowled as their potion swirled a dusky red color, definitely not the way that a good Short Sleep Draught should look. And this was a simple, straightforward potion, too, one that he’d practiced plenty of times brewing with his father in the days before everything.

It’s this damn day.

Theo did his best to ignore the gossiping and whispering from Finnigan and Thomas at the table nearest his and Harry’s. They were talking about the sweets at the Halloween Feast and whether anyone would eat so much they would get sick. And whether the pumpkin juice would be sweeter than usual. And whether Filch would keep his promise to confiscate any of the decorations left hanging up the next morning.

Theo’s mind was full of memories, his mother’s bright smile and the way she had laughed a few minutes before she died. On Halloween. A year ago. The beginning of everything horrible in his life, given that he had been snatched from his father’s care right after that, on the suspicion that Father had murdered her.

All anyone else could think about was that it was a stupid, childish holiday with sweets and bats and pumpkins and the like. Or they thought about it as the day the Boy-Who-Lived had defeated the Dark Lord.

Does Harry think about it as the day his life turned horrible, too?

Theo glanced up. Harry was looking at him, his fingers steady as he stirred the rod through the potion and tried to coax it back to looking something like it should. His face was a little less closed than normal.

“Are you all right?” he whispered, one eye on Professor Snape, who was at the other end of the room berating Longbottom at the moment.

“It’s the day my mother died,” Theo said softly. He glanced at the potion and swore, then reached out and snatched up a chunk of glittering obsidian from the table, casting it into the cauldron. He noticed the way Harry tensed, but he didn’t move away. The color of the Short Sleep Draught inched a little back towards rose.

“I’m sorry.”

Theo nodded. He already felt as though someone was jabbing shards of glass through his throat, the way he always did when he confessed anything personal, and he wondered if Harry would try to use it against him.

But he seemed to be sincere about saying he felt sorry. And Theo carried secrets of Harry’s that were more damaging than this. Probably even some of the Gryffindors would just have felt awkward and muttered soft little things if Theo had told them the reason he hated Halloween.

Not that he intended to find out.

“What about you?” Theo asked as he threw a handful of rose petals into the potion and watched the color settle a little.

Harry blinked and shifted his weight. “What about me? Nothing horrible happened to me on Halloween night.”

“That was when you got attacked and—things changed.” Theo lowered his voice and glanced towards the side of the room where Harry’s brother was frowning down into his potion. He usually did well at following the instructions, as far as Theo could tell, but he seemed to mess up on the number of stirs and grinding his ingredients regularly. And Professor Snape criticized him no matter what happened.

“Huh.”

Theo turned back to Harry. Harry was looking at him with clear eyes.

“I never thought about it that way before,” he said. “I didn’t know the date that I got—left. I suppose that I don’t think about it much now, either. It’s just too new.”

“Mr. Potter.”

Harry didn’t leap, but it was a near thing. Theo thought he saw their cauldron rattle on its base before Harry turned around and glanced up at Professor Snape. “Yes, sir?”

Professor Snape curled his lip a little at Theo. Theo had the feeling that he’d rather sunk in the professor’s estimation ever since he’d decided to work with Harry. It didn’t matter much, though. Professor Snape was boring, too, in the predictable way he took points from Gryffindor and ignored Slytherin mistakes. “Why are you stirring in that pattern?”

“To try and make sure the rose petals blend smoothly with the water, sir.”

“To try and make sure the rose petals blend smoothly with the water,” Professor Snape said in a high, mocking voice. “The point of this stage is not to blend rose petals with water, Mr. Potter! It’s to create an acidic base that will dissolve the rose petals completely. Or did you think yourself too high and mighty to pay attention to the instructions?”

Harry blinked a little. Theo had never seen him folding so much of himself away before, but then, he’d never got Harry to talk to him like this in the middle of class, either. “Sorry, sir.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Potter. Do you think yourself too high and mighty to pay attention to the instructions? Or don’t you?”

Harry shook his head. “No, sir. Sorry, sir.” His voice was a monotone. He stood there looking at the table and his feet, and if he didn’t look ashamed of himself, Theo thought it was the next best thing to it. He would have put a lot of money on Harry not being ashamed, though. He just tried his best to keep his head down, literally, and get through Snape’s classes like he did with everyone else’s.

“Detention, I think,” Professor Snape said in a slow voice. “Tonight, at six-o’clock.”

Theo winced, despite his hatred for the holiday. He didn’t want Harry to miss the Halloween Feast, probably the first holiday he’d ever had, because those awful Muggles wouldn’t have wanted him to celebrate it.

But Harry just nodded as though it didn’t matter and said, “Yes, sir.”

Professor Snape scowled and stalked off. He never tormented Harry for long, Theo had noticed, probably because Harry didn’t give satisfying results. Professor Snape preferred the people who turned red, like Weasley, or snapped back, like Harry’s brother, or almost reached tears from how unfair everything was, like Granger.

“You don’t mind not going to the feast?” Theo asked under his breath as they went back to trying to salvage their potion.

Harry looked at him and blinked. “Not really. Why would I?”

“I thought—since you said it wasn’t a bad day for you, that you would want to celebrate.”

“I mean, I sort of do?” Harry dropped some more rose petals into the water and stirred it again. “But it’s not that big a deal, Theo.”

“It should be. He shouldn’t just be able to—”

“It’s not as big a deal as sleeping in a cupboard.”

Theo stared at him. Harry just nodded to him, which meant he had deliberately said that, not that Theo had suspected anything else. Harry didn’t let little details out like that accidentally.

It performed its purpose, anyway. It kept Theo from asking any more questions until the end of class, when Harry looked at him and said, “Well, you know where I’ll be. Where will you be, since you won’t be at the feast?”

“Probably on the Astronomy Tower, watching the stars,” Theo said quietly. His mother had loved Astronomy, and had been teaching him the stories of all the constellations when she—died.

Harry nodded to Theo. “Then I hope you have a peaceful evening.” He turned and began to pack up his Potions kit, answering some questions from the other Gryffindors with the kind of smile that only Theo ever seemed to realize was mechanical.

Theo slipped out of the classroom and walked back to the Slytherin common room. Blaise kept pace with him, darting glances at him until Theo asked, “What?”

“You seemed to be having an actual conversation with Potter back there.”

“He knows how to hold one, unlike a lot of people at this school.”

Blaise rolled his eyes. “Maybe you think that now, but what will you do when it turns out that he’s serving his parents’ agenda to try and remove certain Dark spells from existence? Certain Dark families from existence?”

Theo very carefully did not roll his eyes back. “That’s your mother’s paranoia speaking, Blaise, not yours. But even if that was true, wouldn’t you think it was worthwhile to try to turn someone away from that goal? To our side?”

Blaise looked disgruntled but said nothing else as they entered the common room. Theo looked around and saw more than one person turning to stare at him. They thought they were being subtle, but they looked exactly like the people who were forever gaping at Felix Potter.

Theo just shrugged at them and marched through the common room to dump an armful of books on the bed. He wanted to get to the Astronomy Tower sooner rather than later.

*

“I must admit that I am disappointed, Harry, my dear boy, and we must adjust our plans.”

“I’m sorry, Headmaster.”

Albus shook his head a little as he settled into place behind his desk. The boy sounded—defeated. That wasn’t the way Albus wanted him to sound. After hearing about the horror of a childhood he and the Potters had inflicted on Harry, however unwittingly, Albus had wished for him to have some happiness at Hogwarts. “It’s not your fault, Harry. I daresay that no one could have predicted the consequences of living in the Muggle world.”

“No, sir.”

“Many of the Muggleborns we have come from very happy homes, as I’m sure you know.”

“Yes, sir. The Dursleys are an anomaly.”

Albus smiled. It warmed his heart to know that Harry, as abused as he had been, could at least grasp the fact that his relatives were not emblematic of all Muggles. “Given that, I wonder if you would be—” He groped for a word for a moment. The weakness of Harry’s magic and his extremely meek nature meant Harry could not serve as a leader or Lord to attract people who would listen to him about the Muggle world. But Albus did not want to use the word “resigned,” given that Harry had never chosen that role in the first place. “Amenable, to talking about the goodness and inventiveness of Muggles a little more in your common room?” There must be a spark of courage in the boy, at least, or the Sorting Hat would never have chosen him for Gryffindor.

Harry blinked. “I can do that, sir. I don’t know if the others will really listen to me, though. And Hermione and Dean could probably tell them more than I could.”

Albus nodded slowly. He could see that. Miss Granger was already a powerful and outspoken champion of Muggleborn rights in her own way, insisting on being seen as equal to purebloods. And Mr. Thomas was close friends with Mr. Finnigan and someone who, if Albus was right, was already being drawn to Felix’s power in a way that might make Felix his Lord. “All right, Harry. Then what role do you see yourself playing in the war?”

Harry looked at the floor and fidgeted, a little. Perhaps he was more average than Albus had thought. “I don’t know, sir. I just—right now I’m still trying to get used to the magical world, you know? It’s hard to picture anything even a year from now.”

Albus swallowed. He had known that everyone would have to make sacrifices; he had known it when he started down this path. His main goal had been to prevent those sacrifices from being unwilling or done with eyes less than wide open. It was one thing to know what you were doing and embrace it, the way he and James and Lily had done. It was another to simply be a casualty of politics, the way Ariana had been.

But he’d had no choice but to make Harry and Felix sacrifices. They’d been from the moment Voldemort had known about the prophecy. He’d thought he would at least be able to give Harry a healthy and safe childhood at a distance from the fanaticism of the magical world regarding his brother, but even that hadn’t worked out.

Surely, given everything he had demanded from Harry, and given that Harry wasn’t a powerful Lord who would have to be handled carefully and folded into their plans because people would be unconsciously drawn to him in any case, he could let Harry go from their plans as much as possible? Only demand the bare minimum, the kind that would be demanded from anyone growing up in this time, and otherwise free him?

“Of course you are, Harry,” Albus whispered. “Of course you. But please do feel free to come to me or your parents with any questions. I hear that you’re doing much better in Charms and Defense. Still no progress in Transfiguration?”

Harry looked up and shook his head, dropping his eyes again a moment later. It caused Albus’s heart hurt to think what experiences might have made Harry so cautious about looking an adult man in the eye. “No, sir. Sorry. I can make something look like something else for a little while, but I can’t actually transform it.”

“Not to fear, Harry, the time will come.” Albus sat back with a small smile. “Now, I wouldn’t want you to miss the Halloween Feast!”

“Actually, sir, I will. I’ll be in detention with Professor Snape.”

Albus stared at him. Granted that he had paid much more attention to the way Severus interacted with Felix than with Harry, the words were still unexpected. Harry was so quiet that Albus couldn’t picture him snapping at Severus in defense of someone else, the kind of thing that earned Felix detention almost every week. “My dear boy, what happened?”

“I ruined my potion, sir.”

Albus nodded. It seemed that they really did need to let Harry free from their plans. If he could not command strong magic even in classes that didn’t require a wand, he would never draw any particular followers. “Of course. Well, do try to do better in the future, won’t you, Harry?”

“Yes, sir.”

Albus watched Harry trot out of his office, heart still filled with a light ache. The boy had suffered beyond almost anyone Albus had ever known.

But that suffering was in the past. What Albus could do was safeguard his future, by ensuring that he would never again have to undergo something like that without protection.

*

Harry shook his head as he stepped out past the gargoyle that guarded the staircase to the Headmaster’s office. He hadn’t lied to Professor Dumbledore, but he wasn’t going to volunteer to tell him about the elemental magic, either. He thought Professor Dumbledore would have tried to make him into a Lord or at least some kind of war-leader, and that was the last thing Harry wanted.

He wanted people to leave him alone. He wanted to prove—to himself, and to people who already knew about it, like Theo and Professor Quirrell—that he wasn’t as weak as other people thought he was. But he knew if he looked strong, even if people did believe that he was more famous than Felix or something, he would just have to be in the war.

He didn’t want to be anything. He wanted to live and be safe and have some nice things.

But he was weak, and at the moment, his body was proving it again. Harry was in a wide-open corridor, and there wasn’t even anything to be allergic to here, but his head was aching again. And the white speckles were swimming at the corners of his vision, the way they had in Potions. Harry grimaced and rubbed his eyes. What was he allergic to? The stones of the castle? He didn’t understand.

Something almost yanked him off his feet.

Harry spun around with a snarl, one hand flying up so that he could call fire against whoever was trying to prank him. But the corridor was empty. And when he felt the yank again, he realized that it came from the center of his chest, and seemed to be aiming him towards a staircase at the end of the corridor.

Harry grimaced and rubbed his chest. What weird thing was happening to him now?

The white speckles crowded around his vision until they almost blinded him. And then Harry could see something in the middle of them, as if he was looking at a blank piece of parchment and seeing a picture sketched on it.

It was Theo, lying motionless, with his chest caved in. Harry gagged. He could see the bright white edges of broken ribs through the blood.

The picture faded. His magic yanked on him again.

Harry swore under his breath and began to run. He would have to worry about whatever odd thing was happening later. Theo needed his help, or he was going to die.

*

Theo had ended up wandering out onto the grounds for a while to look up at the sky from there and think about his mother. He hadn’t wanted to visibly turn away from the stream of Slytherin students going to the Great Hall and head for the Astronomy Tower. Someone from another House might follow him and taunt him.

Sometimes it seemed as though the whole world except Mudbloods knew about the fact that Theo had been removed from his father’s care for suspected abuse.

He ended up turning around and beginning the climb once he was sure the feast had begun and no one notice his absence. He sneered a little to himself as he pictured Felix Potter in the middle of all that, laughing and eating sweets and not caring about anything else.

Father had thought of the boy who had defeated the Dark Lord as an enemy. Theo couldn’t. He was just so—careless. So small. So uninteresting.

Theo was on the second floor when he heard a crash from behind him, and smelled a scent so foul that his knees buckled for a second. He whirled around, snatching his wand out and aiming it back in the direction of the threat.

Father’s voice drifted through his head. When you smell a mountain troll, which you will know by its scent of goo and vomit, run.

What was a mountain troll doing in Hogwarts?

But it didn’t matter. He had to run. Theo turned around and ran.

*

Harry followed the pull down the stairs as fast as he could without actually tumbling down them. He’d reached the second floor when his nose crinkled from a foul smell and the magic yanked him sharply right.

It tried to make him keep going past the corner where the smell was coming from, but Harry was too cautious for that. He crouched low and edged to it, then peered cautiously around it and nearly screamed.

There was a huge creature with a tiny head and a club lumbering through the corridor. After a struggle, Harry remembered seeing an illustration like it in a book on the history of the war. Voldemort had convinced trolls to support him for a few battles. But they weren’t great allies because they were so stupid that they kept forgetting orders and wandering away.

Why was one in Hogwarts?

Harry shook off the thought as his magic yanked at him again. At least now he understood the picture he’d seen. A club like that could crush Theo’s chest if it hit him.

Of course, there was the question of why he’d seen the picture at all, and what kind of magic that was. The headache and the white speckles had dimmed, but the tugging was still there, though. So Harry would have to consider it later.

The troll turned its head up and down the corridor and stopped walking for a minute. Then it faced a door on the far side that Harry thought was a boys’ bathroom and ducked a little to get through it.

The tugging in the middle of Harry’s chest nearly pulled him off his feet again.

Harry ran after the troll.

*

Theo was cursing himself for his stupidity as he crouched behind one of the loos. He hadn’t thought he’d make it if he tried to get to the stairs, either going up or down; the troll could have seen him from a distance and thrown something at him that would have crushed him. So he’d chosen the first door he saw and assumed he would get out of sight, probably be able to hide behind a desk in an unused classroom.

Instead, he was in a bloody bathroom. And the loo wasn’t high enough to conceal him from even a troll’s weak eyes, although trying to hide beneath a sink would have been worse.

A huge shadow darkened the door. The troll was coming in.

Theo closed his eyes. His regret was fierce. There was so much that he’d wanted to do with his life. See Father again. Become an expert in Ancient Runes. Try to make sure that he had a position of power and no one would be able to hurt him again. Do so well in Transfiguration that he earned points from McGonagall herself. Have more conversations with Harry and try to figure him out.

His only chance now was to possibly duck beneath the sweep of the troll’s weapon or arm and then run out the door. Theo opened his eyes and watched for his chance, doing his best to isolate himself from the reality of his shaking hands and his own sharp panting.

*

The troll was in the bathroom. Harry skidded in behind it, never doubting that Theo was there too since the pull in his chest had brought him straight here, and set fire to the troll’s skin with a shout and a slash of his hand.

Well, he tried. The fire only sparked for a second before it stuttered to a stop. And Harry remembered abruptly that the book that had mentioned trolls had said how resistant they were to any kind of magic.

The troll turned around, more puzzled than angry it seemed, treading heavily on the stones.

Harry blocked up in front of it, eyes darting back and forth. Fire was really his best element. He couldn’t do anything with the stones of the floor, he couldn’t call a wind strong enough to knock the troll from its feet and there was no guarantee that would stop it anyway—

So it’ll have to be second best.

Harry took a deep breath and shouted, “Come to me!” as he shot his magic towards the loos and the sinks. Water blasted out at high speed, and Harry aimed the jets as hard as he could at the troll.

The troll staggered again, continuing to look puzzled as the water pinned it to the wall with pure force. That was what Harry had been hoping for. Trolls might be resistant to magic, they wouldn’t be resistant to just hitting them with something, even if the something was powered by magic.

Harry whipped his head around and caught sight of Theo crouching beside one of the loos, peering out. “Run!” Harry yelled, raising his voice over the splashing of the water. “I’m not sure how long I can hold it!”

Theo luckily believed him and ran hard for the door. Harry relaxed a little, until there was a yank in his chest and a silent scream in his mind.

Theo’s feet slipped on the water-soaked stone. He rolled over on his back, gasping with pain and clutching his side. And the troll managed to turn in such a way that the water wasn’t holding it anymore—or maybe Harry had got distracted by watching Theo’s accident and wasn’t trying hard enough—and grunted, raising its club high.

“No!” Harry shouted.

He clenched his hands, and his magic whipped around him and rose like a hurricane. The jets of water redoubled in force, concentrating all their strength on the troll’s face.

Harry was sweating, slumping against the wall as he focused fiercely. Theo pulled himself back to his feet, although he was hobbling and clutching his side, and darted out of the bathroom.

Harry narrowed his eyes. He had to make sure the troll wouldn’t immediately follow them.

He cracked his hand upwards. He wanted the water to slam the troll back into the wall and knock it unconscious, so he and Theo could get away and hide any trace that they’d had anything to do with this.

The water rose and roared, and Harry watched in relief as the troll’s head sagged back. There was a sharp crack, and it rolled down and to the side. Harry released his control of the water with a sigh. What was left slowed down to a splashing trickle right away, and a slowly spreading puddle formed under the sinks and next to the loos.

Harry glanced at the troll, and paused. Its chest wasn’t moving.

He swallowed and glanced over his shoulder, but he couldn’t hear anyone coming yet. Theo wasn’t shouting for him, either. Hopefully he’d got out of sight and could go back to the Slytherin common room and hide there.

Harry had to know, even though the tug in the middle of his chest and the voice in his head had both fallen still.

He walked a little closer to the troll, holding his breath against the smell, and crouched down to be sure. Yes. The troll’s face was bloated and swollen, and its eyes stared glassily up at the ceiling, and it wasn’t breathing at all.

He’d drowned it.

Harry knelt there staring, while a funny little feeling trickled through him. He had killed something. Someone. Were trolls someones? He had no idea. He only knew that he hadn’t meant to kill the troll, but he had.

Then he snapped himself out of it. He could think about it later and figure out what had happened and how he felt about it. Right now, he had to go. The adults were probably looking for this troll, and they’d want to ask him all sorts of questions if they found him here.

Harry left the bathroom, trying to make sure that his clothes weren’t too wet, already planning to blame his lateness to Snape’s detention and the wet clothes themselves on a prank someone had played on him. Then he paused. Because Theo hadn’t gone to the common room after all and was leaning against the wall near the top of the staircase to the first floor.

Theo stared at him. Harry stared back. He didn’t think Theo would betray his secret, but it was better to be cautious anyway.

“You saved my life,” Theo said, and performed an odd gesture, half-bowing with one hand extended towards Harry. “I owe it to you.”

Harry stiffened. He didn’t want—he didn’t want Theo to owe him anything. What they had already was more than enough.

But he would probably offend him if he said there wasn’t a debt. Theo seemed like one of the purebloods who were like that.

“Then I ask you to be my friend,” Harry said hurriedly. He thought he could hear shouting coming from near the bottom of the staircase. “And keep my secrets, including what happened tonight.”

Theo half-smiled and dropped his hand. Now he looked normal, Harry thought with relief. “Your secrets are mine.”

They hurried away, taking another staircase that Theo knew about which would get them past the shouting professors, and Harry explained his idea about the prank. Theo nodded and said he would go to Madam Pomfrey to tell her about his aching ribs, and blame it on the same prank, done by people they hadn’t seen.

Before they parted so that Theo could go to the infirmary and Harry could make his way to the dungeons, though, Theo reached out and grabbed Harry’s arm. Harry turned to face him.

Theo squeezed hard, once. Then he nodded and headed off.

Harry took a deep breath, wrung his shirt out once more, and wiped the stupid grin off his face. He’d have a lot of explaining to do if Snape saw it there.

It kept wanting to come back, though, all the way down to Snape’s classroom.