lomonaaeren

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Chapter Twelve—The Perils of Teaching

“Who are you?”

The class of young Parselmouths was staring at him. Harry was a little surprised to see that there were children older than Scorpius and Jamie there. For some reason, he had assumed they would all be the same age.

A silly thing to think, Harry admitted to himself, and ran his fingers through his hair as he sat down on the sofa near the front of the classroom. Draco had been prepared to set him up with a desk and a chair and a blackboard, but Harry wanted the class to be as casual as it could at first. Some of the children sat in chairs, but others sprawled on the floor or sat on cushions. Jamie was one of the last. He smiled at Harry.

Harry smiled back and turned to the question-asker, a six- or seven-year-old girl who looked as if she might be related to Pansy Parkinson, with dark hair and sharp features. “I’m Harry Potter.”

“Jamie’s dad!” Scorpius Malfoy bounced in place. Sometimes Harry wondered how he managed to be so adorable when his dad was nothing of the kind.

“But Harry Potter is a legend!” One of the boys, perhaps the same age as the girl, waved his hands around. “He’s not real!”

Harry laughed. That was the first time he had ever had that reaction, but he supposed that was the kind of thing he’d have to get used to as he went about dealing with younger children. “I think I’m pretty real.”

“He is real,” Sela said, apparently irritated by the kids’ doubt, sticking her head over his shoulder.

Some of his students gasped. “Who is that?” the Parkinson girl asked, and pointed. “I’ve never seen a snake like that!” She had a small cobra with her, coiled up in her lap.

“Her name is Sela. She’s a Gryffindor snake—”

“There aren’t any Gryffindor Parselmouths!”

“I am,” Harry said, and held back a snort at the look on the girl’s face. He didn’t know exactly how she was related to Parkinson, but he didn’t think a daughter. Maybe a cousin? Some of Parkinson’s other family had probably been Marked Death Eaters, too. “Gryffindor Parselmouths are rare. It’s the reason that Sela wanted to bond with me. But we exist.” He wondered idly if another would exist after Jamie went to Hogwarts, but it was really too soon to know how his son would Sort, and he didn’t care as much as he had once thought he would.

“That is not the only reason I wanted to bond with you,” Sela said, and poked him hard in the cheek with her snout.

Harry hid his amusement and looked back at the girl who had to be a Parkinson. “Also, please tell me your name, and the name of your serpent. It’s rude to point and ask questions the way you have without even introducing yourself.”

The girl blushed, even though she looked irritated, and sat up, “My name is Mindy Parkinson,” she said. “My snake is Bright Star. You know my cousin.”

Harry nodded, his guess confirmed. “Thank you, Mindy. And now, let’s the rest of you introduce yourselves.” He turned to Scorpius and watched him puff himself up a little. Some of that was probably just natural, Harry decided. Draco didn’t seem like he would encourage Scorpius’s arrogance the way Lucius probably had Draco’s.

“My name is Scorpius Malfoy. My snake is Charlie.”

“I’m Jamie Potter!” James was almost bouncing in place. “And this is my snake Sapphire!”

“Jonah Selwyn and Hellas.”

The introductions went on around the room, and Harry relaxed a little more with each new one that was made. At least none of the children were staring at him now, or acting like he was strange.

And speaking Parseltongue was…

He didn’t want to define what it was. The thing that mattered was that it wouldn’t get in the way of his relationship with Jamie anymore.

When everyone had finished introducing themselves, Harry looked around the classroom again. The children were focused on him, and so were about half of the snakes. The other half of the snakes were asleep, and Harry thought that was probably a good thing. He could do without having a dozen serpents all ready to defend their children.

“I’m here because I’ve agreed to teach you history,” he said. “Some of it based on my own experience. How many of you know why some people hate Parselmouths?”

“You-Know-Who was one!” shouted Jonah, bouncing up and down in place so that his dark hair flopped over his eyes. Hellas, his snake, who appeared to be an adder, woke up and hissed at him to quiet down.

Harry nodded. “And Salazar Slytherin. You know that he had a bad reputation, too.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Harry studied the kids, thought about their last names, and realized that none of them came from Muggleborn families, and probably had never met a Muggleborn. Most of their parents and other relatives would have been Slytherins, too. They probably knew vaguely that he was “against” Slytherins and didn’t know what they should say or do next.

“I’m here to show you that that doesn’t matter,” Harry said, all the more firmly. Jamie was one thing, but Harry had the power to keep Jamie protected from a lot of the negative consequences of being a Parselmouth. These kids would be exposed to it, and he wanted to teach them better and try to help them stand up to people who might bully them. “I know you might have Slytherin family members or be in Slytherin yourself one day. That doesn’t matter.”

“But you were a Gryffindor.”

“He was a very good one,” Sela said smugly.

Harry poked her in the side so she would tone down the smugness a little and faced the kids again. “I was, but we can grow beyond school. It’s in school that your House really matters. Not so much after it.”

“That’s not what Mama says,” muttered a little girl whose name Harry remembered, after a moment, as Olivia Goyle.

“What does your mother say?” Harry asked. He wanted to get things out in the open so he could argue against them if he had to.

Olivia sat up stiffly. “She said that your House matters because people think of you that way and know who you were and they judge you.”

From the way Olivia grabbled it, Harry suspected she didn’t know what all of that meant. But he could see why a Parselmouth, or someone with a Parselmouth child, would be convinced of it. After all, virtually every Parselmouth in Britain except Harry right now was someone who had been Marked by Voldemort or was related to someone who was.

Explaining that to their children might be too complicated, so they had gone for the easy answer of “We were Slytherins and that’s why people hate us” instead.

Harry smiled at her. “You can’t help the magical talents that you were born with. That’s part of what I’m here to teach you, too. I had to deal with fear and scorn for being a Parselmouth in my second year, and since. But that has nothing to do with being part of Slytherin House, because I wasn’t. It’s because of all the other history that we’re going to talk about.”

“What other history?”

Harry leaned back on his couch and tried to find words. The children waited patiently. Even Jamie had stopped wriggling, which was rare for him. Sela coiled close to Harry’s neck and hissed in a wordless singsong that he supposed was her method of trying to comfort him.

“The history that made people fear Parselmouths,” Harry said at last, “even though there was so much else they should have feared instead.”

*

“I hear from Scorpius that the class went well.”

Harry gave Draco a restrained smile from where he was sitting with James on the rug in front of the fireplace in the main drawing room. Sapphire floated in his enchanted container of water next to them, and Sela was coiled on Harry’s knee watching the Exploding Snap cards. “I think so.”

Draco waited, but Harry said nothing, only laughing softly as one of James’s cards exploded. James pouted and said in Parseltongue, “That wasn’t nice, Daddy.”

“That’s the way the game is supposed to work. Sometimes it isn’t nice.” Harry ruffled James’s hair.

As fascinating as it was to hear Harry speak in Parseltongue without hesitation, Draco had expected some kind of acknowledgment. “What does well mean? What did you tell them about?”

“What did Scorpius say I told them about?”

“Why are you so bloody difficult to get an answer out of, Potter?”

James gasped and sat back a little to point a finger at Draco. “Mr. Malfoy said a bad word!” he sang, so high-pitched that Draco suffered the urge to plug his ears. Scorpius sometimes got like this, but not usually unless he’d been playing for a long time. Draco wondered how Harry, with all his mental scars and his preference for a quiet life, stood it.

“Yes, it’s a bad word, James,” Harry said, narrowing his eyes at Draco. “And I didn’t realize you were waiting for an answer.” He shrugged. “I told them about some of the reasons people have hated and feared Parselmouths. Nothing too dark, of course.”

That was what Scorpius had said, but he’d also said— “And you included some personal history?”

“Is that a problem?”

Merlin, Harry had eyes like Shield Charms when he wanted them to be. Then Draco realized what was happening, and sighed to himself. Harry had spent so long being rejected that he was always waiting for it to happen again.

“Not a problem at all,” Draco said quietly, sitting down on the rug next to Harry. Harry shifted in obvious startlement, eyes darting to the chairs and couches in the room for a moment. “I am simply surprised that you were willing to reveal that. Scorpius told me what I recognized as a modified tale from our second year. And the basilisk.”

“What’s a basilisk?” James asked, popping up and then slumping forwards to lean on Harry’s knee. Harry’s body canted away from Draco, wrapped towards his son and protective of him in a way that Draco approved of.

“A huge, dangerous snake,” Harry said.

“Can I have one?”

“No,” Harry and Draco said at the same time, Harry in English, Draco in Parseltongue. They stared at each other, and Draco was amazed to see a sort-of smile trembling on Harry’s lips.

Harry turned away with a cough a second later, and focused on James. “They’re incredibly dangerous, James, and it’s illegal to breed them anyway. Parselmouths doing it was part of the reason we were feared for so long.”

From the stubborn expression on James’s face, Draco wasn’t sure that Harry should have told him that Parselmouths could breed basilisks. But it wasn’t like this was going to be a problem any time soon, so Draco focused on the previous topic of conversation. “And you don’t worry about people hearing those things about you?”

“They already hate me. And these are children who are growing up with the same gift I did, who might be subject to some of the same prejudices that I was. I’ll take the chance.”

Draco hesitated. He wanted to say that Harry seemed to have come incredibly far in a short time, what with him worrying about what people would say to the point of becoming a recluse, and now stepping out into the open and telling young Parselmouths the kind of things that people had used against him.

“What?”

And Harry was staring at him, and his eyes…

His eyes were still bright, yes, but they were concerned, too, and they no longer looked like shields. In fact, he was on the verge of reaching out to Draco, from the way his hand trembled and then settled back on his knee.

Of course. Of course he’s more willing to take risks, now that he knows he has more people supporting him.

Draco couldn’t discount the way that Scorpius’s friendship with James and the other Parselmouths, like Pansy, had probably eased Harry into this decision. But Draco knew the most important thing was Draco’s own friendship.

He smiled, and reached out, and took Harry’s hand.

*

“How’s it going at the Parselmouth school, mate?”

Harry smiled at Ron and dug up a forkful of shepherd’s pie. Hermione watched him approvingly as he brought it to his mouth. “Fantastic, actually. The kids are really fun, and it’s…nice teaching some people about what really happened and no one except us and Dumbledore knew about at the time.”

“And Dobby,” Hermione interjected, because that was Hermione. “And sometimes Sirius. And Professor Snape, a few times.”

Harry nodded agreeably enough. Even Sirius’s name made his heart ache less than it used to. He would never miss Sirius any less, not really, but just to know that he had people around him besides his best friends and Jamie who valued him and wanted him there seemed to have reached back in time and made all his griefs lighter.

Hermione seemed to want to say something, though. Harry had never known her to be this hesitant, and that was what made him think it wasn’t about Parseltongue or the school. She would have told him right away if she thought the school was doing the kids a disservice or Draco was plotting something.

Draco…

Harry finished his shepherd’s pie and leaned back with his butterbeer, turning the thought of Draco around in his head. He wasn’t blind; Draco was willing to stand up for him, and furious about Harry’s treatment as a fellow Parselmouth, and had a son Jamie’s age. And he was bloody attractive.

Harry had realized he was bisexual a few years after the war. He hadn’t done anything about it, hadn’t told anyone. At the time, it hadn’t mattered. Why would it? He was going to marry Ginny.

That’s another new thing, too. Once he had driven Ginny away, he had never thought he would be with anyone else. How could he? There wasn’t anyone who could accept him as a Parselmouth except Weasleys who were already married to other people, which meant no one who could accept his son.

But Harry had noticed himself looking at Draco’s arse when he was leaving the room the other day, and sometimes he liked to entertain the thought.

“Ginny said no,” Hermione blurted.

Harry blinked, snapping out of his thoughts, and stared at her. “Said no about what?” He hadn’t made any requests of her since two days after she’d walked away from their marriage, when the Howler she had sent him had convinced him that asking her to come back was hopeless.

Hermione shot a helpless look at Ron. Ron took a deep breath and leaned forwards. “I tried to ask her what the new baby’s relationship with James would be. If they could get together and be siblings sometimes. She said no.”

Harry closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. He mourned more for James than anything, although James was too young to realize what he’d lost. “Did she say why?”

“She doesn’t want her baby tainted.” Ron’s composure broke abruptly. His snarl would have done credit to Greyback. “I don’t know what my sister’s become, Harry. I can’t recognize her anymore! All this talk about purity and taints and now she’s claiming she suspected you had a Horcrux in your head long before it was revealed…”

Harry rubbed his forehead, feeling tired. “She refused to see a Mind-Healer after the war. From what you said, she hasn’t gone to one since, either.”

Strained silence enveloped them. Harry glanced up and snorted a little. “Yes, I know, I have reason not to like or trust Mind-Healers, but I don’t think that every single one is going to betray someone. Just me.”

“You could go—”

Harry turned his head and stared at Hermione. She shut up. Harry nodded. As a matter of fact, he felt there were few secrets he had left, after the last betrayal, but he hadn’t received any kind of apology from any Mind-Healer, including ones who had worked at St. Mungo’s. Everyone seemed to think that Bandler had been justified in what he did.

“They hated me,” he said quietly, when he could force words out again. “But they had no reason to hate Ginny, not right after the war. And now she’s…” He shook his head. He didn’t want to say Ginny was insane or traumatized beyond hope of recovery, although that was what he felt. He didn’t want to get into the habit of talking about his son’s mother that way.

There was still the chance that James would want a relationship with his half-sibling or his mum, still the chance that he would manage to have one someday. He couldn’t do that if Harry obstructed it.

“So maybe that’s what’s wrong with her?” Ron asked, in what seemed like a pretty transparent excuse to change the subject. “Trauma catching up with her?”

Harry looked up and smiled. “Yeah, maybe.”

*

He found, after he collected James and Sela from the other room where she’d been watching over his son as James slept and they went home, that he didn’t want to think about Ginny or betrayals. His mind kept returning to Draco, and the way that he seemed to welcome Harry into his life.

Of course, Draco was divorced, but there was no sign that he liked blokes. Harry didn’t intend to say anything or make a move.

What was important was that he could dream. He didn’t remember his dreams dying after Ginny left, but he supposed they must have, just leaving him with the nightmares.

“You smell less of pain,” Sela told him as she coiled on his pillow that night.

“Thanks,” Harry told her sleepily, and curled up, and, for once, dreamed of light.