Chapter Seven of 'The Onyx in Radiance'- Path of Starry Darkness

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Seven—Path of Starry Darkness

“Mr. Evans? Are you all right?”

Harry took a deep breath as he stared at the Sorting Hat. He had been so busy in the last few days with making sure he had everything he needed to go to Hogwarts, and wondering what people would think of him showing up out of nowhere in his sixth year, and being relieved that his OWL scores had been all right, that he’d forgotten about being Sorted.

“Mr. Evans?”

Dumbledore sounded more than a little alarmed, standing up from the chair he’d taken in front of Headmaster Dippet’s desk. Harry smiled weakly at him, and at the Headmaster, who was watching him with a thoughtful look from behind the desk. “I’m—I’m all right, sir. I mean, I’ll be all right.”

“Excellent,” said Dumbledore, although not as if he really believed him. More as if he thought that Harry’s freak-out about the Hat was connected to his mysterious abuse and delusions of time travel. “If you’ll just take your place on the stool…”

Harry swallowed and moved over to sit on the stool. Dippet snatched up the Hat and walked around the desk to put it on his head, smiling a little. Harry had the vague impression that the man enjoyed Sortings, right before the Hat fell on his head and Harry hit it with a concentrated blast of desire.

Gryffindor.

The Hat shifted on his head, and Harry thought it might be opening its mouth to sing, but instead, it just spoke into his mind. Are you sure about that? Gryffindor is not really the place that you belong right now.

Of course I’m sure! Gryffindor.

But you are not a good fit for that House at this moment in time.

Harry would have laughed hysterically if he could have. This moment in time is exactly the problem! I’d be dealing with Tom Riddle himself if I went into Slytherin, not just the children of his Death Eaters. Put me in Gryffindor, Gryffindor, GRYFFINDOR!

And his roommates and other Slytherins have survived years with him being in the same House, the Hat told him cheerfully. Last time, I honored your wishes because you had made a friend who was likely to go to Gryffindor and had reason to want to go into that House because you believed that the Boy-Who-Lived would have a cloud of suspicion cast over him if he was Sorted into Slytherin.

Harry couldn’t remember thinking anything that concreate about why he didn’t want to go to Slytherin, but he supposed it must be true if the Hat said so. I’ve got an even stronger reason this time. Tom Riddle—

Has no reason to pay attention to you unless you do something to make yourself his enemy, said the Hat. You’re simply Mr. Harry Evans here, not the Boy-Who-Lived. And you know nobody in Gryffindor either, do you?

Harry hesitated. He supposed he could say something about Weasley or Potter ancestors, but he didn’t know that for sure. There might not be any Weasleys at Hogwarts at the moment, and the one Potter who was…

I don’t want to make trouble for the Potters.

Well, then.

Harry took a deep breath and curled his hands around the edges of the stool. He was aware of both Dumbledore and Dippet eyeing him. He knew the Sortings didn’t usually take this long.

Would it be harder for me to sink out of sight in Gryffindor?

In some ways. There is a Potter here, as you noted, as Professor Dumbledore told you. And he would certainly want to know why you resembled him, as would his family. Gryffindors would notice if you crept off by yourself to study time travel, as well.

That was one argument in favor of Slytherin, Harry had to admit. He had to figure out how to get back home and what had happened in the first place. In Slytherin House, people would ignore him more often if he went off on his own, either because they would think he was just evilly scheming like other people or because they would dismiss him as a Mudblood and not care what he did.

So you are decided? The Hat sounded just a little smug.

Harry nodded, slowly. Put me where you still obviously think I belong, although I don’t know why, he just had to add. I’m not cunning or ambitious and my Parseltongue is just a fluke based on what Voldemort did when he cursed me the night he killed my parents.

The Hat laughed. You have odd definitions of cunning and ambition, but I suppose, based on the people you knew in your original timeline, that is understandable.

What do you mean, original timeline? Harry thought, caught by an odd undertone in the Hat’s words. You’re talking as if I’m stuck here. I can’t stay here—

“SLYTHERIN!”

Harry sighed as he took the Hat off, resisting the impulse to glare at it. He held it out to Professor Dumbledore, who took it with a frown. Dippet, meanwhile, was clapping his hands with something that looked like genuine enthusiasm. Harry supposed he had been right and the old man did like Sortings.

“Well done, well done, Mr. Evans! The House of my best friend, you know!”

“Really, sir?” Harry did his best to smile while he felt green edgings appear on his robes and Dumbledore’s eyes bored into him. “How fascinating.”

Dippet presumably wouldn’t have noticed sarcasm if it was jumping up and down in front of him waving a banner. “Yes, yes, great days, great days,” he murmured, peering nearsightedly at the wall. “I do hope that you’ll enjoy yourself in Slytherin, Mr. Evans. It takes a certain kind of personality, but then, the Hat thought you had it. If you’ll escort him down to the Great Hall for the feast and explain things to the older students, Albus?”

“Of course.” Dumbledore’s smile didn’t reach his eyes when Harry glanced at him, but he nodded courteously enough towards the door of the Headmaster’s office. Harry took a deep breath and followed him.

“Your Housemates, of course, will guide you to the Slytherin common room,” Dumbledore said when they had walked down a few staircases in silence.

Harry nodded. He was sure he couldn’t have found his way back to that stretch of blank wall in the dungeons on his own, just because he had been there once.

“I am…surprised that a Potter Sorted into Slytherin.”

“As you pointed out, sir, I’m not here as a Potter,” Harry said simply.

They came to a halt outside the Great Hall, which was filled with noise and chatter. Dumbledore stared at him in such a sharp way that Harry half-thought he had given up his previous notions about not using Legilimency on Harry after all.

Harry stared up hopefully—his research on ways to get back to his own time would be a lot easier if Dumbledore helped him—but Dumbledore shook his head a second later and sighed. “I assume Slytherin will not be easy for you, either,” he said. “With a Muggleborn last name and the assumed background of one.”

Harry shrugged. “I’m not here to gain power or make people follow me, either, sir.”

“Why did the Hat put you in Slytherin?”

“It said that I belonged there.”

Dumbledore blinked. Maybe he’d expected something more revealing. Harry smiled at him sweetly and reached out to open the doors of the Great Hall.

“Harry.”

Harry paused and looked over his shoulder. Dumbledore gave him a sad smile.

“If you need help, my door is always open.”

Before Harry could tell him that he really needed someone to believe him about the time travel, Dumbledore turned and walked away, and left Harry to face the Great Hall, which wasn’t full of enemies yet, but wasn’t full of friends, either.

Harry shook his head and opened the doors, then marched over to the Slytherin table. Dumbledore wasn’t that inclined to help him, so Harry would just work on the problem on his own—and survive, and find his way home. Failure wasn’t an option.

*

Orion receives the letter from his father at dinner that same night, instead of sometime in the next few days as he expected. Orion frowns a little as he opens the letter, angled so that neither Walburga nor Abraxas can look over and see what it says. He is concerned that the haste of the letter means Father is writing back to say that he does not approve of the alliance with Harry.

It turns out that it isn’t like that at all.

Orion,

I had debated saying something about the way you had fallen under Riddle’s sway for the past two years, but I thought it would not be a productive conversation when you seemed to have found your lord—and when you must still play up to him because he sleeps in the same room you do. But I am beyond relieved to see that you have found both your true lord and your spouse in the same person. I give you my blessing.

I extend an invitation I am sure you may already have tendered, for this Harry Potter to spend the winter holidays in our home, but now it is official.

Sincerely,
Father.

Orion leans back with a little sigh. He hoped for approval eventually, but whole-hearted, unqualified approval so soon is—

Father must have been really worried about Riddle.

Orion looks up as Harry strides into the Great Hall in that way he has of making everything he does look important and busy, and stands up. “Harry!” he calls, holding out the letter. “My father replied.”

Walburga makes an irritated noise like a steam valve on the Hogwarts Express going off. There is ominous silence from Riddle’s end of the table, and Abraxas looks as if he might like to clap his hands over his face. But none of them matter next to the complex expression Harry wears for a moment, or the way he alters course to come up to Orion as if it was what he intended all along.

“Really? What did he say?”

“Judge for yourself,” Orion murmurs, and holds out the letter.

Harry picks it up. Orion notices that his breathing is too rapid. He tilts his head curiously. Did he think Father would disapprove of him? And why? For his blood status, his stance as a newcomer to Slytherin, or something else?

Harry lowers the letter and swallows. He’s staring right into Orion’s eyes, and Orion realizes abruptly that the descriptions of the world fading away when your beloved looks at you, which he always assumed were exaggerations, are true.

“I—you would invite me home with you for the holidays?”

“Of course. And Father said yes to the courting, obviously.”

Harry looks more than a little overwhelmed, staring at the letter for some reason, and then looking back up at Orion. Orion manages to hold still, hands folded behind his back in the posture Father would certainly approve of, but he’s suddenly concerned that Harry only said yes to the courting because he never assumed Arcturus Black would.

Then Harry breaks into a slow, shy smile Orion has never seen before. His face is bright pink, and he hands the letter back to Orion with a hand that is just on the verge of unsteady.

“I—yes, Orion, then,” Harry says, and runs a hand through his hair, which doesn’t need the help to stand on end, but Orion can talk to him about hair-styling spells later. “What do I—I don’t know what comes next in courting. Do I have to get you a gift?” He looks concerned about that, probably because of the lack of funds that led to Dumbledore paying for his books and robes.

“I get you a gift,” Orion says, playing for a moment on an insight that he doesn’t know the source of, that Harry hasn’t had a lot of presents in his life. The bright flush and the shy smile both deepen. Orion grins wider in triumph. “And you accept it, or not. You can get me presents if you want, but that can wait until you have the money.”

“Oh.”

Harry’s throat bobs as he swallows, and then he seems to realize that they’re probably the focus of attention from half the Great Hall. Unlike Orion, Harry never seems to bask in that kind of thing. He flushes even more brilliantly and snatches up an apple and a scone, starting to turn away from the table.

“Wait,” Orion says, and reaches out to grab his wrist. He doesn’t want to eat yet another meal without Harry by his side. “Will you stay?”

“Everyone is staring.” Harry keeps his voice low, but his eyes dart around.

“We have nothing to be ashamed of,” Orion says firmly. “And if you’re going to be my husband, then we should get used to the staring. We’re going to be the handsomest and most magically-powerful couple in the school, after all.”

Harry blinks as if he never considered the staring might be for a good reason. Then he sits down in the empty chair on Orion’s left.

For the rest of breakfast, Orion talks to Harry about common things, like Professor Merrythought’s latest essay, the bizarre way Dumbledore treated Riddle in Transfiguration the other day, and who’s going to win the next Quidditch match. The point isn’t really to have a conversation, since Harry barely responds, but to get him used to that public attention.

Orion doesn’t think Harry trying to hide away will ever work, any more than it worked when he tried to pretend to be an Evans instead of a Potter, but until Harry emerges on his own for some bit of magical brilliance, Orion will help ease him into tolerating his adoring public.

*

“Mr. Potter, a word with you, please?”

That’s Dumbledore, calling for Harry to stay after Transfiguration. Orion pauses in packing up his books. This hasn’t happened before. Dumbledore seems to either ignore Harry in Transfiguration, the way he does most Slytherins, or sometimes ask him a pointed question that Harry can answer most of the time. But now, he has intent, flinty eyes, and Harry hesitates for a second before he nods.

Harry catches his gaze and motions with his head. Orion doesn’t really want to leave, but it seems that Harry wants it, so he sighs and steps out of the classroom.

A hand closes around his neck at once, and Orion glances up to find Riddle standing there. Not that it was really a surprise when he has a moment to get over his shock. The number of candidates for “Choking a fellow Slytherin in a corridor” is low.

“Why did you write to your father and say that you wanted to court Potter?” Riddle hisses, his voice as chilling as it’s been for the last two years, when he truly started to gain power. But it doesn’t terrify Orion the way it usually does. He finds himself standing straighter, in fact, and sneering at Riddle.

The hand around his throat tightens in warning. Orion chooses to ignore the warning. They’re right outside the Transfiguration classroom, and Dumbledore has always acted wary around Riddle. Riddle won’t do anything fatal to Orion, or an Unforgivable, while they’re standing here.

“I chose to,” Orion says.

“What?” Riddle’s eyes widen. Orion knows it isn’t his imagination that there’s a flash of red in them.

“I chose to,” Orion repeats. Really, he’s already tired of hiding his courtship plans, and it’s only been a few weeks since he and Abraxas first went to speak to Harry. It was probably a lost cause from the first moment that Orion confronted Charlus Potter. “I chose to court him, and I’ll marry him if he consents.”

Riddle’s mouth falls open a little. Orion stares back and resists the urge to say something more sarcastic. It probably would result in his getting hurt.

Once Riddle gets over his astonishment, this open preference of someone who isn’t him, Orion could get hurt as well. But this is the part that he absolutely can’t bring himself to suppress, the risk he’s willing to take.

“Perhaps,” Riddle breathes at last, “you will wish you had made a different choice.” And he tightens his hand around Orion’s throat, and lifts his wand, while Orion tries to brace himself for the pain of the Cruciatus, unimaginable when you’re not actually feeling it—

“Expelliarmus!”

Riddle’s wand goes soaring from his hand, and falls into Harry’s. Riddle whips around, Orion forgotten in an instant. Orion breathes out slowly and massages his throat, noticing that Harry is barely paying attention to Riddle. Instead, his eyes sweep Orion from head to foot.

“Are you all right?” Harry asks.

Orion nods, once. But Harry’s eyes fix on his neck, and Orion suspects there’s some bruise there, some mark left behind by Riddle, because Harry pivots and faces the self-proclaimed lord of the Knights of Walpurgis and hisses something in Parseltongue.

Riddle turns deathly pale, and hisses back. Harry laughs and continues hissing, adding what Orion is almost sure is a sarcastic fillip of sound at the end, although he has no idea how he knows that.

“You dare,” Riddle says, and his voice builds rapidly into a rising shriek. “You dare!”

“Yes, I dare,” Harry says, and flips Riddle’s wand casually into the air, catching it again, without returning it. “And I’ve been doing some reading. You and your Knights of Walpurgis, Riddle. Did you know that you could—” And he drops into Parseltongue again, to Orion’s immense frustration.

Riddle is staring at him with wide eyes and clenched fingers. He doesn’t reach for his wand. He doesn’t try to speak back. He just listens.

Orion wishes he knew what the bloody hell Harry is saying.

Harry finally steps back and raises an eyebrow, clutching Riddle’s wand around the middle as if he might break it. “Do you agree?”

“Yes, yes,” Riddle says quickly. “Midnight tonight?”

“Yes. In the dueling room?”

“Yes. Give me back my wand.”

Harry tosses the wand to him and stares at him until Riddle turns around and marches up the corridor. Then he moves closer to Orion, putting out a hand as and letting it hover as if he might hurt Orion when it lands. “Are you really all right?”

“Yes.” Orion stares at him. “What did you say to him?”

“There’s an old rule—idea—law—” Harry seems to struggle with expressing himself, then shrugs. “Rule. When someone has a group of people serving them, or supposedly serving them, like Riddle has you lot, someone else can step in and challenge them for the leadership if a certain number of conditions are met. I wanted to stay out of sight and not interfere, but…” Harry shakes his head. “I can’t let him hurt people.”

Orion feels his eyes widen. Some of the random things Harry did weren’t random at all, then. “You were setting up those conditions?”

“Yeah.” Harry exhales. “Sorry for letting him hurt you as much as he did. I couldn’t do anything about the Cruciatus because it was hidden and I didn’t see it. It has to be in front of me…” He trails off. “But that was when I started researching.”

“What did Dumbledore want to see you about?”

“Not that important right now,” Harry says lightly. “Come on, we only have about seven hours to figure out a way to get past the lock on Merrythought’s dueling room.”

“You agreed to this without knowing you could do it?”

“I agreed to this knowing you would help me.”

And Harry might be as manipulative and Slytherin as Riddle when he wants to be, but Orion can’t help the flush creeping up his cheeks, or the thickness closing his throat, or the way that he agrees without any more thought.

He has made the best of choices.