Chapter Four of 'Imago'- Daring

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Four—Daring

“Any luck with Weasley and Granger?”

Harry makes a huge face that causes Theo to snort laughter as he steps through the door of the small classroom Theo’s modified. “I don’t want to talk about them—Theo, what did you do?”

Theo smiles as he looks around at the walls he’s Transfigured into marble, and the floor into something showy and blue and brilliant. The small globes that will conjure music are something he owl-ordered from Hogsmeade, since none of the ones he has would really play songs appropriate for dancing. “Do you like it? We needed a ballroom.”

“Yeah, I suppose so. Um, I do.” Harry swallows and glances anxiously over one shoulder, even though Theo has already shut the door with his wand and cast several Locking and Silencing Charms on it.

“We don’t have to practice if you don’t want to,” Theo says, even though he knows he’ll be horrifically embarrassed if his date shows up to the Yule Ball with no idea of what to do.

Harry takes a deep breath and turns back to him, shaking his head. “No, it’s fine. I just—it looks like a really nice place with the Transfiguration.”

“So?”

“I just—I don’t want to mess it up.”

Theo blinks hard and slowly, absorbing more information about the way the Muggles treated Harry with that one statement than he ever thought he’d know. “It’s okay,” he says, as gently as he can when his hands are shaking with the impulse to track down Harry’s Muggles and perform a few innovative spells on them. “I promise that it’s just Transfigured rock and it’ll all go back to normal when we’re done. And we’ll be dancing in the Great Hall, remember? Do you think that’ll look too nice for you no matter what they do to it?”

That’s the right tack to take, because Harry’s laughing a second later, full and free, shaking his head so that his hair falls in a way Theo finds mesmerizing. “No, you’re right. I didn’t bring my dress robes. Is that okay?”

Theo nods. “This is just a first lesson. We can practice dance steps in dress robes later.”

“Okay,” Harry says quietly. His laughter is gone and his eyes are wide, fixed on Theo. Theo isn’t nervous about the dancing itself, but he can guess that they share at least one problem: Am I going to mess this up? What will he think of me if I do?

But, Theo thinks, that’s one of the perks of dating a Gryffindor. He won’t rub it relentlessly in Theo’s face if they do mess up the way someone from Slytherin would. Theo gently extends his arms. “Come here.”

Harry does, willingly, and Theo feels a heady fire lick through his temples and down his body. Who knew that Harry Potter would do whatever you tell him to if you just use a coaxing enough tone and a broad enough smile?

Theo jerks his mind away from paths it wants to go down with that. This isn’t the right time. Now is the right time to get Harry comfortable with being touched the way Theo will be touching him when they dance.

He settles one hand on Harry’s shoulder and winds the other arm around his back. Harry makes a muffled noise as they step closer together. Theo smiles. “Position your hands like mine,” he says, pretending not to notice the way Harry’s turning bright red.

Harry slowly, clumsily imitates him. Theo withholds a sigh. It’s not true, that old saying that the best Quidditch players make the best dancers.

On the other hand, Harry hasn’t had any chance to use knowledge like this. Theo can hardly blame him.

“Ready?” Theo asks softly when Harry’s hands are in the right place, courtesy of some directions from Theo.

Harry nods, looking down at the floor for a second as if trying to calculate where the hems of their robes will be when they’re wearing the dress ones (the school ones are shorter). Or maybe he’s just trying not to look Theo in the eye.

“All right,” Theo says, and stomps his foot on the floor. The music globes are pre-enchanted to respond to signals like that without having to worry about your wand, and Theo set the stomp when he got these. He knew he wouldn’t want to take his hands off Harry to use his wand, and if he tried to show Harry how and where to touch after the music started, the song would probably play at least twice before they were ready. “Now, one…two…three…”

Two steps in, Harry stomps on his foot.

Theo meets Harry’s eyes and smiles a little at the utter mortification on his face. “It’s all right,” he murmurs. “Come on. Follow me. Keep your eyes on my face rather than my feet.”

“But then I’ll probably just stomp on your feet even more,” Harry mutters. He looks on the verge of pulling away from Theo and running out of the room.

“We’re doing this so that you get better and stop doing that. If that means you step on my toes a few times now, that’s all right. It means you’ll do it less at the Yule Ball. Come on, again. One…two…three…”

The music, a waltz that Theo learned when he was eleven, gradually smooths out and gives way to a faster song by the Weird Sisters. Harry obediently follows Theo’s direction and keeps his hands in place, but he’s still tense and desperately unhappy. Theo thinks that if he didn’t already believe that Harry hadn’t put his name in the Goblet of Fire, this would convince him. Why would anybody want public attention if they’re this upset about leading one dance?

The Weird Sisters song ends, and Theo stomps on the floor to pause the music. He touches Harry’s cheek and looks into his eyes as he says softly, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not good at dancing. I’ve never done it before.”

“I know that you couldn’t have flown before your first lesson here, but you did it wonderfully.” That was actually a rumor Theo never paid credence to before when it circled the school, but now he knows there’s no way the Muggles would have put Harry on a broom before his first year. “This is different, but not so different that it—”

“I don’t want to make you look bad.”

Theo blinks. “What?”

“If I fell off my broom or looked bad on it, the only person it would affect would be me. And then I realized I was good at it and I got confident. But if we go up in front of all those people and dance, you look bad, and I don’t want to make you look bad, and wouldn’t that make a bunch of Slytherins laugh at you?”

Harry says that all at once in a nearly endless stream of breath. Theo blinks and blinks again, then smiles as tenderly as he can and cradles Harry’s cheek. Harry leans his face against Theo’s palm and sighs.

“I truly do believe that you can get better at dancing,” Theo says, and keeps his voice quietly confident. “If I didn’t, then I wouldn’t be here giving you lessons, and I wouldn’t have agreed to be your date to the Yule Ball.”

Harry blinks for a second, and then lets out a gentle huff of breath. “Slytherin, self-interested as possible,” he mutters.

“I’ll have you know that I am usually not this direct with someone else.”

“I know, and I appreciate it.” Harry’s eyes are bright and calm. “Just—do you really think I can get better?”

“We’ve only been dancing for two songs,” Theo points out. “Let’s try again, and with the kind of music they’re probably going to play when we open the Yule Ball.”

Harry straightens his shoulders at that we. It would be so easy to manipulate him if Theo wanted. Use all his tells and his little signs and his uncertainties to pry him apart and break him down and spread him out like a sacrifice on an altar.

It’s a good thing, really, that Theo is here to protect him from people who might try to use him like that. And good that Harry will give his all in return: protection for protection, honesty for honesty, strength for strength.

Theo smiles at him, and stomps his foot to signal the globes again.

*

I have heard the most interesting rumors about you, Theo.

Theo smiles, which he knows is a thin slash of a thing that travels across his face and makes him look like he’s going to bite somebody. Draco, who’s been walking towards him across the common room with his Ancient Runes book held out, pauses, then turns around and goes up to Pansy.

The rumors say that you’re dating the Boy-Who-Lived, that you even plan to take him to the Yule Ball. This is an interesting reversal of course from the principles I raised you with.

Theo folds up his father’s letter and tucks it into the cover of his Herbology textbook, then goes back to reading. It gets rid of the impulse to toss the letter into the fireplace or curse someone, and for some reason, rage always produces this crystal-clear impression in his head, as if he’s a music globe recording sound. He remembers what he studies in this mood better than any other.

And something slips into his head as he sits there.

He hasn’t widely spread the word that he plans to go to the Yule Ball with Harry yet. In fact, the only people who know other than him, and who would write to Theo’s father about it or tell their parents about it, who could then tell Theo’s father, are…

Draco and Blaise.

Theo’s fingers curl hard enough to dig into his trousers, but his hand is down at his side and not in view of the whole common room.

Blaise first.

*

Draco is in the bathroom. Vince and Greg are lingering in the common room, as per usual, trying to get someone to help them with homework that’s due tomorrow. Blaise is lying on his bed flipping through a Charms book and sighing theatrically.

A Body-Bind pins Blaise to the bed. Theo stalks slowly around him to stand in front of him and stare down.

Blaise’s eyes shouldn’t have the ability to widen under such a powerful spell, but it seems that they do. Theo smiles happily at him and removes the spell from Blaise’s face and jaw. Rage also powers his magic; normally, he wouldn’t be able to use such finesse with a first-year spell, but now he can.

“Did you write to your mother about my planning to take Harry to the Yule Ball?” Theo asks pleasantly.

Blaise understands quickly, especially since half of Slytherin must have seen Father’s great horned owl deliver his letter that morning. “No,” he blurts, head trembling a little as he instinctively tries to shake it. “I d-didn’t think—it’s your business. And Mother wouldn’t care anyway.”

Theo nods. That’s probably true. Blaise’s mother has social and business interests in several countries and spends far more time in Italy and France than in Britain. “All right,” he says. “Then I won’t have to curse you.” He lifts the Body-Bind and turns around as the bathroom door opens.

“Blaise,” Theo says without taking his eyes from Draco, who’s emerging backwards so he can peer at his hair in the mirror, “find something else to do.”

He hears Blaise scramble off his bed and out of the room. Draco turns around and frowns after him, then looks at Theo and goes very still.

At least that confirms that Draco can recognize potential danger when he sees it. Theo honestly wasn’t sure he was that smart. After all, Draco does his share of stupid things, like baiting Harry every chance he gets, or making those badges, or dressing as a Dementor at that Quidditch game last year.

Or writing to his father about Theo taking Harry to the Yule Ball.

“What did you tell your father about Harry?” Theo asks softly.

Draco’s eyes widen, but he still tries to play it off. Or maybe he’s less smart than Theo thought and doesn’t know how much danger he’s in. “I just—I wrote to him about how you were spending time with that git, and how ridiculous it was that you were taking a Gryffindor to the Yule Ball—what do you care, anyway?” he adds, suddenly belligerent, which is so like Draco that Theo would sigh if his mind were less crystalline. “What I write to my father is none of your business—”

“Dolor digitalis,” Theo hisses.

Draco bends over and screams like a fox as the spell hits him. It simulates his fingers being broken, one by one and individually. Theo learned it last summer, and practiced until he got good at it.

He screamed less than Draco the first time someone cast it on him, too.

After less than five seconds, Theo cancels the spell with a slice of his wand. Draco stumbles backwards, holding up his robes but barely, snot and tears on his face, eyes so wide that they look like lightless tunnels into another dimension.

“This is the rule,” Theo says pleasantly, not moving towards Draco. There isn’t a point. He can say what he needs to with his voice alone, and from the way Draco flinches, it’s working a treat. “If you say anything to your father again about what I’m doing with Harry, then what I just did is going to form one of your fondest memories compared to what I’m going to do.”

Draco huddles in on himself for a long minute. Then he nods slowly. “I won’t say or write anything to my father about you and Potter,” he whispers.

“Good.” Theo smiles at Draco, and Draco almost faints. Theo knows himself, having seen Father do it, how jolting the transition is between murderous rage and pleasant good humor. “Then we understand each other.” He winks at Draco and saunters out to the common room. Blaise takes one glance at him and makes for the door.

Theo wonders idly where he’s going, as it’s almost curfew, but it’s none of his business. He has a letter to respond to. He takes his former seat, which no one touched, and thinks about it for a minute before reaching for quill and parchment.

Dear Father,

It might interest you to know that Draco Malfoy has been Harry Potter’s rival for years and has drawn a number of incorrect conclusions about him…

*

“Hermione.”

Theo looks up with narrowed eyes. At least the way Harry is sitting in the chair across the table from him, hands clenched on the edge hard enough to make some books near it rattle, tells him that Harry didn’t anticipate Granger showing up at their library study session, either. Theo sits back a bit and awaits events.

“Harry.” Granger gives him a stiff nod and then stares at Theo with open hostility for a second before wrenching her eyes back to look at Harry. “I wanted to come and talk to you.”

“Right now, I’m studying with Theo.” Harry seems to have grown extra teeth when Theo wasn’t looking. “I’ll be happy to talk to you at dinner tonight, or when we’re in the common room after it—”

“No, Harry. This has gone on long enough. Listen.” Granger straightens up and puts her hands on her hips and says firmly, “Ron is sorry. He might not ever say those exact words, but if you want him as a friend again, then you’re going to have to accept that he’s sorry, and the exact words aren’t important.”

“I’m impressed Weasley mastered the spell that made you into his servant,” Theo says thoughtfully. “Tell him I want to learn it.”

“Theo,” Harry hisses out of the corner of his mouth.

Theo raises his hands and sits back. It seems that Harry wants to handle this himself, even though it’s so stupid that Theo thought he might like help. Very well, he’ll control himself and let Harry face down Granger.

Unless Granger says something else so witless that Theo has to interject, of course.

Granger seems to be doing her best to pretend Theo doesn’t exist. She faces Harry and gives him a melting glance that Theo might be jealous of if he didn’t know how thoroughly besotted Granger and Weasley are with each other (although whether they’ll figure it out before the end of the century, he doubts). “Harry. Please. Can’t you just accept it?”

Harry hisses so long between his teeth that Theo almost thinks he’s speaking Parseltongue. Then he says, “No.”

“But Harry—”

“Tell him that if he wants to be my friend,” Harry says, leaning forwards a little, “then he can accept that we’re friends again. No more fights. No more grumbled complaints that I’m meant to hear about Slytherins. No protests that I should be dating, and I quote, a pretty Gryffindor girl. Do you think he can do that?”

Granger gnaws her lip for long seconds, and her eyes dart to Theo. Theo tries to look at the shelves above her head so as not to show how scornful he is of her.

“I don’t know,” Granger said at last. “I’ll ask him.”

“Wow, you are his servant.”

Granger glares at him and storms away. Harry raises his eyebrows. Theo shrugs. “What? It had to be said.”

Harry smiles, but it’s a strained one. Theo asks quietly, “What bothers you more? That Weasley still refuses to apologize, or that Granger is playing messenger girl for him?”

“I—mostly that if they walk away from me,” Harry whispers, “where am I going to get more friends?”

Theo blinks. He never in ten thousand years of the stars would have guessed that was the problem. He reaches out and presses his hand on top of Harry’s. “You can start with me,” he says firmly, “and we’ll go from there.”

Harry’s smile isn’t completely free of worry, but it’s closer, and Theo counts that as a victory.