Chapter Ten of 'The Onyx in Radiance'- Continuous

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Ten—Continuous

It wasn’t over by lunchtime.

Harry sat down at the Slytherin table and grimaced at the food. It wasn’t really the food that was causing the problem, of course. That was the stupid professors and the stupid other students who insisted on calling him Potter instead of Evans.

Maybe he could have squashed the problem if he’d just not responded to Potter. But his head snapped up faster in response to that name than it did to the Evans name, and people had noticed. His Housemates were probably doing it to be pricks, but the professors seemed determined to use it to get his attention.

Maybe I can train myself out of that reaction, Harry thought, as he reached for treacle tart first and ignored the slightly scandalized stares of the people sitting on either side of him, Black and Avery. Maybe I can just sit there staring at the wall when they call on me and then look back. But he didn’t know if he could, and anyway, it wasn’t going to be happening today, which was when he needed it to happen. He bit into his treacle tart with a scowl.

“Why are you eating that first, Potter?” Avery asked in a slightly nasal voice.

Harry smiled at him. “Because I want to.”

Avery blinked, scowled, and turned away to have a loud conversation with Lestrange. Harry didn’t bother listening to. Something about blood and lack of manners. Nothing worth listening to, certainly. He finished his treacle tart and eyed the sandwiches piled on the plate in the center of the table.

“Why didn’t you go by Potter from the first?” Black asked quietly, leaning in.

“Because my name is Evans.”

“Didn’t seem like it, the way you were jumping when Vahan snapped Potter at you.”

Harry shrugged and picked up a sandwich. If he was going to lose the battle to stop them from calling him Potter, which he thought might be the case, then he was going to make them scorn him because of his bad manners, he thought. He stuffed the sandwich into his mouth and grinned at Black with a mouthful of half-digested food.

Black turned away in disgust.

Harry snapped and gulped his way noisily through the meal, fending off a jinx easily when one came his way, and left early. He had almost an hour before History of Magic began, and he wanted to find a few library books about time travel to read during the boring class.

Someone kept pace with him for a few staircases before Harry had to acknowledge that they weren’t going away and it probably wasn’t a coincidence. He turned around and stared. The Gryffindor, who looked like she was a third-year, rocked to a stop on the step behind him and blinked at him, clutching the banisters. Harry had to swallow his homesickness at the sight of her bright red hair.

“What do you want?” Harry asked, as kindly as he could.

“I, ah, wanted to know if you were related to Charlus Potter.”

Harry shook his head. “People are calling me Potter because they think I am, but my name is Harry Evans.”

“Oh. But that means that you could be, right? If your mum was a Potter and married an Evans, or if your mum was an Evans and you never knew your father.”

Harry checked a sigh. The questions were innocent, without the tinge of arrogance or disdain behind them that a Slytherin would have shown in asking them, but this was also exactly why he had decided to be placed in Slytherin this time. Gryffindors couldn’t help prying, prying, prying, asking questions no matter whether they’d like the answers or not.

“Maybe,” he said. “But I think it’s just a coincidence. I’m a Muggleborn.” He gave her what he hoped was a sympathetic smile. “Now, I really need to get up to the library to start some research on a project…”

“Oh,” the girl said again—Harry wondered if she was a Weasley or a Prewett; probably a Prewett—and gave him one more dubious glance with an edge of fascination to it before she turned and started down the stairs again.

Harry tried to shrug it off as he went to the library. Sure, he might not be able to prevent himself from responding to the name Potter, but honestly, that still didn’t really give them a reason to remember him beyond some random gossip. He didn’t have to do well in classes, because it wasn’t like they mattered or this was his real sixth year. He didn’t have to make friends. He just had to make sure that he did his research and stayed out of the way.

And didn’t make any friends.

This is going to be bloody lonely, Harry acknowledged to himself as he stepped into the library and started towards the shelves where he thought time travel books would probably be. But I survived ten years without friends when I was with the Dursleys. I can do a year.

Or even less than a year. If he managed to find what he needed and go home earlier than that, it might be a few months or even weeks. People would only discuss him idly later, not with any great curiosity.

There are advantages to not being the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry thought again, and went back into the darkened shelves for his first group of books.

*

“You know that Riddle is going to strike back.”

Harry barely glances up from where he’s fussing around with Alphard’s robes, lifting the hems and tracing his wand over them. “I know.”

Orion frowns. He knows that Harry has won a couple fights with Riddle now, but always when he could surprise him. He’s not sure how that will work going forward, when even someone as arrogant as Riddle ought to have learned to stop underestimating Harry. “How will—what are you doing?” There was just a spark of something bright red on the edge of Alphard’s robes, and the only spell with that color Orion knows is a Stunner. But Alphard is obviously still conscious, and peering down at what Harry’s doing with awe.

“I know that Riddle will probably try to get back at me by hurting someone else,” Harry says, standing up and stretching. “I want to keep you lot as safe as I can. I asked Alphard if he would let me put monitoring charms on him, so I’ll know where he is and I can sense if he’s hurt or afraid. They’re easiest attached to robes, but I’ve also put some on his hair.”

Orion blinks, and blinks again. He can easily imagine Alphard agreeing to that, with the way he worships Harry, and it isn’t like Harry would use them for anything nefarious. But he didn’t know that Harry knew how to cast them.

Harry catches his eye and seems to know what Orion is thinking, the way he often does. “I looked them up in the library,” he murmurs, and his voice is as dry as the covers of some of the books he would have had to use.

Orion coughs. “Of course.”

“You don’t think I can look up spells?”

“I just—I didn’t expect you to be as good at them as you were at Defense.” Orion raises a Privacy Charm of his own around them. “Or as willing to use spells that are pretty intrusive and border on Dark Arts.”

Harry gives him a sharp, hard smile. Orion catches his breath in delight. This is one of the ways that he’s imagined Harry smiling but not thought he would get to see in real life.

“I wouldn’t do it for myself. I wouldn’t use Dark Arts in a duel with Riddle if he was just targeting me. But this is a sort of war, now. And I’ve always been willing to do hard things in war.”

Harry’s eyes are far away for a minute. Orion longs to ask him what he means by that comment, but he thinks he can guess. Harry was at war with the Muggles who raised him, that’s obvious. And while he might not have been able to use magic against them legally, he must have used other tactics that would have kept him safe and allowed him to survive to Hogwarts age in the first place.

“And I asked,” Alphard adds proudly.

“I’m going to ask, too,” Orion says. He knows that Riddle will probably target him second to Harry among the sixth-years. Orion’s certainly been the one most open in opposing him, and Riddle probably knows that he’s courting Harry. “Will you put them on me?”

“Of course, Orion.”

Harry is already stepping towards him with his wand extended, and Orion bows his head. Harry pauses a moment, as if he didn’t expect that, but it does allow him to reach the crown of Orion’s head and hair with the charms. Orion listens to the soft murmur of them past his ear, the momentary sparks of power that he feels as they flare into being on him, and sighs.

He thinks that his father will reserve judgment on the matter of whether Harry will be a good husband, but he should see in a glance why he’ll be a good Lord.

*

“I certainly wouldn’t let Potter put those charms on me.”

“Oh? Did he offer, Lestrange?”

Orion gets a furiously haughty look from Lestrange and the sight of the other boy’s back as he stomps over to his place at the Slytherin table. Orion shakes his head in amusement and settles between Abraxas and Avery.

Avery coughs theatrically. Orion glances at him from the corner of his eye, intent on making sure that he has all the orange marmalade he wants first.

“Potter didn’t offer me the charms,” he says.

“Yes, I know,” says Abraxas. He’s studying a piece of toast with a dubious expression that Orion knows comes from being spoiled excessively by his house-elves. “He said that he knew you would think it was intrusive, and you probably wanted to follow Riddle anyway, so he didn’t see why he should.”

Orion conceals his smile in his marmalade. Avery is sitting up now, and his jaw is hanging a little open.

“I wasn’t happy following Riddle! I don’t want to follow him again!”

“Oh?” Abraxas sighs, because apparently the toast is as good as it’s going to get, and reaches for the knife and the butter. “But you didn’t say anything to Harry when he freed us from Riddle the other night, and you’ve made disparaging comments about his blood.”

“He’s a half-blood!”

“So that means that you want to follow Riddle, then.”

“No, I—”

Avery subsides into muttering silence. Orion and Abraxas trade amused glances. Harry put the charms on Abraxas last night when he asked Orion if he wanted them, and they came up with this plan to win more followers to Harry’s side.

It’s a brilliant plan, if Orion does say so himself.

*

Harry doesn’t think so, when he finds out about it.

“I let you go,” he hisses to Orion when they’re supposed to be taking notes in History of Magic and are really taking the opportunity to do their own work, as everyone does while Binns drones on. “I said that you didn’t have to be Knights of Walpurgis anymore! Why would you think that that meant following me?”

Orion sighs and leans back in his chair. Harry continues to glare at him and doesn’t seem to notice the contradiction between his words and actions, so it falls to Orion to point it out to him. “You let us go, but you’re putting monitoring charms on me and Alphard and Abraxas. You said you would put them on other people if they asked. You have some kind of insurance so Riddle won’t openly attack you.”

“So what?”

“That doesn’t sound like the actions of someone who wants nothing more to do with the former Knights of Walpurgis, Harry. It sounds like someone who’s about to devote himself to protecting them.”

Harry’s face seems to shut down. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“And you’re refusing to recognize reality.” Orion leans towards him and lowers his voice, even though the people at the desks closest to them are Abraxas and a pair of sleeping Hufflepuffs. “You can use whatever name you want for it. You certainly don’t have to pretend that we’re the same kind of organization Riddle was trying to build, or that you’re a Dark Lord. But you should recognize what you’re offering.”

“What am I offering?”

“Protection and help. Without claiming anything in return, at least obviously, or setting a date when you’re going to withdraw the protection.”

“You could be in danger until Riddle finishes his seventh year, for all you know.”

Orion wonders for a second why Harry isn’t talking about finishing his seventh year, but he dismisses it as unimportant. “Exactly. But the fact that you haven’t set an end date to the protection makes it seem as if you’re really offering it of your own free will, not just because people have asked.”

“I am offering it of my own free will!”

“And that just makes it more likely that other people are going to think of you as a lord, one of the few that they can trust and rely on.”

Harry closes his eyes and releases a very long breath, staring in the general direction of the ceiling. “But you don’t need to follow me.”

“No, I know that.”

“Or obey me.”

Abraxas snorts off to the side. Orion does his best to shoot him a subtle wink, while nodding to Harry. “No, I know that, too. You didn’t bind us that way, and I don’t think you ever would. It’s not the kind of person you are.”

“So why try to recruit followers for me?”

“Because we might still want to follow you, even if we don’t need to or you aren’t trying to extract our service in return for protection.”

Harry stares at him as if Orion’s words make no sense. Orion shrugs. As far as he can tell, Harry’s native language is English. He can accept what Orion’s saying and live with it, or he can just pretend it’s nothing and continue offering those monitoring charms to people, while Orion and Abraxas go about their recruiting.

“Potter.”

Harry twitches and turns around.

Avery is leaning forwards, and his face is set in lines of determination that make Orion get ready to interfere if he has to. But he says, “I heard that you’re offering monitoring and protection charms to everyone who wants them. Is that true?”

“Yes,” Harry says, his eyes darting back and forth between Avery, Orion, and Abraxas as if trying to figure out which one of them is really responsible for this mess. “But you don’t have to have them. I meant what I said about not assembling or leading the Knights of Walpurgis. You’re free.”

“Fat lot of good that does me if I can’t stand up for myself or if Riddle stabs me in the back,” Avery says flatly. “I want you to put those charms on me after class.”

“And what do you offer in return?” Abraxas asks haughtily.

“My service.”

“I don’t want that,” Harry says, quick as the serpents he can command.

Avery looks stumped.

“Just say that you’ll offer your mutual aid,” Orion breaks in. “For example, you’re pretty good at Potions, Avery. Offer to help Harry now and then, or study with him, or tutor him, and that ought to be enough.”

Avery relaxes. “Yes, you’re right, Black. I’ll offer you some Potions tutoring then, Potter.” He nods as if that’s all settled—which is really is for him and most reasonable Slytherins, Orion thinks—and goes back to flipping through a history textbook that definitely isn’t the one Binns assigned for the class.

Harry turns an incredulous look on Orion. Orion shakes his head. “Come on, Harry. You do pretty well in Potions, but you could do better, and Avery will help.”

“But—it’s a bargain, and it shouldn’t be!”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t owe me anything!” Harry lowers his voice to hiss the words, which at least proves that he’s thinking a little ahead. “He’s not someone who Riddle might target to get at me, like Alphard, or someone who’s said he wants to follow me, like Abraxas, or courting me, like you are.”

Orion smiles a little. “But he’s someone who’s afraid of Riddle, and I think you might be wrong about Riddle not targeting him. He could target anyone you fought for, to try and hurt you.”

“If he becomes associated with me, that’s making him more of a target, not less!”

“That’s true,” Abraxas murmurs. “But it also means that you’ll fight harder to protect him. That’s not the kind of assurance that we ever had with Riddle, even though it should have been. So I think you’ll find that he’s willing to pay the price of some Potions tutoring now and then.”

Harry opens his mouth to retaliate, and then abruptly, his head snaps towards the door of the classroom. Orion looks with him, but can’t see anyone standing there. Nonetheless, Harry leaps to his feet and draws his wand.

More than one person gapes at him; even some of the Hufflepuffs wake up, and Binns comes to a stop in his lecture with a cough and a grunt. “Mr. Black, what are you doing?” he demands, mixing up his students’ names like usual.

Orion hopes that it’s a good sign for the future.

“The monitoring charms on Alphard,” Harry snarls, and runs out of the History classroom. Orion looks around and realizes that Riddle’s not here at all, which isn’t that unusual, but he hoped-

Orion promptly runs out after Harry, ignoring the way that Binns is yelling for them to stop. He has much more important people to pay attention to, and a cousin to save.

And possibly his chosen one, too. Who knows what sort of trap Riddle has set up and Harry is running headlong into?