Chapter Four of 'Natural Selection'- Meeting the Parents

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Four—Meeting the Parents

“Hi, Mum. Hi, Dad.”

Harry managed to make his mouth move. It was a heroic effort, he thought. By his feet, Esmeralda was coiling and hissing as if she agreed.

But Harry couldn’t listen to her right now. He couldn’t even make out any words in her hissing. All his attention was on his parents, who stood by the fireplace in the Headmaster’s office and both looked ready to faint.

They were looking at Esmeralda and not him, though. Harry wondered if that was a good thing, that they were more afraid of the actual snake than their son who could speak Parseltongue.

He wondered what Tom would say, and licked his lips. That seemed to be enough to snap his parents’ trance, and his mother gave him a shaky smile. Dad was the one who cleared his throat and managed to talk.

“Harry, um, could you send the s-snake out of the room? We c-can’t get any talking done if she’s here.”

Harry hesitated, and while he didn’t know for sure if Esmeralda had understood what his father was saying, she certainly seemed to grasp his intention to send her out of the room. She snapped her body straight with an offended hiss.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered as he reached out and gently urged her in the direction of the door. “I think it’s for the best. They’ll just scream or faint or vomit if you’re here, and that means we can’t talk.”

“I wish to stay here. They will say hurtful things to you if I am not nearby.”

“I think they would say hurtful things to me no matter what,” Harry muttered, and heard his mother burst into tears. He closed his eyes for a long moment and clenched his hands in front of him, and then whispered, “Esmeralda, please just go.”

“Very well. But we will speak of this later.”

Harry did his best to give her a smile and not have it appear strained as he opened the door that would let her back down the moving staircase. His back prickled the whole time. He would have liked her to stay. He would have liked Tom to be here. Hell, he would have welcomed Professor Dumbledore showing up with his phoenix right now and standing between him and his parents.

We all long for things we can’t have. I long to get out of this confrontation, and they long for a son who doesn’t speak Parseltongue.

Harry waited until he saw Esmeralda’s tail snaking down the stairs and he was sure that she wouldn’t linger outside the door and maybe interrupt when she heard him getting distressed. Then he turned around.

“Why was the snake with you?” Dad whispered. He had his arms around Mum, who had managed to control her tears, but whose hand was shaking as she held it over her mouth. Harry had never seen her look so helpless, so upset, so scared. His stomach turned over. He ought to have known that bringing Esmeralda was a bad idea.

“She’s my familiar.” Harry was a little surprised that they hadn’t heard yet, but then, maybe they had only got an owl from Angela or been told about his Parseltongue from Dumbledore and hadn’t heard anything else.

“You can’t have her in the house over the summer with you, Harry.” Dad’s voice was firm but kind. Mum wiped the last of her tears away and stepped back from him. Dad’s arms dropped, and he looked as though he wanted to run over and hug Harry, but couldn’t step over the invisible chasm that gaped at his feet. “I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

Harry had imagined that he would have brave words when this moment came. That he would defend Esmeralda and his bond with her, and explain that he hadn’t been able to resist going to the Forbidden Forest to greet her and magic had created her just for him. That he would be able to explain the longing that had drawn him to Tom and that Parseltongue wasn’t the evil gift they had feared it was.

But all the words fled in the face of Dad’s calmness, the way they always had. Dad had explained to him, when Harry got upset after they Obliviated that Healer, why things had to work out the way they were. Why having a snake in the house would be impossible. Why he and Mum couldn’t get Mind-Healing for their phobia of snakes without someone asking why they needed it, and how that would reveal Harry’s Parseltongue to a world they didn’t want to know about it.

Harry had these dreams of grand words, but he couldn’t argue the way Dad could.

“I understand that she matters to you because she’s your familiar,” Dad murmured, with his smile lighting up his face. That was another thing, Harry thought miserably. Dad looked so cheerful and happy when he was explaining these things. Harry knew he appeared like a shouting child in comparison. “But as you can see, she distresses your mother. And me.” He hesitated. “I know that you don’t want to distress us, but that’s what her presence would do.”

Harry opened his mouth to answer. He honestly had no idea what he was going to say. Of course he wanted to keep Esmeralda, but of course he didn’t want to upset his parents—

The door flew open so sharply that it hit the wall. Harry started and turned around. Tom was standing in the doorway, Nagini tangled around his torso and neck and hissing out insults. Professor Dumbledore was right beside him.

Harry supposed he should have stood still and tried to get in between his parents and Nagini so they wouldn’t see her and become too distressed to speak, or made some other adult and rational decision. But instead, he simply darted towards Tom with a cry of relief he couldn’t stifle, and ducked into the arm that was abruptly spread open to receive him.

He would leave this confrontation up to other people if he could. There was no way he could win it on his own anyway.

*

Tom had thought of many things he’d like to say to the Potters, but honestly, the expressions on their faces as they watched their son fly to him for protection probably said at least half of them.

Not that Tom intended to let that deprive him of the pleasure. He drew Harry close to his side and deposited Nagini on the floor, hissing, “Stay behind me until I call for you. They’ll be too distracted looking at you to pay attention to me otherwise.”

“Why do they have to pay attention to you?” Nagini hissed, pausing with half her body still visible.

“Because Harry is my mate, and I have the right to protect him.”

“Very well,” Nagini said, sulky the way she always was when she couldn’t find a way to argue with him, and tucked her tail behind his legs, too. Tom straightened up and smiled at the Potters. Well, perhaps they would take it as a smile. He hoped they did.

“Tom,” said Albus hastily, recognizing the smile for himself. “Lily. James. Please do remember that you have someone here who has tight bonds to all of you and will be hurt if you argue.”

“They have already been hurting Harry,” Tom said softly, his eyes locked on the Potters and their absurdly pale-greenish faces. “I think they can bear a little of it, themselves.”

“Tom—”

“Are you the one who encouraged him to use his Parseltongue and bond with that snake?” Lily Potter asked abruptly. She stood with her arms crossed as if she was cold, and while she was looking squarely at Tom’s face most of the time, her eyes darted towards Nagini’s hiding place too often to be natural. “The one we told him to stay away from? I see you’re as possessive as we’ve always feared.”

“You know nothing about Parselmouths,” Tom replied softly. “Or you would have known what kind of mental torture you were putting your son through by demanding that he stay away from one of his own kind.”

“His kind is human!”

Tom ignored James, his eyes still fastened on Lily. She had begun this confrontation, and he wanted to see what her response to it was. He also wondered if her fear of snakes was deeper than her husband’s, given that Harry had told him how James’s had begun but not hers.

Lily took a deep breath and looked at him with eyes the same color as Harry’s, but far deeper and colder. “James is right,” she said softly. “His kind is human. We couldn’t do anything about the way he became a Parselmouth, but we can make sure that he doesn’t feel like an outcast because of it. What do you think is going to happen now that everyone knows? How will they treat him?”

“They will treat him kindly.”

“Oh, really? With Parseltongue still regarded as a Dark Art—”

“I have flourished here,” Tom interrupted softly. “If you think I cannot make a smooth path for your son, you are wrong. And it will be smoother than the path you would have condemned him to, leading him to ignore his own familiar, his own gifts, his own magic.” He glanced at Harry, who was watching his parents with an expression of deep unhappiness they probably hadn’t allowed themselves to see for years. “Did you know that he intended to leave Britain when his NEWTS were done?”

Harry made a little motion of protest, but said nothing, and Tom knew he would have if he was upset. He was going to let Tom handle this. Tom burned with pride and pleasure, and dragged Harry a little closer.

“What? Why?”

Tom sneered at her ignorance. “Because other countries might regard Parselmouths with less loathing than you do.”

Lily and James exchanged glances. Tom watched them. He would have hated them less if they were parents who cared nothing about their children. Instead, they had persuaded themselves that keeping Harry from his magic and his familiar was caring, simply because of their fear.

“Is that true, Harry?” James asked suddenly. “It occurs to me that you’re standing back and letting Riddle do all the talking, but you haven’t said anything. Do you really agree with him? Or are you only pretending to? Just say the word, and we’ll take you out of school now and let you take the last two months of NEWT Defense with a tutor!”

Tom trembled with rage, but he said nothing as he felt Harry drawing himself up. Harry had to face his parents at some point, and it seemed it would have to be now. He had to be able to speak to them and assert his own opinions, or they would never stop thinking that Tom was a manipulator who had persuaded Harry to turn on his family.

Tom did have to admit a moment’s doubt to himself. Harry had lived with this manipulation for so long, and had been prepared to leave the country to escape it. It would not be a surprise if he folded now.

And then Tom caught a glimpse of Harry’s burning eyes, and relaxed. He had nothing to worry about. He put a hand back to still Nagini’s restless little movements, and waited.

*

“I’m not afraid of Tom,” Harry said flatly. “I’m afraid of what I would become if I kept pandering to your fear.”

Silence. Neither of his parents had expected that. Studying them, Harry blinked. Had he really never spoken back to them since that summer when they had told him he had to give up his Parseltongue and he’d argued that he thought it was brilliant and he wanted to keep using it?

Had he really felt defiant all along and yet never expressed it?

This is easier than I thought. Or maybe it’s easier than I thought because I know that Tom is behind me and he did some of the work of softening them up first.

“Harry,” Mum said softly. “We didn’t mean to make you feel that way. We’re sorry. But I do think you need to consider who exactly you’re defending. A man much older than yourself who’s never made any secret of the fact that he’s searched for other Parselmouths. And now, he’s found you, and he—wants you.” The word sounded as if she was picking up between tongs. “You have to consider—”

“It’s about damn time someone wanted me,” Harry said.

Mum reached towards him with one trembling hand. “Harry, we always did! We always loved you! Your Parseltongue didn’t change that!” She took a deep breath and dropped her hand, maybe because Nagini had hissed behind Tom and had probably poked her head out. “I promise, we—we always wanted you,” she repeated, and sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. “But we couldn’t have you having snakes around the house. And if we’d let you speak Parseltongue and just be open about it…”

“Yeah? What?”

“Riddle might have found you a lot earlier than he did,” Dad said, his eyes on Tom, hard and suspicious. “And he might have persuaded you to—to sleep with him while you were still a kid. That would have been wrong. A lot wronger than anything we did.”

“I would never have done such a thing,” Tom said, his voice so still and cold that Harry felt as if he was standing in the middle of a winter wind.

“Yeah?”

Harry twitched and stepped forwards so that he was the one standing in between Tom and his dad instead of the other way around. “Yeah,” he said. “I promise, Dad, nothing like that would have happened. Nothing is happening right now, either! Tom and I are going to wait until after my NEWTS to—do anything.” He could feel a sharp blush making its way up his face, but he couldn’t help it. He’d kissed a few people, but he hadn’t done anything more than that, either. “We’re just—dating right now.”

“That’s still wrong!”

“Harry,” Mum said wearily. “Can’t you just see it from our point-of-view? You don’t need to have a snake as a familiar. You don’t need to speak Parseltongue. When you visit us again, you’ll have to stop doing those things, anyway. And you don’t need Professor Riddle.” Her eyes darted to Tom and then away again. “I promise, we can introduce you to many—young men your age. If we’d had any idea that you were interested in men…”

Harry took a deep breath. He would probably still sound like a child compared to them, and not as calm or reasonable, but he had to speak. “I’m not interested in men in particular. I’m interested in Tom.”

Mum shut her eyes. Dad snorted. “Just because he’s a Parselmouth—”

“And because he’s happy that I’m one! And because he said that he would wait until after my seventh year, and because he got upset that I’d been hiding from him—”

“I told you—”

“And because he wants to show me off,” Harry said, and at this point, he was so angry that he didn’t even care if his words made his parents think or not, or if he sounded childish. “He called me up in front of the Defense class today and had me show off my spellcrafting abilities! He was angry that I was suppressing myself, that’s all.”

Dad blinked and said, “Spellcrafting abilities?”

“We didn’t know you could do that, Harry,” Mum said.

“Um.”

“I did not realize that you hid even that from them,” Tom hissed to him, one hand resting on his shoulder for a second and squeezing hard. Nagini hissed a request to come out from behind Tom, but they both ignored it, Tom perhaps because his eyes were locked on Harry’s face. “Why did you?”

“Because I created spells that would hide me from you, and I had to keep them secret from Mum and Dad, too, or they would have thought I was showing off deliberately and trying to get you to notice me.”

Tom said nothing, but his arm curled around Harry’s waist. Harry faced his parents and shook his head. Their faces were so pale from listening to Parseltongue that he doubted they would hear anything he said in English.

“Are you listening?”

Mum blinked, and Dad nodded jerkily.

“Yes,” Harry said, “I can invent spells. And do them wandlessly when I need to, and set them up so that they only show to one person’s eyes, and develop them in a few minutes, even.” Tom’s grip around him was crushing, but reassuring. “And no, I never told you about them, but you never bothered to ask about anything special I could do, either.” Harry closed his eyes. “I haven’t been able to be myself around you in a long, long time.”

“Harry…”

“I won’t be giving up my familiar,” Harry said quietly. “I won’t be giving up Parseltongue. And I won’t be giving up Tom. I won’t be staying with you this summer, either, unless you change your minds about not letting me be who I am.” He blinked and swallowed, then turned away and walked towards the door of the Headmaster’s office.

Professor Dumbledore was watching him with deep sorrow in his eyes. “I hope that you and your parents haven’t lost each other forever,” he whispered.

Harry shook his head. “A lot of that is going to depend on them,” he said, and then he went through the door, with Tom following him, and Nagini complaining that she hadn’t got to bite anyone.

He found Esmeralda on the stairs. “I don’t like it when you send me away,” she said. “Nagini got to stay.”

Harry took a deep breath and bent down to gather her close, casting a Lightening Charm so he could more easily pick her up. “I won’t be sending you away again,” he whispered into her scales. “I thought it might make things easier, but it didn’t, really. And I don’t want to make things easier for Mum and Dad anymore. I’m done with that.”

Tom’s hand rested on his back. Harry turned around slowly, wondering what he would see in Tom’s face.

He needn’t have worried, he realized, when he saw it. Tom’s eyes were glowing with pride and possessive affection, and he squeezed Harry’s waist one more time with his arm before leading him down the moving staircase.

Harry leaned against him, and tried to think more of the new life ahead of him than the wreckage of the one he’d left behind.