Chapter Seventeen of 'Casualties of Politics'- Families of Choice

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Chapter Seventeen—Families of Choice

“Harry!”

Felix yelled his name as if he’d thought he would never see Harry again. Harry pasted a smile on his face and walked towards his brother. They were meeting in the garden behind the Dursleys’ house. Harry had been the one to write and suggest that to the Potters. That way, he’d explained, they would be out of sight of the Dursleys’ neighbors and his relatives both.

And from the smiles on the Potters’ faces as they followed Felix, they had taken this as another sign that things weren’t “that bad” for Harry at the Dursleys’. That they would allow him to write and receive owls.

Well, it didn’t matter. It was still easier to fool them than it had ever been, now that Harry knew he had to. Belisarius had Apparated him here this morning, and he and Theo were watching under Disillusionment Charms nearby.

Felix flung his arms around Harry and hugged him. Harry hugged him back, and then turned and made himself endure the way James ruffled his hair and Lily hugged him. He only had to put up with them for a few more years, he thought, until he could win free of them.

Or until he couldn’t bear them any longer and broke free.

Theo had thought Harry would reach that point before he reached the age of seventeen. Harry had pointed out that he’d endured the Dursleys for ten years, and managed to not run away.

Theo had just looked at him with dark eyes and asked, “And now that you have the power to fight back, are you just going to stay with people who abandoned you to abusive Muggles?”

That made more sense than Harry liked to think about, more sense than he’d wanted to admit. So he’d shoved Theo on the shoulder and they’d gone outside to fly one last time before Belisarius brought them here.

“So everything went all right?” Lily asked.

“It went fine,” Harry said, and let his smile widen.

Lily nodded, a little gesture that Harry didn’t even know if she was conscious of. James’s smile widened, and he reached out and ruffled Harry’s hair again. “Of course it did! No son of ours is going to put up with a lot of Muggle bollocks.”

No son of yours, Harry thought.

Interestingly, he saw Felix clapping his hand across his face from where he stood behind the Potters. Harry glanced at him, and Felix shook his head at Harry with a frown so severe that Harry blinked. But he would wait to ask questions. Obviously, it would have to not be in front of the Potters.

James grabbed his hand, while Lily grabbed Felix’s, and they were ushered towards the Apparition point beyond the Muggle street. Harry glanced back once and caught the glimpse of movement that would be Belisarius and Theo standing there disguised. He inclined his head in a deep nod that anyone who saw him could take as a gesture of farewell to the Muggles, if they wanted.

They didn’t need to know about how Belisarius and Theo had helped Harry, kept him. They didn’t need to know about the several books from the Nott library that Harry was carrying along with him, which Belisarius had happily lent to him.

They didn’t need to know about so much. If Harry had his way, he would never tell the Potters about his elemental magic or his Parseltongue, except maybe in a letter written to them from safety after he’d reached it.

Felix?

Maybe, Harry thought, as he watched his brother from the corner of his eye and saw the way Felix was scowling at Lily’s back. But I’ll have to know him a lot better than I do now first.

*

Theo leaned against his father’s leg and stared after Harry for long moments. Not even his father summoning Nimby from the house and asking for a report on what had happened with the Muggles distracted him.

Having a best friend wasn’t something he had ever allowed himself to imagine. Now that he knew what it was like, Theo didn’t want to give it up.

“He’ll be all right.”

Theo stiffened a little, eyes on the ground. He trusted Father, of course he did, but he hated being so transparent to him.

“I will keep our home as a sanctuary for him when he needs it,” Father went on, his voice soft, as he rested his hand on Theo’s head and stroked through his hair. “I could do no less for someone who saved your life and brought you back to me.”

Theo nodded, reassured. That meant a lot more to him than if Father had just said he would do it because Harry was Theo’s best friend. Father might change his mind about such things in the future, but his sense of obligation to Harry would never lessen.

Be safe, Theo thought, looking towards where the Potters had Apparated. Because he was back with Father, he doubtless wouldn’t be invited to parties at the Potter house anymore, and would have to wait until September to see Harry, unless they could sneak off and meet up somewhere. Be as happy as you can.

As Father stretched out a hand to Apparate him home, Theo thought that the last part of that would be far more difficult for Harry to manage.

*

Felix finished telling Harry what he’d found in the locked drawer and sat back to watch Harry and wait for his reaction. Harry was lying on the floor next to Felix’s bed, his eyes fixed on the wall and his magic snapping around him.

Felix sipped at his melting ice that he’d persuaded Mum to get for them and waited some more. It was strange, but Harry seemed to have changed a lot in the week since Felix had last seen him. Not in the way Felix had expected, though. He’d thought Harry would come back sunk into himself and detached, or else yelling at everyone.

Instead, Harry just seemed quieter and more thoughtful. And warier. Like he was watching everybody all the time, and waiting for them to say something that was horrible or twisted or stupid.

Considering the way our parents just dumped him back at the Muggles’, I suppose I can’t blame him for that.

Harry blinked and turned to look at him, and suddenly looked a lot more normal again. “Did you try writing to Lupin?”

“I sent an owl out.”

“And?” Harry prodded.

“It came back with the letter still on the leg. I don’t know if he thought that maybe someone else was writing to him and didn’t want to answer, or if he’s sworn off all contact with us, or he’s dead, or what.”

“Owls just wait when someone’s dead,” Harry said softly, staring at the wall again. “They can’t find them, so they don’t bother trying. He’s probably out there somewhere. It must be one of the other things you said.”

“How did you know that?”

“About owls waiting? I read a lot of things about them when I was trying to figure out why they didn’t like me.”

“We have to get you a pet that will like you,” Felix said, sprawling on his bed and kicking up his heels. “There has to be some animal out there. Maybe a crossbreed, like a half-Kneazle. Or a magical one.”

Harry had a very odd expression on his face for a moment, but he shook it off. “Well, maybe someday we’ll find one.”

Felix nodded. “What do you think about what Sirius said?”

“That Lily and James were afraid of me getting you sick and that’s why they shipped me off to live with the Dursleys?”

Felix opened his mouth to ask why Harry wasn’t calling them Mum and Dad, and then didn’t ask it. Because he knew. “Yeah.”

“I think he’s probably telling the truth. Or part of the truth. But it doesn’t make me like them better. And it doesn’t mean that I want to impress them anymore. Or just enough to keep living here.”

Harry’s face wasn’t closed or wearing a strange expression right now. His eyes were shining with a frightening focus, and his hand was clawing at the carpet as if he was going to pull it out like grass. Felix swallowed. Harry’s magic was snarling around him, a low sound but one that Felix could feel echoing in his bones.

“You think they’d kick you out?”

“They already did that, didn’t they?”

“But Sirius thought they might do it permanently. And then you wouldn’t have access to the money that you need for your robes, or your schoolbooks, or any of it.”

Harry lay back on the carpet. His magic sank down around him again so that Felix couldn’t hear it snarling anymore, but he could still feel it. Watching. Waiting. He wondered, a little uneasily, where it went when he couldn’t hear it.

“I know. I need to figure out some way to get some money.” Harry’s fingers strummed the carpet behind his head this time. “But I don’t have any good ideas. I’m too young for most people to take me seriously if I tried to sell something or shop on my own. Maybe I—”

His eyes unfocused, and he stared at the wall. Felix looked, too, just in case, but there was only the spot that was left over from what his parents persisted in calling the Too Much Soup Incident.

“Harry?”

Harry blinked and came back from what looked like it was very far away. “Hm? Yeah?”

“Where’d you go?” Felix tried to smile and make it into a joke, but he was a little frightened about the way that part of his brother seemed to have disappeared into thin air. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” Harry slumped back with his arms tucked under his head again. “I thought I had a thought about how I could get some money, but then I worked out some of the ways it could go wrong, and it’s not worth it.”

Felix was curious enough that he opened his mouth to ask, and then he shut it again. He had grown up here, in comfort and with the certainty that his parents loved him, while Harry hadn’t. He had a path to walk before he could earn Harry’s trust.

“Did you do your homework yet?” he asked.

“No. I thought I’d wait until I got here so I could use it to distract me a little from Lily and James.”

Felix winced internally, but nodded and hauled out his Charms book. “What do you think of Flitwick’s essay? It seemed simple, but coming up with ten uses for the Lumos Charm seems like a lot to me…”

*

Harry listened intently, sending his winds roaming through the house, until he was sure that everyone was in bed. Then he conjured a small ball of fire that he set drifting above him to illuminate the room and dug into the money pouch that he’d filled up yesterday when they went to Diagon Alley after coming back from the Dursleys’.

He dug out a Galleon and sat back to study it, turning it slowly around and around. Yes, the edge had a lot of little notches in it, and there were designs etched into the face of it that would take a lot of work to memorize.

But mostly, it was gold. How hard could it be to get more gold together when he had the power to dig it out from the earth? How hard could it to be imitate a Galleon, even, once he memorized the designs enough? Or create a disk of copper or some other metal and sheathe it with gold?

Of course, he would have to learn more about wizarding money before he did that. There might be tests in place to detect things like that, spells that would figure out if there was something besides gold in a Galleon. Or figure out if it was less thick than it should be.

But Harry reckoned he had at least a couple years to learn. And then maybe he would be able to get away from the Potters forever, without depending on an adult to give him money. He could take Felix with him if Felix wanted.

Harry flipped the Galleon into the air and watched it sparkle in the light of his fire as it came down. He could feel his smile and how tight it was on his face, but he also felt a deep satisfaction stirring in his stomach.

For the first time since he’d really realized what his magic was, he was glad he was an elementalist.

*

“If it isn’t Mr. Harry Potter himself!”

“The famous Boy-Who-Lived’s only slightly less famous brother!”

“Informer of infamy!”

“Master of magic!”

Harry eyed the Weasley twins uneasily. They’d come over to the Potters’ house along with Ron and their little sister Ginny and a girl named Luna Lovegood and a boy named Cedric Diggory who was the twins’ age and evidently lived near them. Harry had watched the wild raging Quidditch game for a little while before excusing himself to lie on the grass and test his magic with ripples in the earth and air. He wondered if the twins had noticed something from up on their brooms.

“Why do you say that?” Harry asked, and tucked his magic in close to himself, letting the air and the earth go. “You know that I still struggle when I have to use my wand.”

The twin Harry thought was George laughed out loud and sprawled on the grass next to him. “Yeah, but you have a lot of power. We can—”

“Feel it,” Fred, or probably Fred, added, and sprawled next to George. “It’s probably just not going through your wand very well because your wand isn’t the very best one you could have.”

“You know that I didn’t bond with any in Ollivander’s shop.” Harry looked at the ground and tried to adopt the shy, modest look that he wore around the Potters all the time now. “So it’s hard to tell what wand would be good for me.”

“But when you do, then you’re going to be a powerhouse,” said George, and acted like he was going to poke Harry in the ribs, but then pulled his hand back, which was good, because he might have got scorched otherwise.

I already am a powerhouse, Harry thought, but didn’t say. It was still kind of strange, getting used to the realization he’d had the night he’d thought about copying Galleons. He was an elementalist and he could use a wandless, undetectable, permanent Imperius Curse. He was stronger than wizards like Felix and the Potters, not weaker than they were.

If Theo was here, he would roll his eyes and say that he’s only been trying to tell me that for a year.

Harry felt a pulse of loneliness echo through him. The Weasleys were fine, but they were really Felix’s friends and not his. Ron and Felix had all sorts of jokes that came from knowing each other for eleven years. Ginny, the little sister, was shy and had a crush on Felix, and didn’t say much. Diggory was in the air helping everyone all the time, and especially Lovegood, who didn’t seem to be very strong on a broom. The twins were—the twins.

I do wish I could tell someone other than Theo and Blaise my secrets. But they could use them against me.

“Your Magical Mastership, sir? We’re right here.”

Harry sighed and rubbed one hand over his eyes. “I’m not a magical mastership, and I don’t know what you want me to do,” he said.

“Flea says you’re pretty good at Quidditch,” Fred said, using the nickname Harry knew Felix hated. “Come on, show us.”

“I just want to stay on the ground, thanks.”

“But why? It’s a waste of time to just lie on the ground!”

You wouldn’t say that if that you could feel earth moving and shifting underneath you. “I just want to—”

Someone screamed. Harry’s head jerked up. It didn’t sound like the good-natured “This is fun” screams that he’d been hearing all morning while Felix and the Weasleys were hitting the Quaffle or sometimes the Bludgers around.

Luna Lovegood was clutching at her broom, both legs hanging off one side. She was trying to boost herself back up on the broom, but Harry could see that it wasn’t going to work. The Cleansweep tilted lazily to the side, and then began to fall. Felix and Ron were flying towards her as fast as they could, and Ginny and Diggory were diving, but they were all too far away, especially because Lovegood didn’t seem to know how to slow her fall.

Fred and George were shouting and casting things, but they were too slow, too, and Lovegood was too fast. And then her hands slipped off the broom altogether, so the charms that would have halted the broom just hit it and not her.

Harry looked at the air below Lovegood, and thought, Cushion her.

There was a wild stirring of wind that mostly grabbed at his hair and nothing else, and then the air beneath Lovegood became thicker in a way Harry thought only he could see, flashing little glints of light as the sun reflected off nothing in particular. Lovegood hit the cushion and bounced, rolling slightly from side to side. Harry hastily shrank the air beneath her, stilling it and driving it towards the ground, and Lovegood came with it, shaking.

She landed on the ground, and Ginny and Felix and Ron landed right behind her a few seconds later. Then came Diggory with the Quaffle. They surrounded Lovegood and babbled away about whether she was all right. Lovegood was nodding and shaking and holding onto Ginny. Harry examined her critically. She looked all right.

“Nice work, Harrykins.”

Harry started and glanced over his shoulder. Fred and George were watching him with identical wicked expressions, their eyes glinting in a way that made him tighten his shoulders. Usually, that kind of look was followed by Harry Hunting not too long afterwards.

“What do you mean?” he asked warily.

“You stopped—

“Lovely Luna from falling.”

“Very good-natured and—”

“Chivalrous of you, really. But we shouldn’t be surprised, since you are—”

“A Gryffindor,” they finished, and stared at him.

Harry shrugged, his back prickling with irritation, but at least the kinds of things the Potters believed were useful to him in this situation. “It was just accidental magic. I wanted to stop her from falling, so it happened. You know I still don’t have the kind of control to use charms like you did.”

“That was so wild and accidental and uncontrolled, of course,” said the twin Harry thought was George, placing his hand above his heart.

“Totally what someone think of when they talk about accidental magic,” Fred agreed. “Not under your control at all. The least controlled thing I’ve ever seen.:

“Where are you going with this?” Harry hissed, lowering his voice. He didn’t think anyone else would notice. They were still too busy fussing over Lovegood. “What do you want?”

“We’re not idiots,” George said.

“Not at all,” Fred agreed. “We know that there are secrets we don’t know, and we think we’ve just witnessed one of them.”

“We want to know more.”

Harry considered them while the prickle in his back got worse. On the one hand, he would be less lonely if he had friends he could associate with under the Potter’ noses, and the twins had been good to him by showing him the kitchens, and Theo would probably advocate for him having allies in his House.

But on the other hand, he didn’t know what the twins would do with that information. If they would keep it to themselves. If they would tell adults because they were “worried about him.” If they would think it was good fun to prank him in some way that would reveal his elemental magic.

The temptation to use the Imperius on them was very strong.

But Harry didn’t want to. The twins hadn’t hurt him the way the Dursleys had, hadn’t hurt Theo the way the Figgs had, hadn’t hurt Felix or Blaise, and Harry didn’t need more practice. He breathed out slowly and finally said, “I’ll tell you in a few days, okay? The next time you lot come over. Make sure that you come up with some excuse so we can talk alone and no one suspects it, and make sure that you know a Privacy Charm no one else can pierce.” No one was going to get in trouble for using their wands at the Potter house, which had wards up to prevent the Ministry’s Trace from working.

Fred and George grinned at each other in what Harry was startled to recognize as honest excitement. Good God, they must be really bored if this sounds interesting to them.

On the other hand, once they learned that his secret wasn’t all that interesting, maybe they would be inspired to back the hell off. It was just one person’s elemental magic, and the twins were older and smarter than him and had lots of friends and knew more spells than he did. Why would they want more than that?

*

Ginny took a deep breath and rapped on Harry Potter’s bedroom door.

She bit her lip as she waited. She hadn’t thought at first that Harry had anything to do with stopping Luna from falling. She’d thought it was someone’s charm, or Luna’s own accidental magic. But, well, the twins had told her the truth, and when she thought about what she knew about Felix’s twin, she supposed that it was possible.

And she owed him for that. Luna was her best friend.

He finally opened the door, staring at her warily. Ginny blinked. Ron had said that it was hard to tell Harry and Felix apart sometimes, that he’d thought Harry was Felix from the back and vice versa, but Ginny didn’t see how it could be that difficult. Harry looked as if he was ready to run past her any second.

“Um,” she said. “Hi.”

“If you’re looking for Felix, he’s down the corridor,” Harry said, and tilted his head a little as if listening. “Or maybe in the kitchen eating biscuits.”

“No, I was looking for you,” Ginny said, and lifted her chin. Talking to Harry was a little awkward, but not nearly as awkward as talking to Felix would be. Not when he was so kind and down-to-earth and not stuck-up like some of the rumors said…

“Well, what do you want?”

Ginny could feel a blush rising after all, but just because she’d been standing in front of Harry and daydreaming about Felix. “Look,” she said. “I know that you stopped Luna from falling today.”

“Okay. So?”

His bluntness was almost refreshing. Ginny straightened her back. “So, I know that you might not want me to tell Luna because you’re embarrassed about your accidental magic, or she would be here thanking you herself,” she said. “But I wanted to thank you.”

Harry blinked at her as if this was an entirely foreign concept to him. Then he shrugged. “You’re welcome,” he said, and started to close the door again.

“No, wait!” Ginny sighed and leaned her elbow on the door when Harry just stared at her. “Listen, I’ve seen that you just kind of—sit aside from the Quidditch games and the other things, and I thought—you could use a friend.”

“Are you volunteering?”

“If you want me to,” Ginny said. “But I know we might not get along, so I brought you someone who will get along with you.” Not without a pang of loss, she pulled the diary out of her robe pocket. “This book talks to you if you write in it,” she whispered, lowering her voice. “His name is Tom. He’s a Hogwarts student who was at the school, oh, decades ago. So he can tell you secrets, but he won’t know anyone who’s there except maybe some of the teachers, so he can keep yours.”

Harry reached out and picked up the book, slowly turning it over, staring at it. Ginny smiled at him.

“You’re sure he can’t betray my secrets?” Harry asked, his eyes flickering up.

“Yes,” Ginny said. She thought about telling him how warm and kind Tom was, but she didn’t think that would make as much of an impression. “You can try writing to him and asking about mine if you want. But he won’t tell you any of them. He promised. And even if you write something in there and then you lose the diary, he won’t tell people yours, either.”

Harry was running his fingers gently over the book. “If he’s so great, why are you getting rid of him?”

“I told you. You saved Luna. She’s my best friend. If I didn’t have her, I think it would be a lot harder to give Tom up, but you’re the reason I still have her. And I pay my debts,” Ginny said firmly.

Harry gave her an odd look, but then he went back to looking at the little black book. “Where did you get this?”

Ginny half-shrugged. “We went to Flourish and Blotts, and I found it inside one of my old Transfiguration books. We have to get our books secondhand, you know.” She could feel her cheeks heating up, but Harry didn’t even look at her, so she reckoned he didn’t care. “I suppose it was an old book that got misplaced somehow.”

She expected Harry to ask why she hadn’t told someone about it and got the book taken back to the shop, in which case she would tell him the truth. Tom had said it was very boring being trapped inside a book for fifty years, and if she took him back to the shop, he didn’t know how long it would be before someone would buy him and open the book again.

But Harry didn’t ask. He tilted his head at the book again and then looked back at her. “Well, thanks.”

Ginny gave him a tentative smile. “You’re welcome.”

“But please don’t tell anyone I saved Luna’s life.”

That was what the twins had said, too. Ginny had no idea why there was so much secrecy, but she could accept it. It was a fight trying to keep things private in a family as large as hers, which was one reason she and Luna had become friends in the first place. She could tell Luna things that would make her parents shriek.

“All right. Thank you again.”

Harry nodded and shut the door. Ginny stood where she was, breathing a little and telling herself that if she had talked to his twin, she could face Felix.

He was probably in the kitchen eating biscuits, like Harry had said. It would be fine.

*

Harry sat on the bed and stared at the book.

It felt odd. The cover was only ordinary leather, but it seemed to cling to his fingers in ways that reminded Harry of sucking mud. Harry studied it and the air around it, and thought he could make out little shifts of motion there, as though the book distorted the air or wind didn’t want to come too close to it.

Harry flipped the book open, and discovered the pages were all creamy white and blank. He frowned for a moment, and then decided that he probably had to write something on it for the book to respond. He fetched an inkpot and a quill and sprawled on the bed, thinking about what to write.

Is he going to be upset that Ginny gave him away?

Well, that could be his first question. Harry wrote, Hello, my name is Harry Potter. Ginny Weasley gave me to you. Are you upset that she did?

His words shone for a second, and then sank smoothly into the page. Harry leaned back, staring. It was undeniably brilliant, if the person who had put the enchantment on this book was a Hogwarts student, but also creepy-looking.

Words pushed themselves to the surface of the page a second later. Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle.

So Ginny hadn’t been lying about this, at least. Harry rapped his fingers on the book for a second, and then wrote back, You didn’t answer my question.

Those words disappeared, too, and a second later, so did the ones “Tom” had written. He replied, I am a little curious to know why she did. I know I was a good friend to her, and someone who would always keep all her secrets, which she told me were difficult to keep safe from her twin brothers and her parents.

She said it was in payment for a life-debt.

There was a longer pause than before when Harry’s words had been wiped out. Finally, the book said, How intriguing. She said something about a Potter boy who was a year older than she was, whom she idolized. Are you an older student at Hogwarts, then, who knows the kind of magic that can save a life?

Harry narrowed his eyes. Why would the book find that intriguing? This had to be the product of an older student who could certainly master the magic that would save a life, if he wanted.

In Harry’s experience, people like that were mostly interested in themselves.

I’m a student at Hogwarts, he wrote, deliberately vague. The student Ginny was talking about is my brother.

I’m sure you’re at least as powerful.

Harry laughed aloud at the flattery and watched the book as he did so. There was no reaction, so he thought the book probably couldn’t sense sounds or “see” with anything resembling eyes. It was limited to what he told it.

Well, and whatever was going on with the air that seemed to be stirring around the book. Harry narrowed his eyes, and if he squinted, thought he could make out dark tendrils just on the edge of vision. They reached for him and came down for a second on the air around his body, as if reaching for something.

Then they recoiled.

Why is your magic reaching for mine? Harry wrote.

Who are you? The words were jagged, slashed onto the page. What are you? You don’t feel like a wizard. You don’t feel like anything at all!

Harry tilted his head. Interesting. I’m a wizard, he wrote. Maybe your book is malfunctioning.

No one but a Muggle would say that. Are you a Muggleborn? There was a pause, and the words smoothed out and disappeared, replaced by, Not that I mind if you are, but I am a little surprised that Ginny knows a Muggleborn family that well. She seemed to be isolated in a mostly pureblood household.

Harry raised his eyebrows. He was no longer that impressed with Tom, although his original had to have been clever to put part of himself into a book. It’s not really your business what I am.

I’ve never felt any magic like yours.

I don’t think you can feel my magic at all, since you implied that I was a Muggle.

The book was quiet and still after those words had vanished. Harry shrugged and started to shut the cover, but more words appeared a second later.

If you don’t like me, then you can give me back to Ginny.

Harry shook his head. If nothing else, that would be a bad idea because it would make Ginny feel like the debt she supposedly owed him for saving Lovegood’s life was unpaid, and she would start casting around for something else to give him. And he didn’t need her paying him more attention. He might end up trusting the twins with his secrets, but he didn’t need to drag their little sister into it.

I don’t think she needs you, Harry wrote. She already has a best friend. And he shut the book while the words were still vanishing and tucked it into the bottom of his trunk.

The magic on the book was interesting, and Harry would have liked to investigate it more, but he didn’t think he’d be trusting Tom with any of his secrets any time soon.

*

“Did you notice that Harry doesn’t use his wand for practically anything?”

Ron said it largely randomly when they were lying outside one day about a week before Harry and Felix’s birthday, watching clouds with their hands behind their heads. Felix had spent the morning finishing his summer homework, and thought he was justified in relaxing.

“He still has some trouble with it, I think.” Felix shut his eyes and yawned. Then he opened them and squinted at the cloud over his head. It looked a little like a wolf if he turned his head sideways.

A pang made its way through his chest. He had written to Remus Lupin again, but the bird had simply flown away and come back a few hours later, with the same letter still clinging to its leg and the distinct knot Felix had tied in the twine undisturbed.

“But it’s weird he doesn’t use it for anything, right?”

“He has trouble with it,” Felix repeated, irritated with Ron for making him think about more serious things on a sunny summer afternoon. “And he grew up Muggle. I think that his first instinct is still to do something with his hands rather than with magic.”

“I just think it’s weird.”

Felix closed his eyes and shrugged. He and Harry were getting on a lot better than they used to last year, he thought, when Harry was keeping secrets from him like having Slytherin friends. Felix telling him about the birth certificates and Remus Lupin had made a lot of difference. But Harry still didn’t tell him everything, like what it had really been like with the Muggles during the week he’d spent with them, and that would have to be okay.

Felix wouldn’t win Harry’s trust by judging him. And enough people in his life had done that.

*

“All right, tell us!”

Harry eyed the twins again, and restrained a sigh. He still wished there was some way he could get out of this. But the twins had been kept at home the last few times the Weasleys had visited because of pranks they’d got in trouble for, and they hadn’t told anyone about his saving Lovegood, so far.

He hoped he could impress on them how much he didn’t want anyone finding out, so they would keep it quiet. Ginny was bad enough.

“Okay,” he said. “Do you know that Privacy Charm I asked you about? Can you cast it?”

George nodded eagerly and cast it. Then both the twins stared at him.

“Boy,” Harry said, unable to help himself, “your lives must be boring if this is so exciting to you.”

“We mostly—”

“Have to make our own excitement,” Fred finished, and then they went right back to staring at him.

Harry sighed a little. “Okay. Anyway, my magic is elemental. I can’t use a wand at all. It’s all wandless. I saved Lovegood that day by telling the air underneath her to turn into a cushion.”

He held his breath a bit, wondering if that would be enough for the twins and they wouldn’t ask—

“Wicked!”

“Can we see?”

Really boring lives, Harry thought, shaking his head, and held out his hand, concentrating as he closed his eyes. A fire sprang to life above his fingers, and he carefully made it large enough to be a little impressive, but not as large as he knew he could make. Then he opened his eyes to see how the twins were taking it.

They were gaping at him. Harry shut the fire down with a flicker of his will and frowned at them. “Why is that making you look like that?” He knew that they’d done more powerful accidental magic in their time. They’d told him the story of turning Ron’s teddy into a spider once already.

“It’s brilliant, that’s why,” said George, as if that should be self-evident. “Accidental magic just does—”

“Whatever it wants,” Fred finished. “Half the time, it doesn’t even really obey you. It just reacts to—”

“Your emotion. I mean, sure, maybe Luna could have used accidental magic to save herself when she was falling, or Ginny could have—”

“But it might just have changed the color of the clouds or something, or made one of them feel safe without saving her.” Fred whistled under his breath. “You have control of yours. It’s awesome.”

“Okay,” Harry said, calling back his magic so that it wrapped around him and didn’t spread out to touch either of the Weasley twins. “So now you know. And I need you to promise that you won’t tell anyone else.”

“Are you kidding?” George exclaimed, and Harry tensed. But then George finished the sentence. “This is awesome! We’ll keep it to ourselves so we can know something they don’t!”

“Do you mum and dad know?” Fred asked abruptly.

“No,” Harry said. “They think I’m getting better with my wand and can do simple spells now. They think I’m sick. They think I should be tossed back into a Muggle home for a week with Muggles they know didn’t treat me will just because it’ll keep those people magically safe.”

Fred and George exchanged a quick glance. Harry tensed again, watching them. He hadn’t meant to tell them that, or at least not to sound so bitter. If necessary, he would lash out with his Imperius Curse, if they didn’t—

Fred turned back to face him. “We won’t tell,” he said, his face grim. “I’d suggest we tell Sirius or our parents or Dumbledore or something, but they’re all—we heard Mum and Dad talking, about how your presence at the Muggles’ house would keep them safe, and you were happy to do it.”

Harry smiled. “That,” he said, “is a lie.”

And Fred and George nodded at him, and it occurred to Harry that, oddly enough, he might just have gained two more friends.