lomonaaeren

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Chapter Eighteen—Not This Path

Why are you writing to me when you don’t like or trust me?

Harry watched as the tendrils of darkness reaching out from the book once again grasped at his magic and fell short. He wondered what would happen if the book was trying to touch the magic of a “normal” wizard. Then again, Ginny hadn’t seemed to be too badly affected. Maybe it took a long time to happen.

Why do I have to trust or like you? Harry wrote back. Why don’t you communicate with me anyway, if you’re bored and shut in that book with nothing else to do?

While the diary pondered that one, Harry glanced back at the book in front of him. His and Felix’s twelfth birthday had come and gone, and he’d asked for lots of books, which the Potters had been more than delighted to shower him with. Harry had moved from history to reading books about hexes, jinxes, household charms, and Healing spells.

The first three kinds meant he could look at other spells he might have to imitate someday. The last books told him a lot about anatomy.

And so far, he was coming to the conclusion that “normal” wizards and witches were completely vulnerable to an elementalist.

No matter what they do, they have to breathe. They have to be in contact with the earth. Their bodies have blood in the veins and water in the cells no matter what happens.

Harry wasn’t sure yet if he would be able to manipulate blood. Water in the cells was far easier, as the element was relatively pure, not as mixed with iron and hemoglobin.

But perhaps he could even reach the iron someday, if he increased his mastery of earth manipulation.

The flicker of words appearing in the diary drew Harry’s attention back to it. Riddle was scratching in what looked like jerky, petulant script. You are the strangest boy I have ever met. Usually, when someone wants to make an alliance with someone else, they offer politeness, if nothing else.

Why should I offer politeness when you tried to feed on my magic?

I cannot feed on your magic at all. Why is that?

Why should I answer you?

Another pause. Harry flipped a page in the anatomy book, and frowned at the detailed diagram of bones on the next page before turning past it. He wasn’t focused on learning to break bones at the moment, at least not with direct elemental magic. A gust of wind that hurled someone into a wall would do just as well.

A question for a question? the diary offered. I answer one, you answer one?

Harry smiled a little and leaned up on his elbows. This was something he’d been hoping to work the diary towards, which was why he’d sometimes talked to it for ten minutes or so each day. But of course, just accepting the diary’s offer at face value was something he was too smart to do.

That might work. If one of us doesn’t answer a question or the other, then the game is done.

This is all just a game to you?

A deadly serious game. My question.

The diary rattled back and forth in what looked like irritation, and that clutching magic spread out again. Harry watched it once again fall short. Each time that happened, it answered a question of the sort that he wasn’t going to ask Riddle.

It seemed Harry really didn’t have any “normal” magic at all, not the kind that would allow him to use a wand and presumably would allow Riddle to start leeching from almost everyone else who would write to him. Harry had wondered. After all, he could create illusions and throw the Imperius, which were like “normal” magic.

But he was starting to think that he could create illusions by bending light and air, without having been paying attention to the details of the process the way he had when he was exercising other kinds of elemental magic. And his Imperius was probably related to his Parseltongue.

Not something I intend to mention to Riddle, either. Someone else could still take the diary from him and ask questions, and a question about Parseltongue in particular would rebrand Harry as a dangerous freak.

Why did you create the diary in the first place? Harry asked, and went back to his anatomy book.

He came to the end of the anatomy book’s relevant portion and opened 1001 Jinxes and Their Variants before Riddle’s answer bloomed onto the page. I wished to preserve, forever, a memory of myself as I had been at sixteen.

Why that age—

Ah, ah, Harry, Riddle wrote, his words leaping into stark relief and erasing Harry’s. A question for a question. Why can’t I reach out to your magic as I can with others’? I know you are not a Muggle, so do not think to lie to me.

Harry snickered at the thought of a sixteen-year-old speaking those words. So pompous. He sounded like James. He envisioned James’s face if Harry made that comparison, or Riddle’s, although that was a little harder because Harry didn’t know what Riddle looked like, and wrote back, I don’t have normal magic.

Why—

Ah, ah, Riddle. Why did you want to preserve a memory of yourself at sixteen?

I accomplished great things at this age. Why is your magic not normal?

Probably something to do with what happened to me as a child. What was one of the great things you accomplished?

I don’t wish to be more specific. What happened to you as a child?

I don’t wish to be more specific.

The diary’s cover slammed shut. Harry snorted, and scooped up the book to toss it back in his trunk. Little by little, he intended to learn what he could from Riddle, including those secrets about Hogwarts that Ginny had promised he knew, while giving as little as possible away himself.

But he didn’t mind if it took a while.

*

Albus leaned back behind his desk, watching the whirring and dancing of the silver instruments that measured the life force of the Dursley family, and considered the problem of Harry Potter.

The boy had arrived at school with uncontrolled wild magic that had lashed out and killed a troll. Albus had, of course, also looked into the possibility that Harry had killed Quirrell, but Marcus Flint had undoubtedly cast the spells that broke the Mirror and killed poor Quirinus, and Albus couldn’t help but think that there would be more damage if Harry had been there. The stones would have melted and run, or the traps would have been destroyed instead of disarmed.

Besides, Quirinus had been helping Harry tame his wild magic all term. If Harry had objected to that, then he would have likely hurt the professor before a random evening in May. And Harry hadn’t seemed to care at all about the Philosopher’s Stone. Felix had reported to his parents, who had reported to Albus, that Harry hadn’t wanted to join the impromptu student force taking turns guarding it.

Harry had looked devastated, for a moment, at being told he would have to return to the Dursleys’ for the summer. But then he had locked down that emotion, much like another boy Albus had once known.

Yet Harry had gone into Gryffindor, if after long moments of thought on the Sorting Hat’s part. And Albus had sent him back to Privet Drive partially as a test. If his magic reacted every time he was angry or frightened, then he would undoubtedly have hurt his relatives, and Albus would have been alerted and arrived in time to rescue them.

So it seemed that Harry had gained better control of his magic. Perhaps concentrating on using his wand and finding workarounds for common charms and Transfigurations and Defensive spells had helped with that.

And while he would be useless for the specific purpose Albus and the Order had had in mind of reconciling the Muggle world with the magical, he could still be useful politically. Albus smiled a little as he thought of the way Harry had made good enough friends with the house-elves that they had kept disabling Albus’s monitoring charms on the boy.

Perhaps it was time to encourage Harry to reach out to magical creatures, so subtly that Harry would never detect Albus’s hand behind the impulse.

*

“I really don’t like the fact that we have seven books for Defense, and they’re all by the same bloke,” Felix muttered as he and Harry prepared to board the train. “Sounds like an arrogant git to me.”

“You know that Gilderoy Lockhart is a great wizard,” Lily said sternly, but she was smiling as she said it. Harry watched her with a critical eye. She didn’t seem to be infatuated with their new Defense professor the way Ron had described the witches in the bookshop the day of the signing as being—Harry and Felix had decided to stay home that day once they heard about it—but perhaps she felt a lesser version of it. “Harry, remember to read those books we got you, all right?”

“Yes, Mum,” Harry said dutifully, and stood there while she hugged him. He let his arms twitch around her in an awkward embrace. They would expect that kind of awkwardness, and advancing it little by little, as if he were getting used to them slowly, seemed best.

It was so much easier to pretend now that he wasn’t concerned about their ultimate reactions.

“Be good, boyo,” James said, and ruffled Harry’s hair. Harry smiled at him. The smiles were fake, but James and Lily never noticed. If anything, since Felix had told him about the locked drawers in their bedroom, Harry had experimented with smiling in different ways, with edges or shades to them. They still didn’t notice. “Remember to read the books so that we can figure out what’s wrong with you and get you an owl of your own this year! Second-year classwork is going to keep you busy enough without Felix attaching your letters to owls all the time.”

I know exactly what’s “wrong” with me. But it wasn’t anything Harry would ever be able to change, so he nodded and leaned into the hug that was as fake as his smile and got on the train with Felix by his side. Hedwig battered the bars of her cage with her wings and clicked her beak at Harry. Felix rolled his eyes and let Hedwig soar out ahead of them, telling her to meet him at Hogwarts.

“I’m going to find Ron,” he said as they stored their trunks on the rack of an empty compartment. “Want to come?”

“No. I think I should get a head start on reading these books that they’re so insistent I read.”

“And finding Nott?”

Harry stiffened despite himself. Felix caught his eye and gave him a tight, unhappy smile.

“I’m not stupid, Harry. I know that he’s your best friend, and I—I wish I could trust him, but I don’t. But I can’t trust Mum and Dad and Sirius anymore, either. I don’t know who I can trust, except you. Go find him. And—I hate saying this, but I won’t tell Ron and Dean and Seamus about him, and I don’t think you should, either.”

Harry stood there, shocked, while his brother gave him a brief hug and jogged away, sticking his head into compartments. Harry blinked some more, and then turned away, shaking his own head.

He would have to think more about Felix and the unexpected things he understood later. For now, he wanted more than anything to find Theo.

*

“Harry.”

“Theo.”

Theo didn’t try to keep the warmth out of his voice or his face or his eyes. This was what having a best friend was like, and although he’d never known exactly what it was going to be like when he’d dreamed of having one, he was willing to give up a lot to hang on to Harry.

Harry held out his hand to shake. Theo ignored it and hauled him into a hug. Harry stiffened, and then cautiously hugged him back. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his arms. Theo ignored that and stepped back to study him.

“Looking for bruises?” Harry asked.

“Or evidence of hexes, sure. I suppose your brother was all right? And your parents awful?”

Harry nodded. “And Felix found out something that I’d like to tell you, but I can’t imitate Privacy Charms very well yet. Can you raise one?”

Theo found himself smiling as he did so. Sometimes he felt as if he were worse than useless when it came to protecting them, with Harry running around saving his life right and left and restoring Theo to his father. But then Harry asked him to do something like this, and Theo reminded himself that they were friends.

Not Lord and follower.

Well, not yet, anyway.

Harry sat down and sighed. “Felix was looking around during the week I spent at your house.” His eyes lit up. Theo was pleased the memory was a good one. “There are some locked drawers in the Potters’ bedroom, and Felix went to see what he could find in them. The first one held our birth certificates and a book with a strange symbol on the cover. Like this.”

His hand flashed open, and fire billowed into existence and created a solid circle surrounded by a second one of broken, dashed lines. Theo stared. The symbol was unfamiliar, and so was Harry’s control over his magic.

He must have practiced and practiced…

And it was almost two months since Theo had seen him last, as little as he liked to remember that.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Theo admitted, staring at it. He memorized the shape for future use, but that didn’t do them much good right now. “Does Felix think that he’s discovered what it is?”

Harry vanished the fire with a wave of his hand. “The book that had the symbol on the front was in Latin. Felix memorized it just by looking at it and he’s translating it, but slowly. So far, the first page has a lot to do with the sun, which means the symbol might be the sun. But it seems to be a discussion of runic and magical theory related to the sun, and Felix has to double-check every line and word, so it’s slow going.”

“Does he know Latin already?”

“No.”

Theo nodded. That would mean Potter was learning the language as well as translating it. No wonder it was taking so long. “All right. And why do you think your birth certificates were kept locked up?” It was standard practice for parents to keep a copy of them as they did with all important documents relating to their children. Father certainly did. But since there were copies—permanent, indestructible ones—kept on file in the Ministry, it seemed odd to lock them up.

“I don’t know. But each of them had the symbol on it, so it probably has something to do with the book. And we found out that Felix’s godfather was listed as Remus Lupin, when all along he thought it was Sirius.” Harry’s face was grim. “Apparently, Remus Lupin was friends with the Potters and Sirius in school. They left him out of all the stories they told Felix.”

“That seems more than odd.”

“It had something to do with him disapproving of their decision to keep Felix and send me to the Dursleys.”

“Have you contacted him?”

“Every owl comes back unopened. Apparently he’s still alive, or they wouldn’t be going to find him in the first place, but he won’t communicate with us.” Harry’s fingers rapped harshly on his knee. “Maybe they made him take an Unbreakable Vow or the like that he wouldn’t talk to us.”

“Maybe,” Theo echoed, searching his mind. He couldn’t remember hearing anything about a Remus Lupin, and finally had to shake his head. “I could ask my father if he knows him. If it would help.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think it would. They prevented him from talking somehow. Otherwise, people would have known about my Muggle childhood before I came back to the magical world.” Harry hesitated. “There’s something else I want to tell you. I want to tell someone. But I need you to promise that you won’t tell your father.”

“Never without your permission.”

Apparently he hadn’t kept the hurt out of his voice, because Harry’s eyes focused on him right away. “All right, Theo. It’s just—this is different. Worse than elemental magic.”

Theo puzzled over the worse, and then rolled his eyes. “You’re thinking of this in terms of what would be ‘wrong’ or ‘weird’ to a wizard or witch on the Potters’ side, right? Harry, I promise, nothing you can say would make me less your friend.”

Harry’s answering smile was faint and tight, but real. “All right.” He looked at a snake-shaped pin on Theo’s cloak, and seemed to concentrate intently on it. Theo prepared himself for the pin to burst into fire or come to life.

Instead, a long series of liquid hisses slid out of Harry’s lips.

Theo jumped. Harry promptly sat back on the bench, raising a hand in front of him. Theo saw the glimmer of fire and took a deep breath, shaking his head.

“I meant what I said about not telling my father. And I’m not going to—I was just startled. Harry, how in the world are you a Parselmouth?”

“How in the world am I an elementalist? Why did my own parents leave me with abusive Muggles instead of taking care of me the way they should have? What does that symbol mean? The answers to all those questions are about as far out of reach.”

“Okay,” Theo said. “But, Harry, a Parselmouth?” He wondered how to explain what it all meant. The shadow of the Dark Lord—well, no, Harry would know about that, given all the history he’d read. The way that some people still revered snake-speakers. The legends that they could communicate with, even command, creatures like dragons and Ashwinders. “That’s amazing.”

Harry considered him with alert eyes for a second, then sighed and shrugged and slumped backwards in his seat. “I suppose. But mostly, it makes owls and other animals hate me, and that’s damn inconvenient.”

“You knew that?”

“Well, suspected it. The Potters took me to a pet shop last year, and all sorts of animals either attacked me or acted frightened of me. I already knew I could talk to snakes, and I started thinking about how snakes are predators capable of eating birds’ eggs and young. And—” Harry hesitated again. “I got the chance to talk to a dragon last year.”

Theo snapped his fingers. “I knew it was bollocks when you said that dragons were just empathetic!”

“Well, I could hear everything she was saying. She liked me. Her fire didn’t hurt me.”

“And?”

“And she invited me to come with her when the Dragon-Keepers came to pick her up. Said I should come live in the reserve. The dragons there would like me the way animals at Hogwarts never did.”

Harry’s eyes were wistful, and looking somewhere far away. Theo felt a flare of uneasiness. Father had insisted that he read a few more detailed histories of elementalist mages that Father had found in a bookshop somewhere. Elementalists had always ended up withdrawing from the regular magical world in the past, going off to live on their own or sometimes with one or two others of their own kind.

Theo could learn elemental magic from Harry the way Blaise was doing, but he could never be exactly like him. And he didn’t want to lose Harry.

“You wouldn’t, though, would you?” Theo asked, and then winced at the pleading tone in his voice. So much for being calm about this.

Harry looked curiously at him. “Why not? Dragons like me. That’s a lot more than most people or animals here do.”

“It would mean I could never see you.”

“You’d be welcome to visit, of course,” Harry said, staring at him. “Why did you assume you wouldn’t?”

Theo pushed away the thought that elementalists had seemed to go off into their own private communities where ordinary wizards and witches weren’t welcome, not dragon reserves, and smiled. “Of course. I’m sure I could persuade Father to invest in a Portkey.”

“Or you could Apparate. Portkeys sound bloody awful.”

Theo nodded, and they fell into a discussion of which forms of magical transportation they were going to try their best to learn as they grew older. Harry talked a bit about the books that he’d been reading that summer, and Theo mentioned the books on elementalists. Harry asked to borrow them, and Theo took the first of them out of his bag. Harry took it and caressed the cover.

And then he set it aside and continued talking to Theo, showing a level of self-control that Theo wasn’t sure he could have, in Harry’s place.

But he appreciated it all the same. He was wildly glad to have his friend back at his side.

*

Harry swore he could feel the Sorting Hat eyeing him across the Great Hall as he sat down at the Gryffindor table. He ignored it. He was safe in the House where he—well, didn’t belong, but was the best off. The Potters were willing to think he was their normal, weak kid while he was here, and it wasn’t like he was ever going to give the Hat a chance to sit on his head again.

“Harry!”

Harry turned in surprise, just in time for a Hermione Granger who seemed to have an invisible broom under her to tackle him from the side. She didn’t seem to notice that he wasn’t hugging her back, and in fact was fighting to hold his magic down so it didn’t set her on fire or scratch her eyes out.

He supposed that his magic didn’t consider her a threat, so it hadn’t warned him, the same way it had stopped warning him about the twins after Harry made friends with them this summer. But that didn’t change the way that his heart was racing or his breathing was hoarse as he finally managed to get away from her.

Hermione’s brow wrinkled as she studied him. “Harry, are you all right?”

Harry made sure his voice didn’t sound like his breathing when he said, “Fine.”

“Only you’ve gone all pale…”

Harry sighed. This at least wasn’t going to be news to Hermione, after the way she had probably noticed him glaring at people who made loud noises last year. “I—really don’t like being grabbed out of nowhere, Hermione. My cousin used to do it when he thought it was funny and a joke, and I—don’t like it.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry! How silly of me! I know that some Muggle teenage boys play rough, too.”

Playing rough. Harry didn’t curl his lip into a sneer, but he wanted to. “Sure,” he said. “It’s okay. How was your summer?”

Hermione proceeded to talk his ear off until it was time for the Sorting. Harry was a little surprised. He’d known that she’d visited Felix during the week he was with Theo and had run into the Weasleys the day of the Lockhart book signing, but he hadn’t known she considered him a personal friend.

Or maybe she was just lonely, and Harry hadn’t pushed her away last year or said unkind things about her the way some of the upper-year Gryffindors had. And she thought he was weaker than she was, magically. That was probably it. He was a safe target for her enthusiasm.

The first-years came filing in. Harry looked them over idly as Hermione cut off her monologue with a gasp and apparently reprimanded herself for speaking out of turn. He saw Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley and someone who looked a little like Gregory Goyle from Slytherin, but he didn’t know any of the rest.

“Goodness, they look small,” Hermione said.

“Yeah,” Harry said. He caught Theo’s eye from across the Hall, and Theo inclined his head with a small smile. Harry glanced away again. He felt a little uneasy with how happy he was to see Theo again.

It was all right, since no one else but Theo and maybe Felix would ever know, but it wouldn’t be if enough Gryffindors or Slytherins caught him staring.

*

By the time she got to the front of the line, Ginny’s hands were clenched.

She had clapped happily when Luna was Sorted into Ravenclaw, where she had thought her best friend would probably go. Luna’s mum and dad had both been there. But when Luna had sat down and said something to the first-year boy next to her, he’d scooted away, and then other people had started laughing at Luna. And someone had waved their wand at her and made a bug appear in her hair.

Luna had brushed it out, but that wasn’t the point.

“Weasley, Ginevra!”

Ginny marched up to the Hat, her thoughts churning. She pulled the Hat onto her head and waited while it greeted her, but then it fell silent, and she looked up at its brim from where she’d been trying to glare underneath it at the Ravenclaw table.

My, my. What a fierce and brave one.

Yes, but that’s not the point. The point is that Percy told me you can choose.

Be wary of choosing the wrong House, little lion, the Hat said with a disappointed tone in its voice. I had someone do that last year, and if I ever get on his head again…

Ginny ignored that. She knew it wasn’t going to be the wrong House. You can see perfectly well what I want. And you know that it wouldn’t be the wrong choice.

The Hat was silent. Ginny could feel some of the people in the Hall staring at her in confusion. They’d probably thought it was going to be an instant Gryffindor Sorting. And how could they know that, when they’d never met her before? Most of them, anyway.

Because she was a Weasley, and Weasleys always Sorted Gryffindor.

But that didn’t matter. Dad’s mum had been a Black, and he hadn’t Sorted Slytherin. Mum had been a Prewett, and they Sorted all over the place. And Ginny was going to do what she had to.

No, it wouldn’t be the wrong choice, the Hat said finally, slowly. It will be a choice that makes some people look at you askance.

Ginny sat up. It didn’t matter, she told herself, and the feeling shimmered beneath her skin and settled into her bones. Yes, that was right. It didn’t matter.

Her mum and dad loved her, but they weren’t here. Her brothers loved her, but they didn’t understand her. She was just “little Ginny” to them, just another member of the family, or sometimes one they resented, since they thought being Mum’s “special little girl” and the coddled and spoiled one was all there was to her.

There was more. She was going to prove it. And Luna understood her and was here and had been her best friend ever since she’d tried to teach Ginny how to pronounce “Crumple-Horned Snorkack” when they were three.

You’ll learn?

I’ll learn. I have a fantastic motivation to learn. And to teach some people to learn better.

The Hat laughed into her head, and then called out, “RAVENCLAW!”

Ginny heard audible gasps, too many of them for it to be just her brothers. She ignored that, tearing the Hat off her head and putting it down on the stool. Then she ran over to the Ravenclaw table, her table, and shoved a few people out of the way so she could sit down next to Luna.

Luna was staring at her with wide eyes. “Did you argue with the Hat?” she asked.

“I convinced it Ravenclaw was the best choice for me,” Ginny said, and beamed at her.

Luna gave her a trembling smile back. Ginny ignored the way it shook. She turned to the front of the Great Hall as Professor McGonagall, who was still staring at Ginny, removed the stool and the Hat, and Professor Dumbledore stood up and spread his arms.

“Welcome, welcome, to the feast,” he said, his eyes shining. “Welcome to our new first-years, and our returning students, and our staff! You may have noticed our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at the table, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart!”

Several of the Ravenclaw girls giggled and sighed as Lockhart stood up and waved, but they weren’t the only ones by a long shot. Ginny rolled her eyes. She thought he was handsome, but not that handsome. She traced her wand on the table and half-listened to Professor Dumbledore’s announcements about the Forbidden Forest and the list of banned objects that the caretaker, Filch, would take away from anyone using them. At last the food appeared, and Ginny snatched her fork.

“Do you want to pick the peas out of that salad?” she asked Luna, nodding towards a salad that honestly looked pretty good if you could get rid of the onions and peas.

“You just shouldn’t take any if you don’t like peas,” said a girl sitting on the other side of Luna, who had red hair twisted up on her head and a sharp expression. “Leave it for people who do like them.”

Ginny gave her one slashing glance, which made the girl squeal and cower. Then she scooped up some of the salad to put on her plate and Luna’s, and they went about floating the peas and onions out with a wand.

Ginny could see already that some of her new Housemates would be a trial. But as long as she had Luna’s back and Luna had hers, then everything was going to be okay.

*

“Thanks for letting us use the kitchen for an elemental magic class.”

Jilly squinted at him. Harry squinted back at her. She remained the oddest house-elf he’d met, although that might be because the elves at the Notts’ house hadn’t really wanted to talk to him openly.

“Why are you not offering to teach it to elves?” Jilly asked.

Harry blinked, and answered honestly. “Because I didn’t know if you could learn it. Or that you wanted to.”

Jilly moved slowly towards him. Harry watched her. He didn’t feel a threat or fear of her, but he also knew now that his magic was a lot stronger than most people’s. He might not be able to face down a house-elf who really wanted to hurt him, but he could hurt back, and that was enough to make people hesitate.

Jilly leaned in until her nose was touching his. Harry stared back. Her eyes were startlingly grey from this close, although a different shade than Theo’s.

“You is teaching elves,” Jilly said softly. She didn’t sound as if she was giving him a command, although Harry supposed she actually was. “When other wizard children are not being here.”

“All right. Are you the only one who wants to learn, or are there others?”

Jilly abruptly jumped back. Harry thought it was because the door might be opening, but she only stared at him from over folded hands. Then she said, “I tells you later,” and swished away to oversee the baking of a large batch of biscuits near the back of the kitchen.

Harry blinked, and then turned towards the door as it did open. Theo gave him a small smile as he slid inside, which Harry returned. Blaise followed him, and then Fred and George, who gave wide smiles at everyone in sight.

“Dear lady,” said the one Harry thought was George, addressing Jilly.

“Could we have—”

“Some sweets?”

Jilly nodded and snapped her fingers. Harry watched her closely as the sweets, including ices and marzipan and a towering cake that looked as it would bleed chocolate if you cut it, materialized on the table, but she didn’t smile or look up or anything that showed she was going to speak to the twins the way she spoke to Harry and sometimes Theo.

The twins grabbed the sweets and spoons for the cake and didn’t seem to notice anything different, either, even though they had spoken to Jilly as if they thought she was different from other house-elves. Harry shrugged to himself. He wasn’t going to solve all the mysteries of house-elves today.

“Why do they want to learn?” Blaise muttered to Harry, leaning forwards and speaking softly enough that the twins, now fighting about who had the most cake, probably didn’t hear him. “Aren’t they a menace enough already?”

Harry knew Blaise was really asking why Harry had agreed to teach them. He shrugged a little. “They learned about my magic. I needed some way to keep them quiet. And they could be powerful allies.”

Friends, too. But there was a way you had to speak to house-elves, and a way you had to speak to Gryffindors, and a way you had to speak to Slytherins, and Blaise would think what Harry had said made the most sense.

“Huh.” Blaise sat back and watched Fred and George with some interest.

Harry waited until the twins had finished eating and Theo had settled into place at the table with his own plate of cut fruit to hold out a hand. Fire sparked into being on his palm. Blaise promptly held out his hand and closed his eyes.

Harry waited patiently. Blaise had got pretty good at calling fire before last term ended, but Harry didn’t know how much he’d practiced over the summer, or even if he could when he wasn’t with someone who had elemental magic already.

Fire sparked on Blaise’s palms. Harry smiled and started to congratulate him, but then Blaise yelped and started wringing his hand, and the flames leaped off his fingers and started to burn the wood of the table.

Harry sighed and snatched control of the fire, putting it out.

He looked up and found everyone staring at him, even Theo. Fred’s mouth was hanging open, and a bunch of half-eaten cake was marinating in it. Harry looked away, feeling slightly queasy, and asked, “What?”

“How did you make the fire stop burning without touching it?” Theo asked.

“I took control of it.”

“You can’t—you can’t just do that,” George said. It was almost a wail.

“Duels would be easy to win,” began Fred.

“If you could just seize control of the other person’s spells!”

“It’s not done!”

“You can’t do it!”

“How did you do that?” they both asked at the same time, and stared at him, waiting. For all that Blaise and Theo were silent and Theo’s expression was a little twisted (probably about the twins speaking in chorus), Harry thought they likely wanted to know the same thing.

“Elemental magic really is different from wand magic,” was the only thing Harry said. “If someone starts messing with elemental magic around me, then I can seize it. I think I could probably seize control of someone’s conjured wind or water, too, but I haven’t tried. The charms and the Defense spells people use aren’t really—elements. Lumos Charms aren’t fire.”

He would have continued explaining, but George said excitedly, “Let’s see, then! Aguamenti!”

A jet of water sprang into the air from the end of George’s wand. Harry reached out and gathered it in. It was no different than grabbing control of the water in the loos or pipes, the way he had when he’d fought the troll. It shimmered and glittered and drifted in motes over to Harry, settling around his shoulders like a scarf.

The twins were grinning. Theo had a small smile on his face, and Blaise just looked stunned.

“We really want to learn that,” Fred said.

Harry discovered that he had an odd feeling in his chest as he looked around at them staring at him. It was—kind of nice to be looked at like that. To have people hanging on his every word, ready to do what he told them, ready to learn what he could teach them.

Harry licked his lips and forced some of his pleasure back down. He couldn’t get too caught up in this. He could still imagine the way that the expressions on Fred and George’s and Blaise’s faces would change if they knew about his Parseltongue.

But Theo was still here, as solid as ever. And Jilly was watching, although Harry thought he was the only one who’d noticed that.

Things were going to change around here, then.

Harry took a deep breath and nodded. “All right. The first thing you need to do is meditate,” he told Fred and George. “Get used to thinking of the elements as being all around you. Start with air. Or conjure some fire and start with that. Whichever way will work.”

He turned back to Blaise and Theo. “You already have that connection to the elements. Right now, concentrate on whichever one is weakest and start working to bring it forwards. Earth, for you, Blaise. And yours is water, right, Theo?”

“Right,” Theo said softly. His eyes shone as he settled back in the chair. Blaise already had his eyes closed, concentrating fiercely.

On the other side of the kitchen, Jilly closed her eyes, too.

Harry smiled, and settled back in his chair, petting the water-scarf around his neck. It wrapped around his fingers like a friendly snake.

I don’t want to be a Lord. But maybe I could be a teacher.