Chapter Thirty-Two of 'Leopard's Choice'- Echoing Words

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirty-Two—Echoing Words

“Let me through! I have something important to say!”

“Nothing you have to say can be that important, Vane.”

Harry sighs a little when he hears Blaise’s tone. Great, they’re already almost running on their way to Charms, and now they’re going to get in trouble because of Blaise speaking to Romilda Vane like she’s a piece of dog poop on the floor. But, well, she is like that to most of Harry’s friends.

And probably Harry himself, if he’s really going to be honest about it.

“I have something important to say!” Vane’s voice is getting shrill, and Harry wrinkles his nose as he thinks of what some of the professors will say if they come around the corner and find Slytherins “mistreating” one of the students who wanted to expel him. It could be someone who’d be fair about it, like Flitwick, but it could also be someone who wouldn’t, like Vector or Shacklebolt.

“Let her through,” Harry murmurs.

Blaise sighs as if the weight of the world has come to rest on his shoulders, but he moves out of the way. Vane bulls through and then stops. Harry wonders if she didn’t expect to get this close to him or if her hesitation has something to do with Lion, who’s rearing up to wave his wings.

“Yes?” Harry gives Vane his best bored expression.

Vane bites her lip and tosses her hair over her shoulder, eyes locked on him. Then she says, “Remember that when You-Know-Who attacks the school, the deaths will be on your head, because you didn’t let us expel you.”

Harry opens his mouth, unsure what he’ll say. But he doesn’t even get the chance to find out. Vane is already turning and stalking away, and Blaise is sneering after her and making some remark that Harry knows he should pay attention to.

He should. But his head is reeling, and Vane’s words are echoing in his skull.

That’s something he didn’t consider before. Voldemort might well attack the school. Was Vane really just afraid? Trying to get Harry away so that she wouldn’t have to face that kind of attack? Maybe she even has relatives who would expect her to join Voldemort or the Death Eaters. Harry knows nothing about her family.

“Harry?”

Pansy has stepped in front of him and is looking at him anxiously. Harry snaps himself back to consciousness and shakes his head. “I’m all right. That was…weird.” Vane could have said that in the middle of the Great Hall, and then maybe more people would have actually listened.

No, wait, what am I saying? I don’t want people to listen to her. It’s silly to expect it. It’s silly to think that my being expelled would solve the problem. Voldemort would probably end up attacking Hogwarts anyway.

But perhaps he wouldn’t. Hogwarts was his first home, after all. Maybe he would leave the castle alone unless there’s something there he wants.

Like Harry.

“Harry, Theo and I were wondering—what’s wrong?”

Hermione has caught up with him. Harry shakes his head and tells himself, sternly, that they still need to get to Charms. Hermione has probably forgotten the differences in the Slytherin and Gryffindor class schedules and doesn’t realize that. But he should.

He needs to ignore the way that Vane’s words still seem to echo inside him. Yes, all right, he was selfish not to consider that Voldemort might come after schoolchildren. Selfish to expect everyone to be willing to enter a war.

But he’s doing what he can to keep people safe from Voldemort. He just has to keep going.

“Sorry, Hermione, have to get to Charms,” he says, and smiles at her, and hurries on with the others. Blaise is still harping on Vane and what an idiot she is, and Daphne is laughing. Harry listens with a half-smile, when he can listen.

Vane’s words are still there.

Remember that when You-Know-Who attacks the school, the deaths will be on your head, because you didn’t let us expel you.

Harry takes a slow, deep, difficult breath. He can’t let them overwhelm him. All he can do is consider her perspective and try to make sure that he isn’t being so selfish or oblivious going forwards.

But the words remain there, whispering in the back of his head, all through classes that day and all through lunch and all through the time in the night when he tries to fall asleep, his arms clasped behind his head, Lion asleep on the pillow behind him, exhaustion dragging at his body, brain turning the pronouncement over and over.

He has to make sure that he doesn’t forget other people’s perspectives like that again. He has to stop assuming that his enemies are always stupid and short-sighted people. Well, they might still be short-sighted, but that doesn’t mean that they never have a point.

Just follow that. Remember that. Get better, smarter, faster, stronger.

He’ll have to, to beat Voldemort.

*

Minerva sighs and casts the anti-Howler ward that she’s now extremely practiced in with a flick of her wrist. The letter opens and begins to scream, but she can’t hear it, and neither can anyone else. Minerva goes back to eating her breakfast, shaking her head a little. This is ridiculous. The number of people who didn’t want to know Tom Riddle’s real name is apparently exponential.

Well, that or the number of people who want to treat Voldemort as if he were some sort of immortal monster without a human identity. Minerva doesn’t know how many Howlers are of one kind and how many of another. She never listens to them anymore.

When she stands up from her seat at the table, she runs her eyes over the Great Hall, but at least none of the students seem intent on delivering drama this morning. No one stands up and shouts at her to expel Harry Potter. Minerva gives a sharp nod of her head at whoever might be looking, including those looking to see if she’s been affected by the daily Howlers, and leaves with a sharp swirl of her robes.

Molly is waiting for her in her office, a small pile of envelopes in one hand. “These are the ones that seem to be potentially useful.”

Minerva smiles her thanks, and together they spread out the post on the Headmistress’s desk and sort through it. They’re mostly anonymous, given that they’re coming from people who saw the Prophet article on Tom Riddle and decided to send memories of him, or rumors they heard about him, or information that they might have dreamed up while high on candied pineapple. So far, few concrete facts have come out of this, but Minerva and Molly are accumulating a short list.

“Listen to this one, Minerva.”

Minerva looks up. Molly has a half-scroll of parchment unfurled in front of her, and her eyes are wide.

“If Tom Riddle has continued his obsession with Founders’ artifacts, you might be able to use one to bait a trap for him,” Molly reads aloud. “He might or might not choose to come after something of Gryffindor’s, but even a dummy artifact enchanted to appear as something belonging to Hufflepuff, Slytherin’s, or Ravenclaw’s should lure him.” She looks up, blinking. “Do you think that’s true?”

“I don’t know if it’s true or not true,” Minerva says softly. “What I think is that it would be simpler to bait such a trap than other things we could do, and we could do it somewhere other than the school.”

“Who would bait such a trap in the school in the first place?”

“Albus. With the Philosopher’s Stone, the first year.”

Molly’s face goes grim, but she only tightens her hold on the letter. “All right. What do you think we should use as bait? There aren’t many Founders’ artifacts I can think of whose locations aren’t known, or that aren’t lost forever.”

“We create our own,” Minerva says, her brain spinning down paths that she doesn’t usually explore. “Something newly discovered in the archives of Hogwarts. It would be the most natural place for such artifacts to turn up, and it’s one that Riddle can’t easily get to.” She closes her eyes for a second, and then flicks her wand. “What do you think of this?”

From Molly’s gasp, her illusion is convincing. Minerva opens her eyes and looks at it. The transparent image of a silver dagger with a knob of obsidian set at the top for balance lies on the desk. Around the blade winds the subtle tracery of a serpent, done in scarlet to show up against the blade.

“I had no idea that you were so good with illusions,” Molly whispers.

“And better when I can build on an existing object. We’ll take an ordinary dagger and enchant it. Of course, we’ll need to make sure that it goes deeper than illusion, given Riddle’s paranoia, but I’m good enough at Transfiguration for that. And we’ll spread rumors that a dagger Salazar Slytherin carried personally has been found. Riddle might want it as part of his heritage even if he doesn’t want Founders’ artifacts in general.”

Molly is nodding, her eyes still fixed on the illusion. “Well done, Minerva. But where can we put it that will serve as a good trap for him? And are we trying to capture him, or kill him, or bring him closer to Harry Potter so Harry can kill him?”

Minerva has no intention of letting Harry face Voldemort again if she can help it, but that’s not something she’ll tell Molly yet, because they’ll just get into pointless arguments. Molly wants to protect Harry, but her belief in the Boy-Who-Lived mythos is still strong enough to cloud her judgment. “I want to make sure that the Ministry can see him. Particularly Fudge, if we can get him.”

Molly’s eyes widen. “So it’s going to be more complicated than just making him come to one place or stay for a while.”

“And we have to do it without putting anyone else in danger or confining Riddle permanently, but have a trap powerful enough to make him unable to retreat right away.”

“This is going to be complicated,” Molly murmurs, still staring at the illusory dagger.

Minerva nods, and they go to work.

*

“What is wrong with you?”

Hermione looks up with a frown. One minute ago, Theo was with her, and they were discussing possible ramifications of the Killing Curse and what might happen to create a link between people if one of them survived a spell that was previously unsurvivable. The next minute, he was gone.

And now he’s apparently on the other side of the Room of Requirement and questioning Harry in the least productive manner possible.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Nott. Back off.”

Hermione sits up. All right, so maybe something about Harry is off. Harry would normally never give that clipped a response to Theo, or call him by his last name, either. She starts to stand up.

Theo catches her eye and snaps his fingers. Hermione scowls, considers whether she should pretend not to have understood that, and then decides that he’s probably right and interfering will do more harm than good. She sits back down and turns to her notes, but casts an eavesdropping spell that will allow her to hear Harry and Theo’s conversation more clearly.

“—don’t know why you’re acting like you’ve been having intense nightmares of him when I know for a fact that you haven’t.”

“It’s not your job to keep tabs on whether I’m sleeping, Nott.”

“Shall we have Professor Snape in here and see whether he agrees with you?”

Peeking from under her lashes, Hermione sees Harry pause, his face uncertain. But then he tosses his head back and crosses his arms. “Sure, bring him into the conversation. He’ll agree with me and disagree with you, and that’ll be the end of that.”

Theo smiles. It’s not a nice smile, and Hermione glances down specifically so that she won’t have to look at him again. “Mission accepted.”

“What? Theo—”

Theo draws his wand and conjures a small piece of parchment that he scribbles a note on. Then he enchants it into the shape of a bird, which soars away. Hermione is impressed. It’s a variation of the spell they use on memos in the Ministry, if her reading has steered her right, but she didn’t know that people outside the Ministry knew it. “He’ll know to come to the door opposite the troll tapestry,” Theo says, and folds his arms. “So, we’ll wait for him, even if he can’t come until after everyone else leaves.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m not.”

Theo sounds so cold and confident when he’s sure he’s right. Hermione shakes her head and looks down again. She’s been finding implications of connections between other people who cast nasty curses and their victims who survived; it’s just that so far the connections seem to have been magical, like the Priori Incatatem effect, not the telepathic and emotional and dreaming one that Harry apparently experiences with Voldemort.

Theo doesn’t come back to help her, and Hermione keeps subtly watching him every few minutes. It’s perhaps fifteen minutes later when someone knocks briskly on the door, and most people jump. Someone shouts about Umbridge. Hermione rolls her eyes. Honestly, does no one but her have any observation skills?

She catches Parkinson’s eye, and the other girl smiles a little. Hermione smiles back, tentatively. She’s not sure how far she can trust Parkinson despite her new allegiance to Harry, but hey, it would be nice to have someone else in the group who does have those sorts of skills.

Professor Snape comes striding into the room, ignoring the way that some of the non-Slytherins, like Ron, look petrified with guilt by association in about two seconds. “You summoned me, Mr. Nott?” he asks crisply, but he’s looking at Harry and not Theo.

“Yes, sir. Harry hasn’t been sleeping well, and I think it’s high time that someone else takes a look at him, particularly since it doesn’t appear to be related to the kinds of dreams that he usually has.”

More than one person sucks in a breath. Hermione sighs. Could everyone stop being dramatic about this for one second, too? She knows they’re teenagers, but they don’t have to add anything to the drama swirling around them already.

“I see,” Professor Snape says, and steps up to Harry. “May I see, Harry?”

It’s incredible to Hermione how much Professor Snape has changed when it comes to Harry in the last few years. He isn’t gentle, exactly, not in front of an audience, but he’s respectful, and he doesn’t reach out and try to manhandle Harry into this. Instead, he just waits, and Harry sighs after a long second and nods.

Professor Snape bends forwards and murmurs something, holding eye contact with Harry. He waits, and Hermione waits, and Parkinson waits, and Theo waits, and at least some other people wait instead of going back to what they were doing before the professor arrived.

Finally, Professor Snape blinks and steps back, shaking his head. “I see and sense nothing except ordinary tiredness. And guilt.” He stares intently at Harry again. “You realize that the deaths in this war are not your fault?”

“If I get strong enough to defeat Voldemort quicker, then I can stop him.”

“That is not the same thing, and you know it.”

Harry just jerks his head a little, and then flicks his eyes around the Room of Requirement and everyone watching, as if asking whether they’re going to talk about this here. Professor Snape sighs and pinches his nose in response, then nods and turns around and leaves. Harry glances at Theo.

“So you’re convinced, now?”

“It’s not right that you should be exhausted all the time, even if it’s just because of guilt that you can’t control.”

People are slowly turning back to their projects and spell practice, chatter breaking out in low voices now that Professor Snape isn’t here anymore. Theo looks stubborn, and he and Harry argue about it in voices low enough that Hermione has to let the spell go because it’s not doing her any good, but in the end, Theo walks back over to her and Harry goes back to showing Zacharias some of the flicks and jabs he can add to a wand’s movement to make the spell stronger.

Theo sits down next to Hermione and looks at her sternly. “Tell me that you didn’t swallow that absolute bollocks he was spewing.”

“I don’t have an ambition to swallow any bollocks, Nott.”

Only after it’s out does Hermione realize how loudly she’s said that. Ron is staring at her with wide eyes. But Harry’s mouth is twitching a little, and so is Parkinson’s, and the only other person nearby is Luna, who just gives Hermione a polite smile and goes back to drawing runes on the floor in ash.

Theo laughs.

Hermione relaxes little by little. All right, so she said that, and the world went on turning. Things are all right. She smiles at Theo and nudges the book towards him, pointing out her notes in the margin on victims of various curses. “Read this and tell me what you think of it.”

Theo bends over obediently to read it. Hermione glances around the room, and their numbers that have grown by Parkinson and Daphne’s little sister and even Padma Patil, who started cautiously attending last week. They can grow by more, too, once people see that Harry is serious about protecting them from Voldemort.

And if something does go wrong, and it turns out to be more than guilt that’s keeping Harry from sleeping, Hermione trusts they can do something about that. Probably with help from Professor Snape.

But they’ll get through this war. She believes that the way she believes in books being mostly right, and contradicting each other in fascinating ways when they’re not.

She smiles into her notes.