Chapter Twenty of 'The Onyx in Radiance'- Playing Out The Threat

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Twenty—Playing Out the Threat

“Black, can I talk to you for a moment?”

Harry had such a hard time not speaking between gritted teeth that it was ridiculous. But his heart was pounding with slow, cold anger.

He’d been on the way to considering Orion Black a friend. And then Orion had to go and do that, like an idiot. Threatening Charlus Potter, who of course had no idea who Harry was and couldn’t be expected to.

He needs to understand that I won’t tolerate him hurting other people.

Harry had chosen the Defense classroom to confront Orion because then Orion couldn’t insist on them being private or not making a scene because they were in public. Harry didn’t trust his own susceptibility to Orion’s arguments when they were in private. And he intended to make somewhat of a scene, but behind a Privacy Charm.

Orion turned to him with a small smile. “All right. Do you want to go into the corridor?”

“No. Merrythought’ll be here any second.” And Harry intended for their conversation to be done before then, because it was going to be a short one. He raised the Privacy Charm wordlessly, then put down his wand. Then he spun around and glared. Orion flinched.

Good. He’s taking me seriously.

“What exactly did you think you were doing, going and talking to Charlus Potter like that?” Harry snapped. He could feel his magic rising around him. Orion’s eyes widened, seeming to track it. Harry had to hold it back from biting at Orion the way his words clearly had.

He had thought—

He needed a friend here, at least if he was going to take down Riddle and free the Knights of Walpurgis. And now it seemed that he might not be able to trust Orion after all, which frankly sucked.

“I—I wanted to know more about your family, and force them to acknowledge you.”

Harry hadn’t expected that at all. He had thought Orion wanted to integrate himself with Harry more and use him to climb to a position of power in Slytherin. Not that he’d expected Orion to say that, of course, but this confession sounded both more honest and more hesitant than he’d expected. He stared at Orion in silence, before finally asking, “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously! You deserve to have—”

“At the moment, all I have are rumors! Rumors that are swirling around about how I was abused in my childhood.”

Harry could have acknowledged that, could have dealt with that. Part of him had always thought that someday Skeeter or another Daily Prophet reporter would find out about his childhood with the Dursleys and put it on the front page. But he had expected to be able to rely on his friends to get through it.

Not on one of his friends to instigate it. Assuming that he could put Orion in the category of “friend” at all.

Orion winced. “I, ah.”

“Well?”

“I forgot that you might not want that known,” Orion whispered. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to make the Potters acknowledge what their neglect did to you.”

Okay, I think he probably is still my friend. But going too far and hurting—everything I’m trying to do—and unrelated people because he can’t control himself. So I’ll still have to make sure he understands this.

Harry exhaled hard and ran his hand through his hair. It was kind of exaggerated, but Orion needed that to understand how seriously Harry took this. “I just want to know how you knew,” he said, which was true. It wasn’t like people had been gossiping about poor little abused Harry Potter the way they would have in his own time. “You couldn’t have heard any rumors about it before now, because there were none.”

Orion stared at him, and his eyes were wide and wounded. Harry paused. Somehow, he hadn’t thought Orion would feel those emotions. Or maybe was even capable of feeling them. He really had been more of a victim of Riddle than Harry thought, rather than someone who enjoyed torture the way Bellatrix had in his own time.

“I mean…you had to have Professor Dumbledore buy things for you, instead of having the money that the Potter family does. And you’re small. You didn’t get to eat enough. And some of your reactions make it obvious that you grew up around people who treated you—less than well.”

“You see that, huh?” Harry had to work to keep his voice from shaking.

Why did no one see it before, if it’s so obvious? Is it just that Slytherins would speculate on that kind of thing and Gryffindors wouldn’t? Harry had no idea, but he knew that the feeling was like needles pushing into his bone marrow, and he had to work hard to put it aside.

“I mean, yes?” Orion was babbling. Harry thought he could attribute at least some of that to Professor Merrythought, who had walked into the room and was shooting them narrow-eyed glances. “It’s <obvious.”

Harry rolled his eyes and took down the Privacy Charm. He wouldn’t be able to work through his feelings here. He would have to sit on them until after class and decide what the hell to do with them. “No, it isn’t,” he muttered under his breath, not really expecting a response or for Orion to hear him.

“Yes, it is!”

Harry was going to answer—although not with much idea of what he would have said—when Professor Merrythought started to scold Orion. Harry leaned back in his chair and folded his arms as he watched Orion defend himself, or rather the way he’d accosted Charlus, and Harry’s mind spun and ran and dove in circles.

To be fair, that had happened a lot since he’d traveled back in time, but this was worse than usual.

Orion had said it like everyone could have looked at him and seen. But that wasn’t true, was it? Ron and Hermione had never exactly jumped to that conclusion, although of course they knew that he didn’t get along with the Dursleys, and Ron had seen the bars on Harry’s window when he and the twins had rescued Harry the summer before second year. No one had ever…

Just looked at him and decided that he was too small for his age, or that his reactions were somehow off. Snape might have known because of the Occlumency lessons last year, but he’d never done anything about it if he had. And even Draco Malfoy, who was always looking for some way to pick on Harry and taunt him and infuriate him, simply hadn’t picked up on it.

It’s obvious.

Harry started to wonder, halfway through the class when he wasn’t paying attention to much of anything except when Orion made a surprising pronouncement about the essay Merrythought had assigned them, whether the difference between this time and his time wasn’t how obvious the fact was, but the person who was doing the looking.

“It is obvious,” Orion muttered to him out of the corner of his mouth when Merrythought had turned her attention elsewhere.

“Why did no one ever notice it before, then?”

But Harry asked it more out of frustration than because he’d expected Orion to really know, and then he had the chance to turn and answer a question Professor Merrythought asked. He did so with relief.

He had never felt the way he did now, with his stomach delicately churning, matching the pace of his mind, and he had never felt the kinds of things he did towards Orion, not even when he’d thought Cho was pretty.

He noticed. He wasn’t one of my close friends who’d seen something like the bars on the window, and he noticed. There’s no way he could even possibly meet the Dursleys.

He noticed, and he went to Charlus.

Harry’s mood soured again at the reminder. He would have to seek out Charlus and apologize. Aside from the fact that there was no way Orion could make things better by trying to work on the non-existent relationship between Harry and this Potter family, bullying a boy younger than they were was unacceptable.

But Orion probably hadn’t thought of it as bullying. He honestly thought he was helping, and had done what he could to protect Harry and get revenge on the people he thought had been responsible for Harry getting treated that way. Or partially responsible.

It’s obvious.

What kind of eyes does he see me with?

*

Orion finds Harry upstairs in the room with the tapestry that afternoon, and sits down beside him without asking or being asked. Harry leans his head on Orion’s shoulder at once. Orion curves an arm around his shoulders.

It’s been obvious since he and Harry came back from the Malfoy Quidditch pitch that his parents know something deeper happened between them, and that they both approve. Orion might have overheard Mother discussing something with Father in which the word “wedding” was involved.

But the words vanished behind the casting of a Privacy Charm almost at once, so Orion has to admit he’s not sure.

“Sirius is never going to be born, is he?” Harry whispers. His eyes are fixed on Orion’s name on the tapestry. Sometimes, Orion thinks they dart over to Walburga’s.

Orion leans close to Harry, close enough that they can feel each other’s breathing. He’s already noticed that Harry enjoys being cradled like this, and suspects that both hugs and other touches were fairly rare in Harry’s past.

Well, kind touches. Orion has to admit he flinches back from the thought of the other kind Harry might have received from his family.

“I think that this world has to be different from yours,” Orion says. “I should have heard at least a whisper from Mother and Father by now if they wanted me to marry Walburga. They wouldn’t hide that from me, and they would expect to have some say in it.”

“And Lucretia survived in my world. At least for a while. I don’t know when she died, I just know that it wasn’t as a child.”

“Really?” Orion smiles with a brief twinge in his chest. He wonders what his sister would have been like as a person, if he would have argued with her or got along. He likes to think he would have treasured her, but of course, that’s a desire coming from his current perspective, where he would be getting her back after she died. He’s not sure how he would feel in a world where that had never happened.

“Yeah. I saw her on the tapestry.”

“You loved Sirius.” It’s too strange for Orion to think of that lost godfather of Harry’s as his son, so he’ll go on using his name.”

“Yeah.” Harry turned his head, eyes so wide that Orion at first mistakes the tears in them for gleams of reflected light. Then Harry leans nearer and whispers, “I was responsible for the way he died. I want to tell you. You deserve to know the worst of me before you decide that…”

Actually, Orion is sure that he knows the worst of Harry already, the tendencies to ignore what he doesn’t like and put himself down and sacrifice himself without a thought when there are better plans. But it would do no good to say so. He nods. “Please tell me about him.”

Harry does, scattered remembrances that often cut off as some other memory catches his attention. Orion listens, and learns of a proud, arrogant, loving man who did his best to be a good godfather to Harry when he was a fugitive on the run and had made so many bad choices.

When Harry tells him in detail about the Department of Mysteries, his voice breaks. He ends up leaning against Orion with his face resting against Orion’s chest. Orion keeps him carefully gathered close, for all that Harry lifts his head now and then as if he thinks that he’ll see rejection on Orion’s face any second.

Orion hopes that Harry eventually explains that, too. Perhaps people treated Harry badly because he was famous and rejected him often? Well, Orion won’t do that.

Harry finally whispers a tale of Cygnus’s daughter—he doesn’t give her name—killing Sirius, or rather casting a Stunner that knocked him through an odd veil in the Department of Mysteries that spat out no body on the other side. His voice splutters off into silence. Orion maintains that silence, stroking Harry’s face and shoulder and hair in turn.

“You don’t think I’m responsible for his death,” Harry says at last.

Orion chuckles. It amuses and heartens him both at once that Harry already knows Orion well enough to guess what he’s thinking without words, although it doesn’t seem to have lessened Harry’s belief in his own guilt. “No.”

“But if I hadn’t gone, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“And if Tom Riddle hadn’t existed, it wouldn’t have. If he hadn’t lured you with a vision. If you had had someone you trusted who could have convinced you that the vision was a trap. If my cousin’s daughter hadn’t been there to knock Sirius into the veil. If the Unspeakables had never built or found that thing in the first place.”

“But none of them had any reason to care about Sirius! I did! I should have been more careful!”

“I think we could agree on that, Harry. But that’s not the same as agreeing that you’re actually responsible for Sirius’s death.”

“Why not?”

“Because you didn’t hold the wand that destroyed him. And because from what you told me, he loved you. He would have wanted to come if you were in danger. Unless you’re arguing that you could have held him at home somehow and declined to try, then it wasn’t your fault. And from what you also told me, he had extremely poor impulse control. You could have Flooed him and he still might not have listened.”

Harry puts his hands over his eyes. Orion continues to rub a steady hand up and down his back. His heart aches softly, for the son he’ll never have, for the man Harry loved, for the pain Harry has endured.

But Orion meant what he said. This is a different world; he’s sure of it. If the only thing that changed was Harry coming here and defeating Riddle, then Orion would have had an “understanding” with Walburga already and Lucretia would be alive. And who knows what else.

“Why does that make me feel better?” Harry whispers finally.

“Because it was designed to? I wanted you to—”

“No, I mean, it’s just that other people told me the same things. Or a variation of the same things. And nothing they did made me feel better. But this did. You did. You’re special, Orion Black.”

Mulled cider couldn’t warm Orion’s chest the way Harry’s praise is right now. Harry has turned towards him and is staring up into his face with something that isn’t worship, not exactly, but it’s pretty close. Orion gently runs his hand down Harry’s face again and sighs as he feels the skin under his fingers, gentle and yielding.

Alive. The way Harry is.

Orion is just bending his head to kiss Harry when Mother clears her throat by the door. Harry promptly blushes and tries to untangle himself from Orion. Orion doesn’t want to let him go and isn’t that embarrassed at his mother finding them like this (it would be a different thing if she’d seen what happened on the Quidditch pitch). So Harry sorts of flails around and becomes even more entangled.

“It’s all right, Harry.” Mother comes into the room, her smile faint but there, a black owl riding on her arm. “I received this earlier, but it seemed confused about who to come to. I don’t know the hand, though, and neither does your father.” She extends the envelope.

Orion takes it and glances down. The House of Black.

And he does know the hand. He ought to, when he’s seen it on dozens of messy essays handed in over the years and sometimes notes passed in class when Lestrange was bored.

Orion takes a breath that he hopes will hold back his accelerating heartbeat, and opens it.

You deserve to know that Riddle has loyal allies left in the school. Those who considered themselves true Knights of Walpurgis, and those who wanted to be and never saw the cruel way that he treated his followers. One of them will make an attempt on Harry Potter’s life before the beginning of winter term.

That’s all it says. And no signature, because of course Lestrange wanted plausible deniability.

Orion shudders a little, and hands the letter to Harry. Harry looks over it and then grunts a little, obviously dismissing it. It warms and infuriates Orion, at the same time. He doesn’t want Harry afraid, but it’s beyond frustrating to know that Harry is so used to attempts on his life that he can just put the warning aside.

Mother pales when he reads it. “Why doesn’t your informant tell you who it is?” she demands, rapping the letter against her leg.

“He might not know,” Harry says. “Or he heard a rumor about the attempt happening, but has no idea who’s behind it.”

Orion thinks he might know, at least to narrow it down to a certain group of people. The only ones they intend on meeting with before they go back to Hogwarts for the next term are Abraxas—whom Orion would trust with Harry’s protection—and relatives.

Someone in the Black family will make a move to assassinate Harry.

Orion irrationally suspects Walburga, but he knows he can’t be sure. She was enthralled with Riddle, but she’s had a love affair with status as long as he’s known her. She wouldn’t want to date someone who’s lost all his status in Slytherin and who would be nothing more than a fugitive even if he escaped the Aurors.

So it might not be her. But it’s someone.

“I’ll Floo back to Hogwarts tomorrow.”

Mother stands up straight before Orion can convince himself he’s heard the words properly. “You do not trust us to protect you?”

“What?” Harry stares at her as if that’s not a conclusion that’s ever occurred to him. “No! I mean, yes, I do trust you, but that’s not what I’m leaving. I don’t want to put you in danger. Or force you to act against someone who’s family to you.”

So he’s seen the same thing as Orion has. Orion takes his hand and holds it. “Harry, you’ll be part of this family soon enough. You don’t need to run away. Anyone who attacked you would be the ostracized one, not you.”

“But I don’t want you to have to choose between me and them—”

“The Black family chooses each other,” Mother says quietly. “But that would include you. And we choose power, we choose prestige, we choose those who truly care for us. On all counts, you would win that contest against someone who thought to try and kill you to earn the favor of a murderous teenager who should be in Azkaban.”

Harry looks both overwhelmed and unconvinced. Orion decides that he will need to work on changing Harry’s mind, subtly.

“We’ll keep you safe,” he says, because he is sure that that, at least, is true in the present. He glances at Mother, who nods slightly.

Harry will have protections and guards he doesn’t even know about when the Black family meets for the New Year’s celebration and any parties before or after that.

“All right,” Harry says at last, his voice heavy and reluctant. “But please tell me if you change your minds, all right?”

Orion kisses the side of his neck and ignores the flush and guilty glance Harry gives in Mother’s direction. They never will, but if this is the compromise they have to live with for now, then so be it. “Of course, Harry.”