Chapter Thirty-Seven of 'Leopard's Choice'- Pieces of a Soul

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Thirty-Seven—Pieces of a Soul

“Mr. Potter, a word, please.”

Harry holds in an exasperated breath as he turns around. Shacklebolt has been trying to get him to stay after class and come early and come to his office and everything else he can think of to get Harry to talk with him in private. Usually, Harry and his friends have a system in place that ensures Harry always arrives exactly on time and leaves with at least one of them nagging him about studying and comes to Shacklebolt’s office with someone who “has a question I just thought of.”

But this time, through no one’s fault but Harry’s own, it isn’t happening. Hermione is irritated that she isn’t as good at curses as jinxes and hexes, and dragged Pansy out of the room to go practice. Theo and Blaise are having an argument of some kind that Harry isn’t privy to and left early. Ron packed up his books looking green, which Harry thinks means a stray curse probably hit him when he wasn’t looking. Daphne’s been thin-lipped since this morning, which is usually a sign that something is wrong with her sister, and actually left her books for Harry to gather up, which is part of why he got delayed.

In fact, the only person who hasn’t left already preoccupied is—

“Professor Shacklebolt, I need to talk to you.”

Draco does drawling and whiny well, Harry has to admit. From the exasperated glance Shacklebolt flashes him, he agrees. “Not now, Mr. Malfoy,” he says between gritted teeth. “Please come by my office hours.”

“But I don’t understand why I can’t get the counter to the Blinding Curse right.” Draco brushes past Harry as if he isn’t even there and stands in front of Shacklebolt, frowning petulantly. “Everyone else in the class can do it. Why not me? I’m a Slytherin, and I’m powerful, too.”

Shacklebolt frowns and focuses on Malfoy. “I hope you wouldn’t think such a thing was because of House or blood status, Mr. Malfoy.”

“I said nothing about blood status,” Draco says, and folds his arms and sticks his lower lip out enough that Harry thinks someone could probably jump up and down on it. “I said something about House. And power. Why could a powerful Slytherin not get the countercurse right before a weak Gryffindor?”

Shacklebolt frowns harder and starts a lengthy explanation. Harry slips out of the room, pausing only to nod at Draco in thanks. The corner of Draco’s eyelid flickers in response, and Harry can sense his quiet, deep amusement.

He sighs in relief when he finds Blaise and Theo waiting for him. “Argument resolved?” he asks lightly, slinging the satchel over his shoulder so they can walk to the Slytherin common room.

“Postponed,” Theo says, and looks back into the Defense classroom. Harry doesn’t bother. If Shacklebolt realizes by now that Harry has slipped away, there’s no point in taunting him by meeting his eyes. “But it was inexcusable of us to leave you behind without someone to defend you. I’m sorry, my lord.”

Blaise looks at the ceiling with a quiet sigh that isn’t the less long-suffering for its quietness. Harry has to fight back his own smile as he inclines his head. “Don’t worry about it, Theo. Draco rose to the occasion.”

“Probably had fun tormenting Shacklebolt, too,” Blaise mutters.

Harry shrugs, and they start walking. He notices that Blaise and Theo are still giving each other intense looks, but they don’t seem as if they’re about to start fighting again—or snogging, which Harry thinks is more and more of a possibility with their year-group. Merlin knows that he’s walked in on Hermione and Ron in the Room of Requirement a few times too many.

“You know how my mother and I both have the Gift of enthralling people?” Blaise asks abruptly.

Harry nods. “Which I hope you haven’t been using on anybody.”

“I wouldn’t. At least, not without permission.”

Harry wonders who Blaise needs permission from for about ten seconds before he narrows his eyes. “Look, Blaise, I don’t want—it’s not about a degree of control over your life. It’s about the right and wrong of making people do what you want by enthralling them.”

“Uh-huh.”

Blaise looks supremely unimpressed, and Harry gives up. “What about it? Has someone been approaching you wanting you to use it? Or has your mother been writing to you?”

Blaise still flinches at times when someone mentions his mother, but he truly does seem to be getting better about controlling it. Now, he just shakes his head with a distant look in his eyes. “No. It’s that we’ve started to wonder about family Gifts you might have. You’ve got the Parseltongue, and that usually doesn’t emerge except in descendants of Slytherin’s line. Granted, it’s magic, so it’s not impossible that it might manifest elsewhere, but it does seem unlikely.”

Harry feels cold. They’ve been back at school for a week, and he still hasn’t told them about the soul-connection the Speakers discovered between him and Voldemort. Dodging Shacklebolt’s faux concern has been wearying enough without making everyone else determined to smother him.

Theo is watching him with those fathomless eyes that see far too much. Harry takes a deep breath and decides he’ll speak to some of his closest tonight, once they’re back behind walls and wards and not announcing something like this to all and sundry. “You think the Potter family Gift is what I should have?”

“Yes,” Blaise says. “You’re the last member of the family, so it makes sense.”

“Why does it make sense? It doesn’t skip a generation?”

They turn a corner and come into sight of the common room door. Harry relaxes a little, and knows that Theo hasn’t missed that, either. Well, Harry does intend to tell them about the soul-connection, as soon as he can be sure that they do have a little privacy.

“The Gift tends to concentrate more the fewer members of a family there are,” Blaise says. “There’s only one Potter left, so whatever it is, it’s all yours.”

Harry frowns, turning ideas around in his head, but finally has to shake his head. “I have no idea what it could be.” It’s not like the Parseltongue could come from there, and Harry doesn’t have any other particular magical gift. Unless… “Do you think that flying could count as it?”

“It’s supposed to be an exaggerated expression of a skill that other wizards and witches have, or something completely unique,” Theo says quietly, sinking into a chair near the fire. Someone closer to it leans over and glares at him for some reason. Theo looks back, and the other boy decides to find something else to do.

Harry sighs and flops down. “Well, I’m good at flying?”

“Not good enough to count as a Gift, I would say,” Blaise murmurs, and then sets up Privacy Charms around the triangle of chairs they’re occupying. “Now, spill.”

“Spill what?”

“You’ve been carrying something around since we came from back from the holidays.” Theo’s fingers are tapping on the arm of his chair, and Blaise gives them a look. Theo stops, but looks as if he’d like to begin again. “We’ve been patient, and we thought you needed time to come to terms with whatever it was and tell us. But our patience has run out. Come on, Harry.”

Harry breathes out slowly. Yes, he supposes that he should tell them.

“The Speakers were asking me to visit their realm,” he says quietly. Both Blaise and Theo lean closer. “I finally did. It’s—a weird place, a dream-like place where you can shape reality with Parseltongue. They said that my being in this world and speaking Parseltongue somehow links our realms closer together. I didn’t really understand that part, to be honest.

“But one of the reasons I went was to find out if there was something that could block Voldemort from stepping into my dreams. You know that Occlumency doesn’t do it. Lyassa—she’s the one who took me—brought me to a Speaker who said that I could never learn Occlumency to block it, because it’s a connection at the level of the soul.”

For long moments, there’s silence, except for the crackle of the fire outside their Privacy Charms. Blaise is breathing fast and looks sick. Theo has gone so utterly blank that Harry keeps a cautious eye on him. It’s never a good sign when that happens.

“What does that mean?” Blaise finally demands in a harsh voice.

“I have a piece of his soul, or he has a piece of mine. The Speakers couldn’t be certain about which it was. So the connection exists and he can use it as a path until—I don’t know. Until he dies, or I do.”

Theo closes his eyes. Harry thinks he’s thinking things through. But he’s the one who says, “We need to talk to Draco.”

“What? Draco? Why?” Blaise sounds disgruntled.

“He said once that he had numerous books on family Gifts, that it was something his father researched.” Theo is closing his hands over and over again, his face quiet. “We need to figure out what Harry’s Gift is as soon as possible, and see if it’s related to something that can separate him from Voldemort.”

“The books in his father’s library?”

“Yes—”

“The books that are still guarded by house-elves who won’t let anyone into Malfoy Manor?”

Theo closes his eyes for a long moment. Then he hisses, “Damn.”

“I suppose that we can work on getting that library out of the house-elves’ hands if you think it’s really important,” Harry says doubtfully. “But honestly, Theo, I don’t think any family Gift will help with this. The Speakers didn’t have any idea, and they know more about obscure magic than most wizards and witches do.”

“What about Professor Snape? What did he say when you told him?”

“Um. I haven’t told him yet.”

Blaise leans back in his chair with a low whistle. Theo is considering him with flat eyes. Harry lifts one hand. “I just wanted a chance to come to terms with it before I told him. And I knew that he would be frantic to save me, but not even the Speakers could think of a way to save me. I just—I didn’t want to hurt him.”

“I think lying to him about this would hurt him far more than not immediately being able to think of a solution,” Theo says, and there’s condemnation winding through his voice that makes Harry bristle.

“I didn’t lie to him! I just didn’t tell him.”

Theo just looks at him.

Harry crosses his arms. “Fine,” he says, and he knows he sounds sulky. “So that’s the kind of thing that probably won’t make a whole lot of sense as an argument to him.”

“No,” Blaise drawls. “But I want to know more about why you didn’t tell him.”

“I felt filthy!” Harry snaps, glaring at his friends. Blaise and Theo just stare back at him. “I just—I had a part of him infesting me. Or at least a connection with the man who killed my parents. Yeah, I was disgusted. And disgusted with myself. And I couldn’t bear the thought of Severus fluttering around me, asking questions, trying to make me feel better and desperate to save me when—he shouldn’t need to worry about that.”

“Do you expect us to walk away from you?” Blaise asks, his voice level. Theo is only staring at Harry with eyes that seem to reflect light Harry can’t see.

“Not—exactly. I just—don’t you feel disgusted? At least a little?”

“I’m disgusted that Voldemort could do this to you,” Theo says softly. “But disgusted with you, Harry? Never.”

“What if he possesses me someday? What if he tries to kill you using my body?”

“Then we’ll deal with that when it happens,” Theo says. His voice is too unshakable. It makes Harry want to throw something. His friends are going to fucking endanger themselves because they just won’t walk away and save themselves. “But it doesn’t mean that you committed whatever act ended with you carrying a piece of each other’s souls, or you a piece of his, or whatever is actually true.”

Harry closes his eyes and breathes out. The words are right there when he reaches for them, circling around the inside of his head like water around a drain.

Voldemort is going to attack and it’s going to be all your fault.

But until that day, Harry supposes, there isn’t anything he can do to make his friends walk away. They’re going to stand with him, even to their own detriment. Severus is probably going to be the same way when Harry tells him.

Harry breathes in and opens his eyes. “All right. So maybe we can talk about what we’re going to do so that the study group can learn to defend themselves in case someday I walk into the middle of them and I’m possessed?”

*

“Soul pieces.”

Hermione starts and looks up from the pile of books she’s sitting in front of at the library table. She didn’t even sense the Privacy Charm going up around them as Theo sat down across from her. “What?”

“Soul pieces.” Theo leans forwards, and there’s a restlessness to his tapping hands that makes Hermione eye him uneasily. It occurs to her that it would be a very bad thing if that restlessness exploded in any direction. “The Speakers told Harry that the connection between him and Voldemort is a soul piece.”

Hermione feels her stomach quiver. She swallows and opens the top book on the pile, which has to do with soul magic. It was just an idea, a guess. She had no idea that she or Theo would get actual confirmation. “How?”

“The Speakers don’t know. But we’re going to find out.”

The words settle Hermione, and make her forget about the idiocy that will happen if Theo’s magic breaks free. She nods and holds up the book. “You’re right. We’ll find out and then, we’ll make sure that we can sever that connection.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason, Granger.”

Hermione flips him off with one finger, and begins flipping through the book in a more productive way.

*

“A soul connection,” Severus whispers when Harry is done telling him what the Speakers have discovered.

“Yes.” Harry stirs restlessly, looking at Severus from the corner of one eye. They’re in his office, and the bubbling of potions from the cauldrons Severus has going has never sounded less soothing. “I’m sorry for not telling you before.”

“Why did you wait?”

“Because I thought you would be hurt,” Harry whispers. “I thought you would want to make it better, and there is no way to make it better. Because I thought you might be disgusted by me and have no idea how to deal with that.” He looks at Severus and sits up with his shoulders against the back of the chair. “Because I was hurt at the thought of it, and I didn’t want you to have to deal with my pain.”

Severus closes his eyes and stands there for a long moment. Then he walks towards Harry and puts a hand on his shoulder.

Harry turns and looks up at him.

“I love you,” Severus breathes, “and I will never be disgusted by you. We will find some way to fight this, some way to sever the connection however it exists. It doesn’t matter whether it’s caused by one soul-piece or multiple ones, and it doesn’t matter how it happened, except what we can learn from that to undo it.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I am.”

Harry leans against him, and Severus wraps an arm around his shoulders. He can feel them trembling. Both of them? One?

It doesn’t matter. Even Severus’s anger that Harry didn’t tell him right away and that he was so wary about Severus’s reaction doesn’t matter.

What does is that they are going to do something about it, together.

*

Theo sits on the top of the Astronomy Tower and stares down towards the Forbidden Forest. The trees are motionless and dark in the night. Theo thinks about transforming into a leopard and slipping into their shadow, hunting prey through their darkness, bring it down and listening to it scream.

He could do it. But he won’t. He’s up here to wrestle with the fury that seems to haunt him at every turn lately, not give in to it.

“You know that you can’t kill Shacklebolt.”

Theo simply lifts a shoulder in acknowledgment of what Blaise is saying, not in agreement. Blaise steps off the top stair that leads up to the Tower and sits down beside Theo, shaking his head.

“I think this rage that you feel is a side-effect of your transformation.”

Theo grunts, not taking his eyes from the Forest.

“No one else I know of has ever achieved an Animagus transformation as fast as you did.”

“You know that someone who was having their Animagus form influence them would be growing claws or spots or fur or the like,” Theo snaps, not taking his eyes from the trees. “You know that as well as I do, Blaise. You’ve read all the same books, had all the same lessons.”

“But what if someone who really achieves the transformation rapidly has mental effects, Theo? Emotional ones?”

Theo clenches his hands, and claws spring out of her nails. He turns and shows his hand to Blaise, who looks at it and then back at Theo with eyes that don’t reflect the fear Theo is sure he’s feeling.

“Is that supposed to impress me?”

Theo turns away with a low snarl and focuses on the trees again.

“Harry doesn’t understand why you hover on the edge of rage all the time,” Blaise says softly. “Why we’re arguing. You should attempt the spells I told you about so that at least your anger doesn’t worry him.”

“That’s an underhanded attempt to get me to agree with you, Blaise,” Theo says, and pauses when he hears the growl surging along the edges of his voice.

“Maybe I think that I need some underhanded attempt to get my stupid friend to stop ignoring what’s happening to him,” Blaise says, and then gets up and walks away in perfect silence.

Theo stares off into the distance and then looks down at his claws. He doesn’t want to get help. He doesn’t want to cast the spells Blaise has told him about because they might help him control his temper.

It would feel too much like admitting defeat.