Chapter Seven of 'Chrysalis'- Interference

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Chapter Seven—Interference

“I am afraid that I cannot allow you to go back to Nott’s house, Harry.”

Here it comes. They got through the oath with Madam Bones and the actual trial all right, and maybe Dumbledore was too shocked to interfere before this. But now he’s stepping forwards and speaking to Harry with an apologetic smile on his face, ignoring Theo at Harry’s side and Black behind him.

“Who says?”

“What?” Dumbledore blinks.

“Who said that you have the authority to do that?” Harry lifts his head and looks at Dumbledore from within an enormous well of weariness. Theo wonders if it’s just about today and the chaos of the trial for Black and its aftermath, or if he’s also tired from this year and the Tournament and Dumbledore not standing up for him. It bothers Theo that he doesn’t know. “You’re not my guardian. We established that. Now that Sirius is free, he can do it. But you can’t just take me and toss me back into my aunt’s home. That’s not how it works.”

“You are safe from Death Eaters there,” Dumbledore says soothingly.

Harry barks a short sound that’s a laugh by Slytherin standards, but it makes Dumbledore blink again. “I’m not safe from my relatives.”

“Alas, my dear boy, that is a lesser consideration.”

“Not to me.”

“And not to me,” Theo says, stepping forwards a little so that he’s more clearly at Harry’s right shoulder. Dumbledore’s eyes flicker to Theo and tighten. Theo ignores that. Yes, he wouldn’t choose to have this battle right here in the middle of a Ministry corridor, but Dumbledore is the one who chose the ground. “I’ll keep him safe.”

“Mr. Nott, you are a…”

Dumbledore trails off, probably because Theo has tilted his left arm and shaken the sleeve back so that Dumbledore can see the skin of his forearm, bare beyond a doubt. Theo just arches his eyebrows at Dumbledore.

“A notorious Death Eater’s son. I cannot entrust you with Harry’s safety.”

“Then entrust me with it,” Black whispers. He’s leaning forwards a little, batting lank dark hair out of his eyes, looking exhausted but earnest. “I’ll be right there, and I’ll make sure Harry is safe. Not that I expect him to be in danger with Nott. Nott’s sheltered us both for the last few weeks, and he’s a protective little shit.”

Theo smiles. Nothing Black has said has pleased him this much.

“Harry must be behind the blood wards,” Dumbledore says. “It’s the only spot where he’s safe, Sirius.”

“Then why did you let me visit the Burrow last summer?” Harry demands. “Hell, why let me come to Hogwarts at all? Is it the wards that matter, or is it because in that particular place, you can keep me isolated from the magical world and control the kind of news that reaches me? I know you told Ron and Hermione it was too dangerous to write to me.”

Dumbledore takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. Theo watches him in curiosity. He doesn’t actually think Harry is one hundred percent right—Dumbledore probably does want to control Harry, but not only for nefarious reasons—but it will be interesting to see what he says.

“I made sacrifices for your safety,” Dumbledore whispers, “but I also made sacrifices for your happiness. I see now that I went too far with those. It ensured that you were vulnerable to the plans to put you in the Tournament, and it left you vulnerable to…others.” He might think the shift of his body towards Theo is subtle, but Theo can, of course, see it. “Now we must think of your safety again. It would be too dangerous for your friends to be seen corresponding with you. I would not have allowed Sirius to write to you, either.”

“So you would have cut me off from him,” Black snaps. “Right after you sent me a letter complaining he was spending too much time with Nott and needed my influence to move him back to the right path. Why, Albus?”

“We know that Mr. Nott’s father was called back into active service. There are too many others who are Marked but free, and some who were never Marked. I may even have traitors in the old crowd.” Dumbledore’s eyes are shadowed. “I’m sorry, Sirius, but there is simply too much chance that someone might intercept a letter to Harry and read it.”

“So, instead, he’s living behind my wards,” Theo says brightly. “Which can sense cursed post and the like and stop it. Brilliant, Headmaster. I do admire the way that your plans tend to work out.”

Dumbledore gives him a chilling glare. Theo looks intently at the bridge of the man’s nose, and the Legilimency probe, if that’s what it is, fails entirely.

“You are keeping Harry unsafe, Mr. Nott,” Dumbledore says softly. “What happens when someone comes to you and offers you a bargain that you can’t refuse to turn Harry over to them? What happens when Voldemort returns to power?”

If he thinks that he’ll scare Theo with Voldemort’s name, he doesn’t know as much about the relationship between Theo and Harry as Theo thought he did. Theo laughs at him. “My father is dead. My mother is dead. I have Harry living with me. Exactly what could someone offer me or threaten me with to turn Harry over to Voldemort?”

Dumbledore is the one who starts at the sound of the name. “They could affect your physical safety,” he says. “They could threaten the safety of young Mr. Zabini.”

He knows that Theo and Blaise are friends, then. Theo forces himself to keep calm. “I’d feel sorry for someone who threatens Blaise, actually. His mother is more than enough reason for someone to think twice about that.”

“And yourself?”

“I would do whatever I must to survive and come back to Harry and protect him. As I did in the graveyard.”

Dumbledore opens his mouth again, but this time, Harry interrupts. “I’m tired,” he says, and steps on Theo’s foot while holding out a hand to Black with the other. “I want to go home and celebrate Sirius’s freedom. I am tired of you standing in the way of that, Headmaster. Are you going to move, or not?”

“Your home is Privet Drive, Harry.”

“No, it’s not,” Harry says, and there’s so much weariness in his voice that Theo leans a little forwards, hovering, ready to dash in and fix it. Harry turns his head and gives Theo a warm smile. “It’s with Theo and Sirius.”

Dumbledore closes his eyes and turns away. Theo doesn’t know why he chose now to give up, and he doesn’t think it matters. What matters is that they are going home, and from the fervent way that Black strides behind them as they make their way towards the Atrium, he agrees, too.

*

“I still don’t like you.”
Theo blinks as Black comes stumbling into the dining room. He was up late last night, or so the house-elves reported to Theo, but Theo doesn’t know why. As long as Black isn’t doing something like trying to tear through the wards, then Theo doesn’t have to worry about him. “The feeling’s mutual,” he says.
“Don’t you care that I don’t like you?” Black collapses into the chair across from Theo and gives him a long scowl.

“No.”

They eat in silence for a few moments before Black bursts out with, “Why not?”

“I know that you’re important to Harry.” Theo smiles at Black over the rim of his teacup. The house-elves have really outdone their previous service this morning. He’ll have to remember to compliment them. “That’s all that matters.”

“But I could cause you harm.”

“Would you betray Harry to Dumbledore?”

“No, of course not!”

“Would you try to bring someone in through the wards who has no right to be here?”

Black hesitates.

Theo sits up and directs a long, cool stare at Black that makes him squirm in his seat. “Understand this,” Theo says softly. “I take Harry’s safety extremely seriously. The wards obey me and have taken on my nature now that my father is dead. They would rip anyone unauthorized you tried to bring in to shreds.”

His body is pounding with cold, and for the first time, he really believes Black might be a problem. It’s showing in the way that Black starts and casts an uneasy glance over his shoulder, obviously feeling the threatening hover of the wards. Theo leans back in his chair and makes himself relax with a long shake of his shoulders, but it’s difficult.

“You weren’t fucking kidding,” Black mutters. He sounds unnerved.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“But it isn’t like you would ever approve me bringing Remus here anyway!”

“Remus?” Theo blinks. Right, the first name of their Defense professor from third year. The one who was revealed as a werewolf. Theo grimaces a little, and Black promptly points a finger at him.

“You hate him because he’s a werewolf!”

“No, I hate him because of the rumors that he didn’t take his Wolfsbane potion and attacked some students,” Theo snaps. “Harry hasn’t told me all the details, because he wanted to protect you and probably also Lupin, but I suspect Harry was one of them.”

Black winces and looks away. “That wasn’t his fault. He saw Peter on the map…”

“He would have to control himself better before I let him in here,” Theo says, and picks up his teacup again. “And confine himself to a locked and warded room on the full moons.”

“You can’t keep him a prisoner!”

“You’re right. I can just keep him outside the wards.”

Black pouts at him. That’s the moment when Harry stumbles down the stairs, yawning and rubbing his eyes, and peers at them with a long sigh.

“Are you disagreeing again?” he asks, pausing by Theo’s chair.

“He doesn’t want to let Remus into the wards!” Black promptly blurts, sitting up. He reminds Theo so much of a child who’s tattling to a professor that Theo has to work hard to keep his laughter down. “He said Remus would have to spend the full moon nights in a locked and warded room!”

“Well, that’s what he did when he was in his office at Hogwarts, right?” Harry drops into the chair next to Theo and reaches for tea.

Black blinks a couple times. “I suppose. But this isn’t Hogwarts, and Remus shouldn’t have to be shut up into a small room just because Nott is prejudiced against werewolves.”

“I’m not prejudiced against werewolves,” Theo says, which is more or less true. He never dealt with werewolves when he was a child, and Father almost never spoke of them, reserving his ire for Muggleborns and Dumbledore. “I’m prejudiced against werewolves who attack children.”

Harry flinches. Theo sighs a little and focuses on Harry. “Do you want to tell me what he did?”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“Not being a werewolf. I would say that not taking his Wolfsbane is his fault.”

Harry stares down at his knife and scone for a long moment. Theo prepares to abandon the conversation if it causes Harry too much pain. The last thing he wants is for Harry not to eat after the kind of childhood he had with the Muggles.

Harry finally finishes buttering the scone and mumbles, “He was—he was the best Defense professor we ever had.”

Theo nods agreeably. He thinks Lupin was too weak-willed and too careless, and didn’t know as much about Defense Against the Dark Arts as he did about Dark creatures. But he sees no value in disagreeing with Harry, either.

“I don’t want to blame him.”

Theo shrugs. “Not wanting to blame him and wanting him to visit are different things.”

“I don’t understand why he didn’t write to me at all the past year,” Harry blurts. “If he was my parents’ friend and Sirius’s friend and now Sirius has had a trial and…why isn’t he already here banging on the wards? Where is he?”

“An excellent question,” Theo murmurs, and turns to look at Black.

Black looks old and sad and tired. Theo can make allowances for that, but at the moment, Black is defending someone who was free from Azkaban and still didn’t make any effort to contact Harry. Theo isn’t inclined to forgive Lupin unless he knows that the werewolf had an excuse at least as good as Black’s.

“Remus has always been afraid of rejection,” Black mumbles. “I’m sure that he thinks you could never forgive him, Harry, for attacking you while he was Moony. And that means he won’t write back to you or ask you anything, so he can’t see you rejecting him.”

Theo rolls his eyes and snorts. Black bares his teeth.

“But I would forgive him! I would let him visit as long as he stays in the warded room on full moon nights like Theo suggests!”

“So you want to imprison Remus, too?”

Harry flinches again. Black is leaning forwards over the table, and he’s had another quicksilver flash of emotion back to a less-than-welcoming demeanor. Theo slides his wand into hand under the table.

But Black doesn’t spring forwards over the table and attack Harry. He just starts ranting in a low, impassioned voice. “We stayed with Moony when he ran all over Hogwarts grounds as a student. No one was ever bitten. We were his best friends—”

“And one of you turned out to be a traitor,” Theo says in a pleasant, calm voice.

Black says nothing, but glares with the force of hatred. Theo looks back at him.

“Stop it, Sirius,” Harry says, snappishly. Theo reaches out and puts a hand over his. Harry nods to him. There are darker shadows under his eyes than Theo expected to see. Theo frowned. He’ll have to see about the house-elves making Harry the special kind of tea they gave Theo when he couldn’t sleep as a child. “It’s safer for Remus to be in a room at night, and you don’t need to run all over the grounds with him as a dog—”

“Yes, I do!”

Theo tilts his head and examines Black. He sounds desperate, and his eyes look like that with the way they shine, too. Theo nods slowly. It seems that Black is trying to get things back to “normal,” and since he can’t move Harry out of Theo’s house or bring Harry’s parents back to life, he’s trying to make things the way they were when he was at Hogwarts with Lupin and Potter.

“You can run all over the grounds as a dog,” Theo says. “You can invite Lupin here if he’ll come. But you can’t free him from the room. I’ll be setting the wards myself.”

Black shoves his chair back from the table and stalks out of the dining room. Harry goes tight with unhappiness beside Theo.

Theo squeezes Harry’s hand and then lets go. He knows from experience that Harry will just tense up if Theo tries to do more than that. So Theo will give him something else to think about.

“Would you like to invite Neville here?”

Harry starts and turns to look at him. “You’d—let him come?”

Theo blinks. “Of course. Did I give you the impression that I wouldn’t? Sorry.” And he truly is, but he also doesn’t think that he gave Harry that impression, even accidentally.

“I just thought that maybe Professor Lupin would be enough for you,” Harry whispers. His hands are twisting together. Theo reaches out and gently strokes Harry’s knuckles, and at least his hands stop doing that wringing motion. “Or Sirius, even.”

Theo shakes his head. “I would invite anybody here you wanted and who would support you, Harry. I’ll just set rules, that’s all. But I don’t think Longbottom is the kind of person who’ll need the rules or mind them.”

“You called him Neville a minute ago.”

“Did I?”

“You must think of him as a friend.”

Harry is smiling with just his eyes, which is Theo’s favorite of his smiles, so Theo dips his head and smiles back. “Yes, all right, he probably is,” he says. “Then again, compared to the lack of friends except Blaise I had before you, letting almost anyone close would count. We can invite Lovegood over if you want.”

“Luna?”

“Well, I wasn’t proposing to invite her father.”

Harry leans forwards and kisses Theo so swiftly and sharply that Theo starts and raises a hand. But by the time he reaches for Harry, Harry is already pulling back, grinning and shaking his head a little as if Theo has surprised him with an enormous birthday party.

(Which reminds Theo, he should get on with planning that).

“You’re the best,” Harry says simply. “And yes, I’d like to see Neville and Luna. I’d even suggest Ron and Hermione, but they definitely wouldn’t obey the rules.”

And you’re still angry with them for listening to Dumbledore when he told them not to write to you, Theo thinks, but he sees no need to say it aloud. He nods. “Then I’ll send out the owls today. Or perhaps an owl to Luna and a house-elf to Neville, so there’s no way that that horrible grandmother of his can intercept the letter. We can even have the house-elf bringing him here.”

“You’re the best.”

Theo smiles and refrains from saying, “Yes, I am.” That might break the moment of Harry looking at him with adoration, and Theo would like that to last just as long as Harry is minded to continue it.