[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Thou Shalt Have No Tournaments Before Me, gen, 2/5

[lomonaaeren]

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Part Two

“The Minister really wants you to approve something that could kill people?”

Sirius sounds appalled. Harry nods and adjusts his wand to point more firmly at a dark patch on the wallpaper that scuttles around when it thinks no one is looking. “Yeah. Stupid, isn’t it?”

“Suicidal. With your popularity as Lord Slytherin and all.”

“Oh. I’ve only been reading the sports section of the Daily Prophet while I’m at Oliver’s house. What are they saying?”

The dark patch scuttles up the wallpaper. Harry casts, hard, and his cleaning spell lands and scrubs it out of existence.

Sirius cheers from his chair on the far side of the room. The Healers promised that he and Harry could come to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, which is apparently the house where Sirius grew up, and start cleaning, as long as Sirius didn’t cast any spells. Harry is making sure to hold him to that. He doesn’t want Sirius to have to go back to St. Mungo’s and start the Healing all over again.

Remus chuckles from the chair across from Sirius. It was the full moon a few days ago, and he’s still tired and pale, but a smile blossoms across his face when he looks at Harry or Sirius. “At this rate, Harry, you’ll have curses cleaned up that are twenty years old. Or older.”

“Good, I’d like to,” Harry says firmly. The atmosphere of Grimmauld Place gives him the creeps. He wants to live here with Sirius, wants to have a home of his own, but at the moment, it’s too creepy to do that.

Even Ahalam is talking less than he normally would and feels the oppressive atmosphere of the house, although now he sticks his head out from around the side of Harry’s neck. “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning up the patches,” Harry hisses, while he keeps an eye on Sirius and Remus. They jump a little, but just look resigned to the Parseltongue. Harry reckons that Sirius knew it would happen when he got Harry Ahalam, and Remus figured it out when he knew about the snake. “The Dark magic that lingers on the walls and in the corners.”

“What does it smell like?”

“Like something wet and disgusting. Like that mildew you smelled downstairs,” Harry adds, when Ahalam wriggles in the way that means he’s about to ask a lot more questions.

“Oh! Then I can smell it and point it out to you! Then you can destroy it quickly, and we can leave and go back to the nice place.”

Harry blinks. He didn’t know Ahalam could smell that kind of thing, or point it out. “I think there’s too much for me to destroy today. But it would be nice if you could point it out. It means we would have to come back tomorrow, though.”

“Then you should let Salazar destroy it.”

Harry blinks again. “Nifflers like shiny things. He wouldn’t destroy Dark magic.”

“What if you hide some shiny things around the rooms and then let Salazar run around them? Then he would concentrate on finding them and destroying the Dark things! You could do that. Then he would not be looking at me as if he wants to eat me. It is perfect. I am perfect. I am very smart.”

Harry laughs. And it is true that since Mrs. Wood’s charm on Ahalam’s scales faded, Salazar is watching the snake kind of hungrily through the cage bars.

“What is it, Harry?”

“Ahalam was just suggesting hiding some shiny things around the house where Dark magic is and letting the Niffler Hagrid got me run around and destroy the Dark magic.”

There’s silence from behind him, which isn’t really what Harry expected out of that announcement. He turns around and frowns at Sirius and Remus. “Have you lost your tongues to—Kneazles or something?” He reckons that’s probably the way that people in the magical world would say it.

Sirius and Remus exchange loaded glances, and Harry stiffens a little. He knows what that means. An adult is about to be upset with him.

“Hagrid got you a Niffler?” Sirius asks carefully.

“Yeah. His name’s Salazar. Don’t worry, I never let him run around the Woods’ house unsupervised, but I reckoned here would be different.”

“Hagrid got you a Niffler,” Remus says, and puts a hand over his eyes.

Oh. That kind of upset. “Yeah, he did. Like Sirius got me a snake,” Harry says, and strokes Ahalam, who slithers around his shoulders excitedly.

“Ahalam isn’t venomous or destructive.” Sirius has a hand over his eyes now, too. Harry wonders if he’s the only one who notices the way that Sirius’s hand still shakes. “But Nifflers are…”

“Do you care that much about anything in this house, though, Sirius? Like really?”

Sirius lifts his head and laughs helplessly. Remus scowls at him. “It’s not funny, Sirius!”

“Getting Harry a Niffler is exactly the kind of thing I would think about but not have the courage to do.” Sirius beams at Harry. “You’re right, Harry, I don’t care that much about anything in this house. But I don’t want to do anything to get your little pet hurt. So why don’t we just carefully scan the house first, and have Remus get rid of the most dangerous things when he’s feeling better, and then turn Salazar loose?”

Harry grins. “Fine by me,” he says, and translates the conversation for Ahalam, who it turns out knows a lot of different ways to talk about how clever he is.

*

Remus has got rid of most of the nasty curses and the doxy nests and the like when Harry brings Salazar over. Remus has also Transfigured a lot of small pieces of clothing and cushions into golden rings. Salazar goes mental when he sees them, bouncing around his cage and making high rasping calls that sometimes sound like chirps and sometimes like grunts.

“Go get them, boy,” Harry says, after Remus has scattered the Transfigured jewelry and Harry has opened the cage.

Salazar shoots out and blurs up the stairs. Harry and Sirius run after him—Sirius having to pause to catch his breath about halfway up—and laugh as Salazar tears into cabinets and corners and walls and couches and holes.

There’s a bit of trouble with the mad house-elf, Kreacher, when Salazar gets to a big cabinet on the second floor. Kreacher pops up and screams that he won’t allow the Niffler to “destroy the legacy of the House of Black!” Salazar plunges straight past him and rips open the cabinet.

“Go down to the kitchen, Kreacher,” Sirius says, more kindly than Harry has ever seen him act with Kreacher. “Remus just Transfigured a bunch of old objects into rings and hid them. That’s what the Niffler’s after. Nothing that’s actually valuable.”

Kreacher narrows his eyes at Sirius as if deciding whether to believe him, but finally nods stiffly and points at him with one finger. “Kreacher is watching,” he says ominously, before he vanishes with a loud crack.

“Creepy fucker,” Sirius mutters, and endures a lecture from Remus for his language.

Harry just grins and decides that he won’t tell them he’d heard worse from the Slytherin Quidditch team on the field. He watches with some contentment as wisps of Dark magic puff up from Salazar’s claws, and the Niffler comes out with his pouch bulging with lots of the Transfigured rings.

Harry does think he sees Salazar stuff a golden locket that definitely wasn’t one of the Transfigured things into his pouch, but Salazar is pretty good about letting Harry reach into his pouch, so Harry reckons he can get it back later.

*

“Harry.”

Theo’s greeting is quiet, but the way his eyes wrinkle at the corners tells Harry a lot. Harry grins at him and waves, and flops down on the seat next to him. Crabbe and Goyle, the only other people in the compartment right now, blink at Harry. They aren’t really his friends or “followers.”

Harry ignores them, focusing on Theo. “How are you? I’m sorry that I couldn’t persuade the Woods or Sirius to let you come over.”

“Considering my heritage, I expected it.”

Harry narrows his eyes. “That’s not an answer.”

Theo bows his head for a second, fiddling with what looks like a string on the hem of his robes. “It’s fine,” he says quietly. “With Wood, it’s not personal, I know. It’s about Quidditch. And with Black…well, he was fervently anti-Slytherin in school. There are still stories about it. I never entertained any hope of visiting you there.”

“Huh.” Harry isn’t really satisfied, but he supposes he has to act like he is. “Well, anyway, Sirius might not be as anti-Slytherin as you think. Look.” And he takes out the pouch that contains Ahalam and spills his snake into his hands.

Crabbe jumps back with something like a croak. Goyle stares with his eyes and mouth round and wide-open.

Actually, Theo isn’t much calmer. He has wide eyes and a mouth that’s open just a little, though. “Black got you that?”

Harry laughs. “Yeah. His name’s Ahalam, and he likes to talk all the time. Fair warning.”

“Those who talk all the time are those who are smart!” Ahalam pops his head up and waves his neck back and forth. “Are these the ones you were telling me about? The sneaky boy and the female who speaks like a sinew-thing? None of them smells female. Are female humans different from female snakes? Do you change back and forth from male to female at different seasons? Is one of them the sneaky boy?”

Harry laughs again and hisses back, “The girl I told you about isn’t in the compartment. And this is the sneaky boy.” He turns his hands so that Ahalam can see Theo, and Ahalam gives a delighted wriggle all over.

“I am honored to meet the sneaky boy.”

“What’s he saying?” Theo whispers, barely moving his lips.

“He’s honored to meet the sneaky boy.”

Theo exhales slowly and then bloody bows to Ahalam from his seat, one hand clasped across his chest. “I am honored to meet the snake of Lord Slytherin.”

Harry stares for a second, then snorts. Well, he supposes it’s fine for Ahalam to have fans. It gives Harry more people to leave him with if he has to go somewhere.

“Anyway, I’m going to go see if I can find Daphne and the rest who haven’t seen Ahalam yet,” Harry says. “I don’t want Justin to get upset because he might think I set a snake on him during second year at the Dueling Club.”

“He doesn’t think that anymore,” Theo says, and gives Harry a weird look.

Harry shrugs. “Anyway.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Harry doesn’t really understand why, since it’s not like he’s in any danger on the train, and Theo also isn’t in danger that he needs to be protected from. But he nods and lets Theo come with him. He does enjoy his friend’s company.

*

Professor McGonagall stops Harry when he’s walking into the school in a large, chattering group of his friends, Ron and Hermione just ahead of him and the twins just behind, Justin and Susan discussing snakes intently with him. (It turns out Justin likes snakes when they aren’t trying to bite him).

“Mr. Potter.” Professor McGonagall looks very old. “Someone told me that you have a snake.”

“Yes, Professor,” Harry says, and touches Ahalam where Ahalam is wound around his neck. Ahalam waves hello to McGonagall with his tail, something Padma Patil taught him in about three minutes flat after Harry not being able to teach him all summer. Harry is impressed and thinking about hiring her to be his Ahalam-wrangler if he ever gets really irritated with the snake. “His name is Ahalam, and Sirius got him for me.”

For some reason, McGonagall closes her eyes. Harry blinks and exchanges a glance with Justin. Justin obviously has no idea what’s going on, but Susan has folded her arms and is watching Professor McGonagall in a worrying way.

“Much as I am loathe to do this, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall murmurs, “the rules do say that you cannot have a snake.”

“No, they don’t,” Susan speaks up before Harry can protest the unfairness of this. “They say that you can have a cat or an owl or a toad. They don’t say that you can’t have snakes.”

“Miss Bones—”

“Ron had a rat last year,” Harry says, picking up on Susan’s argument. There’s no way that he would give up Ahalam. He would go to Beauxbatons first, and he doesn’t even know how to speak French. “I mean, not really a rat, but everyone thought that’s what Scabbers was. And before that, Percy had the same rat for years. And Lee Jordan has a tarantula, and I know Hannah Abbott has a dog. Why isn’t a snake allowed?”

McGonagall peers at him as if thinking that he’ll take off his glasses and turn into a different person. Harry lifts his chin and glares back stubbornly. Finally, McGonagall releases a long, rusty sigh and turns around, starting a little as she sees how many of Harry’s friends in the large group are staring at her. And some other people, too, who aren’t part of the group but know good entertainment when they see it.

“Very well, Mr. Potter,” she says heavily. “Keep the snake. Just don’t expect other people to be happy about it.” And she walks away, old-looking in a way Harry has never seen her before.

“Who cares if other people are happy with it?” Justin says to Harry, sounding baffled. “It was Petrified by a giant snake and I’m okay with it. So why would other people be upset?”

Harry can only shrug as he tucks Ahalam back around his neck so that the little snake won’t fall off on the journey into the Great Hall. “I don’t know.”

He thinks he might know a few people, but there’s no point in speaking their names aloud right now.

*

“I have two announcements to make,” Headmaster Dumbledore says, standing up at the professors’ table.

Harry doesn’t pay a lot of attention. He’s busy trying to keep people at the Gryffindor table from overfeeding Ahalam. Maybe it’s the snake’s small size, and maybe it’s his tail-waving, and maybe it’s because Harry and Ron and Hermione have told everyone that he’s friendly, but Seamus and Dean and Lavender and the twins and even the new first-years seem enchanted with him. And they keep trying to give him treats.

“Ahalam, no, that’s the size of your head—”

“It smells good!” Ahalam declares, and unhinges his jaw to eat the piece of cheese.

Harry sighs. Lavender giggles and holds out another one.

“The first is that there will be no Quidditch this year.”

Harry whips around, nearly dropping Ahalam, with his jaw hanging open. A similar sensation is happening at the other tables. Harry can see Draco actually lunging forwards, as if he’s a snake like Ahalam and can swallow the Headmaster. The other students at Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are screaming. Angelina looks as if her broom has broken.

“That is because of my second announcement,” Dumbledore hurries on, and then he sighs heavily. He must have a Sonorus Charm on his throat, Harry thinks absently, or no one would be able to hear him over the complaining. “Or rather, what would have been my second announcement. There was going to be a grand entertainment at Hogwarts to replace Quidditch, and to be the reason Quidditch was canceled. We would have required the pitch for it.”

He turns and looks straight at Harry. “Unfortunately, Harry Potter needed to give his permission to hold the entertainment at Hogwarts, and he refused to do so.”

People turn to stare at Harry all around the Great Hall. He can feel his ears turn red and burn with embarrassment, but he lifts his chin and ignores the temptation to simply crumble. It’s bloody unfair of Dumbledore to blame this all on him.

And he hasn’t even announced what the entertainment was going to be. The Ministry is really set on keeping the Tri-Wizard Tournament a secret.

“I said no because they wanted to bring a dangerous set of tasks to the school the students could compete in,” Harry says steadily. Hermione taps him on the shoulder and casts the Sonorus Charm on him, too. Harry nods to her gratefully. “I won’t tell you exactly what it is because the Headmaster obviously doesn’t want me to, but that’s the truth. Those tasks would have involved things like bringing Nundus to the school. They have in the past.”

There, he’s telling the truth but not breaking his promise to keep the specific tasks quiet. It’s true that Nundus were used in the past of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. There’s probably a book about it somewhere.

“What?” Hermione shrieks. She doesn’t have the Sonorus Charm on her, but her voice is more than loud enough for everyone to hear.

Harry nods to her. “I don’t know if they were going to do that this time, but it’s a possibility. And students could compete in this entertainment if they were adults.” Harry turns around and stares at Dumbledore again, who appears frozen with surprise. “That’s why I said no. I don’t want people getting hurt.”

“People get hurt every day, Potter,” Angelina snaps. She must still be sore at the thought of Quidditch being canceled. Most of the time, she would never talk to him like that. “That doesn’t mean anything!”

“Not if I can prevent it,” Harry says, and stares hard at her until Angelina lowers her gaze, obviously still fuming. “I don’t care how fun other people would think it is. I protect the students at Hogwarts as best I can.”

“It would be for adults who could make their own decisions,” Dumbledore chooses to say then.

“If they want to go fight Nundus and the like, then they can go to Africa and do it,” Harry snaps. He thinks Nundus live in Africa. He’s pretty sure. “But I don’t need to let them do it here. And if they brought beasts like that to Hogwarts, who’s to say they wouldn’t get out of control and attack people who didn’t make the choice to face them?”

“We would take precautions against that, Harry, my boy.”

“What precautions, sir?”

Dumbledore doesn’t answer.

Harry shakes his head. The fact that he has to keep his promise to Fudge not to talk about the Tournament is irritating, but it also means that Dumbledore can’t really contradict him. “I won’t allow it.”

There’s a rustle at the Slytherin table. Harry glances over and sees Daphne, who he didn’t see on the train, stand up and straighten her robes. Then she clears her throat and says in her prissy voice—probably also courtesy of a Sonorus Charm—“The niceties of titles mean that you should yield the eminence you occupy by courtesy to respectful address of Lord Slytherin, Headmaster.”

Harry is a little gratified to see that even Dumbledore appears confused by what Daphne means. Then his brow clears, and he says, “I do not need to address a young boy by a title he was persuaded to take up by people who want to use him, Miss Greengrass. Indeed, it would be gross neglect of my duties to do so.”

“Let’s ask Lord Slytherin,” Daphne says, startling Harry with how short the sentence is, and she swings around to stare at him. “Do you dislike being called Lord Slytherin?”

Harry takes a deep breath and tells his heart not to pound so much. “Not when I can do things for people.”

“Define things, Lord Slytherin.”

Daphne seems to be deliberately making her voice simpler for the watching students. Harry tries to calm the prickling rise of heat in his own cheeks as he says, “I want to protect them. Help them?” He makes it too much like a question, and Ron’s elbow hits his side. Harry clears his throat and speaks as calmly as he can without glaring at Ron. “Solve problems that I can, within the school. If I can solve problems outside of the school, then I want to do that, too, but I’m not sure of the limitations of my power there.”

Daphne nods, as if approving, although Harry kind of doubts it. She never wholeheartedly approves of anything he does. She turns back to Dumbledore. “He doesn’t dislike being called Lord Slytherin, Headmaster, and the burden is one he takes up willingly.”

I wish she talked more like that, Harry thinks. Graceful, like I can’t, but understandable.

“Nonetheless, Miss Greengrass,” Dumbledore says, and his voice is cool, “we are getting off the topic.” He turns and faces Harry. “Will you or will you not grant your permission for the Tri-Wizard Tournament to take place at the school, Mr. Potter?”

Harry blinks in shock when Dumbledore names it, but a second later, he thinks he sees the logic behind that. People start buzzing and whispering to each other, and at least some of the older students at most of the tables seem to recognize the name, from the widening of their eyes. Harry hears Fred and George go utterly silent behind him.

But all he can think of is how someone would still manage to get into the Tournament and die. How they want to bring dragons here.

Harry meets Dumbledore’s eyes and shakes his head. “No, sir.”

“Then I am afraid that no Quidditch will be played this year, and nothing will replace it,” Dumbledore says, with regret that appears to be genuine, and sits down again.

Harry cringes a little at some of the glares that come his way. But he sits down and picks up another piece of cheese for Ahalam.

There are some things that are worth more than being popular.

*

“This is ridiculous.”

Susan’s voice is huffy, and Padma Patil, sitting beside her, nods emphatically. Harry gives them both a faint smile. They’re at the “Lord Slytherin and his groupies” table in the library, the one that Madam Pince tends to glare people away from. “If you think of something I can do, feel free to tell me.”

“Tell a professor.”

Harry shrugs. “I did.”

Professor McGonagall just looked at him with a distant pity in her eyes and told him that there was a simple means to stop people from hexing him in the corridors, and that was to agree that Hogwarts could host the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Harry again tried to explain about how he didn’t want anyone to die, and McGonagall shook her head and said he’s just fourteen, he shouldn’t worry about that.

She looked a little miffed when Harry asked why he’d nearly died three or four times in the school, and shouldn’t he worry about that?

“We’re going to hex them back.”

“No!” Harry snaps instantly, when he sees Susan standing up from the table. She’ll go out there right this minute and do it, he knows. That innate Hufflepuff sense of fair play is blazing in her eyes. “It’s not worth the detentions you’ll get.”

“They’re not getting detentions!”

“They’re being sneaky about it. Are you going to be sneaky about it?”

Padma laughs a little. “Susan has never been sneaky in her life.”

After a long moment when Harry thinks Susan might go do it anyway just to prove them wrong, she makes an angry sound and sits back down at the table. “All right, but we’ve got to do something!”

“Why, though? These are minor hexes, and I can handle them—”

“It could make you look weak, and that would weaken your political position, too.”

That makes Harry pause. Last year he might have cheered at the thought of something that would make people stop thinking of him as Lord Slytherin, but right now, he doesn’t want it. The only good things his title has done are let him protect people and get him away from the Dursleys. He doesn’t want his ability to help people in the future to be affected.

“Fine,” he says at last, knowing he sounds sulky. “But you know the professors know about them, and they haven’t stopped the people doing it. They keep saying they didn’t actually see it happen. So what are we going to do?”

Susan smiles. “Use the people who can be sneaky.”

*

“Why is McLaggen limping?” Ron asks, as he sits down next to Harry at the breakfast table a few days later.

“No idea,” Harry says, and it’s the truth.

He did suspect that McLaggen was behind some of the hexes he was getting, especially since the git wanted to try out for Keeper and seems to blame Harry for Quidditch getting canceled as well as the Tournament not being held. But he doesn’t know exactly who cursed McLaggen to limp like this.

Then his gaze goes across the Great Hall and lands on the Slytherin table, and he snorts a little.

“What, mate?”

Harry shrugs at Ron, but inwardly, he’s thinking that Theo’s perfectly blank face is as much of a tell as if he was smirking all over the place.

*

“Mr. Potter. Stay after class.”

Harry doesn’t much mind Professor Moody saying that, although he does think that Professor Moody is a little strange. He barks about constant vigilance all the time and glares at Harry with one eye while the other one is watching another student or his own wand or the words he’s writing on the board. But there’s no reason for about half the class to turn around and glare at Moody.

“Go on,” Harry says out of the corner of his mouth to Neville and Ron and Hermione and Seamus—since when did Seamus care about this Lord Slytherin thing?—and Susan and Justin and Hannah and Ernie Macmillan.

“We’re comfortable right here,” Ernie says in a loud, pompous voice.

Harry sighs. Ernie is kind of irritating, and Harry still remembers that Ernie suspected he was the Heir of Slytherin during second year. Then again, so did Justin, and Harry has fully accepted him among his friends.

And anyway, Ernie was kind of right.

“Ten points from Hufflepuff, Mr. Macmillan.”

Ernie turns ashen. Harry pats him on the shoulder and shoves him out of the door of the classroom at the same time.

Then he turns around to face Moody, who is glaring at Harry with both eyes now. Harry braces himself. This looks like it’s about to turn into a lecture or scolding the way he’s got from some of the professors about the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Professor Sprout and a few others just look at him with disappointed eyes, though.

But Moody says, “I want to know who told you the Tri-Wizard Tournament kills everyone who participates in it, Potter.”

“Uh. What?”

“I said,” Moody says, and stumps forwards with a crashing sound from his wooden leg, “who told you—”

“Right. I heard that part, sir. And no one told me that.”

Moody pauses. His magical blue eye zooms around his face and then comes back to the front to focus on Harry. “Then why are you opposing it?”

Harry stares at Moody, sort of appalled. But then again, Moody was an Auror. He might be too used to death to think much about it. “Even some people dying is terrible, sir. I don’t want that to happen.”

“The Tri-Wizard Tournament is essential for international magical unity.” Moody folds his arms and glares down his scarred nose at Harry. “When You-Know-Who returns, we’re going to need every wand we can get!”

“Then wouldn’t it be better for British Aurors to reach out to Aurors in other countries, sir? Not just schoolkids?”

Moody slowly shakes his head. “You have no idea about the larger ramifications of the situation, Potter,” he says. “But you’ve chosen to paint yourself as a political leader, and that means you’ll take the consequences that come with that. Detention, every night from seven to nine, from now until you relent and let the Tournament come to Hogwarts.”

“Detention for what?” Harry snaps, losing his temper so badly that he feels Ahalam wriggle anxiously in his robe pocket. “Being a moral person?”

“Cheek,” Moody rumbles. “And ten points from Gryffindor, Potter.”

Harry stares at him in silent outrage, but Moody is already turning away, growling, “Dismissed.”

Harry clenches his fists and steps out into the corridor. At least the others have taken him at his word and left. Harry stalks down the corridors. Some people still glare at him, but no one is hexing him anymore.

He knows he could tell someone, and they would help him take care of the problem. Well, his friends, anyway. His “followers.” Not the other professors.

But the Slytherins and the twins took care of Snape for him last year, and Justin and Susan and Theo worked on Dumbledore, and Oliver gave him a place to stay for the summer. Harry feels embarrassed at the thought of telling them about this, when he should be able to handle it on his own.

I can’t rely on other people all the time. They shouldn’t have to protect me all the time. They’ll just start thinking I’m weak, the way Padma said.

He needs to come up with something to get revenge on Moody, since Harry doesn’t think he can change his mind. But what—

Then Harry stops in the middle of the corridor, and a truly wicked smile crosses his face. Well, he assumes so, anyway. It feels like that. He doesn’t have a mirror.

He hasn’t been in Moody’s office yet, but the twins have—of course—and they told Harry about the Foe-Glass Moody has, and the various Dark detectors, and lots of other silver objects that apparently rival the number in Dumbledore’s office.

Harry has an Invisibility Cloak, and he can sneak up to Moody’s office undetected, if not actually into it.

And he has a Niffler who would love a chance to be turned loose in an office full of shiny things.