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lomonaaeren ([personal profile] lomonaaeren) wrote2022-12-31 11:16 pm

[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Thou Shalt Have No Tournaments Before Me, 6/7, gen



Thank you again for all the reviews!

Part Six

“Who are you taking to the Yule Ball, Harry?”

“I’m not going.”

“You can’t just say that and not tell us, mate! We’re your best friends. And the Ball is tomorrow.

“I’m not keeping anything from you, because I won’t show up with a last-minute date or whatever. I’m not going.”

“Harry, I think Professor McGonagall—”

“Might just frog-march you down there if you don’t show up yourself—”

“Excuse me, please?”

People turn around and blink. Harry turns around and buries his head in his hands. One glimpse is enough. Ernie is standing up at the Hufflepuff table with a stern expression, his hands folded behind his back.

Oh, no. Harry doesn’t even know what Ernie is going to announce, and he’s still certain that it deserves that phrase.

“Yes, Mr. Macmillan?” Dumbledore is the one to ask. Harry wonders whether Dumbledore is genuinely curious or thinks that the announcement is going to relate to the Yule Ball or the schools’ competition.

It does. But not in the way that anyone except Harry can anticipate, because no one else has the premonition of forthcoming disaster.

“Thank you, Headmaster.” Ernie turns around and looks at every one of the student tables, then turns back to the professors’ table. The Great Hall is pretty quiet because of what seems to be sheer curiosity about a Hufflepuff fourth-year student talking like this, but Harry thinks Ernie also has some kind of modified Sonorus Charm on. “I witnessed something last night that made me change the way I think.”

“He’s not going to tell anyone about Crabbe, is he?” Hermione hisses.

“He’d better not.”

Ron sounds murderous. Harry waves a hand frantically at him before they reveal the secret of Crabbe all by themselves.

“It was an act of bravery and sacrifice and refusing power that he could have taken, by Lord Slytherin.” Ernie raises his chin. Harry is already learning to dread those moments. “Like, I’m sure, many people here, I’ve told myself over and over that I don’t have to do anything to address injustice. I always told myself it was a lack of power. If I was stronger magically or politically, then I would do something about it.

“And Lord Slytherin has the power to accomplish that. So there are a lot of people who’ve come to rely on him in the last thirteen months.”

Trust Ernie to be precise about it when making an announcement like this, Harry thinks irritably, when some people crane their necks towards him.

“But last night, he reminded me that fighting injustice is, in fact, not always dependent on power. Everyone might not be able to do everything, or as much as other people, but we can do something.” Ernie’s chin lifts higher, to the point that Harry doesn’t know why his neck doesn’t hurt. “I’m going to stop putting off some of the things I can do but didn’t do because I was lazy or afraid. Lord Slytherin makes me ashamed.

“I’m going to try to do more. I call on everyone here who held back because of thinking they needed more power to join me, to try and find out what they can do, and to ask Lord Slytherin for advice if they run into trouble or have questions. Or you can ask me. I have some ideas. Thank you.”

Ernie sits down, looking very pleased with himself. Whispers and murmurs and arguments and outright shouts spring up all around the Great Hall. Susan and Hannah and Justin, meanwhile, are nodding as if this makes any bloody sense.

The badgers are plotting?” Ahalam asks, lifting his head to look over Harry’s. He’s understood that the Hufflepuffs’ symbol is a badger, but he still sounds doubtful. “I thought they did not plot. I thought they dug in and waited. And complained about Quidditch. Why are they plotting? What are they plotting? Why do you smell exasperated? Did you know that I could smell exasperation? I am very smart.

Harry strokes Ahalam’s back and sighs. “It’s great that you can smell that, Ahalam.

Providing his snake with uncomplicated answers and praise makes Ahalam happy.

At least Harry can do that, when numerous other people look unhappy with him.

*

“I think you really need to think about the reasonable limits of your power, Harry.”

Of all people, Harry didn’t expect Angelina to be the one to bring that up to him. Of course, she’s not one of the people in his circle, so mostly they only worked together to create the Quidditch demonstration, but she seemed happy enough to have Quidditch back. “Er, okay? What do you mean?”

Angelina looks at him soberly. Harry is on a couch in the Gryffindor common room playing chess with Ron and waiting for Hermione to come down the stairs to go to the Yule Ball. Other people are watching, of course, because they always are, and because for some reason, they’re obsessed with how Harry is going to get out of going to the Yule Ball.

(Harry told them he wasn’t going. And he isn’t dressed up in formal robes or anything. He doesn’t know why so many people are curious about the method).

“I mean that I’ve read books and studied more history than most people, because I’m Muggleborn.” Angelina sits down on another couch facing him. “And I know that lords aren’t a good idea and tons of people have fought revolutions to get rid of them.”

Harry leans forwards. “Do you think you could come up with some other method than the Lord Slytherin title to protect the students in the school?”

“What?” Angelina blinks at him. “Of course I could. They exist. They’re called rules and professors.”

“But Dumbledore wanted to hold the Tri-Wizard Tournament here, and Professor McGonagall and the others didn’t see anything wrong with that.”

“I’m sure they would have taken precautions to keep people safe.”

Really? After they didn’t stop the Petrifications two years ago, or keep Sirius Black from sneaking into the school last year?”

“Sirius Black turned out to be innocent, I thought.”

“Well, right, but the Ministry and the professors didn’t know that at the time. And they didn’t catch the fugitive Animagus Death Eater who had been here for years either, did they?”

Angelina frowns and taps her fingers on her knee. “I thought a certain amount of danger was just—inherent to magic, I suppose. People fall off their Quidditch brooms all the time and it doesn’t matter because Madam Pomfrey can just patch them up.”

“I had to spend all night in the hospital wing before because of losing bones in my right arm and Dementors, remember?”

“I thought…” Angelina trails off. “Well, I suppose I thought that just one student suffering from that kind of thing is pretty good.”

“Sure,” Harry says, ignoring the way that Ron swells up like a bullfrog, “but the Tournament would have put a lot more people in danger. And I don’t really trust the professors to just randomly protect the students anymore after they pulled that.”

“Hm.” Angelina nods and stands up. “I suppose I can see your perspective, Harry. But I’ll be keeping an eye on you just in case you start doing objectionable things.”

“Sure. Thanks, Angelina.”

She gives him a slightly surprised look as she walks away, and Ron pounces on him immediately after she steps out of the common room. “What was that, mate? Were you really agreeing with her that putting you in danger is a good idea?”

“Compared to putting lots of people in danger? Sure.”

“But you shouldn’t be!”

“I know, Ron. I don’t want to be, either.” Harry pushes past the look of insulted disbelief Ron gives him. “I promise. But Angelina isn’t really close to me or someone who’s relying on the title of Lord Slytherin to protect her from her parents or something like that. She doesn’t have any reason to see it as a bad thing if I’m the only one in danger.”

“I’m starting to agree with Macmillan,” Ron says darkly.

“What?”

“Never mind, you wouldn’t get it,” Ron says, and goes on before Harry can protest that he would too get it and Ron should trust him. “How are you going to avoid going to the Yule Ball? You know that Professor McGonagall said she would come and drag you out of the common room if you tried to not show up.”

Harry smiles.

*

“Mr. Potter, as one of the leaders of the Quidditch demonstration, you do need to attend the Yule Ball.”

“Why, professor?”

“Because those are the rules that were originally put in place for the Tri-Wizard Tournament—”

“But the Tournament never happened, so abiding by its rules doesn’t make sense.”

Professor McGonagall slowly shakes her head back and forth for a second, as if saying that she’s too tired to deal with Harry right now. Then she reaches for his arm. Maybe she thinks magic is less likely to work.

A stone wall grows up out of the floor and stands between Harry and Professor McGonagall.

There’s a low murmur of excitement and interest from around the room. Most people are dressed up but haven’t left for the Yule Ball yet, since the demonstration leaders (not Champions) needed to be there earlier than other people. McGonagall herself just stares at the stone wall as if she thinks that someone conjured it.

Her next words confirm that. “Whoever did that, please cease to interfere,” she says, glancing around the common room and making more than one person look away. “Mr. Potter needs to go the Yule Ball.”

“I don’t have any robes, professor.”

“I will Transfigure you some.”

“I don’t have any date, professor.”

“Then you will simply have to dance by yourself, Mr. Potter,” Professor McGonagall says, and steps around the stone wall to reach for him again.

Another stone wall grows up between them. Professor McGonagall starts and casts a spell at it that Harry supposes is meant to destroy it, or Transfigure it into something else. It doesn’t work. The spell fades and the stone wall is still standing there.

“Who is doing this, and why?” Professor McGonagall gives another slow glance around the common room, even though Harry is pretty sure even the seventh-years in their House aren’t as strong as she is.

“I just don’t want to go to the Yule Ball, professor.”

“Mr. Potter, if you are somehow doing this—”

“How, professor? I don’t even have my wand out. And you know that I’m not the best student in Transfiguration.”

“That is true enough,” Professor McGonagall mutters, which is a little irritating. But Harry decides to be happy that she believed him instead. “Well, Mr. Potter, you will still have to go to the Yule Ball. It will be good for you to do as you are told for once.” She makes a little gesture with her wand, a familiar-looking swish and flick with an added jab at the end.

Harry starts to float off the couch. One of the couch arms promptly reaches up, forms into a hand, and yanks him back.

“Mr. Potter!”

“I promise I’m not doing any spell or anything, Professor McGonagall. Promise.”

And Harry isn’t. He’s just sitting there and thinking about how he doesn’t want to go to the Yule Ball, and Hogwarts is defending him.

McGonagall tries several more spells, including ones that Harry thinks are meant to skid the couch he’s sitting on around the stone walls, get herself over them, float the couch in midair, and create some sort of transportation effect between him and the door to the common room. Nothing works. She looks exhausted by the time she stops. Harry looks innocently back at her.

“I suppose you will not be attending the Yule Ball, then,” Professor McGonagall says at last.

“Yes, that’s what I was trying to tell you, professor.”

McGonagall turns and leaves. Hermione looks as if she doesn’t know whether to disapprove or not, but in the end, she has to leave for her dance with Krum, so she doesn’t have the choice to quiz him. Neville is on his way to the Ball with Ginny, but he lingers for a moment by the couch.

“Why did you take dancing lessons if you weren’t going to the Ball?” he asks.

Harry grins. “There was no point in warning her ahead of time, was there?”

Neville laughs, looking a lot like he wonders if he shouldn’t, before he leaves. Ron wanders over and sits down on the couch next to him. He couldn’t find someone he wanted to go to the Ball with and he finds his dress robes embarrassing, so Harry always knew he intended to stay.

“What do you think they’ll say when they find out you can command Hogwarts?” Ron asks.

“I don’t command it. I just want things and it decides how to fulfill those wants.”

“That isn’t an important distinction.”

“It is to me.”

Ron sighs.

*

Harry blinks his eyes open and looks around, confused. The last thing he remembers is falling asleep in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place after opening so many presents from Sirius that they’ll probably need to build another room onto the house just to contain them all. He didn’t expect to be…

Where is he, anyway?

The room seems to have five beds in it, which makes him think of the Gryffindor boys’ bedroom at Hogwarts, but this is definitely not that. This room is quiet, with only one fire that’s burning down low, and dark green walls and dark green curtains on the beds. And only one bed is occupied, by someone who’s shaking.

Harry walks slowly towards him, convinced he knows where he is now, even if he doesn’t know how he got there.

Crabbe rolls over on his side and stares at Harry. His eyes are wide and confused, and he’s knuckling tears away. “What are you doing here?” he whispers.

“I don’t know.” Harry sits down on the side of the bed. “Why are you crying?”

For a long minute, he thinks Crabbe won’t answer, but finally Crabbe whispers, “I was having a dream about being home for Christmas with my mum and dad. My mum always makes cocoa and won’t let the elves do it. My dad…” He trails off.

“Hey, it’s okay to miss them.” Harry reaches out and puts a gentle hand on Crabbe’s shoulder. “I think your dad isn’t a total bastard.” Well, Harry does think that, actually, but he does think that maybe he’s one percent not a bastard, which probably still counts.

Crabbe shudders. Then he says, “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Okay.” Harry looks around and notices a small bowl of Floo powder on the fireplace mantel, which makes him snort a little. Yeah, of course the Slytherins are connected to the Floo. Theo and Draco and Blaise haven’t mentioned it, but it’s the sort of detail that might slip their minds because they would assume every House was as spoiled as theirs. “I’ll sleep over here in this bed for tonight, okay?”

“That’s Draco’s bed.” Crabbe seems a little shocked.

“But he went home for Christmas, right?” Harry asks, and waits until Crabbe nods. “So he won’t mind me using it.” Draco would probably be thrilled, even, and make some sort of comment about how Harry was finally exercising his Lordly privilege or whatever. “He might not even know.”

“Draco knows if people touch his stuff.”

“But this will just be for tonight, and then I’ll use the Floo powder in the morning and go back home.” It feels a little weird to call Grimmauld Place home, but that’s what it is for now. Harry and Sirius and Remus haven’t decided if they should live someplace else yet or not.

“Where do you live?”

“In the old Black family home with Sirius Black. He’s my guardian.”

“Wicked!” Crabbe practically bounces in his bed. “Did he teach you all those spells he murdered the Muggles with?”

“You remember that he was found innocent, right?”

“The Wizengamot always says they’re innocent, though. Unless they’re like the Lestranges and just proclaim that they love the Dark Lord and did it all on purpose. They found Lucius Malfoy innocent and D-Dad…” Crabbe swallows for a second and goes on. “So I thought Black still murdered the Muggles.”

Harry settles in for a long night.

*

Neither Sirius nor Hermione nor anyone else Harry asks can figure out why he would have been Apparated to the Slytherin dormitory in the middle of the night. He just thinks that since he could come home by the Floo in the morning, it’s not a big deal.

Theo and Draco seem to think it is a very big deal, but they don’t have any ideas, either. Harry continues to ignore it.

*

“Let’s go.”

Harry sighs as he follows Oliver across the Quidditch pitch to where the Beauxbatons students are practicing for their fire magic demonstration. He doesn’t think this is a good idea.

But no one can convince Oliver that anything related to Quidditch isn’t a good idea, and Harry will feel bad if he talks to the Beauxbatons contingent alone and gets scorned for it. It doesn’t matter that Oliver is older than Harry and had this idea all by himself. Harry still wants to protect him.

It seems for long moments as if they’ll get ignored instead of scorned, given that the patterns of unfolding fire keep going and the Beauxbatons students are all concentrating on them, but in the end, the tall girl with the pale hair and the Veela heritage comes over.

“Yes?” Delacour says, studying them both as if they’re mildly interesting bugs.

“I’m on a professional Quidditch team called Puddlemere United here in Britain, and Harry is training to be a professional Quidditch player,” Oliver says instantly. “It’s hard to find a new challenge most of the time, though, especially when we’re practicing with equipment and people we always practice with.”

“How is that our problem?”

Harry winces and wants to back away, given the hint of a fiery shimmer that’s gathering around Delacour’s hair. Oliver doesn’t appear to have noticed. “It’s not your problem, but I hoped you would let me help with your demonstration. And Harry could watch.”

“You are trying to interfere to help Hogwarts win this competition.” Delacour tosses her thick silver hair over her shoulder. “I will not be allowing it.”

“I’m not a Hogwarts student,” Oliver insists. “I just want to practice flying with fire while you try to hit me, because it would make me a better player. And it would make your demonstration more dramatic.”

Delacour stares at him. “You want us to try to…burn you alive.”

“Yes.” Oliver beams at her.

“So you can get…better at Quidditch.”

“That’s exactly right! And so Harry can watch and get better at Quidditch by watching.”

Delacour’s eyes stray towards Harry. Harry tries to look as supportive of Oliver as he can while also looking sane.

“We will have to discuss this more,” Delacour says with a frown, and then goes over to talk to Etienne Dupaix, the other person the Goblet chose to lead the Beauxbatons demonstration.

“We don’t have to do this,” Harry says under his breath as he and Oliver watch the two debate in French. “There are other ways to get better at Quidditch.”

“I’ve reached the limits of my current skills and what my teammates can teach me,” Oliver says firmly. “And you have to make sure that you keep practicing, or you won’t be ready when regular games resume next year. But none of the people here can really give you a challenge.”

“Uh, don’t you see the contradiction in that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I won’t be ready for regular games next year without training with the Beauxbatons students but nobody here can give me a challenge?”

Oliver frowns at him. “Are you saying that you don’t want to be better at Quidditch?”

“No…”

“Then I don’t see the problem.”

Harry sighs. Sometimes he can see the appeal of just acting like an autocratic Lord and stomping around roaring at people.

*

“Harry? What are you doing here?”

Harry doesn’t kick something, but he wants to.

He went to sleep this time in his Gryffindor bed, he knows he did. Ron’s snoring and Neville’s light breathing and Seamus’s constant tossing and turning and Dean’s muttering in his sleep were all around him.

And yet here he is, right in the middle of the Slytherin dormitory again, only this time with a tousled Theo pushing his way up on his elbow to stare at him.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Harry begins, but Crabbe’s timid voice interrupts him.

“Lord Slytherin?”

Harry turns around. Crabbe has crept out of his bed and is keeping his voice down, something Harry wasn’t even aware he knew how to do. His face is woeful and seems to be different, somehow. Harry squints, wishing he could see better, and the fire on the hearth flares up.

Harry’s blood turns cold when he sees the pustules all over Crabbe’s face. They run from one cheek to another and straight across, and they spell out the word TRAITOR.

“Who did this?” Harry whispers. His hand is on his wand, even though he doesn’t remember drawing it.

“I…I got a letter, from, from my dad.”

Harry nods. He should have known, really. “Did you open it at breakfast?” He doesn’t see how, given that someone would surely have noticed, but maybe Crabbe opened it after most people left for classes.

“No. He sent it to me this morning but I waited until now…”

Harry is at least relieved that Crabbe hasn’t been suffering with this painful, humiliating thing all day. He steps closer and glares at the pustules. That changes nothing, and he doesn’t know any healing spells, but he also doesn’t know if it will do any good to take Crabbe to Madam Pomfrey.

“I want those to heal,” Harry says, and taps his foot a little on the thick green rug as he contemplates Crabbe’s face. If Hogwarts can’t heal this curse, after all the other things it’s managed to do, then he won’t think much of it.

The rug seems to shiver beneath his feet, and the walls to shiver around him. Then the whirl of light from the fire curls into the air, and storms straight at Harry. Harry finds his wand moving in patterns that he doesn’t know, an unfamiliar incantation burning on his tongue.

The rush of magic leaves him, not as strong as the night when he swore to defend Crabbe, and Harry sags a little. The pustules on Crabbe’s face dry up and drop off, making a patter and crush of scabs on the floor. Theo draws his wand and Vanishes everything with a disgusted sound.

Crabbe stares down and then lifts his hand to feel at his face. His lip quivers. “Thank you,” he whispers, and then he bursts into tears.

That, of course, wakes everyone up, although at least Goyle only hovers on the edges of the group and looks awkward instead of making trouble. Harry tries putting his arm around Crabbe, but that only makes him pull away and try to get on his knees, which Harry doesn’t like. In the end, Harry summons a house-elf to give Crabbe a cup of warm milk and bundle him into bed. Crabbe turns his head towards Harry with a faint smile.

“Thank you, Lord Slytherin. You’re always here when I need you.”

“You don’t need to call me Lord Slytherin.”

“Okay, Lord Slytherin.”

“Harry,” Theo says in a high voice, “can I talk to you?”

Harry gives him a confused look. He was going to take his chances sneaking out of the Slytherin common room and up through the dungeons, since he doesn’t have his Cloak with him. “Okay? Walk with me to the Tower?”

Theo gives him a clipped nod, and they head out as Crabbe slips into sleep. Draco and Blaise are complaining that they can’t get back to sleep, and Goyle has drawn his curtains about his bed. At least Theo’s voice is bound to be more pleasant than complaining or snoring.

*

“No.”

“But it is your oath to Crabbe that’s bringing you to our dormitory! It has to be! You promised that you would Apparate to his side if he needed you! And you just show up there without any warning, and each time he needs you! Or thinks he does.”

“Yes, I believe you about that, Theo.”

“Then you should believe that you need to change the oath so it doesn’t happen.

“No. Then something like that awful letter from his father could happen and I might not know or be able to do anything about it.”

“But bringing you to our dormitory and then having to have you sneak out again puts you in danger! Change the oath.”

“No.”



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