Chapter Eleven of 'Chrysalis'- Spoken and Unspoken Conversations

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Eleven—Spoken and Unspoken Conversations

“I’m still angry that you did that to yourself.”

Harry’s voice is curt as he forces the healing potion down Theo’s throat. Theo did think about saying that he didn’t need it, that the effects of the curse are already faded, but took one look at Harry’s face and decided not to.

“You’re so stupid,” Harry explains to no one as he steps back and casts a diagnostic charm. Theo has no idea where he learned it. He scans the flickering runes above Theo’s body and nods curtly. “Yes, okay, fine, you’re fine, but stupid.”

“You understand why I had to do it.”

“Yes, but it was a stupid move to make a political point. You’re smart, Theo. Don’t tell me that you couldn’t have made it another way.”

“Yes, but not as quickly, and not with as much evidence as there will now be to send the memory to Amelia Bones.” Theo shrugs and stretches out on his bed. Harry pulled Theo determinedly into the bedroom almost the second they came back from the gates. In other circumstances, Theo would be having interesting thoughts, but he knows that Harry won’t let anything like that happen right now. “When we send the memory, Mrs. Longbottom will have to stop harassing Longbottom to come home.”

“You didn’t do it for Neville. You did it for me.”

Theo blinks up at Harry. One of the side-effects of the potions he’s drunk is a slight haziness to his vision, but he can see the grim expression on Harry’s face easily enough. “Yes,” he says slowly. “Is that a problem? It’s rather late in the day to ask me to care about other people like a Hufflepuff—”

“No, Theo, that’s not—” Harry leans back and runs a hand through his hair, looking completely exasperated. “I love you, you know that?”

“Of course I do. I love you as well.”

Normally Harry goes all soft-faced and happy when Theo says that, but only a flicker of that crosses his expression now. He shakes his head. “Listen to me. I know you love me. I know you want to do things for me. But you don’t need to prove it by taking stupid risks. Okay? I’m not going to love you any less because you didn’t figure out all by yourself how Neville could stay here and be safe from his grandmother.”

Theo blinks, and blinks again. “What are you saying?”

“Stop taking risks like that,” Harry says, leaning towards him. “I want you to be safe. I love you, too! I don’t want you to feel like you have to constantly prove yourself worthy of me or whatever you’re doing!”

At the moment, Theo thinks he knows what Black must have felt like when Harry told him the source of some of his problems. Namely, winded.

“I—I wasn’t doing that,” he says, although the way his mind is tumbling along like a slow cloud through a windstorm, he doesn’t know if he means what he says.

“Of course you weren’t.”

From the withering glance Harry gives him, he doesn’t accept Theo’s argument any more than he accepted Black’s arguments. Theo glares a little, feeling as though Harry is pushing him towards a fight he doesn’t want to have. “I wasn’t!”

“You thought you could take risks with your life and health. You didn’t know she would shoot a curse at you that you could resist!”

“I didn’t know. I just thought it likely.”

“That makes it worse, Theo, not better!”

Theo folds his arms, and then feels ridiculous, since he’s lying on his back in a bed. But he doesn’t drop them. “So, what, you’re allowed to risk your life for any reason at all and I’m not?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You risked your life when you flew against the dragon in the Tournament,” Theo says. “And when you rescued Black in your third year. And when you went up against the basilisk. And when you—”

“Yes, yes, all right,” Harry says, and runs his hand through his hair, making it fluff up more wildly than ever. Theo wants to drag him down and kiss his hair smooth, then do other things. “But I did have reasons for what I did. Good reasons.”

“So did I.”

“Oh.” Harry pauses, looking a little embarrassed, and Theo feels a flicker of satisfaction. “Well. Just—don’t take that kind of risk anymore, okay? Not for me, and not for Neville. And I’ll try not to take the kind of risk that I have anymore, either.”

Theo muffles a snort. He trusts that promise to last only until the next time that Harry sees someone in danger. But it costs him nothing to nod solemnly now, and reach out, squeezing Harry’s hand. “I promise.”

At least Harry smiles in relief and leans down to give Theo one of those kisses he was thinking about, and that’s worth a small lie.

*

“I saw that memory.”

“Yes, I know you did, Black,” Theo says absently, squinting down at the memory in the Pensieve. He’s watched it through five times, each time looking for different aspects that might make him look bad to Amelia Bones or give away secrets about the Nott wards that he doesn’t want her to know, and he’s satisfied there’s really nothing. “I was there when Harry showed it to you.”

Black gave him a morose look and slunk out of the room at the time. Harry went after him. Theo considers it an improvement since Black didn’t actually turn into a dog and run away.

“I didn’t—no one made you go out there and do that. Neville isn’t your friend.”

“Huh,” Theo says, as he carefully copies the memory with a powerful charm that will duplicate the liquid substance in the Pensieve. Theo can safely absorb the memory back that way, and the one in the basin won’t receive any coloring from the inside of his head.

“Are you listening to me, Nott?”

“Not really, Black.”

“Why did you do it?”

Apparently Black is not going to go away until Theo answers his question. Theo turns to him with strained patience. “Because Neville is Harry’s friend, and he was in danger from his grandmother.”

“But you didn’t have to.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You don’t consider Neville a friend.”

Theo hesitates, then shrugs. “Not like Harry.”

Black scowls harder at him. Theo just raises his eyebrows in polite disbelief. Is Black going to act as though he has the right to ask about Theo’s feelings, when Theo hasn’t even explained them in detail to Harry or Longbottom?

“You’re confusing and I don’t understand you.”

“You’re petulant and I wish I didn’t have to spend time with you.”

Black looks briefly startled. Then he says, “But you’re spending time with me for Harry’s sake.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Theo says, sort of glad that Black has understood. If nothing else, maybe it will make him stop wasting Theo’s time with stupid questions. “The same thing happened with Neville. I knew that Harry would be upset if Neville was upset, so I went out there and stopped his grandmother.”

“She’ll go to Amelia Bones, too.”

Theo shrugs. He’s the one who will be sending a memory, which he doubts Augusta Longbottom would risk when the truth would just make her look bad. “Then she will. I’m sure Madam Bones is capable of telling the difference between the truth and a self-serving lie.” He carefully picks up the crystal vial he has waiting and decants the memory copy into it.

“Does nothing rattle you?” Black bursts out, after Theo has capped the vial and lifted the memory from the Pensieve back into his own head.

At least he waited that long, Theo thinks in brief exasperation, before turning and frowning at the stupid idiot he’s been saddled with. “Of course. Harry being hurt, or being unhappy. But unlike certain people, I don’t scream my dissatisfaction for all the world to hear or turn into a dog and run away. I just set about making things better.”

Black looks away and slouches out of the room. Theo shrugs and goes to the owlery to send the memory to Amelia Bones, smiling a little as he thinks of what her face will look like when she watches it.

*

“Th-thank you, Nott.”

It’s Longbottom, all formal and trembling with his hands clasped behind his back. Theo eyes him and hates Augusta Longbottom a little more. “You’re welcome,” he says quietly, inclining his head before turning back to the book of Transfiguration theory spread out in front of him.

He thinks Longbottom will leave, but instead, the boy clears his throat and steps into the library. “H-Harry said you w-were a really good tutor.”

Theo blinks. “I—didn’t really tutor him in anything except ways to anger the Headmaster,” he says, surprised into being honest.

“And ways to stand up for himself. R-right?”

“That wasn’t formal tutoring.”

“But you managed it.” Longbottom sits down in the chair in the middle of the library and stares at him, apparently not to be driven away. Theo wonders why he can’t just stand up to his grandmother on his own if he has this much of a spine, but he has to admit she’s probably shown Longbottom plenty to be afraid of. Theo could, too, but he won’t. “I w-want you to teach me, too.”

“I provided encouragement, not tutoring.”

“C-can you encourage me?”

Longbottom’s lower lip is right on the edge of trembling. Theo carefully bites back his sigh. “I told Harry that he had a lot to stand up for, and it helped that most of the school had turned against him because of the Tournament thing. Otherwise, he might never have listened to me or spent time around a Slytherin at all. Is there a reason you need to speak to me instead of Harry?”

“He’s intimidating.”

Theo stares at Longbottom, but the effort is rather wasted when Longbottom himself is staring at his hands in his lap. “Harry is?”

“Y-yes.” Longbottom flinches a little, maybe thinking Theo is about to sneer at him, but plows on. “He’s so powerful, you know? He outflew a dragon! And he battled a basilisk and faced down Y-You-Know-Who and he’s so busy with Black…I just don’t want to bother him.”

“I intimidated your grandmother.”

“You tricked her. That’s different.”

You brought this on yourself, Theo thinks gloomily. “Yes, all right, Longbottom, we’ll try. What about your grandmother bothers you most? Her tone, her actual words, the way she treats you at home?”

Longbottom licks his lips and tries to speak several times. He fails. Theo grips hold of himself with an iron patience and sits still. He got through his father’s lessons, which were designed for a much stupider sort of heir, even if he had to do it by fantasizing about killing his father. He can do this, too.

“The way she c-compares me to my dad,” Longbottom finally whispers.

Theo frowns. He doesn’t know much about Frank Longbottom beyond the obvious, his name and his wife’s name and the fact that the Lestranges and Crouch tortured them to insanity in 1981. “Why does she do that?”

“He-he was p-perfect.”

Theo almost says something impatient, but Longbottom has his eyes squeezed tightly shut, and it would be cruel to interrupt. Besides, he knows that Longbottom doesn’t really believe that. It’s his grandmother. Theo waits in silence.

“He was so smart,” Longbottom whispers. “So courageous. I kn-know that Gran d-doesn’t really believe that I belong in Gryffindor. Dad was always standing up against something.”

“What did he stand for?”

“What?” Longbottom cranks open his eyes and stares at Theo.

Theo is sort of regretting saying it now, because it might be cruel in its own way, but he has to continue as he began. “What did he believe in? What did he fight for? If he just opposed everyone all the time, that sounds like an idiot to me.”

Longbottom’s mouth falls open. He doesn’t immediately protest that his father wasn’t an idiot, which is interesting, given what he just said about his father’s intelligence. “I know that he fought the Death Eaters.”

“Did he fight them while he was still in school?”

“I th-think so. Gran talked a few times about how he sneaked off Hogwarts grounds when he was in his sixth year to fight them.”

Theo doesn’t drop his head into his hands, but he wants to. Harry fights back because he has no choice. Given the chance, Theo knows that Harry would choose to be an ordinary kid in a heartbeat. And here’s the apparently perfect Gryffindor putting himself right in the middle of the fight as a not even fully-trained student.

“You see how great he was.”

Longbottom sounds defeated, but at least the stuttering has stopped. Theo looks up and shakes his head. “No, I see more evidence of stupidity. Or at least foolhardiness. He wouldn’t have known what he was doing. He might have got in the way of experienced Aurors. Or he might have died young as easily as lived.”

“Anyway,” Longbottom says, after another moment of silence when he seems to be struggling to understand that possibility, “you see why Gran thinks I can never live up to him.”

“I can see it, but I think her reasoning is flawed,” Theo says coolly. “She had one of him. She doesn’t need another one.”

Longbottom blinks. “What?”

Theo holds back a sharp sigh. He knows that Longbottom isn’t stupid, just cowed by his grandmother, but he resents that Augusta Longbottom manages that even when she isn’t present. She doesn’t deserve to manage it at all, let alone now. “She had her perfect son. You’re her grandson, and you’re fine in your own way.”

“You don’t say perfect.”

“I don’t think anyone is perfect, Longbottom.”

“I think the way you feel about Harry comes close.”

Theo smiles a little, but shakes his head. “Harry is far too reckless and forgiving and prone to doing things that put us both in danger. I could have chosen a better boyfriend if I’d really had a choice.” He keeps to himself that he was his own manipulator in falling in love with Harry. That’s not the kind of thing Longbottom needs to know.

Longbottom swings his legs a little. “Huh. So you really think that I don’t have to live up to my dad?”

“No, of course not. She’s been wrong to tell you that you have to, Longbottom. You’ve been trying all your life, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.” Longbottom looks as if he might slump again.

“So that just proves that she’s stupid, because she keeps expecting you to, and you’ve tried your hardest, and you won’t. So you should try something else. So should she, but she’s so stubborn that she’s the next thing to stupid. She won’t listen. You’ll have to force the issue.”

“No one’s ever called Gran stupid before,” Longbottom observes, after a long moment of stunned silence.

Theo leans back and shrugs. “Get used to it. That’s the kind of thing I can see myself doing a lot as the days progress.”

“Then you’ll help me?”

“Build up your self-confidence?”

Longbottom nods, his eyes so big and hopeful that Theo is reminded of a rabbit his father once promised Theo he could keep as a pet, before he did—something else to it. “Yes. Please, Nott? You’re incredible. You’re so confident all the time! And Harry’s got better at it since he’s been with you.”

Theo might have refused, but that mention of Harry melts some of his defenses. He would probably have kept up the refusal if it had been Granger or Weasley besieging him, he reassures himself. Someone who would be bad for Harry’s self-confidence. “Yes, all right. We’ll talk a few times a week, okay?”

Longbottom beams at him. “W-Would you call me Neville?”

This is probably the part where they cross the invisible line of friendship, as Theo admits to himself later. He nods. “Call me Theo.”

And he does have a friend other than Blaise, after all.

*

Theo gives a hard smile when he sees the tawny owl winging towards him at the breakfast table with a fat letter clutched in one talon. That’s going to be Amelia Bones’s answer, he’s pretty sure. He’s seen that same owl bringing letters to Susan Bones a time or two.

“That’s from Madam Bones?” Blaise is the only one lingering at the breakfast table with him, because he’s greedy for blood oranges.

“Yes,” Theo says softly, smiling at the seal of the DMLE as the owl lands on the table next to him and extends its talon with haughty indifference. He pulls out a fat, dead mouse from his pocket, where it’s been waiting under a Preservation Charm, and flicks it at the owl. The owl clicks its beak open and grabs the rodent from the air, swallowing it head-first. Then it considers Theo with a slightly less jaundiced eye before taking flight again.

“What does it say?”

“I thought you didn’t care?” That’s what Blaise has been insisting whenever Harry or Black is around.

Blaise rolls his eyes. “You know very well I do. It’s just that someone has to provide the ballast so you don’t float off into the clouds after Potter.”

“Do I look like I’m about to do that?”

Theo’s asked the question in his soft, dangerous voice, but Blaise just snorts at him. “I’ve known you since we were eleven, Theo. Really known you. Come on. You know that you can’t put me off with that. And yes, I think you’re making a fool of yourself over Potter. I think he’ll break your heart, not because he’s trying, just because he’s who he is, and eventually one of you is going to go where the other can’t follow.”

Theo says nothing as he slits open the letter, but he nods a little to let Blaise knows he’s heard him. “You never did explain why your mother left you here for this long.”

A long silence, and he thinks Blaise won’t answer him. But then he sighs and says, “She’s being courted by Death Eaters.”

Theo hisses, long and low.

He’s no Parselmouth, and Blaise only sighs again. “Yeah. She wanted me out of the way for that. Didn’t want anyone thinking they could make me a target.”

Theo knows what that means. Blaise will defend himself if he has to. He’ll curse anyone he has to in self-defense, run from any fight. His mother has made sure that he knows how to hide. But at heart, Blaise isn’t a killer. And his mother has fought long and hard to ensure that he’ll never have to.

“She swore an alliance with me and Harry easily enough.”

“She’s decided not to entertain their offer. But you know as well as I do that she has to make sure they don’t know that.”

Blaise’s eyes and face are heavy with knowledge. Theo reaches out and curls a hand around his best friend’s wrist. Blaise closes his eyes and his fingers, too, clasping Theo’s hand so hard that it slowly goes numb.

Blaise takes a deep breath and sits back, shaking his head with a small smile. “All right. You waited for that letter. I need to stop distracting you from it.”

“My friends are never a distraction.”

Blaise’s smile this time lights up his eyes, which Theo knows, better than anyone else, is a rare occurrence. “Well, read it.”

Theo reads through the letter carefully, his eyebrows rising. “There’s going to be a Wizengamot inquiry into Mrs. Longbottom.”

“What? The full Wizengamot? Like they did for Black’s trial?”

“Yes. I just expected a minor reprimand from the DMLE, one that we could use to keep her away from Neville. Not this.”

“Sounds like Madam Bones has some game of her own.”

Theo nods slowly. It does sound like that, and he doesn’t know what the result will be.

He’s not sure he likes it.