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Chapter Ten—Bargains

“Why have you been spending so much time with Potter?”

Theo was a little surprised that his fellow Slytherins had taken so long to approach him about this, and more surprised that it was Pansy who’d asked. They had been close in their second and third years, but hadn’t talked much since then. He eyed her thoughtfully. She was sitting on the chair across from his in Theo’s own dark corner of the common room, spinning a strand of black hair around one finger.

Her eyes were not at all casual.

“For reasons I don’t think you’ll understand,” said Theo. He might as well warn her.

Pansy’s mouth pulled in a little. “If you think I’m stupid—”

Theo managed to restrain a sigh. “It’s not that. It’s because my reasons are personal, and I’ve come to regret bullying Potter. I reckon you haven’t, so it won’t make sense.”

Pansy sat up slowly. Theo watched her, one hand resting close enough to his wand holster to draw it in an instant. But Pansy was just blinking and looking at him as if Theo had changed into a mooncalf when she wasn’t looking.

“Why would you ever change your mind?”

“Because I ruined what could have been a great wizard,” Theo said. It wasn’t his place to tell her that Potter was still a great wizard. “He showed me his potential, and how I was responsible for crippling it. I regret that.”

“But if you destroyed a rival…”

Theo laughed before he could stop himself, and saw more than one head snap in their direction. He ignored them as best he could. “I wasn’t bullying him because he was a rival, Pansy. That wouldn’t be great either, but it would be more understandable. I was bullying him because he was a half-blood and I was bored.”

Pansy’s mouth got smaller still. “You think his blood status doesn’t matter?”

“Not next to his magical power.” Father had emphasized that again and again, although more in the nature of Theo learning from and then surpassing Muggleborns in school rather than giving up on the ideal of blood purity. There was no reason to disdain someone who could be useful. “You saw what he did to Snape and Malfoy. Are you going to argue he’s weak?”

“Not weak. Soft.”

Theo shook his head slowly. “You’re seeing the wrong things, Pansy.”

“I don’t know what you mean, and I don’t know that I want to know.” Pansy shifted back and forth for a moment, her hand clenching down at her side as if she wanted to reach up and throttle Theo. Or maybe Potter. “Not if it’s made you this.”

“If it’s made me what?”

Pansy looked him straight in the eye, ignoring what some other people would have considered a threat. “This boring version of yourself. You serve someone now. What fun is that?”

Theo blinked. He wondered if he should be surprised that Pansy had seen it before Potter had. Theo had acknowledged it to himself days ago. If Potter called on him, asked him for help, for advice, for defense, then Theo would give it.

He let a slow smile widen across his face. From the way Pansy narrowed her eyes, she hadn’t expected that, either.

“We all serve,” Theo said quietly. “My father served. Draco’s father served. From what you told me, so did your aunt.”

Pansy’s eyes fluttered in a tell of nervousness that most people wouldn’t have picked up on. Theo wondered that she hadn’t corrected it since third year, but then again, she hadn’t had many challenges—or many friends—that would have forced her to do so.

“You’re talking about Potter as if he were a Dark Lord.”

He is more. Theo shrugged. “I’m not saying that he is. I’m saying that you’re so contemptuous of me for choosing to serve, but members of our families have made the same choice in the last twenty years.”

“But you could be on your own. A leader on your own. Someone respected on your own.”

I would never be that. But Theo didn’t intend to share his personal revelations about why with Pansy. “Why would I want to be?”

“Why would you…”

Pansy sounded incredulous. Theo twisted his wand and raised a silent Privacy Charm around them. “Some people want the power because they want to succeed on their own, stand on their own,” he said. “Because they want to accomplish some immense personal or political goal. I don’t want that. I don’t need that.”

“But you if follow someone…” Pansy sounded as if she were speaking about Theo whoring himself out in Knockturn Alley. “You’ll never be any more than their vision for you.”

Theo smiled. He couldn’t help himself. “It’s good that Potter doesn’t have one particular vision for me.”

He had no idea what Potter would end up doing with him, which made it exciting. And Potter obviously didn’t think that he should command Theo, which meant that he was the only one Theo would even consider taking as a Lord.

Pansy closed her eyes for a second, as if trying to meditate her way past this difficulty. Then she shook her head and opened them again. “I came to give you a warning.”

Theo just nodded. He wouldn’t ask about her motivations. Maybe she’d been bored, maybe it was their old friendship, maybe the warning was a trick. But he wouldn’t know until he heard what she had to say.

“Draco’s father is so upset about what happened to him that he’s pulling strings outside the school,” Pansy said softly. “And you’re going to be caught up in it, because you tortured Draco even before Potter broke his wand. Watch out, Theo.”

She stood up and walked away from him, tossing her head. Theo heard her say something to Daphne about regretting sitting there.

Theo leaned back against his chair and thought calmly about the best way to approach Potter with the information. It might not be true, but it made sense, and whether or not they had to prepare now for an assault from Lucius Malfoy, it would be good to plan for the future.

Maybe Potter will allow me to handle it. Or stand in his defense.

Theo closed his eyes. The thought of dueling Lucius Malfoy so that Potter could do other things, or because Potter couldn’t bothered…

Well, it was a good thing he was sitting in a darkened corner, so no one could see him getting hard in the middle of the common room.

*

“Lucius Malfoy will be trying to hurt us.”

Harry started and jerked his eyes up. Nott stood near their usual library table, his head half-inclined.

Harry didn’t know why he hadn’t heard Nott approach. He glanced at his wards strung across the air, and narrowed his eyes. There was a little exception in the proximity alarm, a twist of will and intent that he hadn’t noticed when he made it. It was enough to let Nott approach without sounding the alarm at all.

When did I start trusting him that much?

Harry shook his head and gestured for Nott to sit at the table. He would have to deal with that unwelcome revelation later. Nott had brought more important news that had to be dealt with right away.

“Why us?”

“We both hurt his precious son.”

“Ah. So is this information you got from someone, or just an inference you came up with on your own?”

“Pansy told me.”

“Are you sure that you can trust Parkinson?”

Nott leaned back in his chair a little. His eyes were wide and expressive, when Harry took the time to notice them. Of course, he was still a little concerned about how much he was trusting Nott, and he didn’t necessarily think that he should notice them. “We were friends for a few years, and she acted concerned about me in the first part of the conversation. Her information could be wrong, of course, or she could have lied. But I think it’s worth acting on.”

“Why was she concerned about me?”

“She said that she didn’t know why I was subordinating myself to you.”

Harry felt his own eyes widen. He remained in place, staring at Nott. Nott just sat there and gave no indication that he was concerned himself, or that he’d said anything startling, except that perhaps his breath was a little faster.

“I trusted that you disabused her of the notion?”

“Yes. I said it wasn’t what she thought and that serving someone more powerful than I am had historical precedent.”

Harry started to reply, then paused. “But you didn’t tell her that you weren’t subordinating yourself to me.”

“No. I thought I shouldn’t lie to her, even if her information about Lucius Malfoy was a lie.”

Harry stared at him some more. Nott watched back, eyes calm. Harry was used to finding his face about as expressive as a lizard’s, but there was something more there now, something more alert. As if Harry had been admitted behind some curtain that Nott usually kept drawn under the surface of his eyes.

“Why are you—why would you want to subordinate yourself to me?”

“Because you’re powerful. Because you could have been greater and more confident, and I played a part in making sure you weren’t. Because I find you interesting. Because I think that people like Draco and Snape who continue to deny that you’re a great wizard are infuriating.”

Harry shook his head. “I won’t—become a Dark Lord like You-Know-Who and turn you into a Death Eater, Nott.”

“I told Pansy that it wasn’t all that different from the way members of our families had followed you, but I’m not looking for that. I’d be considerably less interested in following you if that was the case.”

Harry nodded slowly. That was at least something. “You should know that I have no interest in becoming a lord, either.”

“I can still follow you in that case.”

“Why, though, Nott? Is this just your strange attempt at atonement? Because I assume that most of the time, a pureblood wouldn’t be interested in following a half-blood no matter what temptation that half-blood offered.”

Nott laughed a little, a breathless sound that Harry might have thought was a croak if he hadn’t watched Nott doing it. Then he leaned forwards and said, “The other things I told you still matter. You’re interesting and powerful.”

“Power isn’t something you should enslave yourself to.”

“Are you planning to enslave me, Potter?”

After a moment, Harry shook his head. Honestly, he didn’t know why he was arguing so hard. So Nott wanted to be useful? Then Harry would let him be. He would just make sure not to become so depended on Nott that he would be devastated or, worse, left weak when Nott inevitably changed his mind. “What do you think we should do about Lucius Malfoy?”

Nott smiled.

*

Severus watched from half-lidded eyes as Potter took his place at the end of the bench. The rest of the Slytherin table glanced over and then ignored him. That was good, that was right, that was the way it should be—

Then Theodore Nott strode into the Great Hall and sat down across from Potter. Potter still lifted his head warily, but relaxed in the next moment and took a large book out of his satchel. Together, they bent over it.

Severus’s fingers clenched around his fork.

“Severus, I must ask you not to glare at Harry that way.”

Severus relaxed and turned to Albus with an expression of faux contrition on his face, nodding. “Of course, Headmaster. My apologies. I am sometimes unable to help myself, given what happened with him.”

Albus could doubt that it was accidental magic, could say that what had happened to Draco’s wand proved it was deliberate, but Severus knew better, now that he’d time to think about it. What Potter wanted was to hurt people, including people like Draco whom he would have bullied if Severus had not stood vigilant against such a thing. He had lashed out with his magic to do that.

But he had not shaped wards, not truly. Such a thing was beyond even a master of the art. And Potter was too stupid to learn more than the basics of wards.

For now, though, Severus could do nothing about it. He would have to wait until Albus’s alertness in this matter had relaxed and he could strike back without anyone immediately suspecting him.

He did not know yet if he would aim to kill Potter. Perhaps the boy would still be needed to face the Dark Lord, as Albus insisted.

But he did think that he would try his best to solve the problem of Harry Potter once and for all.

*

“You’re sure you can do it?”

Nott’s voice was soft. Harry lifted one shoulder in a partial shrug. He had come to accept that he was all right having Nott this close, although he seriously questioned the taste of that part of himself.

It wouldn’t matter that much in the end. When Harry left Britain, he wouldn’t take Nott with him, and Nott wouldn’t follow.

“Yes,” Harry said briefly, and then he began to raise his power.

They were standing just outside the boundary of the Forbidden Forest, looking towards Wiltshire, which Nott said was where the Malfoys lived. Harry had never been there, but he and Nott had studied maps until he felt as if he knew that part of the landscape almost as well as Hogwarts. And they had read magical theory books that said what he wanted to attempt was possible.

Although, given his skill in wards, Harry was no longer sure that he had to worry about what was possible.

He concealed a smile that might make Nott ask questions, and closed his eyes. He had to concentrate for this.

The air all around him shone. Harry knew that without opening his eyes, knew it the way he knew where the moon was. He heard Nott’s startled gasp, but put it aside, and kept pouring power into the forming ward.

When he opened his eyes again, he felt almost as if he were floating, so much magic had he poured into the damn thing. The air all around him was stitched with what looked like pale drapes of light, swaying slightly back and forth. Harry took a deep breath and felt a rasping pull in his lungs.

“Are you all right, Potter?”

“I’ll be better when this is settled where it’s supposed to go,” Harry said flatly, and held out his hand. Nott dropped a strand of Draco Malfoy’s blond hair into his palm. Harry closed his fingers around it and shut his eyes again.

He knew what he wanted to do. He knew what should be possible. But he was already feeling the strain of holding the unanchored ward, and part of him doubted that he could reach the distance.

When had doubts ever been important, though? Harry had allowed doubts to enchain him for seven years, because he had accepted the words of the Slytherins who had made him feel inferior. He was going to succeed at this because he willed it.

He pushed confidence into the ward, along with power. He remembered what Nott had said about him being a great wizard, and he let that flow down his spine and straighten it. He held up the hair and focused on it.

“Incendio,” he whispered.

The hair burst into flames. Harry heard Nott take a breath, but he said nothing, which was good. Harry was floating too deeply in the cocoon of his own concentration to be disturbed.

As the hair burned, Harry waved his wand in rapid patterns over it. He was using a modification of a spell that was normally used to channel smoke and fumes away from the caster’s face. He would do this, and he would modify it the way he wanted to, and—

The ward trembled around him. Harry gritted his teeth and sent out another surge of power.

There was a loud, whispering exhale that seemed to travel into him and around him. Harry opened his eyes and his hands at the same moment.

The billowing smoke made from the burning hair flew into the ward and congealed there, etching bright grey patterns across the shifting curtains of white. Harry grinned in savage joy, his hands clenching, even as he dropped to his knees.

He was going to achieve what he wanted to. He willed it.

The ward snapped once, and then began to circle around him. Harry let out a low breath. He needed it to build up speed until he could launch it, because that was the way he had conceived it.

He refused to let himself think that his magic might run out before then, but—

Abruptly, something rested on his shoulder, and magic flowed into him. Harry snapped his head around, barely keeping control of the ward, and stared up at Nott, whose eyes were shut in concentration.

The magic, Nott’s magic, flowed into Harry’s body and made his veins sing.

Instead of shouting at Nott for breaking his concentration, the way he really wanted to, Harry reached out and grabbed hold of the extra magic, then sent it surging into the ward. The ward picked up speed, circling around Harry as a brilliant ball of white and grey light on the end of an invisible tether. Harry waited until the right moment—he knew the moment because it thundered through him—and then launched it.

The ward spun over and over as it went careening through the night, to the south, in the direction of Malfoy Manor. Harry knelt there for minutes on end, listening, waiting, sensing, until he felt the ward settle around the house.

He smiled with a hard mouth. The ward would let him know the instant Lucius Malfoy left the Manor with hostile intent towards either Harry or Nott. Harry might not have included Nott, but he had been the one to warn Harry, and he might be a first target if Lucius Malfoy thought he was the easier one to attack.

And he had given Harry his magic.

Harry turned around to speak to Nott, and then stared. Nott was sprawled on the grass, his mouth sagging open, his snoring so loud that Harry was glad that they all had Silencing Charms on their curtains in the Slytherin boys’ dormitory.

Magically exhausted.

Harry shook his head slowly. He still had enough power himself, with Nott’s gift, to Levitate the other boy and walk with him towards the castle.

All the while, Harry studied Nott and wished he understood what the git was doing.