Chapter Three of 'To Earn Your Heart Like Gold'- Who Seeks, Finds

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Three—Who Seeks, Finds

“There is no point in going to confront your mother.”

Harry nodded, tightly. Gaunt had brought him to the library after they’d found the Listening Charms in the kitchen. Harry knew that his mother probably already knew about the discovery, or would when she had time to study the words the charms had captured. They were only speaking like this in the library because Gaunt had cast a spell Harry didn’t know that he said would render their conversation boring and all about Harry making basic Potions mistakes with Gaunt correcting him to his mother’s ears.

Harry didn’t know if he entirely believed that, but if it was false, they would be no worse off than they were now.

“Potter?”

Harry blinked and looked up. Gaunt was sitting in an overstuffed chair across from him, but was bending forwards, keen eyes fixed on him.

“Yes? Sorry.”

“You were thinking about going to confront your mother.”

Harry shrugged and leaned back in his seat. “I’d like to, but you’re right that it would do no good. I can’t—I don’t know why she was spying on me, and maybe if it happened when I was younger, too. I…”

Harry couldn’t speak the words forming in his throat. Because if the charms were old, that meant his mother had known how Snape treated Harry, no matter how distracted with work she’d been. And she’d ignored it, or let it continue, or—something, in the name of staying married.

Harry flinched away from the glass-sharp possible reality, and nodded to Gaunt. “Do you have a theory?”

“One could say that she was simply monitoring the interactions of her son with a tutor who came highly recommended by his former master, but whom she nevertheless does not know. Someone who might want access to her famous child.”

“You don’t believe that?”

An interesting, cold smile crept across Gaunt’s face. “No. Listening Charms don’t require much work to cast, but they require a lot of work to use. You have to spend hours at a time going through what they capture, and of course most of it isn’t interesting or damning. Or even speech at all. Charms that thorough will capture the house settling and cabinets creaking and perhaps an insect creeping across the floor. Why would she want to use such a thing?” Gaunt splayed his hand open. “Why dedicate so much of her time to revising the words it captures? She must have a compelling reason.”

“Yes. She must.”

“Harry?”

Harry started and sat back in his chair, half-turning towards the door of the library, before he realized that Gaunt was the one who had spoken. He narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t grant you permission to call me that.”

“Forgive me,” Gaunt said after a moment in which he simply stared at Harry with eyes that looked redder than normal. “I thought the normal closeness between master and apprentice would indeed give me permission.”

Harry snorted before he could help himself. “We aren’t master and apprentice.”

“Are we not?”

“No. And stop staring at me like that. You won’t convince me, and it’s creepy.”

Gaunt blinked, and some of the red faded from his eyes. “My apologies. I had thought…”

“You seem to have thought several things that aren’t true,” Harry said evenly. “Yes, I feel that the situation with the Listening Charms concerns you, since you were being spied on, too. But we don’t have any deeper connection than that. You’re being paid to help me pass my NEWTS. Let’s focus on that.”

“You do not want to learn more about the charms and your mother’s intent in casting them?”

“I don’t think I’ll get a straight answer no matter what she says or what I ask her.”

Gaunt paused, his head darting back and forth on his neck like a snake’s for a moment. Harry firmly banished thoughts of snakes and stared at Gaunt passively, until he nodded. “Then us resume our Potions studies.” He reached out and flipped open a heavy book he had got out the day before but hadn’t actually started to cover with Harry. “We should turn to page 41 and begin our revision of the correct ways to brew the Draught of Peace…”

Harry remembered a little about the Draught of Peace, which had been a potion he’d studied in fifth year for the OWLS, but not nearly enough to claim he was an expert or didn’t need help. He leaned closer and listened to Gaunt’s explanation of the precise number of stirs needed, ignoring the way the man’s eyes lingered on him.

The situation with the Listening Charms was upsetting, it made him uneasy, and he didn’t know what he could do about it. But that was the case for a lot of situations in his life, Harry had found.

*

“You don’t deserve to sit here when your father could have survived.”

Harry nearly choked on his soup as Snape practically materialized behind him, but then registered what the man had actually said, and started laughing. Snape stared at him with narrowed eyes, one hand resting on a pocket where he probably had a vial of some potion.

“Oh, come on,” Harry said, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand purely for the disgusted snarl it provoked from Snape. “You hated my dad. Don’t expect me to believe that you wanted him to survive.”

“It would have been better than you surviving,”

“I wonder why?” Harry asked, turning his chair towards Snape and crossing his legs. His eyes remained on Snape, on the hand that still lingered above his pocket, but he was interested in pursuing this conversation. “Do you think that you could have dueled my dad as a way to prove your worth to Lily or something?”

“You cannot even refer to her as your mother, you disgusting whelp—”

“I remember a time when you cursed me across the kitchen for calling her Mum.”

Snape stared at him. Harry stared back, wondering what exactly about this was a surprise. Of course Harry was going to remember that, the moment when he had slammed his back into a cupboard and his head had got cut on a cabinet in a way that nearly covered his lightning bolt scar for a while. It wasn’t exactly easy to forget.

“You are a brat,” Snape whispered.

“Not like you to be afraid to announce it to the whole world.”

Snape’s hand violently tightened on his wand. Harry tensed, ready to move. But after staring at him a few seconds longer, Snape dropped his hand, turned away, and stormed out of the kitchen.

Harry sighed shakily and cast a Detection Charm on his soup. For all that Snape shouldn’t have been able to put any potion or poison into it when he’d been standing that far away and Harry had been watching him all the time, he had learned the hard way not to underestimate his stepfather.

“Does he do that often?”

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Gaunt had declared that none of the food in the house was good enough for him and had gone through the Floo to get something at the Leaky Cauldron. Of course, he might have come back some moments since and just remained silent and still so that he could watch the interaction unnoticed. Harry wouldn’t put much past his creepy tutor.

“Insults? Sure. He doesn’t usually take the tack that my father should have lived, though. Snape hated him.” Harry shook his head. “Maybe Mother’s been on about how much she misses Dad, lately, and Snape thought saying that would make her happy.”

“He is obsessed with her.”

“Yeah. They both claim that it’s love, but I don’t think it is.” Harry studied Gaunt thoughtfully. “But I’ve had years to observe them and reach that conclusion. What made you think it?”

Gaunt chuckled and set a box on the table that contained, from the smell, a shepherd’s pie. Harry ignored the rumble of his stomach. He had his soup. “It was simple enough. Watching the way that Severus stares at Lily as if he constantly expects her to kick him, and yet is also ready to worship at her feet, was enough of a clue.”

Harry shrugged, wondered for a moment why Gaunt called them by their first names, and then decided that the reason probably wasn’t interesting. “You might be right about that.”

“What do I have to do to convince you to trust me, Harry?”

“Not be creepy. Which is probably impossible, for you.”

Gaunt smiled charmingly and began unwrapping the box. Not just the shepherd’s pie, Harry saw, but also some kind of thick, hearty stew with chunks of meat and carrot floating in it, and what looked like half a loaf of bread. “Why do you find me creepy?”

“The way you stare at me, the way you call me by my first name and make it sound like you’re caressing it with my tongue, the way your eyes turn red sometimes—”

“Would you like me to caress you with my tongue, Harry?”

Harry felt his eyes widen a little, but he didn’t turn away from Gaunt, still staring at him. Gaunt didn’t move, either, as if he had tossed a spell and was waiting to see how his opponent would retaliate.

Harry snorted a moment later and shook his head. “You’re expending a lot of effort on seducing someone you were hired to tutor and whose house is apparently infested with Listening Charms.”

Gaunt paused, then eased back with a slow nod. “Perhaps you are right about that.”

“It’s a really silly amount of effort,” Harry said.

“You don’t think people could want you and not just the Boy-Who-Lived?”

“I think people have wanted me, and they don’t stare at me the way you do.”

“How do I stare at you, Harry?”

Like you want to consume me, Harry thought, but he just shrugged again and said, “In a weird, creepy way.” He turned back to his own soup and ignored the way that Gaunt laughed, his fingers tapping on the table for a moment as though trying to send a signal to someone.

Not me, because he’s still a fucking creepy bastard.

*

“Are you all right?”

Hermione’s voice was low and concerned. Harry gave her a strained smile. He had thought he would look Ron and Hermione up since he was going to be in Britain for a few months anyway, and then, while he was right in the middle of making them laugh with one of his stories about work, a letter from Jennifer had arrived.

“It’s a letter from my sister,” he whispered.

“Oh.” Hermione leaned forwards, nodding. “And you haven’t heard from her in a long time, right?”

“Yeah,” Harry said hoarsely, and slit the letter open with a touch of his hand. Neither Ron nor Hermione flinched. Harry had once thought Voldemort was coming for him and had practiced wandless magic relentlessly for hours each day at Hogwarts, but the highest level he’d been able to reach before he got less paranoid was a few basic charms. “The last few were intercepted.”

“That is so wrong.”

Harry smiled at Ron where his best friend was leaning on a sofa nearby, scowling, arms folded across his chest. “Thanks.”

“I would hate it if Dad and Mum tried to keep me from communicating with Ginny for some reason.” Ron tapped his fingers moodily on his arm. “They do know that Snape’s preventing you from doing that, right?”

“I think they know,” Harry said quietly. “But it’s hard to know for sure, when I can’t speak to them in person.” He spilled Jennifer’s letter out into his hand and unfolded it, feeling his heart clench painfully at the way it started. Even Dear Harry had the power to affect him when it had been this long since he’d talked to her.

Dear Harry,

I’m so happy that you’re back home for a while! I can’t wait to see you this summer. Maybe Mum will spend more time with us then? She hasn’t been the same since you left.

I’m glad that you’re trying to learn Potions, too. I know that it’s hard for you, but it’s really fascinating, and it means that we can all work together when we’re adults! I think Father would probably see what a good person you really are if he had the chance to work with you, just for a little while.

Write back to me! Princess will wait for you until she has a reply.

Love,
Jennifer.

Harry looked up at the white owl with a little smile. Jennifer hadn’t had this particular bird when he’d left Britain last time. “Princess?” he asked.

The owl shivered her feathers and shifted from foot to foot, staring at him with a kind of patient eagerness that widened Harry’s smile. He could see why Jennifer would want this owl. Her quick movements and bright eyes were just like this.

Harry nodded and scribbled a quick reply, explaining the deal for him to pass his NEWTS with acceptable marks and stay at least until summer. He hoped he would be able to see her and Rosanna before then, but he wasn’t sure. And he didn’t plan to go into the Potions business with them, but he always wanted to be part of their lives.

Ron and Hermione waited in respectful silence until Princess had flown away with the letter. They knew what it meant to him to be able to write to his sisters. Then Ron cleared his throat. “Do you think they told her everything about the bargain you made with your mother and Snape? Or Rosanna?”

Snorting, Harry shook his head. “They probably just presented it as me coming to my senses at last.” He grabbed the glass of Firewhisky beside him and took a long drink. “Anything else means they’d have to admit to Snape’s part.”

“Not your mother’s?”

“She was just absent, Hermione. Even Jennifer’s letter talked about that. She didn’t play a part in the way Snape abused me herself.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “That sounds like playing a part to me. Like she knew and chose not to see.”

Harry grimaced and said nothing. Yes, he probably did need to admit that Lily had known, and that she had deliberately refrained from interfering in the way Snape treated Harry because…

What?

Because she needed him for some reason, needed someone to lean on after Dad died. At least, that was the only way Harry had ever been able to make sense of Lily’s marriage to Snape.

He shook off the thought. It was another thing that wouldn’t change, just like the way Snape treated him, just like his desire to see his sisters. He leaned forwards. “Come on, tell me what you’ve been doing.”

*

“Yes,” Gaunt said on a long sigh as the silver steam rising above the cauldron began to trail off. “That is the Draught of Peace.”

Harry considered the potion in the cauldron. He did have to admit that it looked as though it was right, even better than the few times he’d brewed it in Slughorn’s classroom in fifth year. He gave a thin smile.

“Well done, Harry.”

Gaunt stepped up behind him and tried to touch his back. Harry twisted to the side, and heaved the full cauldron onto Gaunt’s robes before Gaunt’s hand could connect.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Harry said, and widened his eyes. “What a clumsy oaf I am. So sorry, Mr. Gaunt. I can pay for your robes, of course.”

Gaunt watched Harry with wide, unblinking eyes for a moment. Then he began to laugh. Harry could hear the howl of wolves and the wail of the winter wind in that sound.

Harry shook his head and turned to begin casting cleaning charms at the mess. So Gaunt was probably someone like Snape, cold under the surface. Just better at hiding it, that was all. And at teaching. And at making Harry feel like they had a common cause when they’d discovered the Listening Charms Lily used.

“You are precious,” Gaunt said, when he’d finished laughing. He’d spelled his own robes clean, and Harry was only mildly surprised to see that the expensive fabric retained no trace of the potion.

“Oh? Like a child?”

“Like a jewel.”

Harry stared in silence at Gaunt. Gaunt stared back, and didn’t seem interested in blinking an eyelash or an eyelid until almost a minute later, when he smiled and turned back to make a note in the book he’d been using to teach Harry the Draught of Peace.

Harry frowned at Gaunt’s back. Mother has to know how strange he is by now, even if she hasn’t finished listening to most of the conversations the charms recorded. She has to.

Why did she choose him, of all people, to teach me?