lomonaaeren

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirteen—Two Fronts

Theo stood there for a moment that he knew was shorter than a moment, feeling as if the veins in his brain were throbbing.

Voldemort. That thing was Voldemort. The thing his father followed, and probably wanted Theo to follow.

And Harry was going to—

Theo moved before he even thought about what he was doing. There were some spells that his father had drilled him in so often that they’d become automatic. Theo cast a Cutting Charm on his arm near his elbow, and as blood came spurting out, he waved his wand through the air underneath it and thought the spell as hard as he could. Sanguis murus!

The blood reared up and formed into a glittering construct like a wall at Hogwarts, except that it was made of transparent, red stones. Theo breathed out slowly. No spells that he knew of could get through that wall, but it would also only hold as long as someone was bleeding to keep it up.

“Theo?”

Harry’s voice was low and a pressing, throbbing presence against Theo’s skin. Theo smiled. “Do whatever you’re going to do quickly,” he whispered, and began casting the spells that would transform other matter in his body into blood and give him longer with the wall.

It would still only hold for a few minutes. Then again, Theo expected that a few minutes would see this settled, one way or the other.

*

I have to get us away.

Harry’s magic punched the ground as he thought about it, and he gestured, casting half a spell with his wand that got absorbed into the forming ward in the next moment.

The air around them was wild, stirring with spitting strokes of lightning that never quite formed. The blood wall loomed high enough to prevent Harry from easily getting a spell over it, but that would have to change. And Tom Riddle and Voldemort were moving slowly. It looked as if Voldemort might be doing that because he was incapable of doing it faster.

But Riddle was doing it because he thought he had time. His eyes were full of laughter, his hand splayed as though he were casting his own wandless ward.

No time to worry about it. Only time to act.

Harry began snapping his magic around him, the spell he had almost cast, the ward that he had been forming when he saw Voldemort, and the magic that was humming through Theo’s blood. He was vaguely aware that Theo was going to his knees. Harry couldn’t turn to look at him. He was too busy acting.

He whirled the magic around and around, like a lasso, similar to the way that he had aimed the wards at Malfoy Manor, but tighter circles.

“What are you doing?” Riddle asked. Harry saw that he had stopped smiling, saw the fanged snarl opening in the middle of Voldemort’s face.

Around, around, around. Around, around, around.

Harry knew he would only need a few more small, tight circles to complete the ward. And he was also aware, from the way that Riddle gestured and Voldemort sprang forwards like a thestral in the middle of a lightning storm, that he wasn’t going to get them.

Voldemort came over the blood wall, flying on invisible wings.

Harry whirled the very end of his and Theo’s combined magic once more and cast that loop around Voldemort, as if it was the only one. Voldemort broke through it easily, the way Harry had been anticipating.

And broke into the larger, tauter circle of the waiting ward, which immediately tightened around him as Harry leaped backwards and bodily dragged Theo with him by the arm.

Voldemort screamed in what seemed like panic as much as fury while Harry looped the ward around him. Bright, gleaming cracks opened in the middle of his pale skin, filled with what seemed to be blood lit on fire with gold. Harry had no idea what that was, a condition that Voldemort was suffering from or what.

He didn’t intend to find out, either. He waved his wand and used the bit of magic he had left that wasn’t involved in holding Voldemort back to reach out to the anti-Apparition wards around them. He would normally need more force to punch through them, but he wasn’t trying to punch through them. Making a small hole at the right place would cause the wards to fold down like the flaps of an umbrella, and Harry only needed the smallest of spaces to Apparate out.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Riddle moving, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. Protecting Theo and holding Voldemort and drilling through the anti-Apparition spells towards freedom were taking all his attention.

*

Theo saw Riddle moving to cast a spell, and because of his education at his father’s hands, he knew what it was.

It would blow up the ground at Harry’s feet. He probably thought that because it would do nothing more than scatter a bit of dirt and distract Harry from his magic, the karma ward wouldn’t punish him severely for it.

But Theo could feel the intensity of Harry’s concentration shivering in the air around him like another bit of magic. He knew that the slightest disruption could be fatal for both him and Harry.

Theo shouted, “Riddle, my father no longer follows you!”

Riddle swung towards him with a snarl, his wand still raised but the spell gone. “Little you would know about it, or about my plans, young Nott,” he said.

Theo smiled a little, ignoring the way that he could still feel the blood draining from his wounds. For now, they needed the blood wall more than they needed him conscious. And he could still give his magic to Harry even if he fainted. He would use the next few moments to be as irritating as he could to Riddle. “I know that you’ve kept yourself quiet, and hidden behind the name of the wardmaster.”

“From that, you cannot divine—”

“I divined it from hearing my father speak.”

Riddle was still for a moment, eyes fastened on him. Theo knew he was panting, but he didn’t try to disguise it. Riddle would be exquisitely aware of how much magic and blood Theo was spending at the moment. If he wasn’t the one who had taught Father the Blood Wall spell, he certainly knew it.

“What did he say of me?” Riddle whispered at last.

“Sixteen years without a word,” Theo said, and imitated his father’s intonation exactly, even as black spots danced in front of his eyes. “Sixteen years without showing a sign that you had come back. His Mark never darkened. He’s given up on you. He’s preparing for—”

Several things happened at the same moment.

Voldemort broke free of whatever magic Harry had woven to hold him with a snarl. He bounded towards him on all fours, touching down and then flying off from each landing point with his hands and feet hitting the ground like slaps. His mouth was wide and hungry.

Theo slumped sideways, his vision darkening more than it had, and saw the Blood Wall turn into wisps of red light.

And Harry broke through the anti-Apparition wards.

Theo felt a tug so deeply rooted in his belly it felt as if someone had made a Portkey out of his intestines, and then they were gone.

*

“Theo.”

Harry whirled around the second they landed on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, just outside the range of Hogwarts’s own anti-Apparition wards. He fell to his knees and cast the healing spells he’d learned when the Slytherins’ pranks got more and more vicious in second and third year.

It became obvious quickly that the cut on Theo’s arm was resistant to most magical healing. But Harry continued to stubbornly work, head bowed, forcing his way through the magic layered over Theo’s wound.

Whether because they’d left the bloody wall behind or because Harry had had some of Theo’s magic bound up in their escape route, the protections at last cracked and flaked away. Harry drew in a shaky breath when he saw how deep the cut seemed to run, exposing flesh and bone.

But he’d seen worse. He waved his wand again, and this time the cut was cleaned and bound the right way. Harry gently lifted Theo to his feet. He would probably still have to take him to the infirmary. Harry didn’t have any Blood-Replenishing Potion or the like on hand.

Theo blinked and turned his head. “H-Harry?”

Harry took a slow, deep breath. He hated hearing Theo sound broken and uncertain. “I’m here,” he murmured, looping one arm around Theo’s shoulder so that he could help him in the direction of the hospital wing. “We’ll get you to Pomfrey and make sure she can—”

“What are you going to tell her?”

Well, yes, I don’t have a good story to explain Theo’s wound or the magical exhaustion. Even if she doesn’t sense mine, Theo is too weak to prevent her from seeing his. “I don’t know. But I know you need treatment.”

“I cast a spell on myself to transform some of my bone marrow and other matter into blood to power the wall,” Theo said, his voice so hoarse that Harry had to concentrate hard to make out the words. “I need sleep and I’ll need a big breakfast, but I don’t need a Blood-Replenisher.”

Harry hesitated. He didn’t want to go to the infirmary because of Madam Pomfrey’s piercing eyes, but it felt selfish to keep Theo away from it.

“I promise I’ll be all right.”

“Will your sleep cure the magical exhaustion, too?”

Theo managed to smile at him, an open expression Harry had never seen from him before, and which made something tremble into being in the center of Harry’s chest. Something he couldn’t examine right now. “It really is just physical exhaustion, not magical. At least, when you return the magic that you borrowed from me.”

Harry started. It hadn’t even occurred to him that part of Theo’s power was still wrapped around Harry himself, and the magic that had brought them to the school and healed Theo’s wound. “Sorry,” he murmured, and took a moment to disentangle them and sent the power flowing back into Theo.

Theo blinked and stumbled for a second. Harry held him more firmly upright. Theo nodded and rolled his head on his neck. “Yes,” he murmured thickly. “Yes, it’s back now. I’m going to be all right.”

And then he passed out again.

Harry staggered beneath his weight, and sighed a little. Theo had been right that Harry really didn’t want to go to the hospital wing, and as long as Theo was also right that he would recover with nothing more than sleep and food, Harry would get to stay away from it.

But he would have gone, for Theo.

Harry pondered that silently as he took Theo deeper into the dungeons, and hesitated only a little when he realized that they were outside the door of his most warded rooms. Then he shook his head and brought Theo inside.

They had already confronted the apparent two parts of Lord Voldemort together. What other secrets mattered next to that?

*

Theo woke feeling as though he was wearing a second skin. It took him all of a moment to realize it was Harry’s magic.

He cracked his eyes open and let his gaze sweep the room. This time, he was lying on a couch that he thought must be permanent. There were several workstations he could see, all of them with at least one open book, and one with a cauldron. Harry’s wards hummed everywhere.

Yes. This was the set of rooms Theo had been searching for when he was still trying to simply understand Harry, before the confrontation on the Quidditch pitch that had changed his life. It felt like Harry.

“Are you all right?”

Theo nodded and turned his head to look at Harry, who was balancing a huge platter of food over to a sturdy table. “Yes. Hungry, though.” His stomach echoed the words with a noise so loud and gurgling that Theo flushed.

Harry smiled a little. “I went to the kitchens. The elves were thrilled to have the chance to make a specialty breakfast.”

Theo managed to make a polite noise himself, but still fell on the tray of sausages and ham that Harry handed over. After the enchantment had forced his body to consume parts of itself to make blood, his craving for meat was no surprise. The elves had also included a whole roast chicken for some reason, and Theo tore that apart as well.

Harry picked at his food, Theo finally managed to notice after he looked up from inhaling most of a second plate. He cocked his head. “Your own magical exhaustion doesn’t manifest as hunger?”

“It—I just keep thinking about what last night means,” Harry said, and shook his head with his lips pinched shut. “I was relying on the apprenticeship with Riddle to open doors for me in other countries. Now I can’t do that.”

Theo blinked at him. “Surely you know the obvious solution?”

“What solution?”

“Start promoting your own magic and selling some of your skills,” Theo said, leaning back in his seat and rolling his shoulders. He began eating again, but more slowly this time, not taking his eyes from Harry. “There are contacts you can make here among some of the students, ones with older siblings or who have family members running businesses in Diagon Alley, that will get your name out there.”

“But on the Continent?”

“You might have to wait a little while to establish your name there,” Theo acknowledged. “But you could also approach another wardmaster and seek an apprenticeship with them. I might be able to get a few names from my father.”

Harry stared at him. Theo stared back. “What?” he added after a moment. “I would think you would be more worried about the Dark Lord being resurrected and after you for being the Boy-Who-Lived than your future.”

Harry snorted. “I can run. I always intended to leave Britain, anyway. And after what’s happened to me for years at Hogwarts, I’m less than inclined to fight for most people here.”

His voice weighed heavily on the word most, and his eyes lingered on Theo. Theo ended up ducking his head to hide his pleased smile. “So why didn’t you think of this?” he still added, looking up at Harry.

“I…”

Harry laid down his food, untouched, and walked in a slow circle around the room. Theo could only think that he must have eaten last night, not to be hungry now. Theo kept eating himself, watching Harry lean his head for a moment on the wall.

“I thought Riddle was my one chance,” Harry whispered. “I hadn’t thought much of my own skills; I thought everyone could do wandless magic because of all the bragging in our dormitory. I only learned better recently. And then Riddle reached out to me, and I thought, all right, I can find one person who’s interested in me and willing to mentor me. And it turned out to be a trap.”’

“Anything else might be a trap, too.”

“Rationally, I know that’s not true,” Harry said, turning around to face Theo and leaning his shoulders on the wall. He closed his eyes, his voice thrumming with frustration. “Rationally. But I keep thinking it.”

“I can approach my father,” Theo said quietly. “He can find you a mentor or a place to advertise your skills. Would that work to help rebuild your confidence?”

“Why would he do that for me, though? He was a Death Eater.”

“Was. I wasn’t lying about what I told Riddle. He hasn’t mentioned Voldemort to me at all in the last few years, and I think that he probably would have, at least to warn me. Riddle’s strategy of lying low has cost him at least one follower.”

“What would he want in return?”

“A discounted price on some of your wards,” Theo said promptly. “Maybe a free commission, if it was a small enough space or a ward that would protect a small object. An introduction to a wardmaster isn’t worth more than that.”

Harry narrowed his eyes and studied Theo as if expecting him to sprout wings, or horns, or anything else that would mark him as a stranger to Harry. “But if the introduction changed my life, it would be worth more than that.”

“For Merlin’s sake, don’t tell my father it would change your life. Then he would feel compelled to charge you more.”

“But you know. How can—how can you work for me, against him?”

“I don’t see it as against anyone.” Theo eased forwards, meeting Harry’s gaze and smiling. He put a hand on Harry’s arm. “I see it as serving someone I desire very much, and also earning my father a place in your regard. Bringing him over to our side, if you will. It seems clear that we’ll have to flee Voldemort, or fight him if worst comes to worst, and I’d like to make sure my father is completely separate from that.”

*

Harry stared at Theo, who was—

Who was willing to lie to his own father, against all the rules of pureblood families that Harry had ever seen enacted in the common room, who—

Who was willing to do this for Harry, and who didn’t think Harry had made such a stupid mistake that Theo would never associate with him again, and who wouldn’t let him sink into despair, either.

Harry reached out and closed his hand on Theo’s, hard enough that Theo winced a little. But he didn’t move his gaze away from Harry’s face, and half-nodded encouragingly, as though he thought Harry would need a little more persuasion.

“Thank you,” Harry whispered.

“It’s my pleasure,” Theo whispered back.

Harry had thought Theo might want to claim a debt. After all, he had saved Harry with the blood wall and then lent Harry his magic and persuaded Harry out of taking him to Madam Pomfrey even though it would probably have been the safest option.

But Theo didn’t even seem aware that Harry might owe him anything. And that made something deep and wondering open, again, in the middle of Harry’s chest.