[From Litha to Lammas]: Of a Sweet Nonsense Unto the Lord, This Lord Business series, gen, 2/7

[lomonaaeren]

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Part Two

“Happy birthday, my lord.”

Luna is the first one to step out of the fireplace on the morning of Harry’s fifteenth birthday party, and she’s carrying something wrapped in thick but translucent paper, so Harry can make out the vague shape of what’s inside. He thinks, as he goes to thank her and take the present, that that’s Luna all over.

But Luna hangs on to the gift when he tries to take it, and stares at him with intense, slightly bulging eyes. “I need to talk to you.”

“All right,” Harry says, frowning a little. He can think of only one thing that might have put that expression on Luna’s face. “Is someone bullying you again?”

“No. They’re all afraid of you, Lord Slytherin.”

Not ideal, considering Harry may have to be in classes with some of those cowering Ravenclaws and it’s also Padma’s House, but he’ll take it. “Okay. Then what’s the matter?”

“I don’t know if you know that some of my only friends at Hogwarts are the thestrals in the Forbidden Forest.”

Harry shakes his head, bewildered. He does remember The Monster Book of Monsters mentioning thestrals, but even Hagrid hasn’t talked much more about them than that in Care of Magical Creatures class. “How did you meet them? And aren’t they supposed to be invisible? How do you see them?”

“I saw my mother die, my lord. It’s very simple.”

Harry winces a little and guides Luna towards one of the chairs at the kitchen table. At least this time she lets him take the gift and put it over on a table with the ones from Sirius and Remus. “All right. What about them?”

“I want to start a Thestral Publicity Program. More people should know how beautiful and special they are.”

“But won’t that be sort of hard if most people can’t see them?”

“Why does that matter? They’re still beautiful.”

“But most people won’t believe that if they can’t see them,” Harry points out.

“That is only their ignorance,” Luna says with absolute serenity, taking a quill out of her hair and starting to draw with it on the table even though it doesn’t have any ink. “We will soon educate them better.”

“I don’t know if I’m the best person to be involved in this, Luna. I can’t see thestrals, either.”

“Then I will educate you better.”

Harry blinks at her. Luna blinks at him in return, and then smiles as Ahalam sticks his head out from behind Harry’s neck. “Why don’t you ask Ahalam of what he thinks of thestrals? You’ll see why we need to get more people interested in them.”

“What do you think, Ahalam?” Harry asks, keeping an eye on Luna. He doesn’t know her that well, but she doesn’t flinch at the Parseltongue. In fact, she looks delighted. “Would it be a good idea if we try to teach more people about thestrals? Invisible reptilian winged horses that you can only see if you’ve seen death,” he adds, because he doesn’t think Ahalam knows what thestrals are.

“What are they like? Are they good to eat? Can we ride them? Would they be better to fly on than a broom? Are they beautiful? They do not sound beautiful.”

Harry laughs a little and glances at Luna. “Ahalam has a good question,” he begins. “I don’t think that teaching people about thestrals is a bad thing, but I also don’t really see a purpose to it. Why should we do it?”

“It’s a way to thank them for their service,” Luna says, now apparently drawing a constellation on the table with the inkless quill. “They pull the carriages into Hogwarts, you know, and many people are careless about them. They think the carriages just draw themselves. Sometimes they just try to barge through the space in front of the carriages as if the thestrals aren’t there.” Luna frowns at Harry. “It’s very distressing.”

“I just thought the carriages drove themselves.”

“Why would you think that?”

Harry splutters a little, but when he thinks about it, he doesn’t have an answer. Even in the Muggle world, vehicles don’t drive themselves. “I don’t know,” he admits at last. “But you think this would be a good idea?”

“Yes,” Luna says, and beams. “And if you tell people that Lord Slytherin supports it, then the Thestral Publicity Program will receive much more support than if Daddy and I just advertised it in the Quibbler.”

“Fine,” Harry says, and shrugs and smiles a little. “You can say I support it.”

*

(He kind of regrets that, later).

*

“No.”

Harry puts his hand over his eyes. “Susan, be reas—”

“I am being reasonable,” Sunsa says, and jabs a finger at him. “You are the one who’s not being reasonable, Harry Potter!”

“At least explain why to me,” Harry says, and sits back with a sigh. They’re in the sunlit reading nook of the Bones library, at the house where Susan lives with her aunt Amelia. The windows are huge and glass and show a constant variety of changing scenes, oceans and mountains and meadows, but all of them blazing with light. “I haven’t even sworn an oath yet. And I would have you and Theo and Hermione and some of the others check the wording over very carefully before I did.”

Susan considers him with a skeptical eye. “Do you really need me to explain it to you?”

“I do,” Harry says. “Padma has a point that people who took the Lord Slytherin title in the past tended to either be manipulated by adults or start believing they had all the power in the world and they could do whatever they wanted.”

“And here I thought Ravenclaws were logical.” Susan rolls her eyes. “Just because that happened in the past doesn’t mean it would happen to you. For example, what adults are in a position to manipulate you? Do you really think Professor Lupin or Mr. Black would try?”

Harry has to laugh. “No.” If anything, the only manipulations Sirius might engage in are to keep Harry safe. Sirius insisted on coming to the Bones house with him, too, and is chatting with Amelia Bones downstairs at the moment.

“What are you afraid of, then?”

“I don’t always know or understand my own impulses, Susan,” Harry says, spreading his hands. She’s looking at him like he’s an idiot, when he thinks this ought to be obvious. “I don’t always understand the political situation. You know that. Someone could suggest something to me I thought was a good idea to throw my support behind, and I could do it, and it could turn out to be a terrible idea!”

“How would the oath you want to swear prevent that?”

“It would mean that if I started doing that, someone else could force me to sit back and reflect, or change what I was doing.”

“You mean, the way we do all the time?”

Susan’s voice is so dry that Harry finds himself gaping at her. Then he thinks about the times that someone else clarified the situation for him, like Madam Pomfrey telling him what the consequences of revealing his abuse would be, or his followers not letting him go alone to confront the person who sent him his Firebolt when they thought Sirius Black was an insane mass murderer.

“…Oh,” he says.

Susan raises her eyebrows and nods. “A number of things are wrong with what Padma is suggesting. You don’t have adults in your life to manipulate you like some of those past Lord Slytherins did. You have good political instincts when you want to use them, which needs to happen more often.” She gives Harry a harsh look. “Just because something happened in the past doesn’t mean it has to happen in the present; that’s Dumbledore logic, not real logic. And you have a huge group of followers and friends who will all yell at you if you really start doing something stupid.”

“Oh,” Harry says again, staring at the wall. He takes a deep breath. “Why is Padma so afraid, then? And not just her, Angelina Johnson said something about it last year, too.”

“Johnson doesn’t know you very well, but Padma ought to know better.” Susan raps her fingers against her lips. “I’ll talk to her and find out if there’s something specific she’s afraid of. But it might be as simple as her doing the research and now being sure that she knows something is going to happen, just because her mind’s overflowing with her research details and she’s seeing the same patterns everywhere.”

“So you don’t think I need an oath that means someone can pull me back?”

“Like a Crup on a chain? Absolutely not.”

“Thanks, Susan.”

Susan gives him a sweet smile. “Any time, Lord Slytherin.”

*

“Ooh, look at the pretty diamond ring.”

Harry dangles the ring temptingly above Salazar’s cage. Sirius found it in an old cabinet that held a bunch of objects so cursed they didn’t even try to clean them up until this summer. After he managed to strip off the curse that would make the wearer jump off buildings, he gave the ring to Harry to tempt Salazar with.

Salazar stands up against the bars of his cage, watching the ring as if hypnotized.

“Pretty,” Harry croons.

Salazar squeals, claws scrabbling against the bars.

“You can have it,” Harry says, and lowers the ring until it’s dangling right above Salazar’s cage.

Salazar leaps for it, but Harry pulls it out of reach at the last moment, twitching it so the diamond sparkles.

“If you give us the locket back,” Harry says.

Salazar turns around and goes over to lie down in the corner of his cage, staring at Harry with resentful eyes.

“Come on,” Harry mutters, and drops the diamond ring on the carpet, folding his arms. “You’re ridiculous, you stupid Niffler. We’ll give you plenty of other things for the locket! Why do you want to keep it so much?”

Salazar bares his teeth, and, of course, doesn’t answer.

“He probably thinks it is beautiful,” Ahalam says, and dangles down Harry’s arm so that he can look at Salazar better. “Perhaps you can cast a spell that will make me even more beautiful than I already am, and then you can convince him to give the locket up.”

“He wants to eat you, Ahalam, not collect you.”

“You would just lie to him. You can lie to Nifflers if you want. It’s not like lying to snakes. It is not a crime. And then you could have the locket back, and you could make sure that he did not take anything important again.”

Harry sighs and shakes his head. Honestly, it seems like it ought to be a simple thing to get the locket back from Salazar. There are spells to do all sorts of things that Harry wouldn’t have thought anyone would want to do, like Transfigure buttons into beetles or break specific bones. Why isn’t there a charm to pull something out of a Niffler’s pouch?

But they haven’t been able to find anything gentle that works. The only things that Harry and Sirius and Remus together have located are spells that Salazar easily dodges, or harsh spells that are usually meant to harvest the contents of a dead Niffler’s pouch. Of course Harry isn’t going to cast anything like that on his pet.

They tried to stick Salazar’s paws to the floor so that they could use one of the gentler charms and he couldn’t dodge, but he leaped up and free again the instant one of the charms came at him. Remus thinks the locket is probably highly magical. That makes it both attractive to Salazar and something he can use to escape people trying to hold him in place.

Harry shakes his head again in exasperation and looks at the cage. Salazar has come back over to the bars and is watching Ahalam in hunger. Or at least Harry thinks he’s looking at Ahalam. Sometimes he seems to be staring at Harry’s forehead.

“Please give me the locket,” Harry says.

Salazar squeals at him.

“What about two diamond rings?”

Salazar stares at Ahalam.

“I knew he would want me, because I am very pretty. Cast the spell that makes my scales shine brighter and then lie to him.”

Harry rolls his eyes.

*

(He does actually try lying to Salazar after Kreacher leaves a book open to a recipe for stuffed Niffler. It doesn’t work).

*

With a loud crunch, Theo’s left arm breaks.

Harry gasps and nearly flings his wand off to one side as he rushes over to Theo. They’re in the courtyard, and they were practicing dueling spells, but Harry never expected to get a strike through. Theo is so much stronger and faster than he is, and also more willing to use Dark magic. “Theo! Are you all right?”

Theo looks up, nodding. His face is even whiter than usual with pain, but his eyes glint with something like pride. “You did it,” he says softly. “You used the Bone-Breaker Curse right the first time.”

“And broke your bloody arm! We should get you to St. Mungo’s.”

“Yes, fine, as long as Black goes with us.”

“Sirius doesn’t let me go anywhere by myself,” Harry mutters. He starts to stand, but pauses when Theo reaches out and grabs his arm. His stare at Harry is solemn, but he doesn’t look accusing.

“I really am proud of you. Spells like this one are the ones you’ll have to use if you want to get anywhere when dueling Voldemort or Death Eaters.”

“Thanks, Theo,” Harry says, and is sort of glad that Theo said that and sort of sad that he didn’t say it later, when Harry might be able to tease him about it because he would be out of his mind on pain potions. Now, Harry just has to accept it as true.

*

“Try to look a little less like a bodyguard, why don’t you,” Harry mutters to Theo out of the corner of his mouth.

Theo walks serenely beside him through King’s Cross, only the twitching corner of his mouth showing that he heard Harry. And of course he doesn’t try to look less than a bodyguard. In fact, he places his hand on his wand and glares menacingly at a group of seventh-year Slytherins who are standing in Harry’s path and talking loudly about Mudbloods. They scatter like the wind. Harry snorts.

“Something funny?”

“Not you. Them.”

“Why would that be funny?”

“Well, I mean, they’re seventh-years, and they were talking like blood purists, so they’ve probably studied Dark Arts. They probably know loads of spells. They can’t actually be scared of a fifth-year.”

“Can’t they?”

Harry eyes Theo sideways. Theo watches him with a quiet smile and says nothing else.

As they step onto the train and head for the compartment where their friends will be waiting, Harry has to spare a moment’s gratitude that Theo is on his side.

*

“See? Can’t you feel them?”

Harry frowns as he holds out his hand to rest on the neck of what Luna insists is a thestral pulling one of the Hogwarts carriages. He supposes there is a faint cool sensation under his fingers. It’s nothing he would have ever noticed on his own, though. It feels like a breeze on his skin, and that’s what he would have thought it was.

Then Luna grabs Harry’s wrist and slides it up and down, and Harry gapes. Yeah, he is touching a horse’s neck! Or something like it. The mane, if it is one and not just fur, is very short and cold.

“That’s pretty brilliant, Luna,” he says.

Luna nods to him. “Yes, and that’s why more people need to know about them! Because they must be protected and appreciated. Everyone else has to see how brilliant they are.” She holds out her own hands, cupped as if to give a treat to an invisible owl. When he squints, Harry thinks he might see a faint shimmer of something come down and rest in Luna’s palms.

“Harry? What are you doing?”

Harry turns around and looks at Hermione, who is staring at him and Luna with a wrinkled forehead. “We’re petting the thestrals who draw the carriages. Come here and feel them, Hermione.”

Hermione is a little more hesitant, but her desire for knowledge overcomes any fear she might have of the death horses, and soon she’s petting what Luna says is the smallest thestral of the bunch with an amazed smile.

“I never knew that thestrals pulled the carriages,” Hermione murmurs.

“And this is why we need a Thestral Publicity Program,” Luna begins, and Harry and Hermione both listen to her until Professor McGonagall comes out to herd them all up to the castle.

*

“If I may,” Dumbledore says, standing at the Head Table and extending his arms. He looks careworn, Harry thinks. Then again, Sirius did say that Dumbledore approached both him and Remus about rejoining the Order of the Phoenix from the first war, and they turned him down. So maybe he’s been getting ready to fight Voldemort. “I have three new professors to introduce this year.”

Harry has already noticed that Hagrid isn’t at the table and that a woman in a frilly pink cardigan who smiles too much is, but he can’t see another new person. He glances along the table and does see two empty chairs now.

“I know that woman!”

Harry glances at Ron in surprise and opens his mouth to ask what he means, but Hermione gives him a furious look. Harry shuts up. Yeah, he supposes they’ll find out who she is in just a minute when Dumbledore announces it.

“First, may I introduce Professor Dolores Umbridge, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor. Madam Umbridge comes to us from the Ministry, where she serves as Minister Fudge’s Senior Undersecretary.”

Umbridge stands up and smiles sweetly at everyone present. Harry distrusts her immediately. He does remember a few of his friends talking last year about how the Ministry could put a professor into the position if Dumbledore failed to find one. Apparently they did that twenty years ago with a Care of Magical Creatures professor.

But even though the Ministry doesn’t have to cause trouble for everyone, Umbridge looks like trouble.

“I am so pleased to be here with such lovely friends,” Umbridge says in a soft, girlish voice. She plays with a pendant around her neck that looks as though it has a moving picture on it, although Harry can’t see it from this distance. “You should know that the Ministry deeply values your education and is most anxious to preserve your unique talents and your heritage. If you could understand what has recently been debated in the Wizengamot…”

On she goes. And on. Ahalam wriggles impatiently on Harry’s shoulder after the first ten minutes and announces, “Cheese. You are to deliver cheese to me. This is boring, and I am not to be deprived. Why is everyone else sitting here looking as if she cast the red Stunner spell at you? She did not cast anything. I would have seen it. Harry, cheese!”

Harry takes Ahalam gently from his neck and puts him down near the remains of a small piece of cheese on the table. He doesn’t want to speak Parseltongue in public and draw any attention. Umbridge worries him, and he’s not sure there’s anything he can do. Hogwarts listens to Harry and will protect him, but Dumbledore is the one who hires professors. And Hogwarts didn’t stop Moody from casting a hex at Ahalam last year or the professors from trying to get him to host the Tri-Wizard Tournament, even though it protected Harry in other ways.

“Thank you for that enlightening speech, Professor Umbridge,” Dumbledore says at the end of the longest twenty minutes of Harry’s life. Umbridge sits down, still playing with her pendant and looking out over the Great Hall with a too-wide grin. “Now, if I can introduce our other new professors.” He gestures at the door behind the professors’ table, and it opens so that a jovial-looking large man in rich robes can walk through. “This is Professor Horace Slughorn, who will be teaching Potions, as Professor Snape has retired—”

Whoops of joy fill the Great Hall, including from the Slytherin table.

“Has retired, although he will still supply potions for the castle,” Dumbledore says, raising his voice. Harry thinks he looks more than faintly exasperated, but he seems to have learned his lesson from last year, and doesn’t try to chide the students who are cheering. “Professor Slughorn has taught at Hogwarts in the past, and will also take over his old post as Head of Slytherin House.”

Slughorn waves at everyone before sitting down in his seat. To Harry’s relief, he doesn’t look as if he’s about to give a speech.

(That reminds Harry to look down and realizes that Ahalam has eaten the leftover slice of cheese and is trying to get at more food. He sighs and picks up Ahalam to put him around his neck. Ahalam complains. Harry ignores him).

“And finally,” Dumbledore says, and sighs as he says it, “I am…pleased to announce the temporary Care of Magical Creatures professor filling in for Professor Rubeus Hagrid while he is away, Mr. Sirius Black.”

Harry’s mouth drops along with everyone else’s when Sirius steps through the door and waves. Someone shouts from the direction of the Hufflepuff table, “But everyone knows that he’s a mass murderer who bought his way out!”

“Ah, my first victim!” Sirius says cheerfully.

That just causes more shrieks. Harry plasters his hand over his face, and sees Hermione and Ron doing the same thing.

*

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were going to the Care of Magical Creatures professor, Sirius?”

“I thought you knew.”

“How could I—”

“That I would never let you go to Hogwarts unprotected and alone is what I mean,” Sirius says, and he’s still grinning, but his voice is quiet, almost a warning.

Harry sighs and flings himself onto the couch in Sirius’s new quarters. They’re apparently some old rooms that haven’t been used for a while, and Sirius has redecorated them. Muggle posters of dragons and griffins in too-bright colors are on the walls, and the fireplace is huge and spitting sparks onto the floor. Harry recognizes a bookshelf in one corner with books from Grimmauld Place, too. He stares at them, and then at Sirius.

Sirius isn’t smiling anymore. He’s leaning forwards with his hands dangling down between his knees. “You need protection,” he repeats quietly. “And I will do anything that I have to do to protect you. Even study Dark Arts. Even attack you as a dog the way I did during your duels with Theo this summer.”

“You do realize that I have plenty of friends here?” Harry asks, a little exasperated. “And one person sworn to defend me?” He doesn’t really count Vince, even though Vince also swore to him. He mostly swore not to attack Harry, rather than defend him. “They might even be offended that you’re here when they can protect me just fine.”

“Let’s ask them, shall we?”

Harry opens his mouth to ask what Sirius means, but Sirius stands up and goes over to the door Harry entered by, jerking it open. The corridor beyond is filled with people, with Ron and Hermione in the front. Fred and George wave cheerily to Harry from near the back of the crowd. Harry is kind of surprised Oliver isn’t there.

(Then again, Oliver sent a letter this morning before Harry left for the train that carefully outlined his hundred-step plan for Harry becoming the best Seeker ever. He’s present in spirit).

“Is anyone offended that I’m going to be here to help protect Harry?” Sirius asks.

“No, sir,” several people chorus.

“Terrible things happened to Harry the first two years we were at Hogwarts,” Hermione says, nodding approvingly. “Not to mention that Wormtail could have killed him any time. And last year, Voldemort kidnapped him.” She ignores the shrieks and flinches and winces at the name from several people behind her. “We need to make sure that nothing like that happens again. It’s good that you’re here, Professor Black.”

“Yeah,” Blaise says, poking his head around Hermione’s shoulder to shake it a little at Harry. “And this year, I don’t trust either of the other new professors. Slughorn has a reputation for trying to collect people and make them indebted to him. And Dolores Umbridge worships the Minister heart and soul. She’ll do her best to crush your power, I think, Harry. She would do that with everyone who might be a threat to Fudge.”

“There is also the problem of Professor Hagrid’s somewhat questionable judgment when it comes to the Care of Magical Creatures class,” Daphne’s voice says. She moves to the side so that Harry can see her clearly. “The creatures that he would have us study bedazzle him unnecessarily and waste our erudition. I am sure that you would be safer as the professor, Mr. Black.”

Sirius blinks at Daphne. “Right,” he says slowly.

Daphne just nods back at him.

Harry sits back and shakes his head, but he has to admit that he can’t keep himself from smiling, either. He has friends. He has people who call themselves his followers but are pretty close to friends anyway. He has Sirius. He has Ahalam and Salazar.

This year is going to be at least partially dangerous because of Umbridge, and maybe Slughorn, and probably Voldemort making another move sooner or later. But Harry thinks it’s also going to be wonderful.