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

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of the current arc of the story. I’ll pick it up in the next set of seasonal stories between Halloween and the winter solstice.

Part Seven

“I don’t know how you can even ask whether I’d like to be Lord Slytherin’s official lawyer. I would love to be Lord Slytherin’s official lawyer.”

Harry leans back and smiles a little. He invited Justin over to Grimmauld Place the day after Christmas, and Justin came over at once. He was happy to be there, and shook hands with Sirius and Remus and made polite conversation over lunch. But now he’s practically hugging the table and vibrating with excitement.

“Good,” Harry says. “You know that this is going to take a long time, of course, and the process of getting equal rights for magical creatures and Muggleborns is going to be a hard—”

“These are my rights, too,” Justin interrupts him. “Of course I want to help, Harry. And I know it’ll take a long time. But we’ll make sure that they don’t know what hit them.” His smile widens. “And I hope, or know, or think, that it won’t be long before Umbridge is out of the castle…”

Harry has to laugh. “Yeah. Not long.”

Justin nods. “Then that’s the first victory won. Where do you think we should begin? With laws about goblins? Or the werewolf laws, since some of them are already on the books? Or will Luna not forgive us if we don’t begin with thestrals?”

*

“Theo? You’re really quiet.”

Harry can’t help the nervousness that comes through in his voice. Justin and Hermione were both happy about Harry’s decision to take on the laws about magical creatures and Muggleborns, and so was Susan, since she has a strong sense of justice and her aunt is the Head of the DMLE. But Harry thought Theo might take it badly, and he’s been sitting on the other side of the table with a blank face for like five minutes now.

“Is the skinny boy upset? Why is that? Should I pretend to eat him? That might wake him up.”

Harry starts to answer, hut has to sigh as a piece of parchment appears on the table in front of him. It’s Kreacher’s latest recipe suggestion, Drawn and Quartered Baked Niffler. Harry shoves it aside. As he’s tried and tried to explain to Kreacher, he’s going to get Salazar to give up the locket. It’s just slow going.

“If this is what you want.”

Harry blinks and focuses back on Theo again. “Sorry? What do you mean?”

“If what you want is to take on the political establishment.” Theo leans back in his chair and watches Harry with a face that is still pretty bloody blank. “Then I’ll help you. Of course I’ll always help you. You’re my lord.”

“You don’t sound enthusiastic about it,” Harry says slowly. “And I don’t want you to force you to go along with something you don’t want to do. Of course I don’t. If you swore to me and you’re thinking that now you swore under false pretenses, I can release you from your oath—”

“You are such a bloody idiot.”

Harry smiles despite the words, because at least Theo is gesturing like himself and looking like himself again. “I am?”

“Yes. To think that I would retract my oath, to think that I want to walk away from you, to think that I’m going to let you walk on your own into political tangles like this without being there to guard your back.” Theo shakes his head. “And to think that we can solve the problems with the prejudice against Muggleborns and magical creatures. Merlin, Harry, that’s not something you just wake up one morning and solve.”

“But you’re going to be there.”

“I said I would. Someone has to keep you from getting your arse roasted by goblins.”

Harry just laughs and holds out his hand. Theo clasps his tightly, and that’s end of doubt.

*

“Harry!”

It’s the night before Harry goes back to Hogwarts, and he needs to sleep, so he’s really surprised to find himself flying out of sleep at Sirius’s bark of his name. “Whazzat?” he asks, blinking and staring at his godfather outlined in the doorway of his bedroom.

“You were screaming.”

“I was?” Harry feels at his throat, and discovers that it does hurt a little. He can’t even remember a nightmare, though. And then he reaches up because it feels like thick tears are creeping down his face for some reason, and discovers that there’s blood there. Coming from his scar, he decides a second later.

Sirius turns on Harry’s lamp with a flick of his wand, and comes over to sit down on the bed beside him, staring worriedly into Harry’s eyes. “Are you okay?” he whispers, smoothing his hand over Harry’s forehead and down. “What is it?”

Harry closes his eyes and concentrates on the fading remnants of his nightmare. There was—dark grass, he thinks, and trees, right. A forest? And standing in the forest was a clearing, and something huge and made of iron, like a cauldron—

Harry’s eyes fly open, and he gags. Sirius immediately conjures a basin, but Harry just turns and flings his arms around his godfather.

“Harry? What is it?”

“I think Voldemort has a body back,” Harry whispers, crushing his face against Sirius’s chest so that he doesn’t have to look up at him. Even so, he can feel his godfather going pale and still.

*

“I think we should call a war council.”

That was what Hermione said, and she was really right, Harry thinks, as he settles back into the compartment on the train where all of his friends and followers have shown up. They had to get one of the seventh-years to adjust the size of the compartment somehow. Harry doesn’t know how Draco got someone to do that (although it was probably by whining at them), and he doesn’t think it’s important. What’s important is they all fit, and they’re all waiting, their eyes locked on Harry.

Harry already wrote to most of them with the news, and the rest wrote to him when the story came out on the front page of the Daily Prophet. Not Voldemort’s return, because that’s not something most people would probably believe even if Voldemort waggled his naked arse at them. But the story of Barty Crouch Senior being found murdered, and the dark secret that he kept his Death Eater son under Imperius for fifteen years before he broke free and escaped—something they only found out by questioning his house-elf.

So Harry only has to add a few details, and people listen to him in grim silence. Then they exchange glances. Susan is the one who speaks first. “So what does this mean? What are we going to do first?”

Harry appreciates that we more than she’ll ever know. He smiles at her and says, “I think that one of the first things we’ll have to do is really step up our group training. I know that we’ve mostly focused on individual duels and formal rules so far, but battle isn’t going to be formal duels, you know? We should learn how to work together and help each other.”

“Not everyone can survive with the help of a snake and a Niffler,” Draco says.

Harry starts to say “Of course not,” and then pauses and takes a closer look at Draco. Draco is trembling, his gaze fixed on the far side of the compartment.

He’s terrified, Harry realizes, with a surge of compassion, and his voice is gentle when he says, “I’m not going to require that anyone fight Voldemort.” There’s a wave of flinches, but fewer than there would have been a few years ago, and Hermione and Ron both fold their arms and don’t tremble. “You should train to know how to protect yourself, but not everyone here will volunteer for the war. Or should.”

“And some people won’t be in danger of being attacked by Death Eaters at all.” Padma’s voice is a harsh croak. “Can we talk about that, Harry? About the fact that some of the people sitting in this very compartment have Death Eaters for relatives?”

The air grows tense and vibrating, in a way that reminds Harry of the way that Kreacher would glare at Salazar over the holidays. He sighs. “Padma—”

“I don’t want to be tortured to death any more than you do!” Draco says.

“No, but you’re a lot less likely to be!”

“If you have something to accuse us of, Patil, say it.” Theo is tense in a way that Harry knows bodes no good.

“I know that you don’t want to go against your families,” Padma says, sitting very straight. “And everyone would probably say that it’s terrible to ask you to do that. But it means that they have a way to spy on us and know our moves before we make them.”

“Are you accusing me of turning spy.”

The seat beneath Theo, and the windows behind him, ice over. Harry sits up and starts to open his mouth, but Padma says, “You can’t scare me with that, Nott. And I’m going to be honest. Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Strange that you at one and the same time think that I would turn traitor and do not fear me enough to—”

Harry whirls his wand and uses a spell Sirius taught him that creates an enormous farting sound. Everyone turns to stare at him with their mouths open. Daphne actually sniffs the air, and then leans back with a different kind of sniff when she realizes that there’s no smell.

“Listen to me,” Harry says with his teeth gritted. “No one is having a dramatic meltdown, okay. And that includes not hurling accusations at each other and turning on each other. No. Just—no to all of that.”

“But what are we going to do about those people who have Death Eater relatives?” Padma demands.

“Why do you think they would turn on the rest of us just because of their last names?” Harry asks. He wants to shout at her that Theo would never do something like that, but this is about more than just Theo, and shouting would confirm Padma in her opinion. Things are already delicate enough between him and Padma because she’s worried about what kinds of things he’d do with his power.

Lord Slytherin cannot exclusively side with purebloods with Death Eater names, Harry thinks wearily.

“Because of the pressures of family. I know they might not want to, but they would have to, and—” Padma’s voice trembles a little. “I don’t want to be betrayed, but I also don’t want to be there to see what the consequences of not betraying us would do to them.”

Harry nods. He can see that point-of-view, even though part of him wants to snarl in defense of Theo and Draco and Daphne and Vince and say that they’re his and that would never happen.

He turns and looks carefully at everyone in the compartment, making sure not to meet the eyes of just the kids with Death Eater parents. “Well? What do you say? Do you want to walk away from us, or not?”

“Are you stupid?” Theo says, his voice sweet.

“A kinsman of my mother’s family was under the aegis of the Dark Lord, but the rest of the Greengrass family has never given him the least sign of loyalty,” Daphne says, and nods in a satisfied way.

“You know I hate my dad,” Vince mumbles. “And my mum isn’t like that.”

Everyone turns to look at Draco.

“It’s—my dad was one of them, and so was my aunt,” Draco whispers. “My aunt is in Azkaban now, but she could get out. She probably will get out. The Dark Lord will break her free.” He bows his head. “I don’t know what will happen when I go home this summer.”

“Then you should walk away now,” Padma begins.

“There’s another way.”

Ron is the one who’s spoken, and although he does speak up in discussions like this, probably no one expected it to be this particular discussion. Everyone turns around on their seats to stare, and Ron’s ears turn bright red, but he lifts his chin defiantly.

“Yeah?” Harry asks him gently.

“You could Mark them.”

“Ron Bilius Weasley!” Hermione yells.

“What? He could!”

“I can’t believe you would suggest something like—”

“It would work! And it would mean that no one else could compel them to betray us, because they would be loyal to Harry first!”

“Is something going to tell me what you mean?” Harry asks, as loudly as he can, because people are starting to argue, and because Hermione is drawing in her breath to shout again. It’s always best to get out in front of an angry Hermione if you want to hear yourself think.

“I know what the theory of Marks is,” Ernie says. His usual pompous tone of voice doesn’t hide how badly he’s shaking. “It’s the reason that You-Know-Who made them. It’s a contract between a powerful wizard or witch and their followers, a contract written on the skin. Only the willing can take them, so it weeds out spies and traitors. And it means that no one else can compel the loyalty of that person.”

“So Voldemort never got betrayed?”

“Almost never,” Theo says. He’s been listening with silent, glittering eyes. “But it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t happen.”

Harry nods. “I don’t think I ought to use them. I already have enough people who are uneasy about my power.” He pointedly doesn’t look at Padma, but she shifts in her seat. “And it wouldn’t protect anyone who took it from someone still trying to control them or bribe them or blackmail them. I can’t imagine Voldemort or your father or your crazy aunt would just look at your Mark, Draco, and say, ‘Whoops, we can’t do anything, we’ll have to give up making him do anything, either!’”

Draco sags. “Thank you, Harry,” he whispers.

Harry nods and starts to push the conversation in a different direction, but Daphne says loudly, “One cannot generalize from one example, and anecdotes are not archives.”

“Huh?”

“She means,” Theo says, his voice as sharp as a knife ready to be slipped between a pair of ribs, “that just because Draco can’t or doesn’t want to take your Mark, that doesn’t mean other people won’t want to.”

“But it would make me seem so much like Voldemort—”

“Not if most people don’t know about it,” Theo says.

Vince nods eagerly. “It should be a secret Mark! Put it somewhere other than the left arm, my dad’s is kind of obvious.” He pauses, obviously thinking about something. “Not my hand, though, okay? Someone would probably see it when I pick up my fork.”

“I’ll think about it,” Harry says, because he can tell from the gleam in Hermione’s eyes that they’re going to have a Conversation about this, and he’s not up for a Conversation right now. “But I could use some help to plan what to do about Voldemort, and trying to get better laws passed for magical creatures and Muggleborns, and what we should learn in the defense group.”

Luckily, it seems that most people are more interested in those topics than the one about Marks, and they go on to have a productive conversation. But from the looks he’s getting from Hermione and Padma and Daphne and Theo and Vince, he won’t be able to avoid it for long.

*

The instant that Harry walks back into the Great Hall, a stone wall shoots up in front of him. Several of the people walking behind him promptly stumble to a halt, and they exchange confused looks.

Then Harry hears the crunch of a spell hitting the far side of the stone wall, and he smiles grimly. It seems that Umbridge has gone on to the kind of direct attack that Hogwarts can directly protect him from.

“Get rid of the stone wall, boy.”

Her voice brings up unpleasant memories of the Dursleys. Harry narrows his eyes and says in a loud, careful voice, “You’re trying to curse me, Professor Umbridge. You ought to know that Hogwarts is going to defend me.”

“Come out from behind the wall!”

Harry compromises and peers around the wall. Umbridge is standing with her hands on her hips, and she might look normal if it weren’t for the wideness of her eyes and smile. The minute she sees Harry’s face, she lifts her wand and tries to curse him again.

Another stone wall rises up in front of her, and then a stone arm projects from the floor and relieves Umbridge of her wand.

“Thanks,” Harry tells Hogwarts, patting the wall. Ahalam shoots his tongue out and thanks the school in Parseltongue, although Harry has no idea if it will be able to understand him.

“Dolores! Stop this at once!”

Dumbledore is standing up on the main staircase, his wand aimed at Umbridge. Umbridge shakes her head, her expression bright and crazed, and then she runs at Harry, one hand lifted and nails curved as if she’s going to rake his eyes out or something.

“She’s lost it!” yelps someone from another group.

Harry hides his smile. This is what he wanted to happen, after all. Of course, now he has to dodge Umbridge, but Hogwarts opens an obliging hole in the floor and lets her fall through it until she’s at waist height. Then it closes again, and Umbridge is hanging there, pounding the floor with her fists, shrieking Harry’s name and his title over and over again.

“I think we will need a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor,” Dumbledore says, staring at Umbridge and stroking his beard.

“Might I suggest Professor Black?” Harry asks politely. Sirius told him that Hagrid was supposed to be back in a few days, and Harry’s pretty sure that he saw smoke rising from Hagrid’s cottage. “Since he’ll presumably be giving up the Care of Magical Creatures class?”

“Yes, perhaps that would not be a bad idea,” Dumbledore murmurs. Then he sighs and focuses on Harry. “I was told that you wanted to talk to me, Mr. Potter.”

Harry takes a slow breath. He sent Dumbledore a letter with Hedwig a few days ago, asking about the prophecy and saying that he deserves to hear the whole thing. “Yes, sir. Maybe after dinner?”

Dumbledore visibly softens. “Of course, Mr. Potter. In the meantime—” He raises his voice to be held over Umbridge’s shouts. “I will tell Minister Fudge to come and retrieve his employee.”

*

More than one person comes up to clap Harry’s shoulder or thank him for getting rid of Umbridge. Harry just smiles back at them and disclaims, telling them it’s all on Hogwarts for protecting them and that obviously Umbridge had lots of problems if she was willing to actually attack a student in front of everyone.

(Of course, it really was Hogwarts, but Harry can’t tell most people there. He does pause on the way to the Headmaster’s office to stroke the walls and whisper his thanks, however).

*

“Come in, please, Harry.”

Harry walks into the Headmaster’s office and shuts the door behind him. Fawkes pops his head out from beneath his wing to croon at Harry. Harry goes over to stroke him.

“Why do you like to pet feathers so much? Petting scales is better. If he was smaller, I would eat him. He is not the only animal in here who wants to be petted. Tell me why you are petting the bird.”

Harry laughs. “I didn’t know that you were jealous of Fawkes, Ahalam.”

“He is nearly as pretty as I am,” Ahalam mutters.

Harry touches Fawkes’s neck one more time as Fawkes chirps at him in amusement, seeming to understand the Parseltongue, and then comes over and sits down in front of Dumbledore’s desk. Dumbledore cocks his head at Harry. “You seem less stressed than you were when you first walked in here, Harry.”

“Ahalam is good at that,” Harry says with a faint smile, and then he lets the smile drop from his face. “I think you owe me the prophecy, sir. And an explanation as to why you kept it secret.”

“I wanted you to have a childhood.”

Harry stares at Dumbledore. But Dumbledore just looks back, with weary eyes and weary, motionless hands, and Harry lowers his head and moans a little.

“Harry?” Dumbledore sounds alarmed.

“That’s a stupid reason,” Harry says, without much heat, and Dumbledore looks all the more stricken for it when Harry looks up again. “My childhood was gone before I was six, Headmaster. The people you had me grow up with made sure of that.”

“I admit I was thinking more of your protection from the Death Eaters and the spirit if Voldemort than your protection from the hands of your relatives,” Dumbledore says in a low voice. “I apologize for that.”

“Thank you,” Harry says, who knows it’s all the apology that he’s probably going to get. “But, sir, if that’s the real reason, I think it’s even more imperative that you tell me the prophecy. I don’t think I can trust your judgment anymore.”

“Could you ever?” Dumbledore asks, but it sounds like a rhetorical question, and Harry doesn’t say anything. Dumbledore sighs again, and continues, “You should understand that I am only doing this because the situation has become urgent in ways that I did not anticipate. I believe Voldemort has regained a body.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How do you know this, Harry?”

There’s a thorny distrust in Dumbledore’s eyes. Harry sighs, a little exhausted. “Sir, I had a nightmare. And it seems a natural conclusion to draw from Crouch’s Death Eater son escaping his custody. He went to help resurrect Voldemort.”

Dumbledore nods slowly. “If you have a connection to Voldemort, then it is imperative to try and block it. I would like you to have Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape.”

“No, sir.”

Dumbledore pauses. “What?”

“He’s not a professor anymore. And he hates me. I’m not going to leave myself vulnerable to him in that way.”

“He wouldn’t want to tear your mind apart, Harry.” Dumbledore’s voice is low and chiding. “He would only strive to help you. And I know that you don’t want to leave your mind or your friends vulnerable to Voldemort. I know that.”

“I don’t want to,” Harry agrees, nodding. “But I also know that I can find an Occlumency teacher among the people who follow me, or my friends, or Sirius, even, if he knows it. Any of them are going to be better than Snape.”

Dumbledore sighs. “Professor Snape remains an important part of the resistance against Voldemort, Harry. He thought he could make more of a difference in the background, doing Potions research, rather than teaching. But he is fighting for us. He is on our side.”

“I don’t really care, sir.”

Dumbledore bows his head. “So be it.”

“Now, sir. The prophecy?” It hasn’t escaped Harry’s notice that Dumbledore hasn’t actually told it to him yet, but he let the conversation go this way for as long as he could think that Dumbledore wasn’t putting him off. Now it kind of seems like he is.

Dumbledore takes a deep breath and removes a Pensieve from a cabinet underneath his desk. When he waves his hand, the silvery figure of Professor Trelawney rises from the basin of the Pensieve.

“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives…the one with the power to vanish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…”

Harry listens quietly, half-closing his eyes. Dumbledore lets the memory repeat a few more times, and Harry nods when he’s sure he has the prophecy memorized.

Dumbledore puts the Pensieve away, and the office fills with silence. Dumbledore folds his hands on the desk and considers Harry. Harry considers him back.

“Please rethink letting Professor Snape teach you Occlumency. Voldemort’s plans are subtle and far-reaching, and he does not know the full prophecy, only the first few lines. A spy of his reported them to him, but did not hear the rest. Now that you know the full thing, Voldemort might try to acquire it from your mind.”

“I’ll find another Occlumency teacher, sir.”

Dumbledore looks down and away. “So be it. I hope that none of us shall have cause to regret that decision, Harry.”

“I hope so, too, sir.”

*

Harry walks up to the Astronomy Tower. His friends will be waiting for him, but he doesn’t feel like going down there right now.

He leans on the parapet and watches the snow sparkling beneath him, glowing with the faint starlight. There’s a shimmer near the base of the wall that might be a thestral. Harry is at least getting better at telling where they are, even if he can’t see them yet.

Perhaps I’ll be able to see them before too much longer.

Harry lifts his head and studies the stars above him. He can pick out constellations and planets, thanks to Astronomy.

Some people believe the stars can foretell the future. Professor Orrey believes in tea leaves. Dumbledore and Voldemort believe in prophecies.

Harry believes that the future is more powerful than any of those.

But he will have to contend with the fact that they believe in that. And he will have to learn Occlumency, and face Voldemort in battle, probably before much longer.

But he will do it. And despite the dread pounding along his veins when he learned of the prophecy, there’s as strong a determination to survive. He has too much to live for, so many people who need him, who he needs. He’ll manage.

“So that is a prophecy.”

“Yes,” Harry says, and touches Ahalam’s back.

“Not something to mate with or eat.”

“No.”

“But you will win.”

Harry smiles down at Ahalam, who has his head lifted and is looking at Harry with absolute faith. “Why do you think that?”

Ahalam tilts his head, and his voice is surprised. “Because you’re you.”

Harry smiles again, and lets the smile go on growing, while Ahalam wriggles in pride at having made him happy again. Yes, that’s right. Harry has so much to live for, and he doubts Voldemort has even half of that. Power? Followers? A few fanatics compared to the people Harry has who will laugh with him and argue with him and swear to him and fight beside him and lay their lives down for him?

Let it not come down to that.

But if it does, then he will honor their memories, and avenge them. He is going to win.

“You’re very wise, Ahalam.”

“Beautiful and clever and wise. You think I’m more beautiful than Fawkes, I am certain.”

Harry laughs, caresses Ahalam again, and turns away from the view outside the Tower. It’s beautiful, but it’s cold, and his real life and future are waiting for him below.

Prophecy or not, I am going to win.