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lomonaaerenTitle: The Crimson Petal and the White
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Marcus Flint
Content Notes: AU (Harry is not a Potter), discussions of past torture and character deaths, underage kissing, angst
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 5500
Summary: AU starting with the Third Task. Harry’s blood fails to resurrect Voldemort, because he is not Harry Potter, but a Muggleborn son of two Squib Order members who died in the first war. Dazed, no longer knowing who he is, Harry tries to navigate a new world, including Marcus Flint unexpectedly taking an interest in him.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” chaptered fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. This will probably have five to six chapters, and is a fairly dark fic. It’s is for Isafold88’s prompt for Harry discovering that he’s a random Muggleborn and a romance with Marcus Flint. The title comes from the Tennyson poem quoted below.
The Crimson Petal and the White
“Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.
The firefly wakens; waken thou with me.”
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Harry bucked against the ropes Wormtail had conjured. He wanted, more than anything, for this to be a dream, for Cedric not to be dead a few meters away, for the cut on his arm not to be bleeding.
For the huge cauldron that Wormtail was dripping his blood in not to be there.
Wormtail started to say something, and then broke off with an alarmed squeak that sounded like a rat’s as the cauldron abruptly began to hum as if someone had dropped it. Harry, panting, tried to watch, because it might be important, even though sweat was dripping down his forehead and getting into his eyes.
“What?” Wormtail whispered. “Master?”
The smoke billowing from the cauldron suddenly turned a deep, rich blue. Harry stared at it. From the way Wormtail was backing away from the cauldron, raising his hands, Harry knew something had gone badly wrong.
Abruptly, the cauldron exploded.
Harry couldn’t do very much to shield himself, tied down on the headstone as he was, but he turned his head away and ducked his face into his shoulder as much as he could. He felt something small and sharp land on his chest and cut it, and another piece slapped his cheek with a stinging sensation, but there was nothing worse than that.
“My lord!”
Wormtail was screaming. Harry twisted his head. He didn’t know what had exactly happened, if Voldemort had drowned or been burned to death by the exploding potion or been crushed by the metal, but there was a dark spirit hovering in front of Wormtail that looked very familiar.
The spirit turned and arrowed towards Harry.
Harry raised one arm as high as he could. This had worked once before, he thought, frantically, although Voldemort had been in a body at the time—
The spirit slammed against what seemed to be an invisible barrier a few centimeters from him and contorted, shrieking. Then it turned and flew away across the graveyard. Wormtail called after it, but it ignored him.
That left Harry tied up and alone with Wormtail, who turned and gave him an indecisive look.
Harry’s thoughts seemed to dart and leap through his mind, and he landed on the one thing that might protect him. “I command you by the life-debt you owe me, Wormtail,” he said, panting harshly, “to let me go and get me back to Hogwarts.”
Wormtail made another squeaking sound. “I can’t go back to Hogwarts! They’ll find me! They’ll kill me!”
“I didn’t say you had to go, just that you had to send me,” Harry said hastily, before Wormtail could disappear. Interesting that he didn’t argue against owing me a life-debt. “And Cedric’s body.” He thought Cedric would want Harry to take it back, and his parents would want it.
And, whispered something dark and wary in the back of Harry’s mind, they might think that you killed him if you can’t come back with the body and prove he died from a Killing Curse.
They might think that anyway. But Harry was going to handle what he could handle right now.
Wormtail glanced back and forth as if hoping that someone else would show up to help him solve the problem. Then he seemed to spot something, and nodded enthusiastically. “The Cup is a Portkey enchanted to return you to the school. We were going to use it to send your body back.”
Harry hoped he concealed his shiver. “Then you can use it to send me and Cedric back. Come untie me.”
Unbelievably, Wormtail seemed happier when he had someone ordering him around. Even when it was the boy whose parents he had betrayed and who he had almost killed. He scurried over and used his wand to sever the ropes. Harry hissed as he sat up, and the cut on his arm began to bleed sluggishly again.
“Here, here,” Wormtail said, and gave him back his wand, and gestured towards where Cedric’s body lay, muttering the Summoning Charm. Cedric came flying, along with the cup. Harry swallowed. He couldn’t look at Cedric, but it was right to have him here, to bring him back along with Harry. “Now go!”
Harry nodded and grabbed hold of Cedric’s arm with one hand, trying not to think about how cold and heavy it felt. But he didn’t reach for the cup yet. “Why did the potion explode?” he asked.
Wormtail shook his head. “I don’t know. It was going right until I added your blood. Your blood…” He stared at Harry and sniffed a little.
Harry decided he wasn’t going to get a good answer, so he reached out to the cup.
“I don’t owe you a life-debt now. It’s paid back.”
“Then that means I don’t need to protect you next time, Wormtail,” Harry said, and smiled at the expression on Wormtail’s face in the moments before the cup whirled him and Cedric’s body away.
*
Harry sat with his head between his knees, feeling Dumbledore’s hand rubbing his back. Watching Cedric murdered had been bad enough. Then the fake Moody had herded Harry off to his office and almost killed him, and Harry had watched him be kissed by a Dementor.
And then it turned out that he still couldn’t go to the hospital wing, because Professor Dumbledore wanted to talk to him.
At least the Headmaster had let him put his head down for a little while.
Dumbledore cleared his throat gently, and Harry sat up and gave him a wobbly smile. He hated his smiles being wobbly, but he sort of thought he had an excuse. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t—I didn’t know I’d need to put my head down like that.”
“I can hardly blame you for some nausea, considering the events of the evening, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore said softly, and took his place behind his desk. “I must ask you to describe what happened in the graveyard.”
Harry took a deep breath and nodded. “All right, sir. Cedric and I both took the cup because we were going to make it a Hogwarts victory.” His voice shook, but he steadied it. “We arrived in this graveyard and then Wormtail k-killed Cedric…”
He went on, talking about the potion and the small baby-like body that Voldemort was stuck in. Dumbledore was nodding and stroking his beard. But then Harry talked about the potion exploding instead of swallowing his blood, and Dumbledore took a deep, rattling breath and sat up.
Harry squinted at him. “Sir? I did ask Wormtail why the cauldron exploded, but he didn’t know.”
“I—” Dumbledore looked almost grey. “Harry, you are sure this is what happened? Pettigrew would not have used an illusion to make it appear as if that was happening?”
“I’m sure, sir,” Harry said slowly. “Why would he use an illusion? Why would he have let me live if Voldemort was really back or whatever they were trying to do? I don’t think Wormtail is in control of Voldemort.”
Dumbledore half-smiled, but his smile was desperate and his eyes far away. “I miscalculated,” he whispered. “I thought I had done as I should, in the wake of their deaths, but I miscalculated.”
“Sir? What’s going on?”
Dumbledore closed his eyes and sat still for a long moment. Then he swallowed and said, “I think it is time that I tell you the truth, Harry. If only because Voldemort likely knows it, now, and Pettigrew could come to some understanding of it if he thought on it. He will, I think. He was an intelligent student.”
“Are you going to tell me about why Voldemort wanted to attack me and my parents when I was one, sir?”
Dumbledore swallowed as if the air was grimy, and then he said, “Not your parents.”
“What?”
“Not you, either.”
Harry felt as if he were drifting down a channel full of grey water, heading straight into a waterfall. He swallowed. “What?”
Dumbledore sat back with his hands folded for long enough that Harry almost wondered if he’d gone to sleep. Old people did that sometimes, didn’t they? And Dumbledore had had a long and tiring evening.
But Dumbledore opened his eyes and said, “Your name isn’t Harry Potter. If you were known by the name you had at birth, you would be Aaron Silver.”
“What?”
Yes, Harry was going over the waterfall.
Dumbledore leaned forwards and said gently, “Your mother was named Isabelle Fawley, a second-generation Squib. Her father’s family wanted nothing to do with her, and that is one of the reasons she decided to fight on our side. Your father was also a Squib, the child of two Muggleborns; his name was Matthew Silver. They named you Aaron when you were born.”
“How could—why would anyone think I was—”
“I am afraid that is my doing, Harry.”
Harry just stared at him.
Dumbledore looked as old as he could be. He waved his wand, though, and locked the door with a spitting of sparks, and that didn’t sound old. Harry leaned back and felt like a sack of limp leaves, and Dumbledore continued with the story.
“There was a prophecy the year before you were born, the prophecy of a child who would be born at the end of July and able to defeat the Dark Lord. Unfortunately, a—servant of Voldemort overheard part of the prophecy, and escaped before I could stop him. Therefore, Voldemort knew that he was looking for a child born under special conditions with the power to stop him, and there were very few who qualified.
“He managed to hunt down the Potters because of Pettigrew’s betrayal, as you know. He killed James and Lily. Then he killed their son.”
“But—I have memories of them! I look like them!”
“Yes, Harry, I know—”
“How did those get there if I’m not—”
Harry could barely hear himself, yelling and yelling. Dumbledore cast a charm with another flick of his wand, and Harry discovered himself sitting back in the chair, breathing deeply, dealing with what felt like a flood of coolness into the center of his chest. The kind a Calming Draught would produce.
He blinked and tried to say something. No word came from his lips.
“Ah, yes, I am afraid the Calming Charm usually includes a silencing component,” Dumbledore said, a bit apologetically, and waved his wand again. Harry’s chest expanded, and he panted. Dumbledore leaned in and peered at him. “Are you all right, Harry?”
“That’s not my name.”
The building twinkle in Dumbledore’s eyes disappeared at once. “No,” he said gently. “I am afraid it is not.”
“So what happened?”
“Voldemort was ripped from life by his own curse rebounding on Harry Potter, just as I told the world, but Harry did not survive it,” Dumbledore said quietly, looking old again. “The same night, the Lestranges attacked your parents’ cottage. I still do not know how they were betrayed. Perhaps, since they were not under the Fidelius, the Lestranges merely traced someone’s Apparition trail there. Other members of our Order of the Phoenix—the group that fought Voldemort—had to Apparate Matthew and Isabella since they could not do it for themselves.
“The Lestranges were saving you for last, because that is their sadistic way. I arrived just after they killed Isabella; the Lestranges fled at the sight of me. I still had you with me when I received the Patronus telling me about the Potters’ death.
“I could not believe they were truly dead until I confirmed it for myself. And then—I am afraid I panicked. Voldemort was dead, but at the cost of our savior. I knew people would rejoice to see the end of the Dark Lord, but they would need hope in the dark times ahead. They needed someone to look to, someone they could trust to protect them. A dead child could not be that savior.”
“So you…”
“There is a very Dark form of magic, called necromancy. That is what Voldemort and Pettigrew attempted to practice on you tonight. At the outermost edges of it is a form less harmful than the rest, which takes what is called an imprint from the recently dead. That imprint contains memories and often other things, such as traces of the personality. The few people licensed to perform this spell in magical Britain usually use it to see what a murder victim saw in their last moments, transferring the imprint to themselves.
“I used that spell on the corpse of baby Harry Potter and transferred that imprint to you. Thus I gave you his looks, and I gave you the last memories of his parents, what he saw and heard before he died.”
Harry buried his face in his hands.
“Why?” he whispered, his voice dry and his chest heaving. But his voice wouldn’t rise into a yell. He supposed that was the result of the Calming Charm Dumbledore had cast on him. “Why would you…you had to know it would eventually be revealed!”
“I thought I had given you a new life as Harry Potter, and that the magic went deep enough,” Dumbledore whispered. “When I brought you to your—that is, Petunia Dursley’s house, the magic imprinted in your skin recognized the blood in her veins. In every way possible, you were Harry Potter. I thought there would never be any doubt. I would have thought a ritual like the one tonight that used your blood would work.”
“You thought you—gave me a new life. A better one?”
“Isabella’s father committed suicide when he realized that the experimental potions he’d been drinking to try and create magic in himself would never work,” Dumbledore said dully. “Her mother, a Muggle, cut contact with her when Isabella moved back into the magical world. She had no siblings. Matthew’s parents died in one of the first raids in the war, and so did his younger sister. There was an aunt, from what I remember, a sister of his mother who also had magic, but she ran and buried herself in such obscurity that I couldn’t find her. I never knew her name. Neither Matthew nor Isabella talked much about their families.
“You would have been an orphan, left without any family and with most people in the magical world hesitant to adopt you. Being the child of Squibs is—scarring. Many purebloods would claim that being a Muggleborn is better.”
“Instead, you sent me to people who made me live in the cupboard under the stairs,” Harry whispered.
Dumbledore flinched. “I am sorry for that, Harry—Aaron.”
“I don’t feel like an Aaron. How can I ever feel like an Aaron again? I—how did the magic protection that burned Quirrell in my first year even work?”
“I bound the imprint to you as deeply as I could. And I am a powerful wizard, Harry, who drew on the furthest reaches of his own magic. You are, in many ways, the son Lily Potter died to save.”
“My Parseltongue? You said Voldemort transferred it to me. How could he?”
Huh. His voice had turned back into a yell. Harry shrank away and shook his head when Dumbledore lifted his wand again. He managed to control his breathing, though. He didn’t want Dumbledore to just cast a spell without asking him.
“I…”
“Answer me!”
A silver instrument on the shelves broke into shards and splintered across the room. Dumbledore drew in a sharp breath and waved his wand, lifting a shield in front of the splinters. Harry stared at the metal scattered all over the floor and felt tears coursing down his face.
“I do not know for certain,” Dumbledore whispered. “However, there are rumors that the Fawleys were once Parselmouths, that they were also descendants of Slytherin because one of their foremothers bore a bastard son to Slytherin’s great-great-grandson. It’s only rumors, though, Harry. I am sorry. I don’t know any more.”
“You keep saying you’re sorry! It doesn’t matter!”
“It does,” Dumbledore said, quietly but firmly. “I did you wrong, and I will do anything I can to make it up to you. What do you want, Harry? Do you want me to try and find any family you may have left in the wizarding world? Or the Muggle one? I will certainly never force you to return to the Dursleys. I can help you announce the truth to the world, if that’s what you want. Or I can help you conceal it—”
“I want you to travel back and change the past!”
“Alas, Harry, you ask of me the one thing beyond even my power.”
Harry sat there staring at Dumbledore, but the man simply looked at him, eyes grave and full of sorrow. Harry felt the hot whirling in his own head, only this time it didn’t feel like magic about to break free.
He turned his face into his shoulder and let the thunderstorm break. He didn’t even notice when he fell into darkness, or what caused it. He might have finally cried himself to sleep.
*
Marcus sighed and picked up the Prophet when his owl, Hellion, dropped it into the middle of his porridge. Probably for the best. The porridge was uninspiring. The paper might be a little better.
He opened the front page as he took a sip of his butterbeer, and promptly spat it out all over the photograph of a big-eyed Harry Potter.
HARRY POTTER NOT A POTTER?
Marcus read the article with wide eyes. It was written by Skeeter, of course it was, and with her usual true-sounding but impossible facts. How did she learn this stuff? Marcus had no doubt that at least some of it was real, given that her targets usually yelled that they’d been misinterpreted instead of just accusing her of lying.
Apparently Skeeter had somehow got Dumbledore and Potter to tell her that Potter was actually some Muggleborn—well, Squib-born—kid named Aaron Silver, whose parents had been Squibs who had died in the war with the Dark Lord. Dumbledore had kidnapped him (well, not he used that word, but Skeeter did) and placed some kind of necromantic imprint from the dead Harry Potter on him so that the people could have a savior.
The end of the article included a paragraph that made Marcus swallow. Skeeter insinuated and twisted the truth and told lies of omission, but he had no doubt that this, at least, was an accurate prediction of the upcoming reaction of magical Britain.
And who is to say that the boy we called Harry Potter ever deserved the praise and plaudits that we gave him, dear readers? Who is to say that he is not a liar and a cheater—perhaps even a murderer or a rising Dark Lord—when he didn’t defeat You-Know-Who after all? That was apparently a precious baby boy whose priceless life ended the night his nemesis died. I must ask myself if Harry Potter deserves many things, not least the name stolen for him by Albus Dumbledore. I hope that my readers will ask themselves the same question.
Marcus laid down the paper and stared blankly at the wall. Things were falling into place in his head like heavy stones, and he became aware that he had never known—
He had never planned on being a Death Eater. He had simply thought that the Dark Lord was dead. That was the conscious part of himself, the one he’d been aware of.
The unconscious part of himself, the one that had woken up now so Marcus could notice it and was yammering in his head, had assumed that if the Dark Lord did somehow come back, Harry Potter would defeat him again.
It was startling to learn that he might not have the power to do that after all.
No, it was terrifying.
Marcus jerked upright, feeling as if all the muscles in his body were trembling. He grabbed blindly for the cloak that he’d taken off last night and draped over the back of his chair, and managed to get it on after some fumbling.
He had to go to Hogwarts. He had to find out what was happening. He had to see how safe he was.
*
“I am so sorry, my dear boy.”
“You’ve been saying that a lot,” Harry said dully, slumping back in his bed in the hospital wing and staring hollow-eyed at the front page of the paper.
Skeeter had somehow found out that he wasn’t Harry—for all that he still felt like that was his name and the imprint on him was so deep that his looks wouldn’t change—and leaked the news to everyone. Harry could hear a furor going on outside the doors of the hospital wing. He could only be grateful that Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey were preventing anyone from getting inside.
But not very grateful. Not when things were still turning out like this.
“Nevertheless, it remains true,” Dumbledore said, and sat down in a chair by the bed. “How do you want to handle this?”
Harry took a deep, long breath. “I can’t imagine—going by Aaron,” he said, glancing away. “And you said that you can’t find any family for me to go back to. So anyone who would want to call me Aaron is probably dead anyway.”
“Yes, I believe that to be true.”
“But I don’t have to go back to the Dursleys anymore, either.”
Dumbledore hesitated. “While it is true that you are not technically related to them, the imprint of Lily and James’s son on you means that the blood protections can continue to func—”
“No!” Harry sat up and yanked his sleeve back from his arm, ignoring Madam Pomfrey tutting about how he should rest. “See this scar? My cousin broke my arm when I was six, throwing me into the wall. And my aunt and—I mean, the Dursleys refused to take me to hospital. They made me sleep in a cupboard. They swung frying pans at my head and called me freak all the time. If you make me go back there, I’ll run away, I swear I will!”
He became aware that he was shouting, and that Dumbledore was staring at him with haunted eyes, and Madam Pomfrey had a hand to her mouth and looked on the verge of crying. Harry slumped back against his pillows and stared in the other direction. His body was full of heat and fury and sadness, and he didn’t know what he would say right now if he tried speaking.
“I only meant,” Dumbledore finally whispered, “that—that the blood protections would continue to function, and would continue to keep you safe from the Death Eaters. There are those, like Lucius Malfoy, who would want to destroy you for things you did, even though you are not Voldemort’s greatest enemy in truth.”
Harry knew it, but—“You’ve messed up my life enough, don’t you think, Headmaster?” he asked, and watched with some sick satisfaction as the man flinched. “Either you get me away from the Dursleys, or I’ll do it myself.”
Dumbledore closed his eyes and sat there as if he was meditating. Harry didn’t know what he would have said, because a huge knock hit the doors of the hospital wing that didn’t sound like the others.
“Someone is trying to blast them open with Dark Arts, Headmaster!”
“I know, Poppy.” Dumbledore was on his feet, and he really did look like a great wizard then, stern and powerful. Harry wondered if that was what he had looked like when he came to rescue Harry from Quirrell. “I will confront them.”
The doors shook again from the burst of what Harry could only assume was a powerful spell, and then burst open. There was a shield like a huge soap bubble in the corridor, so Harry couldn’t see any of the other people who had been gathered out there earlier. And there was someone striding forwards angrily, practically stomping into the hospital wing.
When he recognized the person, Harry felt his brain stutter to a halt, and he just stared. Marcus Flint?
“Mr. Flint,” Dumbledore said, his wand still leveled at the older boy—man, Harry supposed he should be. He was in his twenties or something now, wasn’t he? Or nineteen? “What is the meaning of this?”
“I came to find out if it was true and Harry Potter wasn’t really Harry Potter,” Flint said, and turned to face Harry. “Is it true?”
Harry looked back at him, thinking of the Dark Arts Flint had used to open the doors, and seeing the strong muscles in his arms, and thinking how tough he had always been on the Quidditch pitch. Flint wouldn’t have to worry about Death Eaters attacking him. He could defend himself. “It’s true,” Harry said simply.
“But then how did the Dark Lord get defeated?”
“Harry Potter defeated the Dark Lord,” Harry said. Neither Dumbledore nor Madam Pomfrey was speaking up. Maybe they wanted to see how he would handle this on his own. “Professor Dumbledore gave me the necromantic imprint after that, because Harry Potter also died in the attack.”
“But what about the other times?”
“Other times?” Harry echoed, feeling stupid.
“There were all sorts of rumors that you defeated a Death Eater possessed by the Dark Lord in your first year, Potter,” Flint said, and then paused as if remembering that Harry’s last name wasn’t Potter anymore. But he didn’t let it stop him for long. “And an artifact with another shade of him in your second year.”
Harry blinked. He hadn’t realized that the Slytherin Quidditch Captain would know so much about that. “It didn’t—it wasn’t the same thing. The same kind of thing where he aimed a Killing Curse at me and I survived it,” he clarified, when Flint made an impatient motion with his hand. “I mean, the real Harry Potter was supposed to survive it. The things in my first and second years were different.”
“You still defeated him.”
“But not because I’m his—destined enemy or whatever.” Harry didn’t think Dumbledore would want Flint to know about the prophecy. “Just because I was lucky and in the right place and had help.”
“You were there, and you survived.”
“Er, right,” Harry said. He had no idea what Flint was on about, no idea why Dumbledore had allowed him to talk this long. Honestly, he was tired. He leaned back in his bed and looked at Madam Pomfrey. “Could I have some Dreamless Sleep, please, Madam Pomfrey?”
She started to answer, but Flint interrupted her. “That kind of savior is good enough for me.”
“Someone who was lucky and had help?” Harry asked, confused.
“Someone who was in the right place at the right time.” Flint took a step towards the bed and stared down at him. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the good enough Harry Potter. You’re still alive, and you’ve stopped the Dark Lord a few times yourself. That means you can defeat him if he pops up again.”’
“Please tell us what you’re offering, young Mr. Flint,” said Dumbledore. Harry jumped. He’d actually forgotten the man was in the room.
“My support,” Flint said, although he didn’t take his eyes from Harry, so it felt like he was really talking to him. “A place for Potter to go and hide and be protected by wards. Training so he can survive better the next time. I heard you got kidnapped at the end of the Third Task, Potter. It was the Dark Lord, wasn’t it?”
“Not if you ask the Daily Prophet.”
“I’m not asking them. I’m asking you.”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “But Cedric Diggory still died, and my blood didn’t work to resurrect Voldemort for some reason.” Flint flinched, a rippling of muscles, but stood still otherwise. “So I’m pretty sure he knows that I’m not Harry Potter. Next time, he might just kill me instead of trying to kidnap me.”
“You still lived. Yeah, I’ll protect you and train you.”
“We haven’t yet decided that that would be in Harry’s best interests, Mr. Flint,” Dumbledore said, a very slight scold in his voice. “Why did you simply walk in here and offer it?”
“Because I was counting on Potter to save me, and I didn’t even know it. Now I’m going to save him, so he can save me in the future.”
It sounded simple. Then again, Flint might just have a talent to put things in simple words, Harry thought. He had never been the smartest student at school. “It sounds pretty good to me.”
“Harry, Mr. Flint’s father is—”
“Mental.”
Harry blinked. So did Dumbledore. “I would agree that your father did not make the best choices, Mr. Flint, because to become a Death Eater is never the best choice, but—”
“He was never actually a Death Eater,” Flint said, looking at Dumbledore for a minute but then focusing back on Harry. “Not enough courage or magical strength for that. He experimented with alchemy instead, and he lost his wits in the last backlash. He doesn’t have a memory for anything but simple things anymore. He’s in St. Mungo’s.’
Harry blinked, then nodded slowly. “So he’s not a danger to me.”
“Not to anything but his food.” Flint glanced at Dumbledore again. “No one lives in the house but me.”
“You must have work that keeps you occupied, Mr. Flint.”
“Yeah, pursuing a Divination apprenticeship. Going slowly, though, and the teacher doesn’t have a lot of time to give me. I work on cleaning the house and strengthening the wards most days. Potter will be company, and I’ll be his teacher.”
“This is still—sudden, Mr. Flint. Harry has friends who will give him shelter.”
“Any of them you want to see right now, Potter?”
Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. No, there weren’t. He didn’t want to see pity in their eyes. He didn’t want to argue with them about what he should do next. He didn’t want to have to tell the story of what had happened.
“No,” he whispered.
“Then come with me. I’ll make sure you don’t have to.”
Harry stared at Flint, then at Dumbledore. Dumbledore was shaking his head with a faint frown on his face. Obviously, he thought it would be a bad idea.
But Dumbledore had thought it was a good idea to give a baby the necromantic imprint of a dead baby. Harry was no longer convinced that he could trust the Headmaster.
“I’ll come with you,” he said to Flint.
“Harry, don’t—”
“You don’t have any authority over the kid anymore,” Flint said. “From what the article said, no one does. He has no family left. Come on, Silver.”
“I’d rather go by Potter.”
Flint raised his eyebrows and stared at him. Harry felt as if the gaze was reaching right into him, scraping the skin off his bones.
But Flint nodded, and what he said was, “Sure thing, Potter.”
And he turned and walked out of the hospital wing, obviously expecting Harry to follow. Harry took a deep breath and slipped out of the bed.
“Mr. Potter—Silver—”
“Neither of those is really my name, but I prefer Potter,” Harry told Madam Pomfrey. “I’ve had it longer.” He gave her an uncertain smile, but she only put her hand to her mouth. Then Harry turned and followed Flint.
He caught up with Flint outside the hospital wing, behind a shield that obviously kept a crowd of people on the other side. Flint did it so casually, and that made Harry burn with envy. That was the kind of thing he needed to learn, the kind of thing that it sounded like Flint would teach him.
“What do you need, Potter?”
“My trunk and things in Gryffindor Tower.”
“Let’s go.”
Flint walked off again. Harry closed his eyes, then opened them again, and took his first steps after Marcus Flint, his unlikely savior, into a new life.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Marcus Flint
Content Notes: AU (Harry is not a Potter), discussions of past torture and character deaths, underage kissing, angst
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 5500
Summary: AU starting with the Third Task. Harry’s blood fails to resurrect Voldemort, because he is not Harry Potter, but a Muggleborn son of two Squib Order members who died in the first war. Dazed, no longer knowing who he is, Harry tries to navigate a new world, including Marcus Flint unexpectedly taking an interest in him.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” chaptered fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. This will probably have five to six chapters, and is a fairly dark fic. It’s is for Isafold88’s prompt for Harry discovering that he’s a random Muggleborn and a romance with Marcus Flint. The title comes from the Tennyson poem quoted below.
The Crimson Petal and the White
“Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.
The firefly wakens; waken thou with me.”
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Harry bucked against the ropes Wormtail had conjured. He wanted, more than anything, for this to be a dream, for Cedric not to be dead a few meters away, for the cut on his arm not to be bleeding.
For the huge cauldron that Wormtail was dripping his blood in not to be there.
Wormtail started to say something, and then broke off with an alarmed squeak that sounded like a rat’s as the cauldron abruptly began to hum as if someone had dropped it. Harry, panting, tried to watch, because it might be important, even though sweat was dripping down his forehead and getting into his eyes.
“What?” Wormtail whispered. “Master?”
The smoke billowing from the cauldron suddenly turned a deep, rich blue. Harry stared at it. From the way Wormtail was backing away from the cauldron, raising his hands, Harry knew something had gone badly wrong.
Abruptly, the cauldron exploded.
Harry couldn’t do very much to shield himself, tied down on the headstone as he was, but he turned his head away and ducked his face into his shoulder as much as he could. He felt something small and sharp land on his chest and cut it, and another piece slapped his cheek with a stinging sensation, but there was nothing worse than that.
“My lord!”
Wormtail was screaming. Harry twisted his head. He didn’t know what had exactly happened, if Voldemort had drowned or been burned to death by the exploding potion or been crushed by the metal, but there was a dark spirit hovering in front of Wormtail that looked very familiar.
The spirit turned and arrowed towards Harry.
Harry raised one arm as high as he could. This had worked once before, he thought, frantically, although Voldemort had been in a body at the time—
The spirit slammed against what seemed to be an invisible barrier a few centimeters from him and contorted, shrieking. Then it turned and flew away across the graveyard. Wormtail called after it, but it ignored him.
That left Harry tied up and alone with Wormtail, who turned and gave him an indecisive look.
Harry’s thoughts seemed to dart and leap through his mind, and he landed on the one thing that might protect him. “I command you by the life-debt you owe me, Wormtail,” he said, panting harshly, “to let me go and get me back to Hogwarts.”
Wormtail made another squeaking sound. “I can’t go back to Hogwarts! They’ll find me! They’ll kill me!”
“I didn’t say you had to go, just that you had to send me,” Harry said hastily, before Wormtail could disappear. Interesting that he didn’t argue against owing me a life-debt. “And Cedric’s body.” He thought Cedric would want Harry to take it back, and his parents would want it.
And, whispered something dark and wary in the back of Harry’s mind, they might think that you killed him if you can’t come back with the body and prove he died from a Killing Curse.
They might think that anyway. But Harry was going to handle what he could handle right now.
Wormtail glanced back and forth as if hoping that someone else would show up to help him solve the problem. Then he seemed to spot something, and nodded enthusiastically. “The Cup is a Portkey enchanted to return you to the school. We were going to use it to send your body back.”
Harry hoped he concealed his shiver. “Then you can use it to send me and Cedric back. Come untie me.”
Unbelievably, Wormtail seemed happier when he had someone ordering him around. Even when it was the boy whose parents he had betrayed and who he had almost killed. He scurried over and used his wand to sever the ropes. Harry hissed as he sat up, and the cut on his arm began to bleed sluggishly again.
“Here, here,” Wormtail said, and gave him back his wand, and gestured towards where Cedric’s body lay, muttering the Summoning Charm. Cedric came flying, along with the cup. Harry swallowed. He couldn’t look at Cedric, but it was right to have him here, to bring him back along with Harry. “Now go!”
Harry nodded and grabbed hold of Cedric’s arm with one hand, trying not to think about how cold and heavy it felt. But he didn’t reach for the cup yet. “Why did the potion explode?” he asked.
Wormtail shook his head. “I don’t know. It was going right until I added your blood. Your blood…” He stared at Harry and sniffed a little.
Harry decided he wasn’t going to get a good answer, so he reached out to the cup.
“I don’t owe you a life-debt now. It’s paid back.”
“Then that means I don’t need to protect you next time, Wormtail,” Harry said, and smiled at the expression on Wormtail’s face in the moments before the cup whirled him and Cedric’s body away.
*
Harry sat with his head between his knees, feeling Dumbledore’s hand rubbing his back. Watching Cedric murdered had been bad enough. Then the fake Moody had herded Harry off to his office and almost killed him, and Harry had watched him be kissed by a Dementor.
And then it turned out that he still couldn’t go to the hospital wing, because Professor Dumbledore wanted to talk to him.
At least the Headmaster had let him put his head down for a little while.
Dumbledore cleared his throat gently, and Harry sat up and gave him a wobbly smile. He hated his smiles being wobbly, but he sort of thought he had an excuse. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t—I didn’t know I’d need to put my head down like that.”
“I can hardly blame you for some nausea, considering the events of the evening, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore said softly, and took his place behind his desk. “I must ask you to describe what happened in the graveyard.”
Harry took a deep breath and nodded. “All right, sir. Cedric and I both took the cup because we were going to make it a Hogwarts victory.” His voice shook, but he steadied it. “We arrived in this graveyard and then Wormtail k-killed Cedric…”
He went on, talking about the potion and the small baby-like body that Voldemort was stuck in. Dumbledore was nodding and stroking his beard. But then Harry talked about the potion exploding instead of swallowing his blood, and Dumbledore took a deep, rattling breath and sat up.
Harry squinted at him. “Sir? I did ask Wormtail why the cauldron exploded, but he didn’t know.”
“I—” Dumbledore looked almost grey. “Harry, you are sure this is what happened? Pettigrew would not have used an illusion to make it appear as if that was happening?”
“I’m sure, sir,” Harry said slowly. “Why would he use an illusion? Why would he have let me live if Voldemort was really back or whatever they were trying to do? I don’t think Wormtail is in control of Voldemort.”
Dumbledore half-smiled, but his smile was desperate and his eyes far away. “I miscalculated,” he whispered. “I thought I had done as I should, in the wake of their deaths, but I miscalculated.”
“Sir? What’s going on?”
Dumbledore closed his eyes and sat still for a long moment. Then he swallowed and said, “I think it is time that I tell you the truth, Harry. If only because Voldemort likely knows it, now, and Pettigrew could come to some understanding of it if he thought on it. He will, I think. He was an intelligent student.”
“Are you going to tell me about why Voldemort wanted to attack me and my parents when I was one, sir?”
Dumbledore swallowed as if the air was grimy, and then he said, “Not your parents.”
“What?”
“Not you, either.”
Harry felt as if he were drifting down a channel full of grey water, heading straight into a waterfall. He swallowed. “What?”
Dumbledore sat back with his hands folded for long enough that Harry almost wondered if he’d gone to sleep. Old people did that sometimes, didn’t they? And Dumbledore had had a long and tiring evening.
But Dumbledore opened his eyes and said, “Your name isn’t Harry Potter. If you were known by the name you had at birth, you would be Aaron Silver.”
“What?”
Yes, Harry was going over the waterfall.
Dumbledore leaned forwards and said gently, “Your mother was named Isabelle Fawley, a second-generation Squib. Her father’s family wanted nothing to do with her, and that is one of the reasons she decided to fight on our side. Your father was also a Squib, the child of two Muggleborns; his name was Matthew Silver. They named you Aaron when you were born.”
“How could—why would anyone think I was—”
“I am afraid that is my doing, Harry.”
Harry just stared at him.
Dumbledore looked as old as he could be. He waved his wand, though, and locked the door with a spitting of sparks, and that didn’t sound old. Harry leaned back and felt like a sack of limp leaves, and Dumbledore continued with the story.
“There was a prophecy the year before you were born, the prophecy of a child who would be born at the end of July and able to defeat the Dark Lord. Unfortunately, a—servant of Voldemort overheard part of the prophecy, and escaped before I could stop him. Therefore, Voldemort knew that he was looking for a child born under special conditions with the power to stop him, and there were very few who qualified.
“He managed to hunt down the Potters because of Pettigrew’s betrayal, as you know. He killed James and Lily. Then he killed their son.”
“But—I have memories of them! I look like them!”
“Yes, Harry, I know—”
“How did those get there if I’m not—”
Harry could barely hear himself, yelling and yelling. Dumbledore cast a charm with another flick of his wand, and Harry discovered himself sitting back in the chair, breathing deeply, dealing with what felt like a flood of coolness into the center of his chest. The kind a Calming Draught would produce.
He blinked and tried to say something. No word came from his lips.
“Ah, yes, I am afraid the Calming Charm usually includes a silencing component,” Dumbledore said, a bit apologetically, and waved his wand again. Harry’s chest expanded, and he panted. Dumbledore leaned in and peered at him. “Are you all right, Harry?”
“That’s not my name.”
The building twinkle in Dumbledore’s eyes disappeared at once. “No,” he said gently. “I am afraid it is not.”
“So what happened?”
“Voldemort was ripped from life by his own curse rebounding on Harry Potter, just as I told the world, but Harry did not survive it,” Dumbledore said quietly, looking old again. “The same night, the Lestranges attacked your parents’ cottage. I still do not know how they were betrayed. Perhaps, since they were not under the Fidelius, the Lestranges merely traced someone’s Apparition trail there. Other members of our Order of the Phoenix—the group that fought Voldemort—had to Apparate Matthew and Isabella since they could not do it for themselves.
“The Lestranges were saving you for last, because that is their sadistic way. I arrived just after they killed Isabella; the Lestranges fled at the sight of me. I still had you with me when I received the Patronus telling me about the Potters’ death.
“I could not believe they were truly dead until I confirmed it for myself. And then—I am afraid I panicked. Voldemort was dead, but at the cost of our savior. I knew people would rejoice to see the end of the Dark Lord, but they would need hope in the dark times ahead. They needed someone to look to, someone they could trust to protect them. A dead child could not be that savior.”
“So you…”
“There is a very Dark form of magic, called necromancy. That is what Voldemort and Pettigrew attempted to practice on you tonight. At the outermost edges of it is a form less harmful than the rest, which takes what is called an imprint from the recently dead. That imprint contains memories and often other things, such as traces of the personality. The few people licensed to perform this spell in magical Britain usually use it to see what a murder victim saw in their last moments, transferring the imprint to themselves.
“I used that spell on the corpse of baby Harry Potter and transferred that imprint to you. Thus I gave you his looks, and I gave you the last memories of his parents, what he saw and heard before he died.”
Harry buried his face in his hands.
“Why?” he whispered, his voice dry and his chest heaving. But his voice wouldn’t rise into a yell. He supposed that was the result of the Calming Charm Dumbledore had cast on him. “Why would you…you had to know it would eventually be revealed!”
“I thought I had given you a new life as Harry Potter, and that the magic went deep enough,” Dumbledore whispered. “When I brought you to your—that is, Petunia Dursley’s house, the magic imprinted in your skin recognized the blood in her veins. In every way possible, you were Harry Potter. I thought there would never be any doubt. I would have thought a ritual like the one tonight that used your blood would work.”
“You thought you—gave me a new life. A better one?”
“Isabella’s father committed suicide when he realized that the experimental potions he’d been drinking to try and create magic in himself would never work,” Dumbledore said dully. “Her mother, a Muggle, cut contact with her when Isabella moved back into the magical world. She had no siblings. Matthew’s parents died in one of the first raids in the war, and so did his younger sister. There was an aunt, from what I remember, a sister of his mother who also had magic, but she ran and buried herself in such obscurity that I couldn’t find her. I never knew her name. Neither Matthew nor Isabella talked much about their families.
“You would have been an orphan, left without any family and with most people in the magical world hesitant to adopt you. Being the child of Squibs is—scarring. Many purebloods would claim that being a Muggleborn is better.”
“Instead, you sent me to people who made me live in the cupboard under the stairs,” Harry whispered.
Dumbledore flinched. “I am sorry for that, Harry—Aaron.”
“I don’t feel like an Aaron. How can I ever feel like an Aaron again? I—how did the magic protection that burned Quirrell in my first year even work?”
“I bound the imprint to you as deeply as I could. And I am a powerful wizard, Harry, who drew on the furthest reaches of his own magic. You are, in many ways, the son Lily Potter died to save.”
“My Parseltongue? You said Voldemort transferred it to me. How could he?”
Huh. His voice had turned back into a yell. Harry shrank away and shook his head when Dumbledore lifted his wand again. He managed to control his breathing, though. He didn’t want Dumbledore to just cast a spell without asking him.
“I…”
“Answer me!”
A silver instrument on the shelves broke into shards and splintered across the room. Dumbledore drew in a sharp breath and waved his wand, lifting a shield in front of the splinters. Harry stared at the metal scattered all over the floor and felt tears coursing down his face.
“I do not know for certain,” Dumbledore whispered. “However, there are rumors that the Fawleys were once Parselmouths, that they were also descendants of Slytherin because one of their foremothers bore a bastard son to Slytherin’s great-great-grandson. It’s only rumors, though, Harry. I am sorry. I don’t know any more.”
“You keep saying you’re sorry! It doesn’t matter!”
“It does,” Dumbledore said, quietly but firmly. “I did you wrong, and I will do anything I can to make it up to you. What do you want, Harry? Do you want me to try and find any family you may have left in the wizarding world? Or the Muggle one? I will certainly never force you to return to the Dursleys. I can help you announce the truth to the world, if that’s what you want. Or I can help you conceal it—”
“I want you to travel back and change the past!”
“Alas, Harry, you ask of me the one thing beyond even my power.”
Harry sat there staring at Dumbledore, but the man simply looked at him, eyes grave and full of sorrow. Harry felt the hot whirling in his own head, only this time it didn’t feel like magic about to break free.
He turned his face into his shoulder and let the thunderstorm break. He didn’t even notice when he fell into darkness, or what caused it. He might have finally cried himself to sleep.
*
Marcus sighed and picked up the Prophet when his owl, Hellion, dropped it into the middle of his porridge. Probably for the best. The porridge was uninspiring. The paper might be a little better.
He opened the front page as he took a sip of his butterbeer, and promptly spat it out all over the photograph of a big-eyed Harry Potter.
HARRY POTTER NOT A POTTER?
Marcus read the article with wide eyes. It was written by Skeeter, of course it was, and with her usual true-sounding but impossible facts. How did she learn this stuff? Marcus had no doubt that at least some of it was real, given that her targets usually yelled that they’d been misinterpreted instead of just accusing her of lying.
Apparently Skeeter had somehow got Dumbledore and Potter to tell her that Potter was actually some Muggleborn—well, Squib-born—kid named Aaron Silver, whose parents had been Squibs who had died in the war with the Dark Lord. Dumbledore had kidnapped him (well, not he used that word, but Skeeter did) and placed some kind of necromantic imprint from the dead Harry Potter on him so that the people could have a savior.
The end of the article included a paragraph that made Marcus swallow. Skeeter insinuated and twisted the truth and told lies of omission, but he had no doubt that this, at least, was an accurate prediction of the upcoming reaction of magical Britain.
And who is to say that the boy we called Harry Potter ever deserved the praise and plaudits that we gave him, dear readers? Who is to say that he is not a liar and a cheater—perhaps even a murderer or a rising Dark Lord—when he didn’t defeat You-Know-Who after all? That was apparently a precious baby boy whose priceless life ended the night his nemesis died. I must ask myself if Harry Potter deserves many things, not least the name stolen for him by Albus Dumbledore. I hope that my readers will ask themselves the same question.
Marcus laid down the paper and stared blankly at the wall. Things were falling into place in his head like heavy stones, and he became aware that he had never known—
He had never planned on being a Death Eater. He had simply thought that the Dark Lord was dead. That was the conscious part of himself, the one he’d been aware of.
The unconscious part of himself, the one that had woken up now so Marcus could notice it and was yammering in his head, had assumed that if the Dark Lord did somehow come back, Harry Potter would defeat him again.
It was startling to learn that he might not have the power to do that after all.
No, it was terrifying.
Marcus jerked upright, feeling as if all the muscles in his body were trembling. He grabbed blindly for the cloak that he’d taken off last night and draped over the back of his chair, and managed to get it on after some fumbling.
He had to go to Hogwarts. He had to find out what was happening. He had to see how safe he was.
*
“I am so sorry, my dear boy.”
“You’ve been saying that a lot,” Harry said dully, slumping back in his bed in the hospital wing and staring hollow-eyed at the front page of the paper.
Skeeter had somehow found out that he wasn’t Harry—for all that he still felt like that was his name and the imprint on him was so deep that his looks wouldn’t change—and leaked the news to everyone. Harry could hear a furor going on outside the doors of the hospital wing. He could only be grateful that Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey were preventing anyone from getting inside.
But not very grateful. Not when things were still turning out like this.
“Nevertheless, it remains true,” Dumbledore said, and sat down in a chair by the bed. “How do you want to handle this?”
Harry took a deep, long breath. “I can’t imagine—going by Aaron,” he said, glancing away. “And you said that you can’t find any family for me to go back to. So anyone who would want to call me Aaron is probably dead anyway.”
“Yes, I believe that to be true.”
“But I don’t have to go back to the Dursleys anymore, either.”
Dumbledore hesitated. “While it is true that you are not technically related to them, the imprint of Lily and James’s son on you means that the blood protections can continue to func—”
“No!” Harry sat up and yanked his sleeve back from his arm, ignoring Madam Pomfrey tutting about how he should rest. “See this scar? My cousin broke my arm when I was six, throwing me into the wall. And my aunt and—I mean, the Dursleys refused to take me to hospital. They made me sleep in a cupboard. They swung frying pans at my head and called me freak all the time. If you make me go back there, I’ll run away, I swear I will!”
He became aware that he was shouting, and that Dumbledore was staring at him with haunted eyes, and Madam Pomfrey had a hand to her mouth and looked on the verge of crying. Harry slumped back against his pillows and stared in the other direction. His body was full of heat and fury and sadness, and he didn’t know what he would say right now if he tried speaking.
“I only meant,” Dumbledore finally whispered, “that—that the blood protections would continue to function, and would continue to keep you safe from the Death Eaters. There are those, like Lucius Malfoy, who would want to destroy you for things you did, even though you are not Voldemort’s greatest enemy in truth.”
Harry knew it, but—“You’ve messed up my life enough, don’t you think, Headmaster?” he asked, and watched with some sick satisfaction as the man flinched. “Either you get me away from the Dursleys, or I’ll do it myself.”
Dumbledore closed his eyes and sat there as if he was meditating. Harry didn’t know what he would have said, because a huge knock hit the doors of the hospital wing that didn’t sound like the others.
“Someone is trying to blast them open with Dark Arts, Headmaster!”
“I know, Poppy.” Dumbledore was on his feet, and he really did look like a great wizard then, stern and powerful. Harry wondered if that was what he had looked like when he came to rescue Harry from Quirrell. “I will confront them.”
The doors shook again from the burst of what Harry could only assume was a powerful spell, and then burst open. There was a shield like a huge soap bubble in the corridor, so Harry couldn’t see any of the other people who had been gathered out there earlier. And there was someone striding forwards angrily, practically stomping into the hospital wing.
When he recognized the person, Harry felt his brain stutter to a halt, and he just stared. Marcus Flint?
“Mr. Flint,” Dumbledore said, his wand still leveled at the older boy—man, Harry supposed he should be. He was in his twenties or something now, wasn’t he? Or nineteen? “What is the meaning of this?”
“I came to find out if it was true and Harry Potter wasn’t really Harry Potter,” Flint said, and turned to face Harry. “Is it true?”
Harry looked back at him, thinking of the Dark Arts Flint had used to open the doors, and seeing the strong muscles in his arms, and thinking how tough he had always been on the Quidditch pitch. Flint wouldn’t have to worry about Death Eaters attacking him. He could defend himself. “It’s true,” Harry said simply.
“But then how did the Dark Lord get defeated?”
“Harry Potter defeated the Dark Lord,” Harry said. Neither Dumbledore nor Madam Pomfrey was speaking up. Maybe they wanted to see how he would handle this on his own. “Professor Dumbledore gave me the necromantic imprint after that, because Harry Potter also died in the attack.”
“But what about the other times?”
“Other times?” Harry echoed, feeling stupid.
“There were all sorts of rumors that you defeated a Death Eater possessed by the Dark Lord in your first year, Potter,” Flint said, and then paused as if remembering that Harry’s last name wasn’t Potter anymore. But he didn’t let it stop him for long. “And an artifact with another shade of him in your second year.”
Harry blinked. He hadn’t realized that the Slytherin Quidditch Captain would know so much about that. “It didn’t—it wasn’t the same thing. The same kind of thing where he aimed a Killing Curse at me and I survived it,” he clarified, when Flint made an impatient motion with his hand. “I mean, the real Harry Potter was supposed to survive it. The things in my first and second years were different.”
“You still defeated him.”
“But not because I’m his—destined enemy or whatever.” Harry didn’t think Dumbledore would want Flint to know about the prophecy. “Just because I was lucky and in the right place and had help.”
“You were there, and you survived.”
“Er, right,” Harry said. He had no idea what Flint was on about, no idea why Dumbledore had allowed him to talk this long. Honestly, he was tired. He leaned back in his bed and looked at Madam Pomfrey. “Could I have some Dreamless Sleep, please, Madam Pomfrey?”
She started to answer, but Flint interrupted her. “That kind of savior is good enough for me.”
“Someone who was lucky and had help?” Harry asked, confused.
“Someone who was in the right place at the right time.” Flint took a step towards the bed and stared down at him. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the good enough Harry Potter. You’re still alive, and you’ve stopped the Dark Lord a few times yourself. That means you can defeat him if he pops up again.”’
“Please tell us what you’re offering, young Mr. Flint,” said Dumbledore. Harry jumped. He’d actually forgotten the man was in the room.
“My support,” Flint said, although he didn’t take his eyes from Harry, so it felt like he was really talking to him. “A place for Potter to go and hide and be protected by wards. Training so he can survive better the next time. I heard you got kidnapped at the end of the Third Task, Potter. It was the Dark Lord, wasn’t it?”
“Not if you ask the Daily Prophet.”
“I’m not asking them. I’m asking you.”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “But Cedric Diggory still died, and my blood didn’t work to resurrect Voldemort for some reason.” Flint flinched, a rippling of muscles, but stood still otherwise. “So I’m pretty sure he knows that I’m not Harry Potter. Next time, he might just kill me instead of trying to kidnap me.”
“You still lived. Yeah, I’ll protect you and train you.”
“We haven’t yet decided that that would be in Harry’s best interests, Mr. Flint,” Dumbledore said, a very slight scold in his voice. “Why did you simply walk in here and offer it?”
“Because I was counting on Potter to save me, and I didn’t even know it. Now I’m going to save him, so he can save me in the future.”
It sounded simple. Then again, Flint might just have a talent to put things in simple words, Harry thought. He had never been the smartest student at school. “It sounds pretty good to me.”
“Harry, Mr. Flint’s father is—”
“Mental.”
Harry blinked. So did Dumbledore. “I would agree that your father did not make the best choices, Mr. Flint, because to become a Death Eater is never the best choice, but—”
“He was never actually a Death Eater,” Flint said, looking at Dumbledore for a minute but then focusing back on Harry. “Not enough courage or magical strength for that. He experimented with alchemy instead, and he lost his wits in the last backlash. He doesn’t have a memory for anything but simple things anymore. He’s in St. Mungo’s.’
Harry blinked, then nodded slowly. “So he’s not a danger to me.”
“Not to anything but his food.” Flint glanced at Dumbledore again. “No one lives in the house but me.”
“You must have work that keeps you occupied, Mr. Flint.”
“Yeah, pursuing a Divination apprenticeship. Going slowly, though, and the teacher doesn’t have a lot of time to give me. I work on cleaning the house and strengthening the wards most days. Potter will be company, and I’ll be his teacher.”
“This is still—sudden, Mr. Flint. Harry has friends who will give him shelter.”
“Any of them you want to see right now, Potter?”
Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. No, there weren’t. He didn’t want to see pity in their eyes. He didn’t want to argue with them about what he should do next. He didn’t want to have to tell the story of what had happened.
“No,” he whispered.
“Then come with me. I’ll make sure you don’t have to.”
Harry stared at Flint, then at Dumbledore. Dumbledore was shaking his head with a faint frown on his face. Obviously, he thought it would be a bad idea.
But Dumbledore had thought it was a good idea to give a baby the necromantic imprint of a dead baby. Harry was no longer convinced that he could trust the Headmaster.
“I’ll come with you,” he said to Flint.
“Harry, don’t—”
“You don’t have any authority over the kid anymore,” Flint said. “From what the article said, no one does. He has no family left. Come on, Silver.”
“I’d rather go by Potter.”
Flint raised his eyebrows and stared at him. Harry felt as if the gaze was reaching right into him, scraping the skin off his bones.
But Flint nodded, and what he said was, “Sure thing, Potter.”
And he turned and walked out of the hospital wing, obviously expecting Harry to follow. Harry took a deep breath and slipped out of the bed.
“Mr. Potter—Silver—”
“Neither of those is really my name, but I prefer Potter,” Harry told Madam Pomfrey. “I’ve had it longer.” He gave her an uncertain smile, but she only put her hand to her mouth. Then Harry turned and followed Flint.
He caught up with Flint outside the hospital wing, behind a shield that obviously kept a crowd of people on the other side. Flint did it so casually, and that made Harry burn with envy. That was the kind of thing he needed to learn, the kind of thing that it sounded like Flint would teach him.
“What do you need, Potter?”
“My trunk and things in Gryffindor Tower.”
“Let’s go.”
Flint walked off again. Harry closed his eyes, then opened them again, and took his first steps after Marcus Flint, his unlikely savior, into a new life.
