[From Litha to Lammas]: The Crimson Petal and the White, 5/5, Harry/Marcus, PG-13

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of the story.

Part Five

Harry, we’re sorry. Can we try again?

Marcus looked at the letter Harry had handed him and grunted a little, leaning back in his chair at the head of the table. Harry sat beside him and attacked scrambled eggs and mushrooms with an enthusiasm that made Marcus smile.

“Do you believe them?” Marcus asked, moving his head at the words on the parchment.

“Well, it’s short, and I know Hermione would probably want to write lots of justifications and arguments, but that’s her handwriting,” Harry said, and sat back to lick a piece of egg off his lips. Marcus resisted the urge to lean over and lick it off himself. “So Ron probably persuaded her to just ask this question and give the apology. That’s a good sign. It means that Hermione knows she can’t just go on and overwhelm me by sheer force of words.”

“Does she do that often?”

Harry cocked his head in doubt. “Not often? Just when it comes to homework and things like that.”

“Well, she won’t do it with this, or I won’t welcome her in my home.”

Harry considered him for a long moment, and then smiled and nodded. Marcus smiled back and went back to watching Harry eat, wondering as he did if he would get to crush Granger’s pretensions to being the most logical person in the room.

It was something to look forward to.

*

Harry dropped off the ladder, bent over and breathing hoarsely. That had been the quickest time he’d climbed one of them and managed to come down the other side without slipping or faltering. He didn’t think he’d ever have to face a situation exactly like this in a real fight, but it helped with his stamina.

“Harry? Black’s here.”

Harry straightened up with a small frown. Sirius was supposed to be coming tomorrow. Now that he had the password for Marcus’s Floo, he might technically have shown up any time, but Harry still thought he should have alerted them before he came over. “Did he say why?”

“Said he’d only tell you.”

Harry rolled his eyes and reached for his wand, swirling it around in the Drying Charm Marcus had taught him. He could perform it entirely wordlessly now, which he did both out of pride and because he liked seeing Marcus’s eyes fill with heat. “All right, I’m coming.”

Marcus walked beside him as they made their way to the Floo room. Harry eyed him sideways, and compared their heights. Marcus was still taller, of course, probably always would be, but Harry knew the difference in their muscles weren’t as great as it had been at the beginning of summer.

I’ll get stronger. Faster. Better.

When they stepped into the Floo room, Sirius spun around and immediately charged over and gripped Harry’s shoulders. “Harry, you have to leave!”

“What are you talking about, Sirius?”

“Harry’s not leaving the house, Black.” Marcus’s voice overlapped with his.

“No, I mean—you have to leave Britain.” Sirius broke free and began pacing around the Floo room, his hands rising to tangle in his hair. “The Department of Mysteries wants to break the necromantic imprint on you and turn you back to being Aaron Silver.”

Harry swallowed, feeling as if his stomach had turned to lead. “Why? I mean, why would they care? Dumbledore said the spell’s been used before, and he didn’t—he didn’t say anything about people wanting to break it…”

“Most people aren’t babies with a necromantic imprint cast on them by someone else,” Sirius said, and whirled around to grip Harry’s shoulders again. “They’re talking about it as a matter of national security because you’re not really Harry Potter and you didn’t come to Hogwarts under your real name, and because someone else could use this trick to try and gain access to money or information that doesn’t belong to them. But the worst part is, if they break it—”

“I’ve never been anyone but Harry Potter since I was one year old. Would—I go back to being Aaron Silver?”

“Aaron Silver never existed at this age.” Sirius took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you would become a teenager without the same looks. Or you would lose all your memories. Or if you would turn back into a baby. Or if you would cease to exist.”

“Who is behind this, Black?”

“The Department of Mysteries. I said—”

“No. I mean, specifically. Did the announcement come through the Minister’s office? Or was there an Unspeakable who named themselves in the announcement? Who said it?”

Harry swallowed and glanced at Marcus, feeling some of the churning in his stomach slow down. Marcus thought he could do something to spare Harry from this. That was enough to make Harry relax and stand a little taller.

“Minister Fudge,” Sirius said, blinking at them both. He obviously didn’t have the same kind of confidence that Harry did in Marcus being able to solve everything. “He talked about the Department of Mysteries requiring it, and then someone asked if the Department of Mysteries could just do anything they wanted, and Fudge said that his office was giving the authorization for it.”

“Perfect,” Marcus said, a smile so dark forming on his face that Harry felt a thrill of excitement in his belly.

“What are you going to do, Marcus?”

“Yes, what are you going to do, Flint?” Sirius straightened up, his eyes darting between Harry and Marcus as if he thought Marcus would go kill Fudge.

“I’m going to challenge Fudge to a duel. He gave his authorization for this. I defeat him in a duel, and that authorization fails. They don’t have any legal right to do it, then.” Marcus snapped his wand into his hand. “Let me go challenge Fudge.”

“I’ve never—that’s not legal—”

“Most of the time, the Ministry is trying to do something to an adult, who mostly doesn’t choose a duel because it’s too chancy.” Marcus’s eyes glinted. “But Harry’s underage, he doesn’t have a real guardian now that everyone is thinking of him as Aaron Silver but he’s chosen to say with me, and I’m going to destroy Fudge in the dueling ring.”

Harry grinned at Marcus. He had no doubt that Marcus could do it, especially after watching him train. He had just never thought that someone would try to do it for him.

“Fudge could just refuse to duel, though—”

“Not if I issue the challenge the right way.”

“I’ve never heard of this!”

“You went to Azkaban for twelve years and were running around making a nuisance of yourself before that, Black. Of course you’ve never heard of everything in the world.”

Sirius scowled at Marcus. Then he turned and studied Harry with a bright, wistful look in his eyes. “If this is real, kiddo, if someone could do this, would you rather have Flint do it than me?”

“They would try to arrest you or have Dementors Kiss you on sight, Sirius,” Harry said as gently as he could. He didn’t want to say that he trusted Marcus to win a duel in a way that he’d never trust Sirius. “Marcus is the only one who can make a legal challenge and stand a chance of winning it.”

Sirius sighed gustily and leaned back against the wall. “True enough, I suppose. But you know that they’ll just have someone else issue the legal ruling after this?”

“Let them come.”

Harry glanced sideways at Marcus. He had his feet braced and his jaw outthrust in that way that always made him look like a troll. In other words, a tower of strength and muscle barely affected by magic.

“I’ll duel them all,” Marcus growled. “I’ll kill them all, if I have to.”

Sirius gaped at Marcus. Harry settled back with a feeling of smugness swirling in the center of his chest.

He had chosen correctly.

*

Marcus strode into the Minister’s office with the exasperated protests of the Minister’s Undersecretary bouncing off his back.

Fudge looked up from his desk and stared at Marcus with a rapidly paling face. He swallowed several times and then said, “Mr.—Flint. What are you doing here?”

Marcus didn’t think Fudge recognized him directly; it was probably just from Marcus’s resemblance to other members of his family. He settled back, nodded at the ridiculous man, and said, “I challenge you to a duel.”

“What?”

“You made the announcement that the Department of Mysteries is going to be allowed to persecute Harry Potter and strip him of a spell that someone else cast on him. I’m sheltering Harry and I can challenge you to a duel on his behalf. If I win, there’s nothing you can legally do to him.”

“B-but that’s not—”

“What? Something you want to do? Should have thought of this before now, coward.”

A tide of red ran down the middle of the Minister’s face, which made Marcus grin. He could probably bait Fudge into a duel easily as long as no one else interfered. “Th-that is an undeserved insult!”

“I think it’s fully deserved. You made the decision about a fifteen-year-old and didn’t even have the courage to look him in the eye—”

“Necromantic imprints like that are illegal!”

“First of all, the spell is used by Aurors on a daily basis. Second, someone else cast it on Harry. You think he was running around at fifteen months old casting it on himself?”

Fudge flushed harder, no doubt chagrined at his own stupidity, and lashed out, as Marcus had hoped. “You don’t have the right to call for a duel!”

“Why not? Harry doesn’t have any living relatives left, the people he was told had custody of him never had it if he is Aaron Silver the way your office has proclaimed, and you can hardly claim that his Head of House or the Headmaster should have it if your position is that he should never have been at Hogwarts in the first place—”

“You can’t do it!”

“You mean that you don’t want to duel me in particular. Coward.”

That worked the way Marcus had hoped. Fudge stood up from behind his desk with a jerky motion and pointed at Marcus with one finger. “Just for that, we will duel, Mr. Flint! In the Ministry Atrium, at five o’clock this afternoon.”

Marcus would have chosen a different place, but that worked well enough. It was public and would ensure news of Fudge’s defeat spread far and wide. And if Fudge had chosen that location because he thought thwould let people come through the Floos or up from the Department of Mysteries and to his rescue…

He would soon learn better.

*

Harry kept his head up as he walked through the Floo into the Ministry Atrium beside Marcus. Marcus had explained that Harry couldn’t wear illusions to attend the duel. The whole point was that Marcus was fighting for Harry’s right to look like and be called Harry Potter, and he had to show that he was willing to stand up in public and proclaim his identity.

He’d been there for less than a minute when excited murmurs began to spread through the Atrium. Harry kept his gaze focused straight ahead. At least some of those murmurs were probably for Marcus and Fudge, who walked heavily towards the middle of the huge room, by the golden statue.

At least some of them.

“You know the rules for this type of legal duel,” said a harassed-looking woman with a monocle who stood on the statue’s pedestal and gazed back and forth between Marcus and the Minister. “To incapacitating injury or any other kind of injury that will make one party retract their claim. Legal spells only. No help from anyone else.”

Harry bit his lip. He hadn’t known that bit about legal spells only. How much would that restrict Marcus’s dueling repertoire?

Marcus didn’t look the least bit worried, but of course, he would never show such emotions in front of an enemy. Fudge, on the other hand, was red-faced and sweating.

“This is the dueling ring,” the woman with the monocle said, and waved her wand. A line of fire appeared and sketched a circle around Marcus and the Minister, burning it into the floor. “Who retreats outside it forfeits the duel. Begin.”

Fudge looked startled at the command, and hesitated. Marcus was already moving, spinning in a circle of his own to raise incredibly strong interlocking wards around the edges of the dueling ring.

Harry breathed out slowly. He wouldn’t be able to reach Marcus and help him, but no one would be able to reach and help Fudge, either, which was more of a concern.

Marcus spun back and crouched, just in time to deflect a Stunner from his shield that Fudge had flung at him. Harry clenched his hands, hoped that Fudge’s first spell was an indication of his magical strength, and watched.

*

The Minister was pathetic.

Marcus had been prepared to find him so, but also prepared to find that Fudge had been keeping some depths of magical strength hidden, the better to surprise someone who happened upon him in a situation where none of his Aurors were around. But no. Fudge simply knew basic hexes and jinxes and shields. He kept trying to Stun Marcus, as if he hoped that would work when it hadn’t the last ten times.

Marcus only had to show his superiority without harming Fudge too much. Keeping to legal spells was the greatest challenge.

He dodged and shielded for the first five minutes, because making the Minister incapacitated right away and making people, in turn, afraid of Marcus wasn’t the plan. But then he aimed a bolt of pure white light at Fudge’s left ankle and murmured, aloud, “Incaendium.”

Fudge screamed as the bone caught on fire. Marcus ended it with a sharp slash of his wand as Fudge fell over, wailing and clutching at his foot that had only ashes left within the skin. Marcus took a step towards him. “Do you yield?”

Fudge gaped at him in pain, mouth moving soundlessly.

“I said, do you yield? Do you agree that the Department of Mysteries will not try to experiment on Harry Potter or strip the necromantic imprint from him? Do you agree that your office will abide by the same restrictions?”

“It hurts!” Fudge bleated.

“I suppose, since you can talk and you’re not withdrawing your challenge, then you need to be further incapacitated,” Marcus said with fake sorrow. He raised his wand.

“I yield! I yield! I yield! I—”

Marcus rolled his eyes and Stunned the pathetic fucker, just in case someone complained that destroying the Minister’s ability to stand up didn’t count as incapacitation. Then he turned and stalked along the ward-line, meeting pair after pair of eyes.

Dozens of them fell away from his stare. Amelia Bones and Harry were the only ones who met them, and then with very different expressions. Bones looked as if she regretted the Bone-Burner being legal.

Harry was staring at Marcus as if he was the center of the universe.

Marcus didn’t mind admitting, if only to himself, that he tilted his head back and strutted to the edge of the dueling ring. Harry watched him come, smiling, and Marcus stepped out over it and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s go home,” Marcus said, glaring impartially around at the crowd. Any of them could have been an Unspeakable out of the hood, looking for reasons to cast a spell at Harry. But all of them fell back before his glare.

Marcus and Harry walked to the nearest Floo and went back to Hardstone Hall before anyone in the audience recovered from the shock.

*

“Harry? What are you doing still up?”

Harry started and turned towards the door of the library. Marcus stood there, outlined by the Lumos spell cast on a wall sconce behind him. Harry cleared his throat and started to close his book, then reckoned Marcus would know what he was doing. “Studying,” he mumbled.

“At two in the morning?”

“I want to be as good as you,” Harry said, tired enough to admit something he might have tried to conceal otherwise. “You defended me today. I want to make sure that I defend you the next time I face Voldemort.”

Marcus blinked, then walked into the library and sat down at the table. Harry eased the book of magical theory back and waited. Marcus’s face had a complicated expression on it, and Harry sort of wanted to hear what he had to say and sort of didn’t.

“You don’t have to.”

“Have to what? You said that you were helping me so I would fight Voldemort. Did you change your mind?”

“I didn’t change my mind. But I’m not as scared of him anymore.” Harry had noticed that Marcus had stopped flinching at the name “Voldemort.” “And you have time to grow up. I don’t want you to damage yourself or exhaust yourself pushing to learn curses. I told you that before.”

“But you’re so…”

“So what? I don’t think I’m impatient.”

“You’re so strong, and if I don’t get as strong as you, then you might…”

“What?”

Harry forced his eyes to travel up and lock on Marcus’s face. Marcus didn’t seem upset or impatient for Harry’s answer. He just seemed honest. So Harry forced himself to speak. “You might find someone else as strong as you are and be with them instead.”

Marcus leaned a little further back in his chair. “You mean, kiss them and date them.”

“Yeah.”

Harry held his breath for the response, and winced when it was laughter. But Marcus shook his head and kept saying, through the laughter, “If you think I would want to date someone else, you’re ridiculous.”

“Why, though?”

“No one else has your strength, Harry.”

“But I’m not as powerful as—”

“I don’t mean magical power. I mean the power to climb back to your feet and keep fighting again and again, going again and again. Do you think just anyone would keep fighting the Dark Lord when he’s so powerful and frightening? If you think so, then you’re still strong, but you’re kind of stupid, too.”

Harry felt his ears turn bright red. He stared at Marcus and waited for more laughter, but Marcus just leaned forwards and looked like the most serious mountain troll in existence.

And the only one Harry wanted to kiss.

“Thanks,” Harry whispered.

Marcus leaned forwards across the table and kissed Harry again. It was as perfect as the first kiss, and Harry was smiling as he pulled back and opened his theory book again.

He didn’t even protest when Marcus closed it with one large hand and pointed the way to Harry’s bedroom with the other. Falling asleep smiling felt a lot better than doing it screaming from nightmares.

*

“Hi, mate.”

Ron’s voice was a little weak. But he and Hermione had come through the Floo to Hardstone Hall, and they finally seemed willing to listen to what Harry had to say instead of dismissing it or accusing Marcus of being evil. Harry smiled weakly back at them. “Come on, we can go to the library.”

Hermione walked through the corridors with wide eyes, but seemed to perk up a little once she saw the library. “Does Flint read these?” she asked, pawing through the books on the table. Harry ignored the temptation to hide them from her.

“No, me.”

“You—you read magical theory this dense, mate?”

At least Ron hadn’t outright disbelieved him. Harry shrugged a little as if it was no big deal and sat down on the far side of the table. “Yeah. So. Did you come to talk about magical theory books, or to apologize?”

“Apologize,” Ron said, and nudged Hermione. Then he glanced at Hermione when she said nothing. Then he glared.

Hermione coughed. “Harry…if you want to be called Harry, then we’ll call you that.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “But you really think I should go by Aaron, right?”

“It would be healthier. It would be reclaiming what was stolen from you.”

Harry shook his head, impatient. “There was nothing there to steal. I never knew my parents. I don’t remember them. What I remember is being Harry, and the life people like Voldemort tried to steal from me.”

“But—what if you could go back to your real self if the imprint was removed?”

“What’s my real self, Hermione? The one I want to be, the one I’ve been as long as I can remember, or the one I was born?”

Hermione hesitated. Harry leaned back in his seat. At least he had made her hesitate, instead of thinking she needed to roll over any opposition.

“I thought it would be the one you were born as, because the imprint was a lie,” Hermione whispered at last.

Harry snorted. “The years I lived with the Dursleys were a lie? The years I went to school and really believed I was Harry Potter were a lie? If you think that, why are you upset with me instead of Dumbledore, who did this to me in the first place?”

Hermione was wringing her hands together. Harry had never seen her do that before. He was quiet and watched her, and part of him that had learned better in Marcus’s companionship murmured, It’s easier for her to be upset with her friend and deal with the consequences of that than to be upset with an authority figure she trusted, and deal with what the consequences are if he lied.

“I don’t know,” Hermione finally whispered.

I might know. But Harry eased back in his seat and nodded. There was no point in forcing her to confront it right now. “All right. It doesn’t matter to me exactly what you think of the imprint, as long as you can call me Harry and go on acknowledging that I’m Harry.”

“Do you think they’ll let you go on attending Hogwarts as Harry Potter?”

“Yes. Marcus dueled Minister Fudge for my right to do so and keep them from experimenting on me.”

“I never heard of the right to duel someone else and get them to stop spreading rumors about you,” Ron said, with a frown.

Harry shrugged. “Marcus said that it’s not used very often anymore and it’s mostly a right of adults, but I’m underage and I don’t have family members who could do it for me, so he did the duel.”

“And you trust him.”

For once, Hermione hadn’t asked it as question. Harry smiled at her and nodded. “I do. He’s taught me an awful lot, Hermione.”

“Like magical theory?” Hermione picked up one of the books again. “I don’t even think they have this in the library at Hogwarts. Do you think I could borrow it?”

Harry burst out laughing. Trust Hermione to care enough about books to power through an awkward confrontation. “I’ll see what I can do.”

It wasn’t perfectly the same between them, but Ron and Hermione stayed for an hour and talked, and it was all right. Harry saw them through the Floo with a smile.

*

“Can we—can I still see you and talk to you, when I go back to Hogwarts?”

Marcus snorted at Harry as he lowered his wand from the hex he’d been about to demonstrate. “Of course. Did you think you were getting rid of me?”

Harry ducked his head, smiling. Marcus watched the smile radiate its joy through Harry and wished that he’d known earlier how he looked when he smiled. He would have offered his protection and teaching years ago.

Who else could have borne up under this revelation that he wasn’t who he thought he was so well? Only Harry. Only he has that kind of strength.

“I was afraid—since it’s not as though I can just come back to Hardstone Hall during the school year whenever I want—”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Harry echoed, staring up at him. “Because I’ll have classes, and they don’t usually let students leave the school except for Hogsmeade weekends and holidays.”

“But you have your Portkey,” Marcus said, nodding at the pebble that Harry hadn’t taken off since the Ministry duel. He seemed to like having it, and Marcus liked the way it looked on his wrist. “You can come whenever you want.”

“You can alter the enchantment on the Portkey to do that?”

“Sure. It’s more usual to have them function at certain times or with certain words anyway. Getting it to react to your anger was the hard part.”

Harry stared at him some more. Then he said slowly, “But there are times that you won’t want me here, like when you’re studying for your Divination courses.”

“I might tell you that you need to spend some more time in the library or the battle room, but I wouldn’t send you away.”

Harry closed his eyes. “Why?”

“Because this is your home?”

Marcus hated the uncertainty in his voice, but it was worth it for the brilliant way that Harry smiled at him a second later.

“Yes. Of course it is. I shouldn’t have doubted.” Harry stepped forwards. “And I can tell anyone who asks that you’ll duel them too, right?”

Marcus laughed. “Yeah, if anyone’s stupid enough to offer you a legal challenge or say they can prevent you from attending Hogwarts or the like, send them to me.”

Harry settled. Marcus hadn’t realized how much tension was in his shoulders and chest until it flowed out and was gone.

“Good,” Harry whispered. “Good.”

He moved closer, then stopped, but that was enough to tell Marcus what he wanted. Marcus stepped in and lowered his head. Harry surged up to meet him, to kiss him.

And in that kiss was an expression of a future that Marcus hadn’t defined in words, but he wanted it as strongly and furiously as Harry had wanted a home and training to fight Voldemort.

We’ll win, because we won’t allow anything else to happen.

The End.