Chapter Eight of 'The Willing'- Willing to Speak

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Chapter Eight—Willing to Speak

Harry scrubs his hand over his face and takes a long, deep breath. He understands. He doesn’t want to, but he understands.

So many people want to forget the war. The Weasleys mourn Fred, but they also keep talking about moving forwards into the future, about how things need to change, about how peace will give them all the chance to live the lives they should have had. Hermione has talked about studying for her NEWTS and how this is the year to do nothing else and nothing will keep them from achieving good marks.

So many of them, the ones who fought Voldemort and the ones who collaborated and the ones who hid, are still so afraid.

Harry wishes he’d never had to fight Voldemort. But he wouldn’t give up the courage that it’s wrapped around his heart for anything.

He looks at Hermione and asks, “Why did you believe Snape?”

Hermione blinks once, maybe because she expected him to react more explosively, and then answers slowly. “He was on our side, Harry. You know that he was instrumental to us winning the war!” Her voice is picking up again. “And I know that he would recognize Dark Ars when he saw them, because—”

“Yes, he had to use them because of his position as a spy. But do you think that means he likes me, Hermione? Or that you can believe him about me?”

“He was only treating you the way he did because it was necessary to win the war!”

Harry lets part of that pass. He doesn’t think that he’ll ever really know how much of Snape’s miserable bastard act was a pose. But he says, “He wasn’t only treating me like he did because of that, Hermione. He also genuinely hated me for being my father’s son.”

“He didn’t, Harry. He loved your mother!”

“And hated my dad. No, Hermione, if you want to say that he’s complex, then you have to acknowledge that he’s complex because he wasn’t just hiding a heart of gold under a rough exterior. He was wearing an awful lot of hatred openly.”

Hermione bites her lip. Then she asks, “But there’s a Dark curse on his portrait?”

“Yes.”

“Then you have to—”

“I didn’t ask for it to be cast, and it can’t be reversed, and you still should have known better than to believe Snape’s portrait uncritically.”

Hermione stares at him with startled eyes. Harry stares back. He waits for her to speak again, lets the silence stretch. He doesn’t need to hurry up and say anything. He’s not the one who did something wrong here.

“I…”

“Yes?”

“Using Dark Arts is wrong.”

“And so is running off and lying to someone who will speak up in the middle of the common room and confront me without waiting to see what’s really going on, and potentially expose Theo to unwarranted criticism.”

Hermione falls silent again. She seems to be thinking hard. Harry waits with his arms folded. He ignores the way that people are shifting behind him and muttering. He doesn’t need to listen to them, either. He put the bubble of silence up immediately after Hermione’s first words. They don’t know what’s going on, or that a curse was cast on Snape’s portrait.

“I just think that Nott shouldn’t have cast the curse,” Hermione whispers at last. “Why did he cast the curse in the first place?”

“Because I told him about what happened to me during Occlumency training with Snape,” Harry says. This part is his secret to share, so he doesn’t mind. And she already knows Theo cast the spell. “He’s the only one who ever got upset about that after the fact. I mean, other than me, but I didn’t even spend that much time thinking about it. I knew that other things mattered more.”

Hermione flushes a little. “I never said that, Harry.”

“No. It’s just that Dumbledore and the Order and—everyone just kind of assumed that it didn’t matter. Or people never knew, and never asked. I don’t even know how many of them knew about the Occlumency training.”

“So you aren’t blaming the Order for not caring about it? Or Ron and me?”

“No. I can know about the way that Theo reacted in defense of me and think it was terribly heart-warming without saying that everyone else should have cast a curse at Snape’s portrait for me.”

“It was a Dark curse! It’s not heart-warming!”

“Yes, it is.”

Hermione stares at him again, head tilting back and forth like she’s a bird examining an insect. Then she says, “But you never spoke to Nott before the war. Or maybe not more than once? I don’t remember. Why would he cast a curse like this now, and why would you find it heart-warming?”

“That part is Theo’s business.”

“Harry, it would help me a lot more to understand if you would tell me—”

“Not unless Theo says I can.”

“Even though it makes it harder for me to believe you that he had a reason for casting that curse?”

Harry meets her eyes. “Yes.”

He steps back. The people in the common room are still staring avidly between Harry and Hermione. Harry just raises an eyebrow at them, and maybe because he’s not flushed with shame and running out of the common room with his imaginary tail between his legs, some of them look away.

“Harry—I’m sorry. But I was worried about you.”

“I’m not angry at you, Hermione. I’m annoyed that you just took Snape’s word without even thinking about it, and that you blurted out part of Theo’s business in the middle of the common room.”

“Why do you want to protect him so much?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“I can keep secrets!”

Harry stares at her incredulously, and then around the common room again. This time, Hermione is the one who flushes with shame, a tide of crimson that creeps up her face faster than Harry’s seen it since the war.

“Even if not for this,” Harry says softly, “it’s not my secret to tell.” And he turns and leaves, ending the silence bubble, because he has to prepare Theo for the storm that might be coming.

*

Theo listens to the tale Harry tells with half an ear. When Harry first came walking into their dungeon meditation room with such a serious face, all Theo could think was that Harry somehow got dosed with Amortentia himself. Or found out who did it to Theo and couldn’t stop himself from taking the vengeance that should have been Theo’s.

Theo wouldn’t forgive him if he took that vengeance. But he would want to forgive him.

This, though, doesn’t sound anything like as bad as he thought it would be. When Harry comes to a halt and stares anxiously at him, Theo reaches out and places a hand on Harry’s arm. “I’m not going to give you permission to tell Granger now.”

“I didn’t want it.”

“Really.”

“Yes,” Harry says, and Harry’s eyes are fixed on Theo and his attention is fixed on Theo and his everything is fixed on Theo, in a way that makes Theo feel breathless and happy and wanted. “She can make assumptions, and I’ll just shrug them off. It’s not the war. She doesn’t need to know everything about what’s going on with me because we’re together in a small tent in the middle of nowhere and my mood will make it impossible for her to live with me otherwise. I think she’s still in the mentality of the war, of being afraid, even though she seems to have moved past it better than I have.”

“You’re less afraid than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

“Some of that’s the childhood, some of that the school years,” Harry says.

“And some of that’s Snape.”

“I suppose. A small part of it.”

“I’m going to make sure that he can’t ever tell anyone about the curse again.”

“Is that also a spell you can cast on a portrait?”

“Yes.”

Harry smiles at him, softly but with a shining in his eyes that warms Theo all the way down to his soul. He never realized, because he never did it before the war, that standing next to Harry Potter is like standing next to a fire.

He’s not going to give that up.

*

Harry rolls his eyes when he comes out of Potions and finds Ron waiting for him, uncomfortable and red-faced and the picture of "I was told to wait for you by my girlfriend.” “If Hermione wants to argue with me, she can do it herself,” he says, and walks around the corner towards the kitchens. He and Theo are going to meet there in half an hour, but Harry really wants something to eat first.

“She went back and talked to Snape’s portrait, mate. And now the portrait is denying that he ever told her about a curse.”

“Well, she should remember that Snape doesn’t like her much more than me. He was the one who made that awful comment about her front teeth when Malfoy hexed her.”

“I know there are spells that can affect portraits, and that includes making sure that they can’t talk about certain things. And I know that those spells are Dark, because I heard Mum talk about how some of them affected her ancestors’ portraits.”

Harry glances back, and shrugs.

“Harry.” Ron gently takes his arm to halt him, which is the only reason Harry does stop instead of yanking his arm free and going on. “I just want to know why you aren’t more worried about Nott casting Dark spells on Snape’s portrait. Wouldn’t you be worried if he was casting them on Dumbledore’s painting?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then why—”

“Because of who Snape was when he was alive,” Harry says plainly, and watches Ron cast down his eyes and take a deep breath. “A bastard to me on a regular basis for no bloody reason. I suffered a lot and I didn’t take it out on other people nearly as much as he did. Why should I have to put up with that from his portrait?”

“You think he’s still trying to take it out on you?”

“What does speaking to Hermione about the curse count as?”

“Well, yeah. I suppose. She thought he was trying to look out for you.”

Harry raises his eyebrows and looks at Ron, and it doesn’t take long before Ron is laughing, quietly but hard enough to make his cheeks turn red and his eyes sparkle. Harry grins and nods. “Exactly. He was trying to make trouble, not look out for me.”

“What should I tell her about Nott?”

“Nothing.”

“She’s not going to be happy about that,” Ron says, quiet, earnest enough that Harry listens to him. He puts his hands back in his robe pockets, the way he did when he was waiting for Harry. “I mean—not because she’s nosy. Because knowing things during the war kept her alive, and she finds it hard to stop that habit.”

“I know, Ron. That’s why I didn’t scream at her in the common room this morning. But we’re not at war anymore, and she’ll have to get used to not knowing things.”

“Are you and Nott dating?”

Harry shakes his head with full and free confidence, because no matter how he feels about Theo, they’re not dating, and won’t be for a long time. Harry can hardly imagine Theo wanting someone to touch him after the multiple Amortentia doses.

“Huh. You’re just—helping him?”

“Yeah.”

“Being Harry Potter, then.” Ron is relaxing. “Your people-saving thing. If I explain it to her like that, then I really think she might accept it.”

“You do that.”

*

“What is this?” Theo stares down at the shaped thing in his hand, mostly to avoid looking at Harry and expressing everything he feels at once. The thing resembles a piece of warm amber in the shape of a curled-up, sleeping dragon, except that it glows from within with warm orange-red light.

“A piece of my magic.”

“Yes, amazingly, I had managed to comprehend that. It still doesn’t tell me what it is.”

Harry laughs. Theo looks at him and feels a sharp ache spread through his own chest. Harry is relaxed like this, his eyes sparkling like the piece of magic, and he reaches out and taps his fingers against the air next to Theo’s wrist as if scolding him for not understanding.

“I shaped a piece of magic to warn you if Amortentia gets close to you again,” Harry says, and merrily ignores the way that Theo freezes. “It won’t matter if it’s in food or drink or on your pillowcases or robes or what. It’ll roar, and it’s so noticeable that it’ll wake you even if you’re asleep.”

“How could you make sure that it would respond to Amortentia? Where did you even get any to tune the magic?”

“Slughorn keeps some in his stores. I think mostly to show to students on the first day of class, but he showed me when I asked. Some people are still responsive to the allure of the Boy-Who-Lived.”

Harry speaks the last words with his wrist against his forehead. Theo laughs and then shakes his head. He—didn’t mean to laugh. But from the eager way Harry looks at him, as if drinking in the sound, at least it made someone besides himself happy.

“Why?”

“I can’t stand the thought of you getting dosed again,” Harry says, and the laughter vanishes from his face as if murdered with a Killing Curse. “I know it’s you it affects, more than anyone else, but I don’t want it to happen, either. So now you’ll be warned.”

“I appreciate it, Harry, but how can I carry this? It doesn’t have a chain so I can wear it.”

Theo’s words haven’t even finished when the shaped magic stirs. Theo almost drops it, but in surprise, not disgust. There’s nothing revolting about it. It turns and crawls with a small prickling of claws up his arm and to his shoulder, then hides under his robe collar.

Theo closes his eyes. The warmth and the pulsing power of the little thing feel much stronger when it’s pressed against his skin under his clothes than when it was pressed on his palm. He cannot show Harry what it means to him.

He isn’t ready to court anyone yet.

“It’ll always be with you,” Harry says softly. “And if you do come into contact with Amortentia and it starts roaring to warn you, then I’ll feel that something’s wrong, too. And I’ll come to you wherever you are.”

“That won’t matter if I’m in the Slytherin dormitories.”

“You think I can’t tear the common room door off its hinges?”

Theo opens his eyes and stares at Harry. Harry has come very near, and his eyes are warmer and brighter than the magic against Theo’s skin.

“Because I would,” Harry whispers. “I’ll do anything, for you.”

Theo closes his eyes again. He doesn’t know how to respond. Nothing in his life has prepared him for this, any more than it’s prepared him for someone forswearing the debts that Theo would have otherwise owed him.

Harry’s hand rises and lingers near his face. Theo is the one who turns his head and rests his cheek against Harry’s palm.

Harry takes a sharp breath. Theo opens his eyes and sees him staring at Theo, dazed, his green eyes deep and cloudy.

I could do anything I wanted. Ask him for anything, and he would give it.

The sensation of power that floods Theo then is beautiful and savage, like a dark river running deep underground. He eases back from Harry, not panicked at being so close to someone for the first time since the initial Amortentia dose, and half-bows. “Thank you, Harry.”

“You’re—welcome.”

Theo turns and leaves. He’ll make an unwise decision if he stays here, and he doesn’t think that he ought to stay close to Harry in case Harry’s tempted to make one. He’s been incredibly helpful and respectful, but why change that?

*

Harry watches Theo go. He knows he’s trembling, a fine quiver that eases its way up his legs and makes him want to get on a broom and fly as fast as he can. It’s the only cure for this strange feeling of helplessness that he knows.

If I’m caught up in one kind of joy, then I won’t feel as much of this kind.

In the end, that lets Harry make the decision easily. He doesn’t want to give up this kind of joy. He wants to revel in it as long as he can, as long as Theo will let him.

He goes floating up to the Tower on waves of joy, and only nods when he sees Ron and Hermione sitting together in the corner of the common room, even when they smile at him half-helplessly. Then he goes away, humming, to collapse on his bed and close his eyes.

He’ll ride the joy as long as he can, as long as Theo will let him.

He was upset when I made it so that he didn’t owe me any debts, but I owe him so much more.