lomonaaeren

“We know you’re shamming.”

The words were hissed. Harry took a long moment to orient himself, even thinking for a second that he might be about to see a scene with Voldemort involved in it. Where they were didn’t look like anywhere in particular.

But no, the whiteness that had reminded him of that experience in King’s Cross dissolved, and he found himself standing in the Hogwarts hospital wing. Nott was lying in a bed near the door and staring at the ceiling, shaking slightly.

Standing in front of him was Alecto Carrow, aiming her wand at Nott with an expression of malicious enjoyment.

“If you won’t do what you’re told,” she said, “then you’ll have to learn your lessons in obedience another way. Crucio.”

Harry gasped despite himself as he watched the torture curse slam into Nott. He had witnessed Voldemort torturing people in visions, and he knew that the Carrows had tortured students last year. Hell, he had used the torture curse himself.

But for some reason, watching it in a memory was worse. Nott was twitching and convulsing, but he didn’t scream until the end, when a thin, bitter cry worked its way out of his throat.

Alecto drew her wand back and nodded. “See if you can find your feet and return to Dark Arts class tomorrow, Mr. Nott. Sooner would be better. If you catch my meaning.” Her lip lifted above her teeth like a snarling wolf’s before she turned on her heel and left.

Nott rolled over. Harry expected the memory to end any minute, but instead, Nott began to shake again as he lay there. Harry thought at first it was with the tremors that sometimes came after the Cruciatus curse.

Then he heard the sobs, softer than the sound a kitten might make.

Harry threw himself violently out of the memory.

*

Harry looked at the iolite and the ring for a long moment. Part of him wanted to call up the cloud again and touch it, be absorbed in memories so intense that it seemed as if part of him were living a separate life.

But part of him felt terrible when he did that, as if he were spying on Nott’s most intimate moments. Which was basically what he was doing.

Harry swallowed and tucked the ring away in a warded compartment where no one would be able to notice or disturb it if they visited before he could get rid of the thing. He shook his head as he went to make dinner.

He had gone looking for a stone he could enchant and found one that was already enchanted. And he had spent money on it, and he had ended up with a belly full of churning sympathy for Nott and—

It hadn’t been a good day.

*

The next day, Harry borrowed Pigwidgeon from Ron to owl Theodore Nott with a message that contained a single line.

I found your ring. Do you want me to destroy it?

*

Harry had thought he might get a Howler from Nott, or maybe stone-cold silence, or just an owl that said Yes. He didn’t think Nott would want the ring back, after all. Whether he had pawned it or sold it, he had presumably got rid of it so that he wouldn’t have to relive those memories over and over again.

What Harry got, instead, was a knock on his flat door so loud that he could hear one of his neighbors already complaining. Harry hurried to answer it, and found himself swallowing the way he had after the memory when he saw Nott standing in the doorway.

Nott looked at him with eyes as hard as marble. He jerked his head at the inside of Harry’s flat. “Potter,” he said. “Do you have a moment?” His tone made it clear that Harry should find a moment if he didn’t have one.

Harry swallowed again and nodded, stepping out of the way. Nott prowled into the flat, glancing around at the dark walls and Harry’s squashy, comfortable furniture. There was no other way to describe his movement other than prowling, Harry thought. He looked as though he expected to see the ring out and waiting for him, and Harry didn’t believe it was his imagination that Nott relaxed when he didn’t find it.

“All right,” Nott said. “How much?”

“I was going to just send the ring back to you, Nott, not sell it—”

Nott sighed as if this was all too tiresome to listen to. “Not the price you paid for it. How much do you want to keep your mouth shut?”

“Excuse me?”

Nott stared at Harry, eyes narrowed now as though he was peering into strong sunlight. “I know that you’re not an Auror, but you reported that patient of yours who was using Dark magic last month. I know you’ve seen the kind of memory that means you wouldn’t hesitate to turn me in.”

“You believe that and still think I’m the kind of wizard who can be bribed?”

Nott showed a flicker of hesitance for the first time. Then he tossed his head a little irritably. “Fine, not a traditional bribe. What do you want? I do have some Dark artifacts I would prefer not to part with, but it’s better than having my secrets splashed all over the front page of the Prophet. You could turn them in and report that you found them—”

“Just take the fucking ring and get out,” Harry snapped. He flung his hand out, and the compartment where he’d put the ring ripped itself open and bowled towards him. Harry caught the broken container in one hand and used his magic to throw the ring at Nott. “Here. I’m not going to report anything, okay? Out.”

Nott caught the ring, although with the kind of grimace that Harry would have used for an unshielded Dark artifact. His eyes were wide, his face the color of salt. “What—”

“I only saw your having an argument with Malfoy and being tortured by Alecto Carrow, okay? Neither of which you deserved. Get out.”

“Why did you report that patient of yours?”

“Because his injuries came from someone he’d fucking sacrificed, Nott. You’d better believe that a Healer’s confidentiality doesn’t cover human sacrifice.”

“There are memories of my using Dark magic in this ring, though.”

“I don’t care.”

“Why not, if you cared about what the wizard you reported did?”

Harry ran his hand through his hair, hard enough to make his scalp tingle and hurt. He wanted to snarl at Nott, but that wouldn’t get him to go away. “Because you were a kid when you used that magic, Nott. Okay?”

“I was seventeen. A legal adult. The age at which you were dueling Voldemort and going on secret missions to save the world.”

“You think I hold other people to the same standards as myself? You think I think it’s right that a kid had to save the world, because adults wouldn’t do anything?” Harry shook his head. His anger had drained as quickly as it had come, and now he just wanted to see Nott out and shut the door. “You did what you had to do to survive, and I wasn’t innocent of Dark Arts, either. Now, please leave.”

Nott closed his hand slowly around the ring, not taking his eyes from Harry, and not leaving. “Why did you only look at those two memories?”

“Because they were obviously private. I thought it was going to be your ancestors’ memories or something, not ones that belonged to someone I know.”

“You don’t really know me, Potter.”

Harry didn’t actually curse Nott out the door, but he could feel the surging magic in him that wanted to do it. He gritted his teeth. “We were at the school at the same time. We’re the same age. I saw enough.”

“We never spoke in school that I remember.”

“No.”

“So why do you care what I went through?”

Harry stared at Nott for a minute or so, but Nott didn’t leave and didn’t show any sign that he was joking. Harry tilted his head back, stared at the ceiling, and wished that he could feel less about this.

“If you don’t know, I can’t explain it to you.”

“Try.”

Harry growled under his breath in a way that made him wonder if his Animagus form would have been a dog like Sirius’s. He glared at Nott, who stood there in a particular kind of immovable way that made Harry snap, “Look, I care about people, okay? It’s part of the reason I became a Healer. But also, you’re alive, and you didn’t do anything to me, and—you’re a fucking human being, Nott. I won’t spy on any more of your memories. I won’t report you to the Aurors for Dark magic you did years ago. If that’s not good enough for you, there really is nothing more to say.”

Nott stared at him, his eyes widening slightly. Then he whispered, “Oh.”

“Oh, what? Do you understand now?”

Nott nodded, not taking his eyes from Harry. “I knew that you protected people, that you cared about them,” he whispered. “I just didn’t think I would ever be included in the group of people you cared about.”

Harry thought about that, then shrugged. “I couldn’t have predicted it when we were at Hogwarts, either,” he admitted.

“Do you know how many people have cared about me in my life, Potter?”

Harry paused, thrown. “Your parents? I assume Malfoy, if you were friends once. Other Slytherins? Any partners you might have had?”

Nott gave a smile as bitter as ashes. “My mother, who died when I was three. Draco, who hasn’t spoken to me in years. Blaise Zabini, who remains my only friend, and who hasn’t been back in Britain since the end of the war. My father saw me as a tool to be used, as did most of the people who would have called themselves my friends, and my lovers have been flings.”

“Okay?”

“That you care even this much is more than almost anyone else has done for me.” Nott reached out and locked his hands around Harry’s wrists, staring at him. “Please. Don’t walk away from me.”

“I don’t know why you would consider me a friend just because I found your ring.”

“My father told me the story of a curse placed on our family centuries ago,” Nott said. “I don’t know how much he believed it, but I think it’s true. We find few people to love, and we’re beloved by few. He loved only my mother, and he knew the moment he spoke to her at any length that she was the one for him. Potter, I—I think you’re it for me.”

Harry stared at him, knowing his mouth was slightly open, but having no idea what he would have said. On the one hand, this was mad. It reminded him of fans who had come up to him in Diagon Alley and declared that they loved him and would die for him.

On the other hand…

Hadn’t he been looking for someone to love? Hadn’t he wanted someone so badly that he’d gone searching for a stone or ring to enchant just so he would have it on hand when he found that person?

And now the ring had brought him someone.

He could at least see what happened.

Harry hesitantly turned his hands until he was clasping Nott’s. Nott shifted his hold, then held tighter, never taking his suddenly brilliant eyes from Harry’s face.

“I—all right. Let’s try.”

The smile Theodore—because Harry had to think of him that way—gave him was as slow as sunrise. He leaned down to kiss Harry’s hands where he held them, never taking his eyes from Harry’s. “I promise you, you’ll never regret it.”

And the odd thing was, Harry thought, shivering from the touch of Theodore’s lips on his skin, the cool press of the iolite ring clasped between their palms, he didn’t think he would.

Let me make sure that he never does, either.

The End.