lomonaaeren

Thank you for all the reviews! This story will have three parts, and be completed tomorrow.

Part Two

“I just…are you sure it’s a result of Voldemort possessing him?”

Albus sighed a little, his head floating in the fire in a way that had always made Sirius a little dizzy. “Yes, of course, Sirius. Consider this. Harry might well have been affected by his long confinement in a way that made him yell at his friends and want to study Dark Arts. But would he have murdered the Dursleys without Tom possessing him?”

Sirius hesitated. But no, the boy who had spared him long enough to hear Sirius’s story two years ago and had even argued for sparing Wormtail wasn’t capable of murder. He didn’t think.

And besides, he’d lived with his relatives for years and years. Why murder them now? What had changed?

“I wanted to murder Wormtail when I got out of Azkaban,” Sirius mumbled at last.

Albus gave him a gentle smile. “But you didn’t. Whatever your faults, Sirius, you were still capable of impulse control. Not only did you spare him at the end, but you made your way to Scotland and launched several plans. Harry didn’t do that. He just struck out.”

“You mean Voldemort struck out through him?” Using the name still sometimes gave Sirius a cold feeling up his spine, but he had decided that he had to be able to use the name of the beast possessing his godson.

“Yes. Although I fear that he may have drawn on Harry’s own Darker impulses.”

“He doesn’t have any Darker impulses!”

“Sirius. On the train today, he twisted all the bones in Draco Malfoy’s arm and set them in such a way that we had to send young Mr. Malfoy to St. Mungo’s. We are uncertain when he will be able to return.”

“I didn’t even know there was a curse that would do that.” He would have used it on Snivellus if he had.

“It wasn’t a curse, Sirius. He did it with silent, wandless magic, according to young Mr. Malfoy.”

“You can’t trust anything a Malfoy says,” Sirius mumbled, but he was shaken. He stared down at his tightly clasped hands and swallowed.

The boy he knew didn’t murder. The boy he knew wasn’t cruel, wouldn’t torture just to torture, or for the pleasure of the pain.

Maybe this isn’t Harry after all.

“We will do our very best to free Harry from this possession, Sirius. I will be Legilimizing him tonight, as well as putting restrictions on his magic so that he can’t do something like this to another student again.”

“Okay.” Sirius took a deep breath. “Okay.”

He had to believe that Harry could be freed. And he had to, he thought, believe that Harry was possessed. Otherwise, he would have to face the fact that his godson was a torturer. A murderer.

That he had somehow been more affected by nine months of being locked in a Muggle room with regular trips outside and meals than Sirius himself had after twelve years in a dirty cell he never left with Dementors hovering outside the door.

Please. It must be You-Know-Who. Please.

*

Albus withdrew carefully from Harry’s mind, his wand hand shaking. Only because of the Elder Wand had he been able to endure his journey into Harry’s shattered thoughts and bind the powerful magic that raged in him.

That had been enough to confirm the cracks that ran through Harry’s mind and magic like dry, seamed sands in a desert. And the link that bound Harry and Tom, dark and pulsing, fed with the magic and with the utter lack of protection Harry’s mind had had in the last year. Harry was a Horcrux.

The actual memory of destroying the Dursleys’ house was vague and covered with more of the cracks than Albus had thought would be there. But there had been snakes whispering to Harry in the moments before it.

Albus sighed wearily. The snakes had been speaking to Harry in Parseltongue.

Proof, if any was needed, that this was Tom.

And Albus feared now, greatly, that the only solution for the problem would be Harry’s death.

*

“Do you think he is possessed?”

Hermione hadn’t meant to bring it up, hadn’t meant to cast doubt on Dumbledore’s conclusions. But right now, as they watched Harry struggling to cast a charm with his new wand over his homework in the common room, she had to wonder.

“What else can it possibly be, Hermione? Do you think Harry would kill people?’

Hermione bit her lip. She knew that he wouldn’t. He might do something like inflate them, the way he had with his Muggle aunt the summer before third year, but that wasn’t the same as killing them.

Or torturing them. Malfoy had only come back yesterday, three weeks into the term, from St. Mungo’s, and his arm still twitched as if only partially under his control.

Harry would never do such a thing. It didn’t matter what he had suffered, what he had been through. He would kill himself before he would turn his magic on another person in that way.

Who could know the kinds of curses that melted and twisted bones but Voldemort?

Hermione swallowed. Professor Dumbledore had called her and Ron to his office a few days ago and told them that Harry’s most dangerous magic was restrained for now. He could still use his wand, but he was struggling with it. People should be safe around him.

For now.

She and Ron had this school term, and maybe the next, to win Harry back. To remind him of all the good things in his life. Dumbledore had asked them to try.

If not…

Hermione closed her eyes. No, she wouldn’t go down that road. They would get Harry back. They had to.

*

Theo watched, and waited.

He didn’t have that many opportunities to come into contact with Potter. Potter was in fifth-year classes, and apparently all the professors were keeping a close eye on him. Theo was sure that they would justify it with claims that Potter wouldn’t be ready for the OWLS otherwise.

What bollocks.

Rumor said that Potter was struggling with his wand, that he hadn’t used that kind of dangerous magic again since that day on the train. Theo looked at the evidence in front of him—Draco still having problems with his arm and the tracking spell he had subtly cast on Potter’s satchel showing that Potter was in the dungeons, of all places—and decided that rumor was also bollocks.

He wasn’t taking Care of Magical Creatures and no other sixth-year class met during the same timeslot, so he waited in silence outside the Potions classroom. Potter stepped out and walked towards Gryffindor Tower with Weasley and Granger, who had also been waiting for him.

Theo tilted his head, tugged on the silver thread of the tracking charm, and smiled again, turning to follow the tug further into the dungeons.

*

“The illusion you have following your friends around is impressive.”

Harry whipped towards the door of the old Potions lab he’d been standing in, the single tendril of dark fire he was able to summon coiling on his shoulders like a tame snake. Like the snakes who had freed him from the Dursleys.

The skinny Slytherin from the train stood in the doorway. Harry wrinkled his forehead. “Who are you?” he asked, honestly perplexed. “What do you want?”

“My name is Theo Nott.”

Oh, all right, Harry knew him now. One of those in the background, always less noticeable than Malfoy.

Not that Malfoy’s dared to make himself noticeable to me since he got back.

Harry pushed the deep contentment away, the knowledge that Malfoy was someone who would never hurt him again. “What do you want?”

“I think that you’re powerful enough to be someone worth cultivating. And in turn, I can provide you with a kind of freedom that I don’t think you have.”

“How do you know I value freedom?”

“Stories are flying all around the school. That you were shut up at your Muggle relatives’ house and you broke out somehow. The stories are short on details about how you broke out, but I don’t think that matters that much.”

Harry had to close his eyes, while the black fire on his shoulder spread wavering wings. Dumbledore had managed to bind most of it, and he’d been sneaking off by himself while the illusion followed Ron and Hermione around and sat in classes. His professors thought he was just defiant, refusing to cast spells when they told him to.

“You don’t like the stories spreading around.”

“Fuck you, Nott.”

“Not unless you ask nicely.”

“What the fuck?” Harry blurted, opening his eyes to stare at Nott.

Nott was giving him a twisted smile that Harry had to admire. He had sometimes seen something similar in the mirror at Grimmauld Place. He hadn’t spent as much time looking into mirrors since he got back to Hogwarts, since the illusion was so often in Gryffindor Tower in his place.

“You’re not having trouble with your wand,” Nott said. “Only the magic that you used on Malfoy.”

“Yeah, Dumbledore bound it.” Harry eyed Nott’s smile. “You want something of me. Go ahead and say it.”

“I think the magic that I saw you wield would make a good addition to the Dark Lord’s side.”

“Fuck off.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Voldemort is the reason that I was imprisoned in my relatives’ house.” Harry saw the way Nott twitched at Voldemort’s name, but at least it wasn’t a full-body flinch like the more ridiculous Gryffindors did. “The people who think they’re my friends also think he’s possessing me. I have no desire to join him and no reason to think he’d do anything other than kill me.”

It was odd, how clear and focused he felt right now. Then again, having a conversation with only one person instead of multiple ones who kept talking about possession was probably doing it.

“Why do they think he possessed you, instead of thinking you joined his side already?”

Harry studied Nott, then shrugged. What did it matter what they knew? If Nott tried to imprison him, Harry would slit open his belly, twist his intestines around his neck, and use them to puncture his eyeballs.

“I have some kind of connection with him. I dream his dreams, feel his emotions. My scar hurts when he’s near. It’s fucking inconvenient, let me tell you.”

Nott’s eyes widened. Then he turned around and ran out of the classroom.

Harry laughed, and the dark fire swayed above him. He thought he could feel a little more of it slipping free of the bindings Dumbledore had put on it. He supposed he didn’t need it to scare a cowardly Slytherin, too.

*

“My lord.”

“Mr. Nott. I have taken the time to receive your visit. A risky visit for you, given that you are supposed to be at school.”

Theo bowed low enough that his face almost swept his knees. He heard the threat in the words, but he could feel the surprise that had woken when Potter had spoken thundering through him, and he knew, he knew, that the Dark Lord would be interested in this.

“Potter told me something about his connection to you that I believe you should know, my lord.”

“Our connection?”

The Dark Lord’s hand was extended, fingers slipping under Theo’s chin, and Theo let himself flow with the touch, let his head be tilted back, let his eyes meet the Dark Lord’s. His father had told him about this, and he was braced, although it hurt, as the Dark Lord dived beneath the surface of his mind.

It was a long, blurring, brilliant moment, with the Dark Lord seeing what Theo had seen, hearing what he had heard, and then—

Theo returned to reality to find that he was kneeling on the floor, and to hear the Dark Lord laughing.

It wasn’t the kind of laughter Theo had heard before, when the Dark Lord tortured someone. This was high and joyous and spiraling, and the Dark Lord’s snake began to sway behind him.

True happiness, Theo thought, and took a slow, complicated breath. I brought him true happiness.

That might mean that his own gamble was going to pay off.

“Go back to Hogwarts,” the Dark Lord said, and smiled at Theo. It was an odd gesture, with his lack of lips, but Theo only dipped his head. He was the son of a loyal follower, one who followed the Dark Lord in turn because it sounded like the best way of achieving his own ambitions—respect, power, and the ability to practice any ritual any time he felt like it. “Be Potter’s contact. Manage him. I want him to come to me of his own free will, Mr. Nott. And yes, that means you may have what you desire.”

“My lord?”

“You wish me to spell it out for you?”

Theo could hear his father’s dragging, complicated breath from a corner of the room. He would be worried about Theo confronting the Dark Lord like this.

But Theo was not his father, to be so completely subdued to the Dark Lord’s will. He held those burning eyes. “Please, my lord. I would be pleased to know that our understandings are the same.”

“For the one who will deliver Potter to an alliance with me, anything,” the Dark Lord said, and ignored the way that other people in the room gasped in surprise. “You may avoid taking the mark of a Death Eater, Mr. Nott. I agree that it would be counterproductive to Potter’s trust in you as well as possibly attracting undesirable attention from professors at the school. And you may indeed remain with Potter after he has sworn a pact of, at least, neutrality with me, and study Dark magic, including the fire he uses.”

Theo bowed his head. He had hoped for this, ever since he had begun to realize how taking the Mark would link his fate and his will to the Dark Lord’s, but he had seen no path to achieve his goal of an independent researcher.

Now, thanks to Potter, he would have that position.

I shall treat him well. I shall treat him so well.

“Thank you, my lord,” he breathed. “I will not fail you. I will continue to deliver results.”

“You have a month to persuade Potter to come to me willingly and swear a pact of neutrality or more favorable terms. That is all, Mr. Nott.”

“Yes, my Lord. I will not fail you,” Theo repeated.

He waited until the Dark Lord waved his hand in dismissal, and then stood up and ran towards the Floo. He could feel his father watching him in concern.

But Theo was not his father, and maneuvering a bit of freedom for himself and more for Potter was going to be the way to reach on to other goals, ones even he had only half-glimpsed.

We will both be free.

*

For some reason, the cowardly Nott kid showed up at Harry’s secret dungeon classroom practice a few evenings later. Harry scowled at him and then ignored hm. If Nott bothered him, he would lose a limb, that was all.

“I visited the Dark Lord,” Nott announced.

“Bully for you.”

A long pause. Harry wove the tendril of dark fire in the air, and nodded. It did look thicker than it had the last time he’d seen Nott.

“I just announced my allegiance as a Death Eater, many people would say,” Nott murmured at last, his voice slightly higher than usual.

“I don’t fucking care, Nott.”

“What do you care about?”

“Freedom.”

The tendril of fire thickened to the point that Harry could practically hold it in his hand. He smiled and cradled it on his palm, and ignored what sounded like heavy breathing from the doorway. Nott was weird.

“I know a way to give you that freedom.”

That was at least enough for Harry to turn around and stare at Nott again. But he expected him to vanish like another hallucination. “What are you talking about?”

“The Dark Lord could get you out of here,” Nott said, his voice low and intense. “If you promised you wouldn’t fight against him, then he would give you all the freedom you wanted. Moving to another country, perhaps.”

Harry thought about that, while the fire danced warningly above him like the cobra who had helped him burn down the Dursleys’ house. “No,” he decided at last, with genuine regret. “It sounds nice, but I would go there and he would try to kill me.”

“He doesn’t want to.”

“Yeah, but all I know about you is that you’re skinny and you lurk behind Malfoy and you run away like a coward when I tell you the truth. I don’t trust you to be telling the truth about this.”

Nott stared at him. Harry tilted his head. What was confusing about what I said? I think I remember Hermione told me Nott is a good student once. Maybe you can be a good student but still stupid.

*

Theo had expected wariness, logical objections, or fear. Those, he could have reasoned with. But instead, Potter just told him what seemed to be the blunt truth, and otherwise didn’t get upset. He was already turning back to his fire as if it was the only thing that could command his attention.

“Potter?”

“What?”

“I ran off because I knew the Dark Lord would want to know what I found out right away. And when I told the Dark Lord, he was joyful.”

“Right. His enemy’s finally cracked up, so he doesn’t have to do the cracking up himself. I reckon he was happy.”

Theo rubbed his forehead and confined his voice to patient statements instead of the shouting he wanted to do. He doubted he would be sane, either, after months of confinement, the rumors that were whispered about Potter. “Listen to me, please. He thinks that the connection between you is valuable enough that he could offer you a promise of neutrality instead of your having to fight him.”

“Nah.”

“What?”

“He made me an offer once already, of bringing my parents back, when we were in front of the Mirror. He didn’t mean that, and he doesn’t mean this, either.”

Mirror? But Theo pushed the word out of his mind. It wasn’t important to convincing Potter, which had to be his only goal right now. “He didn’t have the power to keep that promise, I agree. But he has the ability to leave you alone if he wants to. No one can command him not to. Don’t you want to be free of the looming threat on your life?”

It seemed that he had finally found the right words. Potter spun around to face him, and Theo shivered a little at the impact of those blazing eyes, not unlike the Dark Lord’s. This could be more pleasurable than he’d assumed.

Potter cocked his head. “Start talking.”

*

Harry lay on his bed in Gryffindor Tower that night. The illusion he had managed to create from a combination of black fire, charms he’d looked up in Grimmauld Place, and sheer bloody-mindedness was powerful, but it couldn’t last all night.

Black fire floated in front of him, eddying back and forth on the air.

“What do you think?” Harry whispered, reveling in the sounds of snores from the other beds. His roommates didn’t talk to him a lot—Seamus thought he was mental, still, and Dean and Neville didn’t know what to say to him, and Ron thought he was possessed—but he could still hear them. It was wonderful.

The fire snapped out a tendril from the far end.

“Yeah, I don’t trust him either.” Harry sighed and tucked his arms behind his head. “But I’m not gaining anything from staying at Hogwarts except more books to read. Dumbledore will just bind my magic again if I get free.”

Unless he was already away by then. And Voldemort could probably hide him effectively. Put Harry in a dungeon somewhere, maybe.

But Harry wasn’t worried about that. If Voldemort put him in a dungeon, he would just turn it inside out and escape.

And if he had a pact of neutrality in place with Voldemort, or whatever other thing Nott was on about, then he would be able to just leave the country, and it was unlikely that Voldemort would pursue him. He would just care about Harry not being in the battle.

Harry didn’t want to be in the battle.

He didn’t want to do much except free his magic and have more freedom and talk to people and listen to them and punish people who tried to hurt him, like Malfoy. It would be good if he could make Ron and Hermione and Sirius understand more about what he’d gone through, but his magic wasn’t subtle enough for that.

The black fire snapped above him.

“Well, you’re not.”

The fire vanished.

Harry lay staring at the canopy of his bed and finally decided that he would go with Nott on at least one visit to Voldemort. If someone tried to keep him there, he would pull their viscera out through their mouths, the way he had with the Dursleys.

Or maybe through their arms, where their Dark Marks were.

That would be good, he thought muzzily as he fell asleep.

*

Theo walked close to Potter’s side as they Flooed from the gamekeeper’s hut to Malfoy Manor. Theo had thought nothing of breaking into the hut since last year to use the half-giant’s fireplace, although Potter seemed to find it amusing for some reason. Well, he had been close to the oaf before last year, Theo thought.

Potter looked around the large ballroom the Dark Lord’s throne dominated. When Theo nudged him with one elbow, Potter sighed, but bowed. Theo had told him he should think of it as surrendering a little bit of his freedom right now to get more freedom in the future.

Potter still hadn’t seemed happy about it.

“Harry Potter.” The Dark Lord’s voice filled the ballroom with bouncing, cold echoes. Potter started to look up. Theo hastily nudged him with an elbow again. He believed this was a crucial moment, and the Dark Lord might change his mood instantly to disappointment if Potter wasn’t sufficiently respectful.

“Voldemort.”

Theo winced and hissed under his breath. He hoped that everything hadn’t just changed for the worse.

*

For a moment, Voldemort froze as though Harry’s word had made him angry, but Harry didn’t really care. Voldemort had called him by his name. So Harry would do the same thing, honestly.

“You dare speak the name of Lord Voldemort?”

“Well, yeah,” Harry said, a little confused. He’d done it before, all during first year when Voldemort was on the back of Quirrell’s head. He wondered if Voldemort had forgotten about that when he finally got a body back. Harry reckoned things that happened when he was a wrath might be misty and distant.

There were sharp noises around them, but Harry ignored them, still watching Voldemort. He would see someone if they swung at him, and he would tear out their livers.

Voldemort stared at him. Harry didn’t know why. Had he changed his mind about the neutrality pact now that he’d met Harry again?

“You speak the Ancient Tongue,” Voldemort whispered, and Harry realized abruptly that it must be his Parseltongue that made the difference. He’d thought Voldemort would have heard the story from someone at Hogwarts in second year, but maybe he hadn’t, or maybe he had thought it was an exaggerated story.

“Yes, I do.”

Voldemort stepped down from the throne and walked in a circle around him. Harry turned to face him, and kept turning when Voldemort kept walking. He wasn’t going to just stand back and let Voldemort do whatever he wanted.

Voldemort finally stopped and gazed at Harry. Then he said, “This is suitable in a way I did not intend. Do you know what you are?”

“Crazy?” Harry offered, after a long moment of thinking about it. It seemed the most plausible alternative to him, if he wasn’t possessed.

Laughter came out of Voldemort like a dark stream bubbling up a tunnel. “No,” he says, and reached out as if he was going to touch Harry’s scar. Harry got dark fire in between them, the small curl that was all he could conjure, and Voldemort’s hand stopped, hovering in the air. “My Horcrux.”

“I’m a what?”

*

Theo started and rose from his kneeling position. The discussion between the Dark Lord and Potter in Parseltongue had gone on for so long that some of the Death Eaters were half-asleep, leaning on walls or each other. But they started and scrambled when the Dark Lord turned to face them, lifting his arms so that his pale arms stuck out from his black robes.

“My followers, my family!” he cried, his voice high and fluting. “Harry Potter has agreed to a pact of neutrality that shall bind him from acting against me.”

Potter glared at the Dark Lord’s back and said, “And you against me, too. And I can defend myself.”

The Dark Lord laughed instead of raging the way Theo had expected, turning around and clasping Potter’s arm for a moment. “I would allow none of them to harm you,” he said. “Did we not discuss that?”

“I just wanted to be clear.”

The Dark Lord went on, detailing what he would expect from the Death Eaters, including secrecy about Potter’s role and an oath on their part not to attack him, but Theo only paid attention to the part where the Dark Lord said that Potter would be considered associated with them and yet free of them, capable of acting independently but having protection when he required it.

That was what Theo wanted. All he wanted.

Then the Dark Lord turned and looked at Theo with a slight sneer-smile and said, “Potter has requested that Theo Nott be his guide and liaison with the Death Eaters,” and Theo felt a fire spring to life in his veins.

He smiled at Potter, who sneered back.

It was a beginning.