lomonaaeren

Thank you again for all the reviews! I will be finishing up Beneath These Trees, Such Shade in one more chapter, as one of the three fics I’m currently concentrating on.

Chapter Twelve—The Bargaining

“Harry, what happened?”

Harry smiled a little as Ron and Hermione stood up from the Gryffindor table to stare at him. “Nothing bad,” he said. “I just decided to embrace my Sidhe heritage.” He touched his own cheek, tracing the new sharpness beneath the skin. “Do you like it?”

“Was it the best thing to do?” Hermione asked, at the same moment as Ron asked, “So do you feel like eating us now?”

“Ron!”

“It’s fair to ask, given the Blood of Avalon coming back,” Harry said, and took his place across the table from Ron, reaching for the plate of sausages. “But no. I’m a little hungrier for meat than I was, and Theo said that I’ll probably want more natural food, like fresh fruit and eggs instead of things like pie or cake as much. But I’m still me.”

“Then why did you do it? What benefit does it have?” Hermione asked.

“Besides reassuring the Blood of Avalon that I really am on the same side as they are, and the Ministry that I mean what I say about treating them better?”

“Well, okay, but you shouldn’t do things just because they benefit other people and not you. I think Theo would have something to say about that.”

“Yeah, he sure would.” Harry smiled, and if they wanted to think he was smiling fondly over Theo’s ineffectual anger instead of the nasty fight they would have in reality, they could think that. “But no. It gives me some extra strength, and some interesting magic, and it means that I got rid of the part of me that was fretting and worrying about everything other people would think. They decided I was mental or a liar or a cheater when I was perfectly innocent, so why worry about them now?”

“Potter.”

Snape’s voice was deep and booming. Harry turned around on his bench, a little curious to see how Snape would react at the sight of his face. Maybe he would be the one person who wouldn’t care.

But no, Snape recoiled, whatever he had been about to say forgotten. “What did you do to Lily’s eyes?”

“What is he talking about?” Ron whispered to Hermione.

Harry just kept gazing steadily at Snape. He hadn’t told anyone about that moment in the Shrieking Shack when Snape had almost died and what he’d said, and he was content for that to remain private, just between them. But if Snape brought it out, then Harry wasn’t going to defend it. It was and always would be Snape’s own strange obsession.

“They’re my eyes,” he said softly, when enough time had passed in silence that things were starting to feel weird. “They always have been.”

“What did you do?”

“Awakened my Sidhe blood.”

“You should not have done that.”

“One.”

“What?”

“I expect a lot of people to tell me that, because for some reason, the magical public thinks they get to dictate what I do with my life,” Harry explained, as he speared a sausage and dropped it in his mouth. He chewed a bit, swallowed, then added, “You’re just the first. I’m keeping count.”

Snape glared at him, a flash of fang showing under his lip for a moment, and then continued, “Do you understand what you have done?”

“Lots of things. Please be more specific.”

“You revealed Lucius as a Veela,” Snape snarled. “And that meant that I was revealed as his mate. I had no choice but to go to him last night.”

“I don’t really care about your sex life, sir. Please keep the conversation focused.”

Snape’s hands clenched into the kinds of fists that made him look like his nails were about to puncture his own skin. Harry smiled at him and kept eating, although he did face Snape, because maybe he owed the man that much courtesy.

“Do you have no thought for the marriage that you have broken up? Lucius will never be able to be with Narcissa again now. And do you not think about the Malfoys’ concern with grandchildren and the purity of their line?”

“I think Draco’s damn lucky to have Galahad, really. Galahad will be devoted to him. And who’s to say that they can’t have children? Galahad seemed to be pretty sure that they could.” He thought Galahad would have mentioned otherwise.

“Potter! That is not the point!”

Harry felt a slight wetness on his face, and lifted his hand, scrubbing his cheek for a moment as he grimaced. He didn’t think Snape had deliberately spat at him, but he was so upset that there was—moisture—coming out. “Sir, please restrain yourself. You know that I had no idea anyone would turn into the Blood like this, and the only reason that Lucius got revealed as a Veela was that he decided to be a stupid hypocrite. Now that you’re his mate, maybe he can stop being one.”

“What about Narcissa?”

“I don’t know, what about her? Is she into threesomes? Actually, don’t answer that.”

“Get away from Harry.”

Theo’s voice was low and somewhat controlled, but Harry sat up in some alarm anyway. Sure enough, Theo had gone full satyr and was standing behind Snape with his horns lowered, ready to charge.

“Theo.”

His lover tossed his horns irritably, but stepped around Snape and wrapped Harry in his arms, glaring at their professor. “I was the one who revealed Lucius, so lay the blame where it belongs. And no one would have needed to be concerned about what Harry does in the first place if they had not put all the burden of defeating a Dark Lord on him.”

“He should not have awakened his Sidhe blood.”

“Just as I have no wish to be initiated into the mysteries of what a vampire and a Veela do in the bedroom, no one need be concerned about the effects that Harry’s blood has on him except for Harry and me.”

Snape looked as though he would like to lunge and tear out Theo’s throat. Harry wasn’t sure what would happen if he did, but he kept a cautious eye on Snape and a cautious hand on Theo, both.

“This is not over,” Snape said at last, in a voice so deep that it seemed to echo through the stones beneath them, and then he turned and practically stomped his way out of the Great Hall.

Theo turned around, rolling his eyes. He hadn’t gone full satyr in the matter of his claws, but his eyes were golden and slit-pupiled. “Why did he care?”

“He blamed me for making him Lucius’s mate, but he also didn’t like the fact that apparently my eyes look different now that I’ve awakened my Sidhe blood.”

“What?”

From Theo’s sudden stillness, Harry knew he was probably thinking of Snape as a romantic rival. Harry shook his head and drew Theo a little closer, lowering his voice. “Snape was in love with my mum. Or obsessed with her. I don’t look much like her except for my eyes. No wonder he’s sensitive to any change in them.”

“He has no right to say such a thing.”

“I know—”

“He owes you for saving his life. He owes you fealty.”

“You know none of the rest of us take the lord thing as seriously as you do, Theo.”

Theo made an irritated sound with the edge of a bleat, and turned around to pull the bowl of fruit on the table towards him. Harry caught Ron and Hermione’s frank stares, and shrugged a little.

If everyone was still alive at the end of the summer, whether they were Blood of Avalon or human, then Harry was going to count it as a major achievement.

*

“Human.”

Harry came to a stop as hooves hit the dirt and leaves of the Forbidden Forest ahead of him, and a centaur cantered into view. “Not quite.”

The centaur stopped and stared at him, and then pawed the ground without speaking for a long moment. When he did, his voice was subdued, muffled by something other than his dark beard. “What have you become? I recognized the ulhamis who came to the Forest, but we do not know what you are.”

“Sidhe.”

The centaur froze. Harry wondered if he had ever seen one of them genuinely afraid before.

“You are not here to hunt us?”

“No,” Harry said, and decided he would have to get Ron and Theo to tell him about the legends of the Sidhe as predators, since everyone around him seemed to believe them. “I’m here to make sure that the Blood of Avalon really did bargain with you for a place in the Forbidden Forest, and didn’t simply take it by force.”

“Who are you?”

“My human name is Harry Potter,” Harry said, startling himself slightly. He hadn’t known he would refer to himself as having a human name, but—it felt right.

The centaur remained still, searching Harry’s face with his wide dark eyes this time. Then he tossed his head a little and turned. “Come. Magorian is this way, and he will want to speak with you.”

Harry concealed his surprise as he followed. He had thought the centaurs would send a message to him, but he hadn’t expected to be invited into the heart of territory they probably thought of as their own.

He passed enormous boulders sparkling with moss, waterfalls that tumbled from dark banks too high and gloomy to see, and open clearings where centaur and unicorn foals played together. Harry kept his eyes aimed straight ahead after one quick glance. He didn’t think they would like him peering at them, even if he was no longer really human.

The sound of running water began to grow stronger ahead of them, and Harry found himself thinking of the mist-like water of the country he had opened to the Blood of Avalon. Of course, that had only been the scene of his revelation that he could be Sidhe. There was no predicting that the river ahead of them would be like that one.

The centaur slowed, prancing with obvious nervousness, or at least Harry thought that showed nervousness. He wondered if he was really better at reading the expressions of others with non-human blood now, or if he was imagining it.

“Magorian is here.”

The centaur reached out and drew back what seemed to be a curtain made of fallen leaves strung on spidersilk. Harry stepped into a blaze of golden light.

He remained still, since no one was telling him he had to walk forwards, looking around and blinking. The space was small and contained, woven over with branches, carpeted with leaves and roots, draped with more curtains of spidersilk. And it was lit, somehow, golden radiance just washing down from nowhere in particular.

“It is our magic.”

Harry focused on Magorian, the tall, powerful centaur with slashes of grey in his hair, who lay on folded legs in the center of the blaze. Harry thought Theo might have got upset at the idea that the centaur wasn’t rising in respect, but Harry thought he knew what this meant. Magorian was comfortable enough with Harry that he didn’t need to stand, or be ready to run.

Harry bowed low. “Greetings, Magorian.”

“You are no longer quite human, are you?”

Harry hadn’t heard that tone of polite curiosity in a centaur’s voice before, either. He shook his head. “Sidhe,” he added, when he saw eyebrows rising and tails flicking out of the corner of his eye.

Magorian inclined his head slowly. “There are legends of the Sidhe that we use to terrify foals. But I do not believe you are one of that kind.”

“No,” Harry agreed. He would have to get someone to tell him the stories they were talking about or look it up somewhere when he got back to the castle.

“Why did you come here?”

“To make sure the Blood of Avalon drove a fair bargain and didn’t drive you off your land instead.”

There were more glances, fast as the twitching and shuddering of muscles. Harry waited, his hands clasped in front of him and his eyes meeting Magorian’s. When it started to feel like an aggressive stare to him, he looked off to the side a little.

“You really have no idea what they said, do you?”

“No. That’s why I wanted to make sure it was fair.”

“How long it has been since humans asked our opinions. What we would not do to share our territory with those who can terrify the humans and protect us.”

Harry hesitated. The first part sounded like the centaurs might only have agreed to let Harry’s kin live in the Forbidden Forest because they’d asked, but the second part sounded more favorable. “So it was fair?”

Magorian gave a sigh as gusty as the wind suddenly moving the branches above them. “Yes, little Sidhe, it was fair.” He rose to his feet and trotted towards Harry abruptly. Harry remained standing where he was. He didn’t understand all the changes that his transformation might have wrought to his magic, but he was sure he could protect himself.

And he didn’t think he was in any danger, anyway.

Magorian extended his hand. There was a golden ring in the center of his palm. Harry blinked and studied it. It was plain, without a stone and with some runes inscribed around the band that he couldn’t read.

“Do you know what this is?”

“No.”

“It is a promise to come to our defense, if someone invades our forests.” Magorian closed his fingers around the band and bowed his head. “No one has offered that kind of alliance to us in years beyond counting. We share the Forest, of course, but most of the other peoples here are either hostile to us or are the ones we need to protect, like the unicorns.”

“I see,” Harry said quietly, and he thought he did. What would he have given for someone to come and take him away from the Dursleys? What wouldn’t he have given?

All someone would have had to do was promise to protect him, and he would have given them all his trust. Never questioned their motives.

Still…

“And the ring will bring Galahad and the others to help you? It’s not just an empty promise that could be broken.”

Shadows of a smile moved across Magorian’s face. “It cannot compel them. But they have chosen to give us their allegiance, and that is worth more than any compulsion.”

Harry smiled. Hadn’t he thought his friends were priceless to him when the magical world regularly exploded in rage and denial over his actions? Hadn’t he worried about being with Theo precisely because he had feared the bond between them and the way Theo saw him as lord would act as a kind of compulsion?

“I understand,” he said, lifting his gaze to Magorian’s face. “Thank you for showing me.”

“Thank you for coming to see us, little Sidhe.” Magorian paused for a moment, and it seemed to Harry that all of the other centaurs in the sheltered little nook stopped moving as well. “If someday you know your Sidhe name and are willing to share, all of us will be waiting eagerly for that gift.”

Just acknowledging that they were waiting was a big deal to centaurs, Harry knew. He managed to bow from the waist in a way that he was sure was more elegant than he would have managed yesterday. “Thank you, Magorian. I will bring it and share it with my kin if I can.”

The centaurs were all smiling at him when he straightened, in a way that Harry was sure no human would ever see.

“Come again soon, Harry Potter,” Magorian said, bowing his head. “Come again, cousin.”

*

“It went well?”

Theo’s voice was flat. Harry paused and studied his face carefully. Theo hadn’t been happy about the notion of Harry going into the Forbidden Forest by himself, but he’d had to agree that it was better than taking the chance that a satyr would puzzle or annoy the centaurs.

“Yes,” Harry said slowly. “They acknowledged me as kin.” A genuine smile lit Theo’s eyes, and Harry smiled back and stepped towards him. “Did something happen?”

“Yes.” Theo’s hands flexed, his claws sliding out of his fingertips. “Flint brought his case before the Wizengamot. They’ve called you to the Ministry. They’re going to require you to reverse the transformation.”

“Even if he dies from the disease in his Dark Mark?”

“I don’t think more than half of them believe in the sickness. They want you to turn Flint back to human and somehow not let him get sick. At the same time.”

Theo’s voice held a low, rumbling thunder of rage. Harry, though, looked down at his hands and then lifted one finger to touch the odd feeling of his hair.

“Harry?”

Harry looked up at Theo and smiled. “I didn’t know what I was doing when I took over the network of the Dark Marks,” he said. “And I didn’t handle it in the best way given that.”

“That still doesn’t give Flint the right to—”

“So I may actually be able to set Flint free and make sure that he doesn’t die of the sickness, now that I’ve awakened my blood. And I can set free others who don’t want to be bound to me or have the Blood awake in them.”

“Snape? The Malfoys?”

Harry snorted. “I don’t want to interfere in the bonds of Veela matings, assuming I could. And I don’t think they actually want to transform back into what they were before, no matter what they say.”

“Why not?”

“They have their pride. Being Veela and a vampire makes them more unique and special than just being purebloods were. Especially with the Malfoy name in disgrace and the fact that some people still don’t believe Snape was working with Dumbledore. And with the Blood of Avalon returned and the old stories about them, just being human isn’t going to be enough for some people.”

Theo relaxed, smiling. “You’re remarkably intelligent when you try.”

“I have you for the times when I don’t try,” Harry murmured, and drew Theo closer, kissing him. They had to part before things could get too intense, and Harry sighed. He wouldn’t have the chance to ask Theo about the stories concerning the Sidhe right now, either.

But for now…

“Come on,” he said, and held out his hand, interlacing his fingers with Theo’s. “The Wizengamot is waiting.”