lomonaaeren

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Chapter Thirteen—Bafflement

Stay safe. Do nothing without me.

“Regulus Black was notorious among the Death Eaters.”

Harry doesn’t ask how Theo knows that. It’s perfectly obvious how Theo knows that. Harry just gives him a steady look and sits down on the chair that the Room of Requirement has provided for him. Theo has taken a chair across from him, and is almost vibrating with nerves. “In what way?”

“He always did exactly what the Dark Lord asked of him. He considered it an honor to serve.”

“He didn’t care about anyone else? Did he have friends? Or did all his friends join Voldemort?”

Theo flinches at the name, which hasn’t happened in a while, and then shakes his head and takes a deep breath. “Yes, just about all his friends were Death Eaters. He was part of a group of young Slytherins who were all—recruited.”

Harry nods. He supposes he should have guessed that. “And so you think that he’s doing something in some way to lure me to Voldemort?”

“Why else would he write to you? Are you seriously considering an alliance with the werewolves?”

“If we can have someone contact them. But then again, Remus is the only werewolf I know, and he’s told me that he’s despised by Fenrir Greyback and the packs Greyback controls.”

Theo snorts. “I’m not surprised. Greyback bit Lupin, and he’s never had the time for someone who wouldn’t immediately roll over and start obeying him after that.” He leans a little back in his seat, pulls at his hair, and then says abruptly, “What I’m about to tell you—you can’t tell anyone else, Harry. Not Black, not Granger or Weasley.”

“What happened to calling them by their first names?”

Theo just looks steadily at him.

Harry sighs. “Okay, I promise.” He always would have made the promise regardless, and from the look Theo gives him, he knows it. But his expression does look easier as he leans forwards again.

“My father has blackmail on several werewolves working in the Ministry.” Theo’s expression is unreadable now. “They manage it with Wolfsbane and by having established that they have children or family members who need special care on a regular basis. Or by being too senior, in a few cases, to have their absences questioned. I’ll give their names to you.”

Harry stares for a moment. Then he says, “Won’t your father…notice that they aren’t doing what he wants them to do anymore?”

“It’s been a long time since he required them for some kind of active participation in his plans, and now that Voldemort has returned, he still hasn’t issued Father any clear orders.” Theo continues to speak from behind that unbreakable mask. “Of course, he still retains their names and sends some of them Galleons for the Wolfsbane. You should be able to use them, too.”

“I’m not going to blackmail them,” Harry says, more sharply than he meant to.

A deeply unsettling smile cuts across Theo’s face. “None of them are good people by your definition, Harry. They put their fellow Ministry workers in danger every day, given that a cut from a werewolf’s nails or teeth can at least scar badly, and make a lot of people think someone who has it carries the infection. And their temper rises harsh and hot. Two of them have scarred people, and had to come up with stories about curses they cast that did it. They weren’t heavily punished, though, because Father provided them with the money for the bribes. And several of them have deliberately bitten people they wanted revenge on. Or those people’s children, like Greyback.”

Harry clenches his hands in front of them. The thought of children being bitten makes his own harsh, hot anger ignite inside him. “I still don’t want to blackmail them.”

“You can blackmail them into good deeds. You could tell them that you’re fighting for the political rights of werewolves and they have to assist you. Make some gesture the way that you did when you gave the goblins wands. There are werewolves who would follow you if you did something like that.”

“Are you managing me?”

“Of course not.”

“You’re speaking in this weirdly soothing tone.”

“My lord requires it.”

At least Theo’s eyes are bright and mocking, which makes Harry relax with a little huff, shaking his head. “And you want me to have the names of these werewolves.”

“Yes. Whatever trick Black has pulled to make his own family tapestry think he’s dead, he’s not going to trick you. You won’t need him to intercede with you for the werewolves, or whatever he plans on doing.”

“Thanks,” Harry says quietly. He won’t refuse the names, and from Theo’s little nod, he knows that. He stands up and walks towards the door.

“Theo?” Harry asks before he can think better of it.

“Yes, Harry?”

“What’s your definition?”

“Of what?”

“Of a good person.”

Theo’s eyes glitter, and he makes a little clawing gesture at the air that Harry isn’t entirely sure is conscious. “One who follows my lord and safeguards my friends,” he replies, and then slips out, closing the door softly behind him.

…Yeah, Harry should have anticipated that.

*

“Are you studying for your O.W.L.S., Harry?”

“Of course,” Harry says absently. In fact, he’s examining a letter that he got from Zacharias. He wanted to warn Harry that his family is pressing the legislation they wanted to demand against Lords and Ladies more heavily in the Wizengamot, and the chance is good that Harry will be called to testify.

“It doesn’t look like it!”

Harry puts the letter aside reluctantly and smiles at Hermione. “Sorry. It’s kind of hard to concentrate on just exams when—you know.” He lets his hand briefly brush across his scar, since he and Ron and Hermione are in an isolated corner of the common room.

Hermione’s eyes soften, which is a lot more than Harry would ever get out of someone like Theo or Susan. “Oh, Harry, of course. I’m sorry.” She pushes a book aside and reveals a slice of treacle tart that Harry had no idea she had. “Try and eat some of this. Sometimes sugar improves concentration.”

“…It does?” Harry asks as he reaches for the tart.

From the way Hermione blushes, Harry is pretty sure that that’s the kind of lie she tells herself to help the studying go better, but he just smiles and eats the treacle tart. And then he willingly gets into a discussion with Hermione about Charms, which, based on her obvious pleasure and Ron’s grateful looks, probably counts as his good deed for the day.

*

“Tell me what you have.”

“Wand, check.”

“Wand holster, check,” Theo says from Harry’s side, where he’s stepping away and eyeing the holster on Harry’s arm as if he thinks that it might need to be tightened again.

“Muggleborn semi-official lawyer, check.” Justin grins at Harry from where he’s leaning against the wall in the anteroom outside the Wizengamot’s chamber.

“Supply of endless patience, check,” says Zacharias, who is standing stiffly next to Harry. Then Zacharias flushes and looks around as though he thinks someone is going to scold him for making a joke.

Harry interrupts just in case Theo has ideas in that direction. “Title of Lord Slytherin and the best allies and friends anyone could have, check.” He smiles at Hermione and Susan, who chose to come with him. Susan is known to a bunch of people on the Wizengamot because of her aunt Amelia, and Hermione is here for both her brilliance and her ability to show that Lord Slytherin has more than just one Muggleborn friend.

Theo won’t be entering the room with him. From the complex, shadowed expression in his eyes as he looks at Harry, he regrets that.

Harry nudges him with an elbow, winks at him, and then opens the doors and steps into the meeting chamber of the Wizengamot.

Eyes fasten on him at once, and the voices that were casually talking before turn into a dull mutter. Harry makes himself walk forwards without looking around, to left or right. He halts in front of a chair that faces the Wizengamot and frowns.

“My friends need chairs, too,” he tells the air.

There’s a shimmer, a flash of what seems to be a dark purple circle in the middle of the stone floor, and then four more chairs pop up. Harry smiles. “Thank you,” he says, sitting down. Zacharias sits on one side of him, and Justin on the other. Susan and Hermione sit behind him.

“This is most irregular, Mr. Potter,” says a tall woman with thick glasses, frowning at him.

“I don’t see why,” Harry says blandly. “This is Justin Finch-Fletchley, my lawyer in training. These are Zacharias Smith and Susan Bones, who know more about the Wizengamot than I do and therefore qualify as advisors. And this is my friend Hermione Granger, who wants to enter the Ministry someday and therefore wanted to observe the Wizengamot in action.”

“I mean that it is irregular not to stand before the Wizengamot.”

“Oh, but their legs would get tired.”

The tall woman stares at him. Harry smiles back.

“This is ridiculous,” says a man who’s standing up on the far end of the topmost row of seats. Harry can see the resemblance to Zacharias in his face, and doesn’t need the sharp way Zacharias moves in his chair to know that this isn’t a beloved relative. “They are only children. They shouldn’t be here.”

“Then you’re going to dismiss me and say that I can’t cause any harm for declaring myself Lord Slytherin, right?” Harry asks.

“You have no right to declare yourself that way!”

“Technically, other people declared me. They looked up the records and found out that defeating the basilisk means that I won the title by Right of Conquest.”

“I don’t believe you defeated a basilisk.”

“Too bad. They do.”

The man glares at Harry from beneath a shock of sandy blond hair that honestly doesn’t look that much like Zacharias, and then turns to Madam Bones, who’s standing with folded arms at the end of his row of seats. “Amelia, send the others away. He can’t possibly need a lawyer or advisors, and the Granger girl is only here for specious reasons.”

“I’m not minded to do that,” says Madam Bones. “Mr. Potter, you were called here to speak about your title and your followers.”

“Yes, Madam.”

“Regardless of how you gained your title, legislation has been proposed that would recommend you for immediate treatment to St. Mungo’s. How do you describe yourself, given that?”

“The attempted victim of a bunch of hypocrites.”

Madam Bones blinks. “What?”

“The Smith family has been trying to get its members to go on quests for years to be appointed Lord or Lady Hufflepuff,” Harry says, and loads his voice with all the scorn he can muster, when Madam Bones looks as if she might ask for more detail. “They shouldn’t try to take my title away just because they’re jealous.”

Zacharias and Theo both recommended he use that wording, and it works. The Smith relative standing up, whoever he is, turns around as if stung with a hex. “It’s not jealousy, you little moron!”

“Ah,” Harry says. “So you admit that you’ve been trying to get members of your family to take up the title of Lord or Lady Hufflepuff?”

The man’s face freezes in hatred.

Zacharias leans over to Harry, although Harry can feel his friend shaking like a leaf. “My uncle Horace,” he whispers.

Harry nods his thanks, not taking his eyes from Horace Smith. “I just asked you a question,” he says. “I can’t command you to answer it, of course, since you’re not one of my followers, but it would be nice if you would.”

Madam Bones turns around and faces Smith. “Is this true?”

“You would take the word of a bunch of schoolchildren?”

“You took them seriously enough to make a case that Lord Slytherin was mentally ill. Answer the question, Horace.”

“We did, but that’s different!”

Harry laughs into his elbow as the Wizengamot chamber explodes into shouts and snarls. It’s true that most of the people who are yelling right now probably don’t want to support Harry, they just want to get back at Smith or they hate the thought of anyone being a Lord or Lady at all, but he’s successfully side-tracked them, which was all he wanted.

“Is the Wizengamot always like this?” Harry hears Hermione asking Susan.

“This is restrained, honestly.”

Harry sits back and exchanges a smile with Justin and Zacharias. Honestly, he might have to do something about the Smiths’ effort to attack him politically in the future, but it doesn’t look like he’ll have to do anything today.