[More Theo/Harry in the World Project]: The Price of Walking on Two Legs, 2/3, PG-13

[lomonaaeren]

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Part Two

Theo felt the vibrations. Someone was near Harry’s bed. Someone was reaching out to the curtains, which Theo had noticed last night weren’t warded heavily. He wouldn’t have been able to get in if they were.

Theo reared up and flicked his tongue out. Finnigan, from the scent. He waited.

“Theo.”

Theo glanced down. Harry was awake, something Theo hadn’t realized in his focus on the threat, and his eyes and voice were both direct. “Let me handle him, if you please. I don’t want him dead.”

The addition at the end was the only reason that Theo decided to lie back down and let Harry handle this, after all. He didn’t have to, he thought. He could insist on killing Finnigan so that he would stop being a pain in Harry’s arse.

But it would be hard to explain a dead body in the middle of the Gryffindor dormitory, especially one dead the same way Umbridge had died.

Harry sat up just as Finnigan eased the curtains open. He froze. Theo tasted the fear in his scent, but he didn’t know if it was the sight of Theo, or Harry glaring straight at him, or both together, that had made Finnigan stop.

Theo hoped it was the last.

“What do you want, Seamus?”

Harry’s voice was weary, but also steely enough that it made Finnigan open and close his mouth in silence. Then he rallied and said, “For you to stop being a traitor and a Slytherin lover.”

“And I want you to stop acting stupid, but we don’t always get what we want, do we?”

“You’re mental—”

“Listen up, Seamus. I’m only going to say this once.”

Harry’s voice deepened until it was hovering on the edge of Parseltongue. Theo found himself glad that it didn’t get all the way there. Parseltongue was private, something he and Harry shared. Sacred.

That is an odd word.

“Most of the time, I don’t care what you believe about me. You want to think that I’m a deluded liar? Fine. Most everyone else in Britain does anyway. But when you come sneaking in like you were going to hex me? If you do that, I will hurt you.”

Theo writhed against Harry’s arm in a dance that probably only Harry would recognize as delight. The threat was perfect, direct and simple, the way that it needed to be for a Gryffindor to understand.

And it made Finnigan’s eyes widen and his face go pale until he looked almost sick. Theo regretted only that he couldn’t make the boy sicker with his venom.

“You—you—”

“It’s not like you have the moral high ground here, when you were coming to hex me in my sleep.” Harry reached out to Theo without looking at him, and Theo slipped up Harry’s shoulder and looped his tail around Harry’s throat, hissing threats at Finnigan. Harry shifted in a way that probably meant he would have been laughing at Theo’s threats under circumstances, but for now, they had to focus on Finnigan.

“It was only going to be the Tickling Charm.”

“Liar.”

Harry and Theo both spoke the word at the same time, one in Parseltongue and one in dark English, and Finnigan stumbled backwards into his bed and nearly collapsed on the floor. The others were stirring now, at the noise. Harry lingered to add one more sharp look at Finnigan before sweeping his curtains shut again.

“Thank you.”

Theo cuddled closer to Harry still, to the warmth and the smell of him, and then rolled back and down. Harry let him go, looking curious. Theo dropped onto the bed and then transformed.

Harry swallowed, a rough gasp of air. He probably hadn’t expected Theo to be kneeling so close to him, his eyes so dark, his hair so mussed. Theo saw himself as if from outside and knew he looked exactly the way he wanted to look at the moment.

“Theo.”

Theo could still understand the Parseltongue in human form, although he lacked the mouth to shape it at the moment. But he could lean forwards, place his hands on Harry’s wrists, pin them over Harry’s head, and lunge in for a kiss.

Harry spread his legs at once, letting Theo come to rest in between them. Theo didn’t press down, because he wasn’t ready for that yet, but he kissed and kissed and bit until Harry was a panting mess.

Then he drew back to admire the bright red of Harry’s lips, which he could probably make even redder if he wanted to. What would happen if he bit them with his adder fangs?

Can I alter my venom so that it doesn’t poison someone I don’t want it to poison?

While Theo was still pondering that pleasant speculation, Harry gave him a coy smile and reached up to touch his shoulder with one hand. “Why did you stop?”

Theo gave a low chuckle and moved in to give Harry even more of what they both craved.

*

“What are you doing over here, Nott?”

Theo didn’t answer as he put his cauldron beside Harry’s. As far as he was concerned, the public part of the answer was obvious, and the private part of the answer belonged to him and Harry alone.

“Theo and I are brewing together,” Harry said, smiling at Theo. His lips were no longer as red as they had been when he and Theo were kissing in Gryffindor Tower, but enough of a shadow lingered on them to make Theo feel incredibly smug.

“You didn’t say anything, mate.”

Harry shrugged and smiled at Weasley, who looked back and forth between him and Theo for a long moment, then sighed and reached out to Longbottom. Theo tucked his head down like he was still a snake, and Harry’s hand came to rest on the curve of Theo’s shoulder.

“Mr. Nott. Mr. Potter.”

Harry tensed. Theo gave a soft, soothing hiss, not true Parseltongue but as close as he could come in human form, and turned to stare at Snape with flat eyes.

“You are to go back to your own part of the classroom, Mr. Nott.”

Theo just kept staring at Snape. He could see a muscle jumping in the professor’s jaw, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered to him right now except Harry.

“There are rules that students from different Houses may not brew—”

“Funny.” Harry leaned back in his seat a little and smiled brilliantly at Snape. “I seem to remember you telling both me and Ron to help Malfoy brew during our third year when the git was faking that hippogriff injury.”

Draco made a noise in the background that both Theo and Harry ignored. Theo liked Draco, most of the time, but it was true that he had milked that injury for its dramatic potential long after even the scar had disappeared.

And besides, he wouldn’t try that kind of thing to get Harry in trouble now. If he knew what was good for him.

Snape’s eyes darted back and forth between Theo and Harry. He said nothing. Theo wondered idly how much they looked like two snakes to Snape, given that they were both still and watched him with flat eyes.

“Ruin your Potions mark then, Mr. Nott,” Snape said, past lips that barely moved. “See if I care.”

He turned away with a violent swirl of his robes, and Granger let out what seemed to be half the air in the classroom. Theo didn’t look at her as he continued getting out his Potions kit and ingredients.

“You’ll want to make sure that you blend the moondew completely with the rest of the base when you put it in,” he whispered to Harry, as the stampede to the cupboard to get ingredients began.

“Why?”

“Otherwise, the base will bubble too much, and a stray bubble at the wrong stage can ruin the potion.”

“Oh.” Harry stared at the potion for a long moment, then sighed and reached for his knife to cut up the Bubotuber roots they would need to slice first.

Theo leaned in and put a hand lightly over Harry’s wrist. “Why do you hate Potions so much?”

“He’s standing right over there.”

Theo let his lips twitch, but also kept most of his attention on Harry. “I know. But you just looked weary when I was explaining why the moondew had to be blended, not interested.”

Harry drummed his fingers on the edge of the table for a moment. Granger leaned over, but Theo shook his head at her. She hesitated before she backed off. Theo thought he would have to deal with her at some point.

But not now.

“It just seems that no matter what, something dangerous is happening,” Harry said finally. “Voldemort is hunting me. The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor wants to kill me. And now this potion could explode if I don’t get it exactly right. I don’t know. I find it hard to care.”

Theo leaned in further. “I know you do well in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Could you think of Potions as the same way? As a challenge to overcome?”

“I suppose I could. It reminds me of cooking.”

Theo blinked, at the non sequitur and at the idea that Harry hadn’t grown up with house-elves. “What do you mean?”

“If I didn’t get the food I cooked for my relatives exactly right, they would get upset and yell at me and I wouldn’t get any. Or sometimes Aunt Petunia would swing a frying pan at my head, or Dudley would try to make me burn my hands on the stove.”

Theo stared at Harry in silence. And a second later, Harry seemed to realize what he’d said. He ducked his head, hunched his shoulders, started to turn away.

“No,” Theo hissed, and again Parseltongue shaded his words. “Don’t hide from me.”

Harry stiffened and held so still for a long moment that Theo thought he would go on trying to turn away. And then he gave a long sigh and turned to face Theo again. “That’s what my relatives were like.”

Theo thought of all the many things he would like to say, the people he would like to bite. But he ended up shaking his head. That was for later. “Can you think of Potions as a challenge like that, then? It matters whether you get it right or wrong?”

Harry took a slow breath. Then he said, “Well, it wouldn’t matter to Snape, will it? He won’t treat me differently no matter what happens.”

“He already backed down today, without giving you any detentions or taking points. And it matters to me, how well you do.”

Harry looked up at him with wide, startled eyes. Then his smile blazed, and he looked back at the potion and began to very carefully chop the Bubotubers.

Theo hid his smile against the palm of his hand, not because it was threatening, but because no one deserved to see it except Harry.

*

Harry’s potion was perfect.