lomonaaeren

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Chapter Eighteen—The Duel

“I made Bulstrode feel like she’s swallowing her own tongue for the past five hours, but it’s not enough.”

Harry reaches out and brushes Theo’s hair out of his eyes. They’re standing on the edge of the Astronomy Tower, with the shining stars above them. Theo is staring at them with a bleak gaze. He leans his head on Harry’s shoulder when Harry touches him, but doesn’t turn to look at him.

“I should have prevented it. I should have given them a blanket order that would keep them from acting against you.”

“They might still have been clever enough to find some way around it. I need you to be with me, Theo, not spend the time we have left regretting it.”

Theo abruptly whirls around and pins Harry against the stone battlement. His eyes are so deep that Harry feels as if he could drift in them for the rest of his life and never reach the bottom. He swallows and tamps down the thrill he feels as Theo hisses, “You are not going to die. I forbid it. It’s not going to happen.”

“I am absolutely not going to die. I meant the time we have left before the duel, not the time that we have left altogether.”

Theo lets go and leans fully against Harry. Harry wraps his arms around him. He can feel Theo shaking, and he knows why. For so long, Theo had no one except Zabini, and maybe his father if you can count that, and now he has Harry. If someone takes Harry away—

Even if Harry was inclined to let Mrs. Malfoy kill him for some reason, he’ll never do that to Theo.

Or to Ron and Hermione. But at the moment, his best friends don’t have much advice. They don’t understand the intricacies of the situation like Theo does. They’ve been awkwardly encouraging for most of the day, but also they don’t believe that Mrs. Malfoy would really kill him.

Harry believes it. He saw the cool hatred in Mrs. Malfoy’s eyes, tempered only with the triumph that she obviously felt at having tricked him into the duel. She’s sane enough to know what killing him will do, and she’ll do it anyway. Worrying about future consequences, like being vilified in the papers or put in prison if she uses an Unforgivable, wouldn’t be enough to stop her.

For all that, Harry can’t regret the measures that he and Theo took to ensure Theo’s vengeance. If Malfoy wanted to live in peace and Mrs. Malfoy didn’t want to duel people, then Malfoy shouldn’t have conspired to rape someone.

“What are you going to do?” Theo asks at last, in a whisper. “You would probably only be assured of victory if you used the Killing Curse, and I don’t trust the Ministry to not throw you in prison if you do that. Regardless of whether the rules are supposed to be different for confrontations like this.”

“Yeah. They’re always different for me. They didn’t even check Malfoy’s wand, or Parkinson’s.”

Theo exhales cold rage and raises his head. “What are you going to do, Harry?”

“I could let my magic just explode at her, but I don’t know certain what the result would be. I think it’s better to be certain.”

“I know that. Tell me.”

Harry crushes his nervousness and reminds himself of the secrets that Theo has trusted Harry with. He won’t react to this badly, not like Ron and Hermione. “Okay. There’s a book that I found in Grimmauld Place—my godfather’s old house—this past summer.”

“A Dark one?”

“Yeah. But more to the point, it talks about spells that only certain kinds of people can do. For example, some of them, only a Metamorphmagus can do.”

“Are you a Metamorphmagus?”

“No.” Harry swallows down memories of Tonks, and the stab of guilt that comes with realizing he hasn’t thought about Teddy in a while. Then again, the last letter he exchanged with Andromeda, she said they would see each other at Christmas, and Harry should concentrate on finishing up his repeated year at school and studying for his NEWTS. “But it had other kinds of magic, too. Kinds that only a Parselmouth could do.”

Theo smiles, an expression so dark and seductive that Harry has to kiss it, and then they’re busy for a while. When Theo pulls back, though, he rests his hands on Harry’s shoulders and studies his face. “Tell me that you’ll use all the spells you can.”

“I will. I promise. I won’t leave you.” Harry caresses Theo’s face.

He thinks, too, that the spells being old and restricted to Parselmouths means that they’re unlikely to be the kind of thing the Ministry can arrest him for.

Once, he would have been horrified to be the kind of person who could think like this. But Harry can’t regret his transformation. How can he, when it brought him Theo?

Theo is worth everything.

*

“What is he going to do? Do you know, Nott?”

Theo half-shrugs, his eyes fastened on Harry as he stands in the middle of the dueling circle in front of Dumbledore’s tomb. As the one challenged, he got to pick the ground, and Theo thinks that his choice is desperately hilarious.

He’ll feel like laughing later.

“That’s not a no.”

Theo sighs and turns to face Granger. He appreciates her tenacity and her strength. She’s been Harry’s friend for years, and she had the courage to stand by him during situations like the Goblet of Fire debacle when almost everyone else turned on him. But right now, Theo wishes she would stop digging.

“Even if Harry told me, it would be in confidence. A confidence that I’m not going to betray to you.”

“It wouldn’t be a betrayal. Not when we’re Harry’s—”

“Do you tell him every secret that you’ve shared with Weasley, Granger?”

Granger flushes, and for a second, Theo thinks she’s going to explode. Then she takes a deep breath and mutters, “I see your point.”

Theo nods and turns his back to watch Harry walk to one side of the circle, which is marked out in the grass with precise silver lines that formed the moment Harry chose the ground, as the result of the Dueler’s Geas. At each point of the circle that corresponds to a cardinal direction, a large silver-black stone sits, projecting the wards that will keep the audience safe.

Theo sees the triumph on Mrs. Malfoy’s face, and wishes he could go over there and claw it off.

For some reason, Weasley decides to make conversation. “You look like you want to murder her, Nott.”

“I do.”

“But you wouldn’t.”

Theo shakes his head, wordlessly. The truth is that he wouldn’t, but the truth is also that he wouldn’t because her life is Harry’s to take.

Somehow, he doesn’t think that would go over well with a pair of Gryffindors.

“Harry’s going to win this duel,” Granger says. Theo glances at her; she’s linked her arm with Weasley’s.

“I agree,” Theo says, and then turns back to the circle as Mrs. Malfoy and Harry bow to each other. The Geas spell she cast means that Mrs. Malfoy has to obey the formal rules as much as Harry does, and so she can’t cast anything at him while they’re bowing.

But while Harry is still straightening up and she’s finished, Mrs. Malfoy flings the Killing Curse at him, and Theo’s world goes white with how much pain he’s causing himself, squeezing his fingers into his palms.

*

Harry dodges and rolls. Maybe he’s still immune to the Killing Curse, but he doesn’t want to find out this way.

There’s shouting as the curse goes past him and through the wards clustered about the circle. Harry conjures a wall of rock in front of him that should hold through most curses that Mrs. Malfoy can cast, including the Killing one, and turns to make sure that the Unforgivable didn’t hit anyone.

No. Not that he thought it had, or there would have been more screaming.

Still, though. Mrs. Malfoy was willing to use a curse like that. And she could have hit Theo, or Ron, or Hermione, or someone else Harry doesn’t care as much about but who still doesn’t deserve death for having come outside to watch a duel.

Harry turns around. Mrs. Malfoy stares at him and says nothing when he takes the stone wall down.

“That was a mistake,” Harry tells her softly, and then he attacks.

Mrs. Malfoy fights back. She’s a superb duelist, fast and striking hard and lifting shields that deflect most of what Harry can cast on her. But Harry has seen people who were better. He’s survived other and worse encounters, including one with the second great Dark Lord of the twentieth century.

He has no intention of dying today.

Instead, he plays Mrs. Malfoy out for a bit, letting her use up her frenzied energy and making a point in people’s minds. The tactic is one that Theo suggested, but Harry was already planning on before he did. Let everyone who’s staring at them know that Mrs. Malfoy was no helpless innocent and Harry didn’t win the fight unfairly by doing his worse.

And then the time arrives to do it.

“Cauda serpentis,” Harry hisses, stabbing his wand downwards.

The spell slices right through the glowing shield Mrs. Malfoy has up and splashes against her legs. No shield could stop that except one actually made of snakes, which probably no one here even knows.

The green light races up and down Mrs. Malfoy’s body for a moment. She has her wand aimed at herself and is obviously casting countercurses, but she hasn’t managed to do anything when her legs warp and twist around each other, sending her to the ground with a shriek.

It hurts, doesn’t it?

Harry doesn’t say that aloud. That would leave an undeniable impression in people’s minds, too, and he’s come to accept that a lot of them will always be willing to believe the worst of him. Instead, he watches, content, as Mrs. Malfoy’s legs are replaced by a serpent’s green tail.

There’s absolute silence outside the dueling circle. Mrs. Malfoy obviously tries to stand up, stumbles, falls. She stares at him from the mass of her own coils, her eyes blazing with such hatred that Harry gives up any notion of just leaving her with this much punishment.

It was a weak notion, anyway.

“Commuto serpentem brachium.”

This spell hits Mrs. Malfoy’s wand hand. In seconds, her arm is twisting and flowing like hot wax, like her legs, and a snake has replaced her right arm. It rears up, gleaming as green as her tail, and snaps sharp fangs in her face. Mrs. Malfoy screams.

Harry steps back and says calmly, “This transformation is permanent unless you get a Parselmouth to reverse it for you. And good luck on finding that.”

He waits. Waits to see if she’ll give up and leave it lie there.

But instead, she spits the words of the Killing Curse again. She doesn’t have her wand in hand, so it doesn’t have any effect other than a spark of green light dancing along her scales for a moment, but she intended it to.

Harry nods. “I’ll make sure that you can’t ever use an Unforgivable on anyone again,” he says, and aims his wand again. The magic thrums through him as he hisses, “Commuto serpentem linguam.”

In seconds, Mrs. Malfoy’s screams cut off as her tongue transforms, into the forked one of a snake. Harry deliberately thought of making it misshapen, an intention the spell picked up on, and she can’t even speak Parseltongue. Of course, he knows she’s raging and hissing at him because of the expression on her face, but she won’t ever speak another spell.

Harry smiles at her. “Do you yield?”

Mrs. Malfoy makes more spluttering, spitting, hissing, swearing noises at him. Harry shakes his head and turns to Professor McGonagall, who’s standing on the other side of the wards with her hand over her mouth. “I think it’s pretty clear that the duel is done, Headmistress. She can’t even cast a spell.”

“You…Mr. Potter…”

“My mother still has wandless magic!” Malfoy yells from over beside Dumbledore’s tomb.

Harry slowly turns to look at him, and Malfoy stumbles backwards so quickly that Harry isn’t sure how much of it is fear of him and how much the punishment that Theo will undoubtedly be inflicting on him. “I could see about taking that, too,” Harry says conversationally. “Rendering her a Transfigured Squib. Do you want me to?”

“No. No!”

Harry nods and turns back to face Mrs. Malfoy. Her snake-arm is snapping its fangs in her face, and it might bite off the end of her tongue if she isn’t careful. Harry hopes it will. “Then this is the end, Mrs. Malfoy.”

She’s still glaring at him with hatred, but now her fear is stronger. Harry turns around as the wards around the circle fall. The Dueler’s Geas, as Theo told him, binds someone to meet on the dueling field, but it doesn’t bind people to the death. It’s “until the duel can continue no longer.” It can’t continue, given that Mrs. Malfoy can wield magic neither by wand nor by word.

There are people like Dennis Creevey and Ginny gaping at him with huge, wide eyes. Hermione mostly looks surprised. Ron is pale, his freckles and his eyes both appearing to bug out. Harry will explain to them, when he gets the chance, but he ignores the others. They’ll fear and hate him no matter what happens. Let them fear him enough not to attack.

Theo is the one he turns to, the one whose eyes are shining and who reaches for him with a shaking hand. Harry steps into him and kisses him, right out there in front of Hermione and Ron and everyone, and ignores the way that McGonagall is taking points from Gryffindor.

He’s going to give so much less of a fuck about so many fewer people now.

It’s freeing.

*

“…where you found that spell.”

“A book.”

Theo smiles as he leans against the wall around the corner from the last staircase up to Gryffindor Tower. It sounds like Harry isn’t escaping from his friends without a final interrogation, but that’s all right. Theo now trusts that their friendship is strong enough that it won’t crack apart for many reasons.

And it’s up to Harry how much he tells Weasley and Granger. Theo would tell them different things, and a different amount, but then, he wouldn’t have become friends with them in the first place. Blaise would know better than to pry, and just be impressed that Theo could use those kinds of spells in a duel.

“I wish you would tell us, Harry.”

“Yeah, mate.”

“What did we say about secrets that I could keep if I wanted to?”

There’s an unhappy silence for a moment, and then Granger sighs and says, “All right. All right. I’m—glad that you’re all right. I thought at the beginning of the duel that she would kill you. I think that anything’s better than that.”

“Yeah, mate.”

Theo peers around the corner in time to see Weasley lean in and hug Harry. It’s acceptable—acceptably warm, and in that his hands don’t linger too long. There’s a low fire burning in Theo’s gut that might have exploded if Weasley’s hands went inappropriate places.

He waits until Harry waves to his friends and comes around the corner. And then Theo seizes Harry around the waist and the shoulder and bears him back into the wall, because the fire burning in him has been there since the duel.

“Theo. Hi.”

Harry’s eyes are wide, but from the way he reaches up and lets his hand hover over Theo’s heart, he isn’t upset. Theo leans in and kisses him, hot enough to make the fire feel like it’s blazing on the surface of his skin now, and heavy enough that Weasley and Granger can probably hear it. He doesn’t care.

“Let me put up a Privacy Charm really quick,” Harry says.

His breathing is ragged, so Theo sighs and nods and steps back, waiting impatiently until Harry has raised a thick charm that will block any sounds they might make from escaping as well as fill this corridor with a thick and wavering haze that will block any sights. For good measure, Harry adds a charm on top of that he showed Theo in the book from Grimmauld Place, which will make anyone who tries to enter the corridor feel they’d rather take another route.

Then Theo can take Harry back into his arms and kiss him warmly enough to make both their heads spin. And he can whisper his own idea of a good charm into Harry’s ear, which gets him whimpered agreement.

Theo draws back, frees Harry’s cock from his robes and pants, and casts the charm.

Harry throws his head back as the sensation of a warm mouth closes around his cock. At the same time, Theo drapes lubrication over his palm with a wordless spell and smears his hand up and down Harry’s erection, so he gets both kinds of pleasure at once.

Harry comes so quickly that he’s mumbling in embarrassment, but it doesn’t matter. Theo presses himself in close, kisses Harry again, and lets his own release go. He feels as though he’s tumbling through relief as well as pleasure.

Harry did it. Harry is alive. Theo’s mistake didn’t cost him the person he most values.

He leans his head against Harry’s chest when they’re done, and lets the bliss wash through him. Harry puts his hands on Theo’s shoulders, and holds him. He’s panting through an open mouth, his eyes wide and dark when Theo peers up at him, and—

And already stirring, hard again.

Theo laughs briefly and draws Harry towards the dungeons, where they can find a more private place to do whatever they want.

Because they can do whatever they want. Harry proved it when he walked off that field looking like a god.

Who cares what others think of them? They will make their own destiny.