[This Lord Business Series]: I Have Been a Brother to O.W.L.S., 17/?

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Seventeen—Armoring the Mind

Harry clenches his fists. It’s a distant, half-imaginary sensation. This is a dream. This is a dream. I can wake up from it.

But that reminder doesn’t seem to be working.

Harry is still caught in the dream, vision, whatever, where he is looking through Voldemort’s eyes at a hulking man with long, claw-like fingernails and jagged canine teeth. Harry’s never seen him before, but he’s nevertheless sure that he’s looking at Fenrir Greyback.

“What news do you have for me, Fenrir?”

Knew it.

“There are strange movements among the Traitors,” Greyback says, his mouth open in a half-snarl that Harry thinks he might not even realize he’s making. It seems unconscious. “They are withdrawing from contact with my people and migrating to the seacoast. I don’t know why.”

“You are to find out.”

Harry really doesn’t know why people follow Voldemort. From the way that Greyback bows and scrapes and protests his loyalty, he’s afraid of getting cursed. If your own lord could curse you, why wouldn’t you stand on your own? Or just choose a different one?

(Harry knows from some of the things his own friends have said that they don’t see not following a lord as an option, unless there are no lords—or ladies—around. It doesn’t make sense, but many things don’t).

“Yaxley. How goes the bargaining with the centaurs?”

While Harry wasn’t paying attention, the cringing Fenrir Greyback got sent out, and now a tall man with eyes even darker than Snape’s is standing in front of Voldemort. He bows his head a little, not visibly afraid, and murmurs, “Well, my lord. The one called Stardim did try to lure the boy into the Forbidden Forest months ago, but it did not work.”

“You are to tell him to try again. And in an area where none of the boy’s friends or pets are around and can stop him.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Voldemort begins to think about something else then, something so full of revolting detail that Harry manages to yank himself back and awake. He lies in bed, panting.

“What is the matter? Why did you wake the best and prettiest snake up?”

Harry rolls over and gently tucks Ahalam under his chin. “I had another vision from Voldemort,” he says, and tells Ahalam about it. He thinks it’s the only good side-effect of the Horcrux, even though he would rather not be having the visions at all. At least he knows about the centaur plot. The movement of werewolves, too, for whatever that’s worth. “And he wants the centaurs to kidnap me when you aren’t around.” The others too, of course, but the mention of himself is the only thing that will really matter to Ahalam.

“I will be with you always! No centaur can kidnap you when I am here!”

Harry half-smiles, and rolls over to check on Salazar, mostly to make sure that his Niffler hasn’t dashed off in search of another Horcrux. No, Salazar is asleep and snuffling, making little kicking motions with his legs.

He’ll need to tell his friends about these plans, and write to Remus about the werewolves, to see if they have any idea.

And work harder on Occlumency than ever to shut Voldemort out, if he can even do that with the soul connection.

*

“Seriously, Harry, why do you keep getting these Howlers?”

“I have no idea, Hermione. I suppose Olive Hornby just hates me for some random reason. It’s not like she would be the only one.”

*

Harry edges closer, around the edge of the shelves. He has his Invisibility Cloak draped over himself, and he’s left Ahalam behind in his bedroom, ignoring his little snake’s complaints. He has to be absolutely quiet while he sneaks up on Theo and Susan, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they have spells up to detect the presence of snakes.

Now, though—now he’s right up to the corner of the bookshelf that separates him from their table in the library, and he can hear their low hissing voices, sounding almost as if they’re on the edge of Parseltongue, as they debate.

“Nothing like this has ever been tried before.”

“Scared, Nott?”

“No, I’m saying that we have to make sure that we get it right the first time, because of how many people it could affect.”

Harry bites his lip. It’s unusual to hear Theo urging caution in the way that they approach some problem concerning him. He edges a little closer, and then jumps as he hears a sharp ringing sound.

“Miss Bones, what is that noise?”

“I’m sorry, Madam Pince, we set an alarm to tell us when we needed to start on our next round of homework, and we didn’t know it would be so loud…”

Harry relaxes. He thought it was an alarm to detect him, but what would they detect? He’s not even moving, so they can’t hear his footsteps.

Then Theo steps around the shelf, smiles pleasantly at the air a little to the left of Harry’s actual position, and says, “Nice try, my lord. But we still aren’t going to tell you what we’re working on, and you’ll have to live with it.”

“What—”

“A charm to detect the blood in your veins.” Theo shakes his head as Harry pushes the hood of the Cloak back and scowls. “You can act as recalcitrant and stubborn as you want, my lord. But we’re going to protect you.”

“But…”

“What? Are you going to deny that we have the right to do this?”

“I’m going to say that you should tell me what’s going on. Especially if it’s as special and dangerous as you and Susan were hinting at.”

“It will work.”

Harry waits a moment, then folds his arms and points out, “That doesn’t mean it’s not special and dangerous.”

Theo smiles, and doesn’t reply.

Harry finally has to stomp away. He doesn’t try to be gracious about it.

*

“It’s more important than ever that you master Occlumency, my lord.”

Ernie’s voice is urgent. Harry leans back on the grass with a sigh and stares up at the clouds drifting overhead. Ahalam is asleep beside him in a patch of sunlight. “I know. But it’s a connection at the level of the soul, not the mind. And I haven’t managed to master it so far, even with as hard as I’ve worked at it.”

Ernie hesitates. Harry waits for him to say what he’ll say, and only sits up when Ernie clears his throat.

“I think that I may know a way to help you, my lord. But it is not pleasant.”

“But it would help me block out the visions?”

“Yes, my lord. If you truly wish to do so. If you wish to keep the connection open even a little, perhaps because you wish to spy on—You-Know-Who, then you won’t be able to close it.”

Harry shakes his head firmly. “I’m afraid that he’ll be able to use it to spy on me back, and I won’t take the risk with my friends or anyone else that way.”

“Then you should be able to master it, my lord.” Ernie still looks nervous. “If you will face me and looks into my eyes. Stay as relaxed as possible.”

It’s easy for Harry to do this, when it’s the way that he’s been practicing Occlumency with Ernie all along. For a moment, he thinks it’s going to be the same as ever, with Ernie taking a breath like he’s going to say “Legilimens.”

But what he says is, “Confringo mentem.”

Harry screams as intense pain tears through his mind. It’s like what he felt from his scar when he was at the Mirror of Erised in first year—no, like the basilisk venom in second year—no, like the panic of thinking that Theo might get pulled with Harry into a deadly situation when he insisted on swearing that oath that forcibly Apparates him to Harry—

And then it’s over.

Harry sags down on his knees and hands, while Ernie hovers over him, face so anxious that Harry has to bite his lips a bit as he looks up. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ernie whispers. “I didn’t know it would hurt you that badly, my lord—but now, you ought to be able to protect your mind with armor that—”

Then Ernie goes flying, blasted away from Harry so violently that Harry gets to his feet and runs over to him despite the echoes of the agony still shrieking in his head.

“Are you all right?” he asks, crouching down beside Ernie and drawing his wand so that he can turn around and face the threat.

“I’m all right, my lord,” Ernie whispers, but his face is white with pain. “I landed badly. My—ankle.”

Harry starts to answer, but then he sees Fred and George Weasley walking towards them, and the red he sees isn’t their hair. “What were you thinking?” he snaps, standing up and glaring at the twins in a way that makes them pause. “This is going a little far for a prank, don’t you think?”

“He was making you scream,” says Fred, and jerks his wand down to aim at Ernie.

“He was doing what I asked him to do,” Harry says stiffly, and steps in front of Fred.

Meanwhile, his head is reeling. The twins are his friends and sometimes act like followers, and they’re part of the Defense group. But they never acted like—they never acted like Theo and Ernie did.

He didn’t even think they were close enough to care much if he got injured, other than if Voldemort did it.

“I don’t call injuring Little Lord Slytherin very friendly, do you, George?”

“I sure don’t, Fred.”

“Listen to me,” Harry says, and manages to put enough steel in his voice that they actually pause and do it, which is—something, at least. “Ernie was helping me practice Occlumency. He had to armor my mind to get me to a certain level.” Fred and George are good people, but Harry isn’t spreading the word about Horcruxes around. “It hurt, yeah. But it doesn’t mean you need to attack him!”

Fred and George pause and give each other silent complicated looks. Harry shakes his head and bends over Ernie again. “How do you feel?”

“I’ll live. But it does hurt.”

Harry nods and stands up, conjuring a stretcher, a spell that he looked up after the Easter holidays when he thought he might need to carry Sirius to bed in his grief over Regulus. “Come on. I’ll get you to Madam Pomfrey. Right after they apologize.” He stares at Fred and George, and waits.

Fred and George give each other another glance. “Sorry, Macmillan,” they chorus.

Harry nods again, and then floats the stretcher in front of him as he makes his way up the stairs to the hospital wing. There he watches Madam Pomfrey fuss over Ernie while he prods gingerly at his new Occlumency shields, like poking at a loose tooth with his tongue.

It does feel like he has armor on his mind. And he doubts that the connection with Voldemort will open as easily in the future, even if he’s asleep at the time. He’ll have to thank Ernie again, when he gets to come back, since Madam Pomfrey gave Ernie a pain potion that knocked him out, and is herding Harry out of the infirmary now.

He’ll have to thank Ernie. And speak to Fred and George, and find out what the hell they were thinking.

*

“Oh, no, it’s his Lordshilp!”

“He looks upset! Run! Run!”

The twins pretend to run away in slow motion, allowing Harry to easily catch up with them between the library shelves. He shakes his head and keeps his face stern even when they glance at him with trembling hands. “I need you two to be serious for at least a few minutes. Can you do that?”

Maybe his tone tells them how serious he is, himself, because both Fred and George drop the scared act. They nod, and Fred adds, “We know what you want to talk to us about.”

“Good. Why the fuck did you curse Ernie like that?”

“Ooh, little Lord Slytherin knows the mighty curse words!”

“Little Lord Slytherin’s upset!”

“So you can’t be serious,” Harry snaps, and feels a strange hurt brewing under his breastbone. “Just—fine. I suppose I should have known better than to ask you.”

He turns away, and tenses when he feels Fred’s hand on his arm. But Fred only says, “Fine. We need to discuss this with you. George, could you put up a Privacy Charm, please?”

Harry turns around, arms folded. George is already lifting the charm, which will surround them with a sparkling barrier that will keep sound from getting in or out. That at least means Madam Pince won’t kick them out of the library.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

Unusually, Fred and George spend a moment looking at each other as if throwing an invisible ball back and forth. Then George turns around—Harry can’t tell if he won or lost the silent contest—and says, “It’s about how dangerous it is for you to just trust anyone around you.”

“I do trust none of my friends to betray me.”

“Well, you need to stop.”

“Have you actually uncovered evidence that someone was trying to get close to me to betray me?” Harry supposes that it would be easier for the twins, who sneak around everywhere in the course of playing their pranks, to hear that kind of thing than he would himself.

“Not as such,” George mutters. “But we know that You-Know-Who is back, and we know that he used traitors a lot in the last war. Pettigrew being a prime example. You can’t be too careful.”

“Yes, I can.”

George scowls at him. “You see why we reacted badly when we thought Macmillan was hurting you—”

“But you could at least have done something like Stun him and then ask what was going on! Not toss him into the air so far and fast that he broke his ankle.” Madam Pomfrey healed it, and Ernie is walking around again, but still. “And—well, to be blunt, I didn’t think you considered yourselves my followers to that extent.”

“How can you doubt our loyalty, Lord Slytherin?” Fred cries, sweeping a bow that’s so low he scrapes his head against the floor. “How can you doubt that we would give our lives to serve Your High and Mighty Graciousness—”

Harry lets his silence speak for him, and Fred straightens up and exchanges looks with George again. Then George nods and says, “Fair enough. In a situation like that, we’ll attack with Stunners instead, unless we have reason to think the person is a Polyjuiced Death Eater or something.”

“You didn’t answer my other question.”

This time, the silent conversation goes on a lot longer, and Fred is the one who ends up turning back around to face Harry. “Listen,” he says. “We can see that you’re making a lot of changes in the world that wouldn’t otherwise happen, and you’re the only one who can do that. And you plan to make more.”

“Well, yeah,” Harry concedes. He has more plans with the goblins, and he’ll work with the werewolves if he can, and if he ever manages to speak with the centaurs, then he’d like to ally with them as well.

“We’ve wanted things to change for years,” Fred says, and his face is shining with a passion that Harry didn’t know he was capable of. Well, for things other than pranks. “To get more sensible and more open and—”

“More tolerant of reality,” George says, and props his elbow up on Fred’s shoulder as he grins at Harry. “D’you know that goblins are actually forbidden to buy things from the Diagon Alley shops? There’s a whole lot of potential customers we could be selling to, all going to waste.”

Harry stares at him. “What?”

“‘S true.” Fred nods solemnly. “And it’s not just that. It’s other things that we hate and you’re challenging. And you’re the only person who has the power and the authority to inspire other people to follow you. Without you, they’ll just give up.”

“So this isn’t just about money for you?”

“Well, it is. But—”

“Also other things,” George finishes, and both of them nod again.

“So when you think you see someone threatening me—”

“Lethal force first, ask questions later.” Fred’s eyes glitter.

“Okay, but I need you not to do that.”

The twins give identical long-suffering sighs, and then Fred perks up. “What if we invent some things that would keep people motionless until you can speak to them and determine if they’re a threat?”

“What kind of things?”

“Just some things.”

Harry rolls his eyes. He doesn’t want to really change the twins, though, even if he could. He wants them to have freedom to act like the rest of his friends. “Fine. Just make sure that they’re in general not lethal.”

“When you say in general—”

Fred and George settle in for a debate, which Harry rolls his eyes at again, but endures. He does make sure that they agree to apologize to Ernie more seriously, and otherwise lets them range ahead. It makes sense, with how eager they are. They can come up with the kind of ideas that Harry would never think of.

And in the meantime, Harry will go write a letter.

If Olive Hornby thinks she can win this Howler war, she should think again.