[From Litha to Lammas]: Red in Beak and Talon, sequel to A Game of Eagles, 1/9

[lomonaaeren]

Title: Red in Beak and Talon
Pairings: Harry/Theo, mentions of Ron/Hermione
Content Notes: AU (Ravenclaw Harry and Theo), angst, violence, gore, torture, morally grey Harry and Theo, referenced child abuse, underage kissing
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sequel to “A Game of Eagles.” Harry and Theo begin their fourth year exploring their new relationship and improving their grasp of Runes and Arithmancy. As the Triwizard Tournament arrives at Hogwarts and Voldemort increases his efforts to destroy Harry, Harry and Theo must likewise increase their efforts to survive.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to “A Game of Eagles” and part of my “From Litha to Lammas” series of chaptered fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. It should have seven to nine chapters, and cover fourth and fifth years. Please heed the content notes, as this is a darker and more violent story than the previous one.



Red in Beak and Talon

“Are those really tickets to the Quidditch World Cup?”

Harry concealed a laugh in his sleeve. Theo was gaping at the tickets that Sirius was clutching triumphantly. He had always been more interested in flying than Harry was, even if Theo cared more about Arithmancy than Quidditch.

“Yes,” Sirius said, and then lowered the tickets and waved them tauntingly back and forth. “But I’m only taking people who like me.”

“Then you’ll go by yourself this time.”

Sirius spun around and gaped at Harry. Harry nodded and folded his arms.

“I’m your godfather, Harry! You like me!”

“Not when you’re taunting Theo the way you are right now.”

Sirius spun back and promptly dropped to his knees, arms extended over his head, as he bowed at Theo’s feet. “Forgive me, O Great and Glorious Nott! Say that you like me and will accept one of these tickets to the great World Cup game!”

Theo rolled his eyes, a blush coming over his cheeks. Harry watched with delight that he didn’t bother to hide. They were in the Nott library, and an enchanted window on the wall had been making Theo’s face glow most of the morning. Harry found it delightful because it was. “Stand up, you prat.”

“Do you like me?”

“Not most of the time,” Theo muttered, leaning back against the shelf behind him. He’d shot up at least twenty centimeters taller than Harry. “But I’ll put up with you for the sake of the Cup.”

“He likes me!” Sirius told Harry, and beamed at him.

Harry laughed; he couldn’t help it. His godfather was ridiculous and impossible to resist. “Yes, all right. We’ll both come with you to the Cup, and spare you the indignity of sitting alone.”

“What about Father?”

“I could not care less about the World Cup,” Eustace’s voice said from behind the nearest shelf.

“He’s always around,” Sirius whispered, leaning forwards as if he thought that would keep his words a secret. “It’s kind of creepy.”

“I can hear you perfectly well, Black.”

Harry shook his head as Eustace and Sirius started bickering. He had thought Ron and Hermione argued a lot (which should make it interesting when they started dating), but they had nothing on Eustace and Harry’s godfather.

A horrible thought struck Harry. He leaned over and muttered to Theo, “Do you think they might start dating?”

“No.”

Harry sighed in relief. At least Theo’s denial was absolutely firm and placed down with the force of a tarot card deciding someone’s fate. Harry hoped that meant he was safe from the horrible spectacle of Sirius also being his stepfather.

“My father is absolutely loyal to my mother’s memory. It wouldn’t matter what he thought of Black or anyone else. And besides, can you imagine anyone dating Black?”

“Lots of people wanted to date me!”

Sirius had been distracted from his argument with Eustace. Harry sighed and started soothing his godfather that no one thought he was undateable. He ignored the way that Theo snickered behind him.

Well, he didn’t entirely ignore it. Even the way that Theo snickered was delightful.

I can never tell Sirius about that.

*

“I want you to be very careful, Theo.”

Theo sat up in his chair. They were the only two at breakfast. Black had the lamentable tendency to sleep late, and Harry did the same thing when he was studying Runes so intently. Theo had personal reason to know Harry had been up with a book late last night.

He stared at Father, who stared back.

He had never heard Father say that Theo had to be very careful. Only cautious.

“What is it?”

Father didn’t respond for long moments, instead stirring his spoon through his tea. Then he put it down and leaned forwards so that he could stare into Theo’s eyes, and Theo swallowed at the combination of emotions he saw in Father’s face.

“There are those of my former allegiance who look at my sheltering of Harry Potter and assume that I have changed sides. But there are others who think that I am simply playing the longer game and working to influence him, and thus future politics. And they still tell me their plans.”

“Something is going to happen at the Quidditch World Cup.”

“Yes. None of the others who have approached me have been part of the Inner Circle, or I would not let you go. I think whatever happens there will be chaotic and disorganized. But I will not lose you to it.”

“I’m surprised that you’re not making me stay home, anyway.”

It was a challenge that Theo hadn’t meant to blurt out like that, but something he’d been thinking about for a while. Father, before Theo’s first year at Hogwarts, had very much considered Theo his heir, and taught him what he thought Theo should learn, and made Theo do what he thought Theo should do.

That had begun to change in Theo’s second year, when Father had actually responded to Theo’s requests for help and acted as though he would treat Theo more like a son than an heir. But he didn’t know what had caused the change.

Other than Harry. But when Theo had first begun to ask about things like Harry staying for the holidays, Father hadn’t known that he would end up practically adopting his son’s best friend.

My boyfriend.

Theo flushed harder as Father watched him. That was something he and Harry hadn’t shared, either, even though he always assumed that Father knew. They just didn’t spend a lot of time kissing at home.

For now, it was private. For now, it was just theirs.

“I think that it is time you began to test yourself in the wider world,” Father said, and Theo forced himself to pay attention and stop thinking about the way that Harry panted a little when Theo kissed him. “And I cannot do that by keeping you safe at home forever.”

“The World Cup is a worthy stage?”

“It’s a place where you could get hurt, but also one where I think you will be able to get quickly to safety if you have to. I would prefer that you not have to.”

Theo didn’t have any trouble translating that. On the one hand, Father wanted Theo to step into danger with his eyes wide open. On the other hand, he expected Theo to be clever enough to dodge it.

Theo smiled. Father looked at him strangely.

“I will endeavor to prove myself,” Theo said.

“You look…”

“What? Like I don’t mean it? I do, Father.”

“So exactly like your mother when you smile.”

Theo couldn’t swallow. Father stared at him a moment longer, then abruptly shoved his chair back from the table and swept out of the dining room in a flurry of dark robes.

“Where’s Eustace?” Harry asked, when he came down a few minutes later and started helping himself to the scones that the house-elves made with blueberries. Harry had been known to eat enough of them that Theo had thought he would choke.

(Theo’s cheeks still burned, and not with want, when he remembered what he had done when he’d thought Harry must be choking).

“Uh. He had something to do.”

Harry went still in his chair, one hand hovering over the scone on his plate. “Are you all right?”

“Humbled by his trust in me,” Theo said, which he hadn’t known would be the words emerging until he opened his mouth, but which were also true enough.

Harry studied him for a few seconds, and then nodded and changed the subject, for which Theo was immensely grateful.

In the meantime, he had to sit there and think about his mother, whom he almost never touched even in his mind, and accept that his father thought Theo could take this risk and emerge the stronger.

Theo could not fail.

*

“Krum! Oh Merlin, greatest Quidditch player in the world!”

Harry smiled at Ron’s enthusiasm. Ron was waving the Omnioculars Harry had got him back and forth, talking about the Wronski Feint. Hermione had tried to say something about how Krum had still lost, and Ron and Theo had both insisted that that didn’t matter, that anyone who was true to the spirit of the game would see how he had won.

Harry wasn’t as in love with Quidditch like them, but he was glad that Ron and Theo were getting along as well as they were.

They had been eating and talking in Sirius’s tent after the game, and they had lost track of time. Now Sirius slammed his hands together and announced, “It is now my turn to be a responsible adult—”

“What?”

Harry hid a laugh. Theo’s astonishment was absolutely pure, and so was the scowl that Sirius aimed at him.

“A responsible adult,” he said bitingly. “Your father entrusted me with you, Theo, and I implicitly promised Ron’s parents and Hermione’s that I would keep them safe, too. So you need to go back to the Weasleys’ tent, now.”

Harry turned and started walking towards the entrance.

“Where are you going, Harry?”

“Well, you didn’t say you were responsible for me—”

“It was implied!”

“No, you only applied the word implicitly to the people you actually named in that sentence—”

“Bloody Ravenclaws.”

Ron and Hermione were gaping at him. Harry grinned a little as he sat down next to Theo again. He knew that neither of them was like that with their parents, from what little he knew about the Weasleys and the Grangers. But, well, their loss.

Harry had suffered a lot with the Dursleys that he wouldn’t want to repeat, but having both Sirius and Eustace was great.

“Come on, then,” Sirius grumbled, and escorted Ron and Hermione out of the tent, glancing over his shoulder and making a sharp motion at Harry to indicate that he should stay put.

Harry lay on the pillow behind his back and laughed. Theo leaned towards him, eyes gone dark and deep, and Harry caught his breath so abruptly that he choked.

“You think that we can take advantage of the few minutes Black is going to be gone walking to the Weasleys’ tent?” Theo whispered.

“Utterly,” Harry said, and reached up and dragged his boyfriend down into the kisses that were the best thing in his life right now.

*

Theo woke to the sound of screams, and instinctively grabbed his wand and scrambled to his feet.

He didn’t know exactly what was happening, but he knew this was part of the test that Father had talked about. And that he had to be ready.

“Theo? Whazzit?”

Theo turned around and gave Harry a smile as calm as he could. Black was sitting up, too, but looked far more muzzy than Harry did. “Father warned me something like this might happen,” he muttered, just for Harry’s ears. Black wouldn’t understand, and in fact would probably try to take them home right away.

It would be for the best in the short term, but it would make them look weak to their enemies, and it might lead to other attacks. On Harry and Theo when they went to Hogsmeade. On their home. On their friends.

Harry’s eyes sharpened, and he nodded, his wand leaping into his hand so that it looked like he’d Summoned it silently. “Shall we give them something to remember?”

“What are you talking about?”

“We have to go help these people, Sirius,” Harry said, and turned to Black with an innocent expression so perfectly feigned that Theo made a mental note not to encourage Harry to lie to him. “It sounds like someone is attacking them! We need to stop it.”

“You’re right! Let’s go!”

Theo exchanged a smile with Harry as Black ran out in the direction of the screaming. Then he gripped his own wand in a shaking hand and followed.

The only things that kept him from utterly panicking were the reminders of Father’s trust in him, and Harry’s steady presence at his side.

*

Harry felt hot anger burn through him when he saw the cloaked and masked figures floating the Muggle family who owned the campsite overhead. He stopped and aimed his wand at the figures’ feet. “Confringo!”

Theo gave a sharp gasp next to him, but it was one of the spells they had studied with Eustace last summer, and it flew true now. It slammed into the earth in front of the Death Eaters’ feet, and tossed two of them to the ground.

Of course, that meant they lost control of the Muggle boy and girl spinning through the air, and they started to fall.

“Arresto momentum!”

Theo had reacted faster than Harry had thought he could, and invisible force gathered beneath the children and slowed their fall. The other Death Eaters, and the ones on the ground who were getting back to their feet, turned to face the new threat.

“Hello, bastards!” sang Sirius, and ran straight towards him.

“Sirius!” Harry shouted, but didn’t go after his godfather. It would only confuse things to have two of them attacking in a charge like that, and he would get in the way of Theo’s spells.

It didn’t mean he had to stand there doing nothing, though. He reached out and found Theo’s arm waiting for him.

“Ready?”

“Do you think we are?”

Harry swallowed. This was a technique they had practiced a few times last year and this summer, but they hadn’t tried it that often, and it was risky on the same level that doing combined Runes and Arithmancy without supervision was.

But what choice did they have?

“Yes,” Harry said, and he made himself believe it.

Theo straightened up next to him, drawing strength from Harry’s belief. Harry would never have the taste for leading people that some wizards and witches thought he should because of the Boy-Who-Lived thing, but he could do this.

All of that darted through his mind in a second, and then one of the Death Eaters started casting a curse that could probably kill Sirius, and there was no more time.

He and Theo cast the same curse simultaneously, reaching their magic towards each other so that, if everything went well, their power should be doubled. “Lumos mortis!”

The rush that left Harry made him stagger on his feet, and he probably didn’t fall only because he was leaning on Theo. Theo gasped next to him, and his skin grew cold where Harry touched it.

But it worked.

Streaks of blue light unfolded around the Death Eaters and grabbed them in cruel talons. Sirius still had to dodge a curse, but there were no more of them after that. There were only the Death Eaters staring into empty space with wide eyes.

And screaming, as the light showed them various horrible ways that they might die.

Sirius scrambled to his feet, waved his wand vaguely for a second, and turned to gape at Harry and Theo. Harry tried to smile reassuringly at him, but it was hard, when he was stumbling. Theo was doing the same thing.

“Harry! What did you do?”

Right. They hadn’t told Sirius about all the Dark Arts that Eustace was having them practice. Although Harry hadn’t thought Sirius was that upset about the Dark Arts in general…

Then Sirius scooped him frantically up from the ground and checked him over for injuries, and Harry reckoned that he might be more worried about his godson nearly fainting.

“Um.” Harry struggled for a second, then nodded at the Muggle parents still hanging in the air. “Maybe help them first, Sirius?”

“Are you sure that you’re all right?”

“Yeah, just a little tired.”

Sirius gave him a narrow-eyed glance that said he didn’t believe that at all, but at least he turned and started getting the Muggles down (and Obliviated, hopefully). Harry dropped to his knees and turned to Theo.

Theo stared at him with eyes that looked shallower than normal, as if a lot of his life force had drained off into his spells. Harry grabbed at him with frantic hands, but Theo just smiled a bit and shook his head, yawning.

“Be…fine with a bit of rest…”

Harry felt the same, although a lot of rest, not a little. He nodded and sat down beside his boyfriend, holding his hand. They watched Sirius Stun and bind the Death Eaters. The spell faded at that point since its victims weren’t conscious anymore.

“You know what? It worked.”

Harry turned and grinned at Theo. “It did.”

Theo smiled at him. “We are Ravenclaws, after all.”

Harry nodded and leaned back, still holding Theo’s hand in his. They were…going to need to get up and walk somewhere else and probably ask questions, but…they could take a few minutes to rest…

*

“I am the father of one boy you are claiming to have captured and the guardian of the other. You will let them go, now.”

Theo looked up. Father stood in the entrance of Black’s tent, which the Aurors had commandeered to question Theo and Harry about the “attack.” That was what they kept calling what Theo and Harry had done to the Death Eaters, never mind that the Death Eaters had attacked first.

“Stay out of here, Mr. Nott! I know you walked, but you’ll go back under Veritaserum if I have anything to say about it!”

That was the wild-eyed Bartemius Crouch, who had insisted that Theo and Harry be asked about everything from the cores of their wands to whether they had cast the Dark Mark that was hanging in the sky over the campsite. He’d also accused them of killing his house-elf, who had been found dead near the Mark.

He had threatened to put them under Veritaserum, too. Theo knew they couldn’t, knew he would lash out with magic and so would Harry before that happened, but he was exhausted and frightened and it was so good to see Father turn one of his wintry glares on Crouch.

“Perhaps we ought to bring up your own past, then, Mr. Crouch. I seem to recall a son found with the Dark Mark on his arm—”

“I sent him to Azkaban! I sent him!”

Crouch looked like he was about to whip out his wand and attack Father. The other Aurors, meanwhile, were starting to wince in the way you did with your whole body. Harry did that when he saw the youngest Weasley, even though she seemed fine after her encounter with the diary.

“But you raised him in the first place. I don’t think the past needs to be brought up here, do you? Only the present.”

“These boys did attack the Death Eaters with a Dark Arts spell,” muttered one of the Aurors, a man Theo had heard one of the others call Dawlish. “That needs to be investigated, surely.”

“What kind of Dark Arts spell?”

“Er. A light spell.”

“If it was a light spell, why would you classify it as Dark Arts?”

Theo concealed his cough in his sleeve. Father was so good at sounding exasperated and about to give someone a good scolding. It was all the more surprising given that he hadn’t handled Theo’s discipline that way when Theo had been a child.

“Mr. Nott—”

“I am trying to find out what my children are accused of. And why you are taking that more seriously than an attack by Death Eaters on defenseless Muggles.”

“You don’t care about Muggles!”

“Be careful, Mr. Crouch.” Father smiled in a way that made Theo think of cracking ice. “I am not the one currently under investigation by Amelia Bones for my abuse of power.”

Crouch was sweating so hard now that it poured down his face like a waterfall from a mountain. “That investigation concluded!”

“Oh? I had heard that another one had started. Specifically focused on your continued use of Unforgivables after the war. My mistake.”

Theo didn’t know why, maybe something about Father knowing something he shouldn’t, but the words made Crouch whirl on his Aurors. “Why have you wasted so much time interrogating these boys? One of them is the Boy-Who-Lived, for Merlin’s sake! They obviously had nothing to do with attacking Muggles or the Dark Mark!”

“Sir, you were the one who—”

“Shut up, Dawlish!”

Theo watched as the Aurors and Crouch herded each other out of the tent, the Aurors still looking utterly confused. He shook his head. He hoped that he would never end up in a position like that.

Then again, like any proper Ravenclaw, he valued knowledge more than power—at least political power. So he didn’t think he would. He was going to be a researcher and spend his life with Harry.

“Are you all right?”

Theo started. He hadn’t expected the question from Father, first because the Aurors were likely still in earshot, and second because Black was hovering. And, well, there was the fact that Father had expected him to be all right, to be able to handle himself.

“I’m fine, Father.”

“Black said you fainted after casting the Death’s Light Curse.”

Theo flushed. “I didn’t faint, Father. I was tired, yes, so I napped for a few minutes. But I woke up even before Black could bring us back here.”

“A funny thing,” Father drawled, keeping his eyes fastened on Theo. “Because I’ve seen you cast that curse before in practice, on a larger group of targets than four, and you were never that exhausted afterwards.”

Merlin.

Harry sat up and put a hand on Theo’s arm. Theo glanced at him. Harry was the one who had wanted to keep their secret of combining powers to themselves for now, the way he was the one who had really wanted to work on Runes and Arithmancy by themselves without the professors’ support.

But now he said, “It was my fault, Eustace.”

“Was it.”

Father stared at Harry in a way that made Theo wonder if he remembered that he had welcomed Harry to their home, and promised that he would aid him and not hurt him. Black puffed up, predictably. “Don’t you talk to Harry like that! He saved the Muggles and probably other people, too, and you’re yelling at him like he’s a disobedient puppy—”

Something you would understand, Theo thought.

“It wasn’t just me,” Harry said, and his voice was a grinding rock, huge and patient, and Theo relaxed back against him with a long sigh. “It was Theo, too. Don’t forget about him, Sirius.”

“I have not forgotten about him,” Father said precisely. “Not about my son. What did you do that put him in danger?”

Flash and snap of temper like lightning without rain under his words. Theo blinked. Yes, he might have imagined that Father would be angry at someone who put him in danger, but at Harry?

“We’ve been learning to cast spells together,” Harry said coolly. “Combine our powers. We hadn’t tested it enough, and we put too much power into it, and that was what made magical exhaustion catch up with us. But it’s also what enabled us to catch all four Death Eaters at once. Since you were the one who told Theo that he should handle this in a way that impressed you, I’m surprised you’re upset.”

Sirius gaped back and forth between Harry and Eustace. He couldn’t seem to decide who he should be angrier at. Theo just waited.

Father…

Father bowed his head and put his hand across his eyes. Theo stared. Father never showed that vulnerability in front of everyone. Theo thought the only time he had seen it, himself, was when Father swore the vow that he would never take another wife after Mother’s death.

“That is not the way I meant it,” Father whispered. “I meant that I wanted to see how you would exercise caution in a dangerous situation. Not run towards it.” He jerked his head up. “What gave you the impression that I wanted you to confront the danger, Theo?”

“You’ve treated me more like an heir than a son until a few years ago. Does it surprise you that I would think I had to prove myself worthy in more than a superficial way?”

Father held his gaze. Theo didn’t move. He would have flinched before his first year, bowed his head. Even during his first year, he had simply accepted that Father didn’t value him much for what he was, but rather for what he could become.

But now he had Harry, and he had seen even Father acknowledge Harry’s value. He wouldn’t simply back down from Father’s stare anymore.

Father abruptly did it himself, staring at the floor of the tent and cursing under his breath. Then he said, “I have—accepted you as my son as well as my heir, Theo. In the future, please do not run towards the danger.”

Theo couldn’t breathe. For Father to speak those words in front of other people was an even greater admission than speaking where the Aurors could hear him had been.

“You are impressive,” Father continued. “Already. I am pleased to see what you have done, happy to dream of what you do in the future.

“But in the present—” and this time, both Theo and Harry flinched from the whip of his voice “—Ravenclaw curiosity could have got you into such trouble that I find it astonishing you thought it was a good idea to practice on your own. I could have helped you, trained you, but only if I knew.”

Harry raised his chin. “We thought you would make us stop.”

“And I certainly will, without supervision.”

Harry scowled. Theo nudged his leg against Harry’s so that he wouldn’t say anything. They were getting off lightly, all things considered.

“Ravenclaw curiosity is going to kill you before my expectations ever could,” Father said, sounding merely irritated now. “Come, I am taking you home.”

“Hey!” Black protested.

“Black, you are a fool if you think that there will be anything of the Quidditch World Cup celebration left after this.”

Black wilted. “All right, all right,” he muttered, and then turned and wagged a finger at Harry. “But you are forbidden to practice that magic without my supervision, too.”

Harry turned huge eyes on him. Black visibly wavered.

“And this is why I am the disciplinarian,” Father muttered, shaking his head. “You will obey, Harry, or I will punish you further. Do you understand?”

Harry stared at Father in turn, and then dipped his head. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Come. We are going home.”

Father turned and left. Theo bent down to whisper into Harry’s ear, “Did you finally see good sense?”

“This way, we still get to practice a little. If we didn’t agree, then they would probably take away our wands.”

Theo nodded. He agreed. And part of him resented it like Harry did.

But a much larger part was still basking in the warmth of having performed the Death’s Light Curse successfully. And larger still..

Father approved of him.

Theo would not forget that.