[From Litha to Lammas]: Red in Beak and Talon, sequel to A Game of Eagles, 4/9

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Part Four

“Why did he survive, and Cedric didn’t?”

“It must be because of something his mass-murdering godfather did.”

Harry just grimaced and walked on past the chattering Ravenclaws as if he were going to ignore them, but Theo halted with his hand on his wand. Harry gave him a strange look. “You know hexing them wouldn’t change their minds,” he said softly. “You shouldn’t waste your strength.”

“You heard what they were saying.”

“Yeah, but you don’t care about Sirius.”

“I care about his reputation potentially affecting yours.”

Harry frowned and obviously considered that for a second. Then he shrugged and patted Theo’s shoulder. “Well, have fun. I’m going on to Potions.”

Theo smiled thinly. Potions was tolerable now that Snape spent most of his time ignoring Harry. “I’ll catch up with you in a moment.”

He turned and approached the Ravenclaws waiting to go into Charms. The group included Marietta Edgecombe and a few other people in the year above him and Harry whom Theo knew only by their faces. They stopped talking and sneered down their noses at Theo as he halted in front of them, as if they thought that would intimidate him.

Theo stared back at them, showing them someone who had been practicing Dark Arts since he was a child. Edgecombe was the one who shifted her weight and finally snapped, “What do you want, Nott?”

“For you to stop talking about Harry.”

“We’ll talk about whoever we want.”

“If Potter didn’t want to be talked about, he shouldn’t have put his name into the Goblet.”

“Why did he live and Cedric didn’t? Did Potter do something to Cedric’s dragon so that he could be the only Hogwarts Champion?”

Theo shook his head. He could have said, again, that Harry hadn’t put his name in the Goblet, but that kind of claim wouldn’t work with people this stupid. So he waved his wand in the hex that he had been using on the Gryffindor table more than the Ravenclaw one, and Edgecombe and the rest shrieked as they sprouted feathered crests and beaks on their faces and claws on their toes.

“If you speak like that again, I’ll do worse.”

Edgecombe tried to say something, probably to command him to remove the spell, but it came out as a chicken’s garbled squawk. Theo blinked. He hadn’t realized he had put that much power into the spell. Normally people could still talk.

“Mr. Nott!”

Theo glanced over his shoulder. Professor Flitwick stood behind him, staring back and forth between him and the older Ravenclaws. “Sir.”

“Did you do this?”

Theo shrugged. “Yes.”

“Ten points from Ravenclaw!”

Theo just watched his Head of House. It was typical that Flitwick wouldn’t ask why Theo had done it. Theo was Harry’s friend, and that meant he was suspect. The professors didn’t all treat Harry as badly as Snape, but they did try to do the opposite of favoring him.

Sometimes that worked. And sometimes it resulted in things like this.

Flitwick waved his wand and canceled Theo’s spell, other than for Edgecombe. It took two tries for him to get her back to a teary-eyed human girl. She stared at Theo for a moment, and then fled with a sob of fear.

“Go to your next class, Mr. Nott. And you’ll serve detention with me at seven this evening. I am very, very disappointed in you.”

The little professor turned and stomped back into his classroom. Most of the people who had been talking about Harry and Black followed him, but one of the older girls stood still for a long moment, still staring.

Theo lifted his wand.

She broke and fled. Theo nodded. At least he was pretty sure she wouldn’t say anything more about Harry, and that was one less person he had to keep an eye on.

Smiling, he went to Potions, and pressed Harry’s hand under the table when he got there to tell him all had gone well. Harry smiled back, and that smile would have inspired Theo to hex a hundred other people, if he’d had to.

They had better stop talking about Harry.

*

“We will remember Mr. Cedric Diggory as a kind and fair young man.”

Harry sat quietly near the end of the Ravenclaw table, between Padma and Theo. Frankly, at the moment, he didn’t really want anyone else getting too close to him, with the way they all stared and whispered.

They weren’t saying outright that he’d had anything to do with Diggory’s death, now that Theo had cowed Edgecombe and the rest. But Harry could still feel that current of suspicion coiling through their minds.

He hated it. He hated them.

“His life was tragically cut short—”

Harry’s eyes went to the professors’ table. Sprout was patting at her cheeks with a handkerchief, but she wasn’t openly sobbing like Diggory’s parents, who sat between her and Professor McGonagall. Diggory’s mother hadn’t taken her hands from her face during the whole of Dumbledore’s speech.

“And we will always remember him,” Dumbledore finished, and flicked his wand in a silent, complicated pattern. The banners on the walls changed from House colors and symbols to deepest black.

Harry privately wondered if that was true. The books Theo had shown him about the Tournament had been full of unfamiliar names. It seemed that most of the past Tournament Champions weren’t long remembered, even when they did win.

“Please begin eating.”

The food was heavy and plain, because that seemed to be the house-elves’ idea of a proper funeral feast. Harry only ate because he knew that he would look suspicious if he didn’t. People darted him glances and murmured and muttered.

It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t allow it to matter. He would go on surviving, and it didn’t matter how the other Champions behaved or what his House thought of him. Harry’s friends and family were the only ones whose opinions he cared about.

*

“You must attend the Yule Ball, Mr. Potter.”

Professor Flitwick’s usually squeaky voice was stern. Harry stared blankly at him. “Why is that, sir?” he asked.

Behind him, Theo winced. That was the tone Harry used when he was about to explode, in one way or another. He was surprised that Flitwick didn’t recognize it, but then, he hadn’t spent that much time around Harry.

“All the Champions must—”

“I’m not a Champion! I didn’t put my name in the Goblet!”

Theo was mildly surprised that Flitwick didn’t look upset at Harry’s outburst. He only looked resigned. “Be that as it may, Mr. Potter, your name came out of the Goblet. Are you really willing to test whether you will lose your magic if you ignore part of the contract?”

Harry turned around without a word and walked out of the classroom. Flitwick seemed to decide that was consent, because he nodded and turned to cleaning up some of the mishaps caused by Color Charms practice with an easy wave of his wand.

Harry stalked down the corridor, and Theo followed him. When they got to a dead end where no one came because there were no portraits or staircases or rooms, Harry spun around with an explosive breath. “Will you go with me?” he demanded.

“Of course.”

Harry blinked and deflated. “Oh. You will?”

“You didn’t think I was going to let someone else dance with you, did you?” Theo let a little of the darkness he had often felt before his first year seep into his voice. “With my boyfriend?”

“Of course not. But it’ll mean being public, and I thought you might…have a problem with that.”

Theo leaned forwards, and Harry swayed in his direction without even seeming to realize what he was doing. It was immensely satisfying.

“I did think that this year might pass with most of the school ignoring you, the way it’s done in the past,” Theo murmured. “But I always knew that you were a celebrity, Harry. I’ve never cared if other people wanted to exaggerate your fame or downplay it. I don’t care about the Tournament. I want to go with you. I want you to be mine, in all senses of the word.”

Harry stared at him, motionless, with wide eyes, for so long that Theo began to wonder if Harry wanted to go with him. Then he flung himself at Theo and kissed him, harshly, open-mouthed, making soft sounds in the back of his throat.

Theo grabbed him around the shoulders and kissed him back, more than content. No one was going to take Harry from him, and no one else was going to attend the Yule Ball with Harry. That was the way it was.

He and Harry were the way it was.

*

“I think both Krum and Delacour have probably figured out the clue to the Second Task by now,” Hermione whispered, leaning forwards over the library table as if this was a great secret. “But you haven’t, have you?”

“Hmmm? No. The Horntail crushed the golden egg, remember? So I couldn’t get it.”

“But aren’t you worried about how you’ll figure out the Second Task?”

“Hmmm? No. I just have to participate in the Task, I don’t have to win it.”

“Harry!”

Harry jumped and looked up at Hermione. “Um? What? Sorry?”

“You’ve been daydreaming all afternoon,” Hermione said, giving him a deeply disapproving look. “I don’t know if you’ve absorbed what I’m saying about the Second Task at all. What’s got into you?”

Harry rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged awkwardly. “I was answering you, though, wasn’t I? And I do think that the Second Task will probably be something that’s hard to miss. I just have to show up and do a little. Survive it. Not win.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Something that doesn’t matter right now,” Harry said firmly, and took out his homework. Theo was working with Professor Vector on some Arithmancy equations that weren’t coming out right today, and Ron still seemed to feel awkward coming to the study sessions. “Come on, tell me why Runes can’t be carved into moonstone.”

It was a trick question—they could—but Hermione seized it and started paging eagerly through books. Harry watched her with a faint smile.

It was better than saying what he’d been thinking about, which was dance lessons with Theo, the warmth of his boyfriend’s body close to his, the strength of his chest, the way he held Harry, the—

“Harry!”

Harry flushed, and bent his head over his book.

*

“Everybody was staring at me.”

“No, everybody was staring at me. They probably wondered how I got so lucky as to have the Boy-Who-Lived on my arm.”

Sirius threw a ball of crumpled-up wrapping paper at Harry’s head. “Yes, yes, you’re both beautiful and beloved, can we focus on the Christmas presents now?”

Harry laughed and bent over the heavy package that Eustace had got him. It felt as square as a box, which made him surprised to unwrap it and find a book there. It was bound in leather, and the pages seemed to be thin plates of steel, edged with gold. Harry ran his fingers over them and then looked at Eustace with a blink.

Eustace gave him a smile that was half a grimace. “Black pointed out to me that you might encounter a lot more creatures or dangers in this Tournament that you wouldn’t necessarily have a shield for every time.”

“But why does this book…” Harry asked, because the book didn’t seem to have a title or author. Then he opened it and found himself staring at an intensely detailed diagram of what a Severing Charm could do to someone. He swallowed. “Oh.”

Eustace nodded. “The spells in here are all legal, and in fact, most of them are taught in the first two years at Hogwarts. But the book talks about how to overpower them and use them to destroy your enemies.” He leaned nearer. “And how to make it seem like accidental magic if you need to.”

Harry ran his fingers over the engraving. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and then glanced sideways at Sirius.

Sirius gave him an unusually grave look. “Yeah, I know. I don’t like you learning Dark Arts. But they put you in front of a bloody dragon, and if not for that shield, you could have died. For all I know, they’re going to do something similar or worse for the Second Task. That means that you need all the protection I can give you.” He took a deep breath and sat up. “Now! Enough of that. These spells aren’t even Dark Arts. They’re just the best we can do at making sure you can survive.”

“Thank you,” Harry repeated softly. He knew that he would spend a lot of time studying these spells, and he sat back with his arms around the book. The fairy lights on the tree and above the fireplace mantel made the pages glow with red and blue.

“Father.”

Theo’s voice was faint. Harry turned to him in concern, and found Theo staring at a pair of what seemed to be…Harry squinted. Glass bracelets?

“You’re old enough to make your own choices, Theo,” Eustace said, and sipped from a glass that glimmered like Firewhisky. “I would have chosen differently in your place, but I am not you. And that means that you need to take precautions that I didn’t.”

“But still.”

“What are they, Theo?” Harry could see some runes in the bracelets when Theo turned them, but they flashed so brightly that he couldn’t tell what the runes actually said.

“Bonding bracelets.”

Harry was glad that he wasn’t drinking himself, or he might have sprayed it all over the book Sirius and Eustace had got him. “What?” he croaked.

“Not to be used on the occasion of marriage,” Eustace said, with a faint smile that said he was enjoying himself immensely. “Bracelets that create a bond. It is a safer version of what you and my son have accomplished by combining your powers, and would also allow one of you to borrow the other’s magic at need.”

“I thought you didn’t want us doing that, Father.”

“I am not such a fool as to believe that my disapproval would stop you forever. Rather like your professors who are helping you to combine Runes and Arithmancy, I hope rather to give you a safe way to do so.”

Theo bowed his head over the bracelets and said nothing. Harry scooted over and rested a hand on his boyfriend’s wrist. The bracelets glimmered and shook. Harry leaned closer so that he could see the runes better, and also so that Sirius and Eustace would be less likely to notice Theo’s tremor.

“Thank you,” Theo breathed.

“Yes, thanks,” Harry said, and then picked up the nearest bracelet and squinted at it. “What are these runes? Will they really allow us to combine our powers? Half of them seem to be nonsense.”

Sirius shook his head. “Such a Ravenclaw.”

*

To say that Theo was wary when he got a summons to the Headmaster’s office would be an understatement. But Professor Flitwick was waiting, and Theo at least had the bracelet on his wrist that was a twin to Harry’s, tuned now, with the runes dormant until they were needed. It looked like a rather cheap piece of jewelry if you didn’t know what you were looking at. And Harry would lend his magic to Theo in a second if he needed it.

Theo followed Professor Flitwick up the moving staircase, and paused a little when he stepped into the office full of twinkling silver instruments that he remembered. He’d thought he would be alone with the professors, but Karkaroff and Madame Maxime were also there, and Granger, and a small girl with silvery hair. Theo frowned at them before glancing at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore folded his hands on the desk. “Children, you are here because I am asking you to become hostages for the Second Task.”

“No,” Theo said at once.

“Mr. Nott, if you will let me explain—"

“Why do you need hostages, sir?” Granger interrupted, and Theo subsided. At least she was probably more likely to get answers, as a Gryffindor Dumbledore approved of.

“For the Second Task,” said Dumbledore, and turned a smile on Granger and the little girl that made Theo tense further. The bracelet on his wrist sparked, but he didn’t think anyone had noticed. Harry was at least awake and aware. “You see, the clue in the golden egg confirmed that something dear would be taken from each Champion. You three are the most precious people our Champions have. You will be put into a sleep that will keep you safe at the bottom of the Black Lake, where your Champions will need to dive to rescue you.”

Harry is just going to love this.

Theo glanced at Granger and the girl. The child must be related to Delacour. She seemed confused, but after Madame Maxime bent over and whispered to her with a hand on her shoulder, her face cleared, and she said something in French.

“Gabrielle agrees, Dumblydoor.”

“And I suppose that I would—yes, I’ll agree, too,” Granger said, with a vivid blush. Theo knew she had gone to the Ball with Krum, and there was some kind of argument there, because Weasley wanted to date her. But they hadn’t even gone to Hogsmeade together yet, so Weasley really didn’t have anything to be upset about.

“Thank you,” Dumbledore said, and turned to Theo.

Theo stared at him.

“Perhaps you might allow me a moment alone with Mr. Nott, so that I can convince him?” Dumbledore spread his hands at the others without taking his eyes from Theo. “It seems that he does need an extra explanation.”

There was a rustling and a murmuring, and the others left, with Flitwick glancing over his shoulder several times. When they were alone except for the phoenix, Theo cocked his head and asked, “Why in the world should I agree to this when Harry didn’t put his name in the Goblet?”

“I am trying to preserve Harry’s magic, Mr. Nott.”

Theo blinked. Dumbledore had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his hand across his face, his movements heavy with what seemed like weariness.

“We must abide by the letter of the contract, and that means that Harry must participate in the Second Task as he did the First. Maybe it would be enough for him to come to the shore of the lake and dive even if no one was there, but are you willing to take the chance?”

Theo grimaced. He hated it when people he disliked were reasonable. “And are you actually looking for the person who’s trying to get Harry killed?”

“Of course I am.” Dumbledore was the one to stare at Theo this time, as he put his glasses back on. “Why would I not?”

“You sure didn’t sound like it when you were speaking to Harry in the Great Hall on Halloween.”

“Of course. I could not announce such a thing in front of a room full of people who probably included the one trying to endanger Harry’s life.”

“I see. And you couldn’t tell Harry anything about it since then, so that he would at least be able to assume you were on his side?”

Dumbledore settled deliberately back in his chair, and Theo shivered a little as he seemed to grow in size and strength. Yes, he was one of the most powerful wizards in Britain, and he obviously didn’t want Theo to forget it.

But Theo had seen people like Father and Harry exercise other forms of power than pure magical strength. He stood there and said quietly, “I think you’ve dealt in secrets for so long, sir, you’ve forgotten when it would be better to tell someone about them.”

Dumbledore blinked and then said, “You make a wise point, young Theodore.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“I must admit, Harry’s connection to your father gives me pause.”

Theo said nothing.

“I give you leave to tell him. But in the meantime, I do need to know that you will agree to be put under the lake. I might have chosen Miss Granger, but one person cannot be the hostage for two Champions, and Harry seems to have an ongoing quarrel with Mr. Weasley.”

Theo hid his satisfaction. Honestly, neither Harry nor Weasley would probably call what they had a quarrel. Harry simply trusted Weasley less than he had done, and invited him to study sessions a lot less. But if it was enough for the Headmaster to notice, then it represented a serious crack in the friendship of someone Theo thought unworthy to be friends with Harry anyway.

And it didn’t seem as if Dumbledore had noticed Padma at all, which was to the good.

“I do agree to be put under the lake,” Theo said. “But I should let you know that Harry is going to be angry when he finds out about this. Even telling him that you are making efforts behind the scenes to locate the person who put his name in the Goblet might not soothe him.”

“I will deal with that later, Mr. Nott.” And Dumbledore raised his wand to cast the sleeping charm.

You’ll always deal with everything later, Theo thought drowsily as he succumbed. But someday, you won’t be able to do that anymore, and you’ll have to turn and face the problems running like wolves on your heels.

*

Harry marched out towards the lake. Everything inside him was as cold and crystalline as the bracelet on his wrist. A bracelet that he hadn’t felt heat up when Theo vanished, which meant either it had happened as a complete surprise or Theo had his reasons for not drawing on Harry’s magic.

It must have to do with the Tournament, and the way that everyone was hurrying to the lake. Harry didn’t care. They had taken Theo. They had put him in danger. Harry didn’t have any choice except to participate in this farce, but Theo did.

And Harry was going to make sure that everyone knew exactly how he felt about this.

Delacour and Krum were gone when Harry got to the lakeshore, probably already having dived in. Harry aimed his wand at the lake and ignored the excited chatter from the people around him about what he was going to do.

He yanked on Theo’s magic. The bracelet on his wrist glowed and lit up. There was no tug back, which meant that Theo wasn’t in the kind of situation where he needed all his magic to defend himself.

Either that, or he was unconscious.

His mouth twisting into a snarl, Harry piled all his power into the spell building in his mind. Sweat began to run down his forehead, but he ignored that, and the curious gapes and pointing fingers of the crowd. He let the magic build until he knew it would cook him from the inside unless he let it go.

He slashed his wand down, and the spell surged out the tip.

“Calidus!”

The overpowered Warming Charm hit the surface of the lake and boiled it. Someone screamed, and then a lot of people screamed. Someone was yelling at Harry about the Champions and hostages in the water, but Harry ignored them. He wasn’t trying to cook anyone to death, even the merfolk who had probably been part of kidnapping Theo.

He directed the charm with the immense power he was channeling behind it, instead. The magic cleaved downwards, in a straight, tight arc, heating one particular path of water. Harry stepped up to the edge of the steam, cast a shield that would protect him from scalding and another one that would keep his glasses from steaming up, and stared down.

He couldn’t see all the way to the bottom of the lake, it turned out. But he could see merfolk swimming around in agitation, and Krum, who appeared to have Transfigured his head into a shark’s, heading back towards the surface, a sleeping Hermione clutched in his arms.

Okay, Theo’s down there, and someone for Delacour. And probably Delacour, too.

All Harry had really wanted to know was the direction. He tugged on the magic in the bracelet again, held out his hand in the general direction Krum had come from, and once again, let the spell build. Then he spat it out.

“Accio Theo Nott!”

The spell dived into the water, down and down. Harry tilted his hand so that the bracelet could help him, by pointing more directly at the source of half its power. He ignored more yelling about how that was cheating.

There was a sense of resistance at the end of the Summoning Charm’s arc. Harry gritted his teeth and kept feeding more power into the spell. He was going to end this, he was going to have Theo back, and no one was going to—

Whatever it was, probably a rope or chain of some sort, snapped, and Theo came sailing out of the water. Harry angled himself in the way as much as he could, and hit the ground as Theo slammed into him. The shields he had raised to protect himself from the steam cradled his landing, though.

Theo immediately began to cough and splutter, and sat up with wide eyes, water pouring off him. “Harry?”

“Did they kidnap you?”

“I mean,” Theo said, and bent down so that he could speak more quietly and directly to Harry. He looked wonderful even soaked and with wide, startled eyes. “They said that they wanted me to be your hostage, and Dumbledore said it was important to honor the letter of the contract so that you wouldn’t be stripped of your magic—”

“So it was willing.”

“More or less.”

Harry closed his eyes and shoved away, reluctantly, plans of revenge on Dumbledore and whoever had thought this was a good idea. Then he said, “Well, you were still down there in the cold lake,” and began pulling Theo towards the little tent with Madam Pomfrey in it that he had briefly glimpsed. Hermione was already sitting there, shivering, under a blanket and with a Pepper-Up Potion in her hands, and Harry wanted to make sure Theo got at least the same treatment.

People tried to talk to Harry while he sat with Theo, among them Crouch and Bagman. Harry ignored them, and glared away Professor Moody when he tried to come up and snap at them. Moody watched them both with his magical eye long after he’d turned to ask Hermione something. Harry didn’t know how Hermione could stand him.

Theo was fine, if magically exhausted, and wet and cold at first. Harry sat close to him, thinking that the one good thing about being forced to dance at the Yule Ball—well, the second, after getting to touch Theo that way—was that they didn’t have to hide anymore. Everyone already knew that Theo was important to Harry, that Theo was his boyfriend. It was just the way it was.

“Oh, no!”

Harry looked up sharply. He had lost track of what was going on outside his little Theo-centric world, but he didn’t think there was anything he knew of that could put that tone of horrified fear in Bagman’s voice.

Bagman was staring at the water, and so was everyone else, in the moments before the screaming began. Harry twisted around.

By then, Fleur Delacour’s motionless body had already floated most of the way to the shore, although her severed arms took a while longer to get there.