lomonaaeren

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of the story; I may write a sequel sometime in the future.

Part Four

“Why do you think Hagrid is looking for books on dragons?”

Theo sighed and lowered his Potions book. Most of the time, he spent reading ahead, but he did have to spend a few hours a week revising first-year material so he knew what was expected of him. “Who cares? He can do what he wants.”

He thought that was an appropriately Gryffindor thing to say, but it made Weasley scowl. “We know you don’t care about Hagrid, Nott, but—”

“I just mean that we shouldn’t interfere,” Theo snapped, barely keeping his voice level. It was beneath him to let an eleven-year-old provoke him. “You know Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts, right?” It was one of the things Harry had told him.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make him inferior!”

It makes him inferior in terms of skill. Theo kept his voice and face as still as possible. “So he’s probably trying to learn more about something that really interests him. Getting in the way of that and asking intrusive questions is just going to make him feel worse.”

Weasley sat back. “Oh.”

“I wish I had time to read about things that interest me,” Harry said wistfully.

“Finish your homework earlier, and then you would.”

“You sound like Granger, Nott.”

“Not all of us have such commitment to lying around daydreaming about a Cannon victory as you do, Weasley.”

“Hey—”

Theo hid behind his book again, and ignored the way that Hagrid was sneaking out of the library with books about dragons barely hidden beneath his cloak. Who cared? It wasn’t about him, and neither was the argument that Weasley was trying to have.

He did smile a little when, the next week at their study session in the library, Harry wrote his Charms essay right away and then went off and found a book on Quidditch. At least he did listen to Theo sometimes.

*

Theo rubbed his forehead as they left Hagrid’s hut. Maybe he should have insisted they interfere when they’d seen Hagrid getting books on dragons out of the library, but who could have thought he’d be trying to raise one on Hogwarts grounds?

“It’s so cool! I can’t wait to be there when it hatches!”

“We’re not going to be there when it hatches,” Theo snapped.

“But why wouldn’t we be? You know Hagrid will let us know!”

Theo bit back an exasperated sound as he stared at Harry. Harry glared back, his arms folded. “This is the most brilliant thing to happen at Hogwarts this year so far,” he said. “I’m going.”

“Yeah, Nott, are you too scared?”

Theo rarely thought back longingly on his past as a Death Eater, but sometimes he did miss being able to use the Cruciatus.

“I just don’t want to be burned by a dragon.”

“But that won’t happen! Hagrid will prevent that from happening!”

Theo trailed behind Weasley and Harry as they bounced along, speculating about how big the dragon would get and how Hagrid would manage to keep it in a wooden hut. He had his own ideas about how to handle this, but it was obvious, now, that none of them would help his relationship with Harry if he talked about it.

Luckily, Theo knew exactly whom to speak to about it.

*

“Mr. Nott.”

Snape sounded as though he had treacle stuck in his throat. Theo ignored it and simply said, “Sir. I thought I should inform you that Rubeus Hagrid has a dragon egg in his hut.”

Snape rather abruptly put down the quill he’d been using to mark essays and stared at Theo. Theo stared back, without quite meeting the professor’s eyes.

“Why would you tell me such a thing?” Snape whispered. “Do you know how your reputation would suffer among your Gryffindor friends if I told them the truth?”

“Because it’s dangerous, and I don’t want to be responsible for it. And you might tell them, but I don’t think they would believe the professor who hates them most, and who’s shown that he hates me.”

Snape studied him for a few minutes more in silence. Theo knew the silence was meant to make him break and reveal something else, but he had a lot of experience in this game from his father. He stood there and waited it out.

“You are not much like other members of your family,” Snape said abruptly.

“I know, sir.”

Theo would have liked to say Thank you, but there was the chance that Snape would report this to his father, and Theo couldn’t afford such open disobedience yet. He needed shelter and access to the Nott library and Galleons for a time yet. It wasn’t as though he would have anywhere else to go.

“And if I told your Father about this?”

“Surely it would reassure him that even though I’m a Gryffindor, I still obey the most important rules.”

Snape clasped his hands in front of him and studied Theo for a moment more. “I see no reason that anyone but the Headmaster needs to know about this, Mr. Nott.”

Theo allowed himself the thinnest of smiles and the respectful nod that he would probably have given Snape before this if he were in Slytherin. “Thank you, sir.”

*

“Can you believe that Dumbledore took Hagrid’s dragon egg away? It’s so unfair!”

“Surely Dumbledore took it somewhere safe,” Theo said absently, from behind his book whose cover had been glamoured to look like One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi.

“I’m sure he did,” Granger said, plopping down on the other side of Harry at the Gryffindor table and scowling at Weasley. “After all, no one should be allowed to have a dragon at Hogwarts. It’s a violation of the Experimental Breeding Ban.”

“Hagrid wasn’t breeding anything, he just had an egg that someone else gave him—”

Harry was gloomily silent. Theo read a few more minutes, trying to ignore it, but when Weasley and Granger just kept up their bickering and Harry his silence, Theo sighed and leaned towards his ally. “What’s the matter?”

“I just think,” Harry said slowly. “How did Dumbledore know about Hagrid’s egg?”

Theo felt an unpleasant leap in the middle of his chest, but he ignored the temptation to frown. It wasn’t like Harry would have any proof that Theo was the one who had “betrayed” the secret. “Well, they say that he’s a very wise man and a brilliant Headmaster. There’s nothing that happens at Hogwarts that he doesn’t know.”

“Who told you that?”

“Hagrid. Granger.” Theo paused, long enough for Harry to turn and look at him instead of nothing. “Father.”

Harry’s face softened, and he reached out and touched Theo’s wrist. “Yeah. Maybe he did know. I just wish he would have told Hagrid that he needed to give the egg up right away, you know? Instead of letting him have it for a little while and then taking it away. That feels unfair.”

Theo nodded, keeping his smirk on the inside. If he could get Harry to doubt Dumbledore without even making an effort, he would take it. “Yeah, maybe he should have. But maybe he thought Hagrid would give it up on his own.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Harry at last began eating his breakfast. Theo gladly turned his eyes back to his book.

No one could see from the cover that it was really The History of the Establishment of Atlantis, and as long as he didn’t neglect the first-year studies he needed to cover, he could study to his heart’s content.

*

“Mr. Nott. If you would stay after class.”

Theo turned to face Professor Quirrell, ignoring the way that his left arm started furiously tingling. He had conducted what discreet investigations he could, via some of the history books that most first-years wouldn’t be reading and carefully revising his own memories, to see if he could recall anything about Quirrell being a Death Eater. But he honestly didn’t think he had been. The man had died or disappeared at the end of first year after he’d confronted Harry Potter. That was all Theo knew.

So that made him dangerous to Harry, but Theo didn’t know exactly why. Or why Quirrell would make Theo’s left arm tingle.

“Are you okay, Theo?”

Theo swallowed and glanced back at Harry. He might be in danger from Quirrell, but it would be worse for Harry. “I’m fine, Harry. Save me some pie after lunch, would you?”

Harry’s face brightened, and he ran out of the room. Theo turned to face Quirrell, just in time to feel an itchy pressure against his mind.

He’s a Legilimens?

It seemed incomprehensible, but then again, Quirrell worked in a school where two other Legilimens worked. Perhaps he’d learned in self-defense. Theo didn’t look Quirrell in the eye and just stared vaguely at the wall as he said, “You wanted to talk to me, Professor?”

“I am curious about something, Mr. Nott.”

“Sir?”

“You seemed so unlikely a candidate for Gryffindor House. And you still seem much the same way to me. You are quiet and studious and quick to demonstrate the spells in class. I am wondering why the Hat chose you for Gryffindor.”

“Well, honestly, sir, all the things you just said could apply to Hermione Granger, too, and I don’t see anyone questioning her about being a Gryffindor.”

Theo was looking up from under his eyelashes, just enough to see part of Quirrell’s face without meeting his gaze, and he knew he didn’t mistake the spasm of loathing that twisted Quirrell’s face for just a moment.

He’s a blood purist. But isn’t he a half-blood himself?

“Ah, yes, Miss Granger,” Quirrell said quietly. “But she is a Muggleborn, and has no family reputation to defend, unlike you, Mr. Nott.”

He folded his hands and leaned a little forwards. “Do you mind telling me why a Nott, of all people, was Sorted into Gryffindor?”

He shouldn’t care this much about me, even if he was a Death Eater. I’m only eleven, as far as he knows, and no threat to his plans. And why in the world has he abandoned the stutter?

“The Sorting Hat said so, sir.”

“I am displeased with your vague answers, Mr. Nott. I will give you one more chance to respond to me as I deserve, as your—professor. Tell me why you were Sorted into your House.”

There was no mistaking the pressure on his mind this time, like a branding iron against it. Quirrell seemed to be one of the rare Legilimens who might be able to read someone’s thoughts without eye contact. Theo gritted his teeth.

“Sir, I don’t know what to say other than what I said. My Sorting was a surprise to me, too. I was expecting to go to Ravenclaw.”

The pressure eased a little, although Theo knew better than to think it would go away completely. “And not Slytherin?”

“Honestly, sir, my father is the planner in the family, the really intelligent one. I could thrive in Ravenclaw, but Slytherin would involve a level of plotting that’s beyond me.”

There was one more moment of intense pressure, and then it pulled away. Quirrell chuckled. “I s-suppose I sh-should be less s-suspicious of someone who’s telling the t-truth, Mr. Nott. After all, we don’t have to go to just the Houses that our families did, do we?”

“No, sir. We certainly don’t.” And you can control that stutter. Interesting.

“Then please feel free to g-go, Mr. Nott. And keep up your ex-excellent work!”

Theo grimaced and stepped out of the classroom, then paused when he saw Harry waiting for him. “I thought you were going to lunch.”

“He makes my forehead hurt as well as your arm,” Harry said quietly, folding his arms. “And I know that you thought he was dangerous. You think he was the one who cast that jinx on my broom.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you looked it.”

Theo thought about that, then nodded. It was yet another thing he was surprised that Harry had caught, but he couldn’t go on and on trying to make Harry smarter and then be upset when it worked. “Yeah, I did.”

“We need to keep an eye on him.” Harry gnawed his lip for a second. “Do you think we should talk to Professor Dumbledore about him? The way you talked to him about Hagrid?”

Harry’s eyes glinted in a way that said he definitely didn’t believe Theo had talked to Professor Dumbledore about Hagrid. Theo just returned a thin smile of his own. “I suppose we could try.”

But when they reached the gargoyle that stood outside the Headmaster’s office, it refused to respond to any explanations or begging (or Harry’s effort to jinx it). Theo finally dragged Harry away, shaking his head. Lunch was almost over, and he had a different plan in mind.

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Theo said firmly. “We’ll watch and see if he does anything else suspicious, and if he does, then we can try sending an owl to Professor Dumbledore or catching him when he leaves the Great Hall.”

Harry relaxed. “As long as we can do something.”

I do plan to do something, but it won’t necessarily involve you.

*

Theo sighed and rolled his neck as he walked out of the History of Magic classroom. He had probably put a lot more effort into studying for this exam than he’d needed to, but now he would dare Binns to fail him.

“Ah, young Mr. Nott. Just the person I wanted to see.”

Harry and Weasley and Granger had gone ahead, Granger moaning about all the questions she was sure she’d got wrong, and Theo had been the last out of the exam. He turned and smiled meaninglessly at Professor Quirrell, while his left arm stung and burned. “How do you do, sir?”

“Come with me, Mr. Nott.”

Quirrell turned and walked briskly away down the corridor that led towards the Defense classroom. Theo glanced once over his shoulder, wondering how long it would take Harry and the others to notice that he was missing.

But this was for the best, probably, since it would mean they would be out of the way.

Theo palmed his wand and followed Professor Quirrell.

*

“I think you are more suspicious of me than is warranted.”

“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

Quirrell had dropped his stutter again the moment he got Theo into the office with him, and he had locked the door. He was fussing around with a cup that he’d pretended was going to be part of his tea, but Theo had already felt the warning burn in his left arm and the pressure against his mind. He held his wand easily down at his side, hand slightly open so it didn’t look like he was, and waited.

“You are watching me most closely.” Quirrell put down the teacup and turned around with a smile as meaningless as Theo’s. “And you are spreading rumors about me.”

“That one I really don’t believe, sir.”

“Do not lie to me!” Quirrell slapped a hand down on the desk, and seemed to ignore the way the echoes rang.

“I’m not. But I think you know that, sir.”

Quirrell stared at him, lips drawing back from his teeth in a peculiar way. It made him look a little like a skull and less like a wolf. “Do you know it?” he whispered, voice barely ghosting over his lips. “What do you know, boy?”

“That’s you’re a Legilimens. That you hexed Harry’s broom. That you’re planning something, but what it is I’m not sure.” Theo half-smiled. “That the stutter is fake.”

Quirrell jerked his wand up and cast a Bludgeoning Hex. Theo was already rolling, and he went out of sight behind a chair that stood near the wall. Quirrell roared and blasted the chair apart into splinters of wood.

Theo had taken the time to compose himself and choose his next spell. He didn’t want to be in fights for his life, but he’d done that as a Death Eater, and Quirrell wouldn’t be expecting any level of skill from a first-year. He stood up now and whispered, “Punctos oculos.”

The spell flew true. Theo had chosen one that meant, if it landed, he would only need two more at best. If it didn’t, then he would have to do some fast dueling, but this was a spell that no one would expect a first-year to know.

It landed, and Quirrell’s eyes burst asunder in his head.

Quirrell began to scream, a terrible, high-pitched noise. Theo threw his next spell under cover of that, stealing the wand from the professor’s hand, and then binding him with Incarcerous. Those were at least spells that were plausible for a first-year to have looked up, especially someone who had thought he might be bullied in Gryffindor House.

Theo backed towards the door. He was unsure if he needed to do anything else here. He was already considering if he should go to Snape or McGonagall.

Then the turban on the back of Quirrell’s head moved.

Theo halted and stared with his stomach stirring with fear and hatred. There were other rumors that had gone around first year, but he’d never—he’d barely listened to them, never believed them.

He had to believe the dark smoke-like wraith that reared up in front of him, the red glowing eyes that opened in the middle of it, the mouth that opened to scream at him in a low voice tainted with hissing.

“Theodore Nott. You smell like one of mine, but you have made yourself my implacable enemy. Lord Voldemort will remember.”

And the wraith turned away and blew through the wall.

In the end, Theo went to Snape, but only after he’d clutched at furniture for a few minutes, and battled the temptation to faint.

*

There were so many questions, and Theo couldn’t answer most of them.

He pretended that he was overwhelmed and so upset and frightened that the mere thought of the Dark Lord’s wraith made him start to shake. He pretended that he’d pierced Quirrell’s eyes with accidental magic. He shook his head and said, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know how the Dark Lord was there!”, which was at least mostly true.

He’d thought Quirrell was working under the Dark Lord’s direction, but never once had he thought that Quirrell was possessed.

Snape had stared at him with wide eyes when Theo had told him about the wraith, and then bustled him off to the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey checked Theo over and kept him in bed for a day even though nothing had happened to him. Dumbledore came to the infirmary and questioned him.

Theo kept his eyes down and shivered and faked a fainting fit when Dumbledore’s questions grew too pointed. Then the Headmaster stood up and sighed from the bottom of his lungs as he stared at Theo.

“I wish you would trust me, Mr. Nott. There is much that I still need to know if I am to battle Lord Voldemort effectively.”

Theo flinched at the name so hard that he almost fell off the bed. Then Madam Pomfrey swept out of her office.

“Stop questioning my patient, Albus!...allowed it, but enough…you need to leave…”

Theo kept his head down and didn’t listen to what she was saying in any detail, but it was enough that when she came back, the Headmaster was gone, and he didn’t return. The only one who came to the hospital wing after that, and lingered determinedly in the doorway until Theo motioned him in, was Harry.

“I know that they’re saying all kinds of things, including that you killed Professor Quirrell,” Harry said, perched beside Theo’s bed. Quirrell had evidently died not long after the wraith had left his body. “But I believe you. I believe it happened the way you said.”

Theo reached out, and clasped Harry’s hand, and Harry clasped back as if his fingers were made of iron.

*

At the Leaving Feast, people whispered and stared, and Theo’s popularity in Gryffindor was gone. His Housemates wanted to know what he’d done, and they weren’t satisfied with the story. Theo ignored them all.

Granger sat on one side of him and Harry on the other, and Weasley grimaced at him but sat across the table, and that was all Theo really wanted.

Dumbledore made a vague speech about “goodwill” and “helpfulness,” and gave Theo fifty points for Gryffindor. It wasn’t enough to prevent the House Cup from going to Slytherin. Draco caught Theo’s eye from across the Great Hall and stared at him for a long moment. Pansy did the same thing.

Theo shrugged at them.

He leaned back and closed his eyes when they were in the carriage on the way to the train station. He had meant to have a life free of the Dark Lord, and instead, he had ended up being noticed by him in a terribly personal way. He was the Dark Lord’s enemy now.

Maybe he would always have ended up like that, since he was a Gryffindor and Harry’s friend. But he hadn’t meant to. He would have to leave the shelter of his father’s home and the riches of the library behind, and he hadn’t meant to do that, either.

Harry gripped Theo’s hand as they got on the train, and leaned in to whisper to him, “I meant what I said. I believe you. We’ll do anything to get you out of your father’s house if you need us to, okay?”

“We.”

“Ron and Hermione and I.”

Theo looked at Harry, and Harry blushed a little, but he stood his ground. “I mean it. You might—you might get in trouble with your dad because you faced him and fought him. So we might have to get you away from there.”

Theo sighed and leaned close to Harry. He hadn’t intended to tell anyone about this, but he was worried about what Harry might try to do otherwise. “I’m going to a house that a relative left me. I’m not going home for the summer. My father won’t be able to track me.”

Harry’s eyes opened wide. Theo sat back with a little nod and waited for Harry to say that he was glad Theo was safe.

What he did not expect to hear was, “Can I come with you?”

Theo stared at him with his mouth wide open. Harry looked back, stubborn and hopeful and believing that Theo could protect him, that Theo would make good decisions, that Theo was his friend.

“I—Harry—where I’m going, it’s not safe for anyone except a Nott.” Not safe for anyone who doesn’t already know Dark magic.

“But you could help keep me safe, right?”

Theo sighed and leaned back up to stare at the train’s roof. He’d wondered why Harry had wanted to ride with Theo by himself, instead of with Weasley and Granger, but now it made sense. They probably would have urged him to go back to the Muggle home.

“You could teach me some of the magic you used against Quirrell?”

“That was charms. And accidental magic.”

“The way that it was against the troll?”

Theo glared at Harry. Harry glared right back. He was a Gryffindor, more was the pity. It wasn’t easy to intimidate him.

Theo wanted to say no. But Harry was the only person he had become close to since he had been back here, and what would happen to him if he returned to the Muggle house? Theo didn’t even know if he would be able to owl him.

He closed his eyes and said, “All right.”

Then his head almost hit the wall of the train as Harry grabbed him and hugged him.

*

Theo and Harry lingered by the train after they’d said farewell to Granger and Weasley. No one questioned them. Father would have expected Theo to Floo himself home anyway, and most people would have thought the Boy-Who-Lived would have been gathered up by his supposedly loving, supposedly magical family the instant he stepped off the train.

Harry glanced at Theo, eyes shining with trust. Theo sighed and led the way over to the platform’s Floo, where he tossed in a pinch of powder. “The Leaky Cauldron!”

Theo had explained the Floo to Harry on the train, so he came out right behind Theo, although coughing and sooty and stumbling, and asked, “Are we staying in Diagon Alley?”

“No, but we can get to where we’re going from here,” Theo said, and led Harry outside, making him keep his head down so that no one could see his scar or eyes.

Theo hesitated one more time when they came to where they would have to turn. Was he really doing this? Was he really taking the Boy-Who-Lived with him for a summer of hiding and Dark magic and negotiations with people who cared more about power than age? The Nott relative’s home would have been better, if it hadn’t been nonexistent.

“Theo?”

Yes, he was. Because the other decisions weren’t ones that he could accept.

“Stay close to me,” Theo whispered, and on the heels of Harry’s eager nod, led him into Knockturn Alley, and towards the summer and the life they had chosen.

The End.