lomonaaeren

“You are skilled at the Dark Arts.”

“Thank you, Father.”

So far, Harry would say if he were suicidal, all the spells he’s learned from Mrs. Malfoy are defensive spells, curses and countercurses of the kind that he might learn in a Hogwarts class. But why say that, and make Voldemort think that she should be teaching Harry far worse spells, like the Cruciatus?

You already almost used it once, a voice whispers in the back of his mind, seeming to speak Parseltongue. Even before you knew you were Voldemort’s son.

Harry ignores the voice. He would have stormed once, he thought. Resisted. But his life is broken, and Sirius is dead, and he’s learned Occlumency, and he’s learned that his anger can conjure snakes that might try to bite someone to death.

And his friends left him alone.

“What do you think of this plant?”

Harry snaps his attention back to the garden in front of him. Voldemort is holding up a long, deep red vine with two fingers. Harry can see that it has leaves shaped almost like a dragon’s scales, and that the blossom is yellow and fringed with orange teeth. He wonders if it’s a flower deliberately bred to look like a flame, or a dragon, or something else.

“I think it looks deadly.”

Voldemort flicks his tongue out. “What do you think it is?”

Harry takes the time to study the flower, because Voldemort will get upset if he doesn’t. But he still can’t tell what plant it is. He never paid that much attention to Herbology when he was in school, because it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that would save his life. “I don’t know,” he admits at last.

“It is a deadly trap,” Voldemort says in English, something that distracts Harry so much he almost doesn’t jump out of the way in time.

The flame-flower swings a blossom towards him, breathing fire like a Hungarian Horntail, a thorn stabbing for his leg. Harry yelps, leaps backwards, and trips over his own feet. He hears Voldemort hiss in irritation.

Harry makes it back to his feet without Voldemort or the flower trying to hurt him again, but it’s hard to take his eyes from the blossom now. It’s swung back into its original position, and the stabbing thorn is tucked under the vine. If he didn’t know what it could do, Harry might notice the plant’s colors, but it wouldn’t stand out to him any more than some of the other flowers in the gardens.

“You are to be better-prepared,” Voldemort says. “When you return to Hogwarts, there are those who will try to kill you because they hate you, because they falsely believe it would curry favor with me, or because of the Horcrux in you. I believe that Albus Dumbledore must know about it.”

Harry swallows. He wants to argue that, but there is the fact that Dumbledore avoided his eyes so carefully last year.

At the very least, Dumbledore knows there is something about the connection between Harry and Voldemort that he isn’t willing to risk prying into.

Then something else distracts him. “You’re letting me return to Hogwarts?”

“You thought I would force you to remain here?”

“Well—yeah.”

Voldemort’s tongue lashes the air again. Harry wonders if that’s a new mannerism. It’s not something that he ever saw Voldemort do before in their confrontations.

Then again, he never saw Voldemort in moments this calm, either.

“That would not serve us. We will keep your parentage a secret for now, but you must return to Hogwarts and engage with the world, and convince them that nothing is wrong. You must be trained and hardened, and hiding you away from the world would not do that.”

Harry swallows. He still wants to know the answers, even if he thinks they might destroy him. “Trained and hardened? For what?”

Voldemort bends towards him. “For becoming the son and heir who will stand at my side when we conquer the world together.”

*

Harry sits in his bedroom and stares at nothing.

Sure, Voldemort wants to conquer the world. (And not die). Harry knows that. But hearing himself included as part of the plans, rather than treated like an inanimate object or imprisoned or tortured to death…

It’s not something Harry was prepared for.

He bends over, and he can’t even classify the sound that trickles out of him, laughter or shrieking or somewhere in between.

*

“Can I cheer you up, my lord?”

Harry blinks and snaps out of his thoughts. He’s walking in the gardens again, but this time with Nott. Draco had “something to do” today, apparently. Harry reckons that he’s being Marked as a Death Eater.

“Oh. No, thanks, Nott.”

Nott stops and turns to face him. He’s framed by the black blossoms waving behind him, dark roses. As far as Harry knows, they don’t have the dangerous properties of the flame-flower, but he still doesn’t want to get too close to him. Nott’s eyes are sharp and clever.

He’s so much better suited to be Voldemort’s son than I am.

“I think there are a few lessons I can offer, whether or not you know that you need them,” Nott says quietly. “For one thing, Draco and I are here to provide you with what you need, just as our parents do with the Dark Lord. If you do not use us that way, the Dark Lord might blame us.”

Harry’s heart squeezes itself into a painful ball. So he has more people to protect without knowing how to do so. “I would tell him it was my fault! I would get him to punish me.”

Nott frowns a little. Then he says, “Even if he believes you, he would be more likely to punish us than you. You are his son.”

“He tried to kill me the other day.”

“How?”

Harry explains about the flame-flower, keeping his words as neutral as possible. After all, there’s still the chance that Malfoy and Nott are really spies who will report back to Voldemort everything that Harry says. Harry can’t just trust them the way he would Ron and Hermione.

Ron and Hermione, who he hasn’t heard from since that one letter about meeting up on September first.

Harry puts it out of his head. Whether or not he blames them, the best way to protect them right now is to keep them from Voldemort’s notice.

“I see,” Nott says at last. “But I think that was meant as a lesson, not a murder attempt.”

“I mean, I do, too,” Harry says, trying to think of his words and how Voldemort will perceive them. It’s so tiring. Who would do this for fun? “But if I got killed by the flower, that would just prove that I’m not fit to be his heir. I’m still weak. He’s perfectly willing to punish me or kill me—as he should be.”

Nott’s eyes widen. “You think I’m reporting to him.”

“No,” Harry says, but it’s a mumble. At the moment, he mostly wishes that Nott wasn’t so clever.

“My lord, I am not. I am only yours, part of your court, not his. It is one of the pieces of advice that my father gave him, and Draco’s parents as well, I imagine.” Nott hesitates. “And they were glad to give it, given that it means we will not be Marked as his, but yours.”

“What?”

“Did no one tell you that? Yes. You are to be a lord in your own right—not the equal of the Dark Lord, but not a simple Death Eater. And that means that we will be yours, too. You must be able to Mark us and trust us.”

“But—I don’t know how to Mark anyone! And it doesn’t make any sense that my father would want me to have servants that could turn against him. I mean, I know I have to prove myself, I’m not trying to take anything for granted—”

“I told you that I am not reporting to him. At the moment, Draco is discussing with his parents and the Dark Lord how the branding ceremony with your Mark will differ from the one that Death Eaters normally go through.”

“Don’t you have to talk with your father, too?”

“I did. I know what will happen.” Nott eyes Harry. “I assumed the Dark Lord had spoken to you. If he has not, then please, my lord, let me offer you this information, as a show of loyalty.”

Harry rakes his hair with his hand and ends up clamping it over his eyes. Nott just waits. Harry thinks distinctly, My life is mad.

“Yes,” Harry says finally, because whether or not this information makes its way back to Voldemort, asking will probably make Harry look good. Involved in his future, anyway. “Let’s hear it.”

“The Dark Lord is sensitive to the fact that we have two more years at school, and thus a visible Mark will be likely to be discovered—especially as some of us shower with Quidditch teammates.” Nott’s smile glimmers like a hinkypunk’s lantern. “So the Mark will sink into our skin, and only appear when you call it out or if you are in dire need of us.”

“And how do you feel about being branded?”

“I already told you. I am glad to be Marked as yours rather than the Dark Lord’s. I believe that you will be a more understanding master.”

Harry shudders at the words, given that they remind him of how Dobby used to speak about the Malfoys, but he keeps his eyes on Nott. “You said that your parents were glad to see you Marked by me instead of him. But—you don’t even know me. You don’t know what I’m like. You don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you from my father.”

“Do I not know you?” Nott murmurs back. “I have seen the way that you interacted with people at school, my lord, and I’ve listened to Draco’s stories. The sort of boy who is kind to house-elves will be kind to me.”

“And you don’t want to be free? To not follow anyone?”

“It’s not a choice that I’ve ever considered, because I knew I would not have it.” Nott’s smile is cutting. “Power flows down from the top in our society, my lord. Some people achieve it with money, as Lucius Malfoy has, and some with blackmail or gossip or a heroic deed, like Dumbledore’s when he defeated Grindelwald. But the purest source of power, the one that has the least chance of fading with the years or a change of fortune, is magical. My father and I do not have that. So my father swore to the Dark Lord when he first rose, and so I swear to you.”

Harry just shrugs. “All right. But I’m not as powerful as you think. I don’t think I inherited any of the magic that my father has.”

It occurs to him after he says that that Voldemort might be angry with him for saying it. But he’s also likely to punish Harry instead of Nott, so that’s fine.

“I heard that you were a Parselmouth.”

“Yes, of course—”

“And that you’re mastering the Dark Arts spells that Mrs. Malfoy is showing you. Apparently she spoke about it with her husband, and Draco overheard.”

Harry flounders for a moment. He doesn’t want to say that he’s not mastering them, because that might get Narcissa in trouble. He settles for, “I reckon that it’s because they’re beginner spells, right now.”

“And you cast a Patronus when you were thirteen.”

“How did you hear that?” Harry asks, genuinely astonished. He didn’t think that many people knew about him rescuing Sirius from the Dementors.

Sirius. Harry swallows, the invisible glass crunching in his throat again.

“We all saw you cast it at that Quidditch game when Draco and the others dressed up as Dementors,” Nott says, giving him a strange look. “Although I did hear rumors later that it was even more corporeal than that. Not even most Aurors can cast a corporeal Patronus, did you know? I don’t think any of the Death Eaters can.”

Harry just shakes his head and keeps quiet. The things Nott is telling him seem to offer a path forwards, but—

A path forwards to what? What if he turns into a Dark Lord in the middle of trying to protect Nott and Malfoy and appease Voldemort?

Harry closes his eyes. All I can do is keep marching forwards. All I can do is protect people in the ways I know right now.

“My lord?”

Harry opens his eyes. “Fine. Have you—have you discussed this Mark that I have to brand you with in any detail? I mean, other than its disappearing when it has to. What it’s going to look like?”

“I did bring a few designs that Draco and I thought you might want to approve,” Nott says, with a smile, and reaches into his robe pocket to take out a few scrolls that he taps with his wand. They unroll and hover in the air. Harry stares at them dully.

On one is a shape not so different from the Dark Mark, except that the snake appears to be curling around a castle instead of a skull. Harry turns his head away from it. He won’t use that one unless Voldemort forces him to.

The second one shows a thestral, with its hoofs on a skull. Harry rejects that one, too, although it’s better than the first.

Harry pauses when he sees the third scroll. It depicts a lion with green scales instead of fur, its head turned towards the side, roaring. Its mane stands out around its head, and there’s a snake curling up where its tail should be. Shades of red and gold off to the sides are—well, Harry thinks they’re flames, anyway.

“What’s this one showing, Nott?”

Nott walks around the scrolls to stand in front of them with Harry. “That’s a chimera,” he says. “Or a variant, anyway. Chimeras often have goat heads as well. But we thought that your Gryffindor nature and your father’s heritage should both be honored.”

Harry doesn’t like to think of this particular Mark being branded into anyone’s skin. He doesn’t know for sure how it would work, anyway. The Dark Mark is plain black. Can a different one really be green and red and gold?

But it seems like the best choice he’s going to get, and Nott is looking at him with the eyes of someone who expects Harry to make a choice. He nods. “That one, then.”

Nott smiles at him. “Good. I liked that one the best myself.” He dips his head to Harry as he gathers up the scrolls with another tap of his wand. “Can I ask you another favor?”

“Yes, all right,” Harry says, hoping that it doesn’t refer to the Mark. He’s sick of thinking about having branded slaves.

“Will you call me Theo? We will be spending years together, and your father calls the members of his court by their first names. It will become more than a bit awkward if you don’t do the same thing. It could be seen as rejecting my company.”

And that will put Nott in danger. Harry understands. He grimaces a little, but nods. “If it’ll keep you safer, then I’ll be happy to. Do you want to call me Harry?”

“Perhaps after the Dark Lord calms down a little. At the moment, it might be dangerous to call you anything but my lord.”

“Calms down a little? What do you mean?”

Theo stops and regards him with that careful expression that Harry is starting to think is simply natural to him. “Do you really not know? I thought you were getting the Prophet, but I suppose not.”

“No,” Harry says, dread sticking in his throat. Has Harry been reported missing after all? Has Voldemort been attacking his friends?

Theo raises an eyebrow. “Well. The Dark Lord wasn’t pleased at the notion that he’s been deprived of his son and heir for so many years. He burned the Muggle house that you were living in to the ground, and he tortured Rubeus Hagrid. Although I understand that several people led by Dumbledore got Hagrid away before he was too injured.”

Harry shudders. He knows, of course, that Voldemort has despised Hagrid since their school days, but he doesn’t know why he would go after him now. “And all of this is making the papers?”

“Oh, yes. The Dark Lord is acting openly now, not staying hidden.”

Harry closes his eyes. He reckons that that might have happened anyway, after the Department of Mysteries, but he does think that a lot of it has to do with his presence here.

Although he still can’t figure out Hagrid.

“Should you be telling me this?” he asks abruptly, opening his eyes to look at Theo. “If he kept the papers from me and he doesn’t want me to know…”

“I think he might have thought you were receiving the Prophet and never thought to inquire.” Theo shrugs. “But I’m not afraid. I know that you’ll protect me, my lord.”

“Not against him, I can’t!”

“I am growing more confident in your abilities by the day. But he’s the only one who can answer you for his actions. Go and ask him, and since I haven’t seen any effort on his part to keep you from knowing, it should be fine as long as you don’t say you learned it from me.”

“Are all Slytherins this addicted to danger games?” Harry snaps. “He could read it right out of my mind, you know.”

Theo laughs softly. The sound is dark but whole, in a way that Harry has forgotten about letting his own laughter be. He leans forwards a little, and Harry does the same thing, unconsciously mirroring him.

“You’re a hypocrite, telling me about danger games when you play them yourself,” Theo whispers. “But you should know that I know a good thing when I see one.”

And he turns and walks away.

Harry closes his eyes, then turns for Malfoy Manor to seek out his father. He can at least use the excuse of telling him about the Mark he chose to talk to him.

*

“Why did you torture Hagrid?”

All right, so maybe the potential Mark isn’t the first thing Harry is going to ask about.

Voldemort turns and stares up at him, eyes luminous in the low light of the sitting room he’s chosen. Harry managed to track him down by the pull in his scar, which he knows now is the Horcrux, and—

He can’t let himself think too hard about carrying around a piece of Voldemort’s soul. He’ll feel sick if he does.

“Because he was the one who placed you on the doorstep with your mother’s worthless relatives. He was part of the group that took my son and heir from me. I read that much in your mind. And he also talked to you about Slytherin’s reputation and tried to keep you from that House.”

Harry closes his eyes. He thought his Occlumency was better than that, but apparently not. “And did you kill my relatives?”

“Yes.”

Harry’s not sure what he feels, hearing about that. They were—they were terrible, but they didn’t deserve to die, any more than Dudley deserved to have his soul sucked out by Dementors last summer.

But Harry finds it difficult to care that much about them. He didn’t even when Theo told him about Voldemort burning their house down. Maybe it’s just because he has to concentrate on saving the people who are in his line of sight, and he couldn’t do anything about the Dursleys one way or the other.

“Are you not going to say thank you?”

Harry snaps his eyes open. Voldemort has left the desk in the middle of the room and paced over to Harry. His eyes are lit with something that might be excitement, Harry thinks, or anticipation.

Does he think Harry is going to try and duel him? Hurt him?

“You are cast down,” Voldemort murmurs. “I did not intend that result. I intend for you to be alive, on fire.”

“But then you would kill me if I was,” Harry whispers. “So it doesn’t seem like it would be worthwhile to be like that.”

“What gives you the impression I would kill you?”

Voldemort sounds genuinely startled, but he would, wouldn’t he? Harry fights to keep his voice even as he says, “The flame-flower in the garden. And telling me that I have to be hardened. I could have died if I hadn’t—passed your test.”

“It would have scarred you. Hurt you. But not killed you.”

Being scarred doesn’t sound minor to Harry, but then again, he’s survived with one particular scar for years on end. This isn’t so different, is it? He nods uncertainly and says, “Thank you for getting rid of the Dursleys.”

It’s partially true, partially not true, but he has the feeling that he has to say something, and he absolutely can’t thank Voldemort for torturing Hagrid.

Voldemort straightens, giving Harry a lipless smile, and rests a hand on Harry’s shoulder for a long moment. “You are most welcome, son and heir of mine. Now, I know young Nott was going to present the designs for your Mark to you. Which one did you choose?”

Harry starts to explain about the chimera, his mind spiraling through all of the things that have happened, and—

And how can he just go back to Hogwarts in the autumn as if none of this has ever happened?

Harry swallows. He thinks that he’ll have to try and get an owl to Ron and Hermione, for all that would happen if Voldemort caught him at it. They need some kind of warning. For all Harry knows, Voldemort will go after them next for not keeping him out of danger or something.

He nods and smiles at what Voldemort is saying, and wishes that no one had ever discovered him as Voldemort’s son.