[Songs of Summer]: Broken Glass Life, gen, 4/4

[lomonaaeren]

As it turns out, a letter comes from Ron and Hermione before Harry can write to them.

Mate! it says, in the mad dash of Ron’s handwriting whenever he’s really excited. We were reading the papers, and they said your Muggle relatives’ house has burned down! No one seems to know where you went, although they don’t think you died in the fire—

Of course he didn’t die in the fire, or Pig would have refused to take the letter to him, Hermione’s handwriting takes over. As it is, he’s practically trying to club us over the head so that we’ll give him the letter. But it makes us worry. Where are you, Harry? Did the Order move you after this, and they’re just not telling us? I know that you’re not here in Grimmauld Place.

Harry has to close his eyes when he reads that. They are together, they’ve probably been together all summer, and if they can tell him about it in a letter now, what prevented them from writing to him earlier?

But he opens his eyes and shakes his head. He’s not going to blame them for this, he reminds himself. Quiet. Calm. He doesn’t want them to know the truth, except that he has to tell them something. They’re well out of it.

On the other hand, it’s easy to lie on paper when a Legiilmens isn’t questioning you and looking you in the eye.

Dear Ron and Hermione,

I’m all right. I actually wasn’t there when the house burned. The Dursleys told me to get out, and I went outside and sulked for a while. The first thing I knew about it was when I saw the flames from a distance.

I tried to go running back, but—well, someone whose name I shouldn’t write on paper stopped me and took me away. I’m safe now, I promise. But I shouldn’t tell you where I am, just because it’s not the kind of information that the Order would want shared around, either. We can write back and forth, though.

I’m sorry that I didn’t write to you earlier. I was kind of thinking about the fire. I’m still in shock, you know? I didn’t like my relatives, they weren’t good people, but to hear that they all died…I even had to find out that they died from the Prophet. I didn’t see it myself.


I’m safe, and I’ll see you on September first. I don’t think it’s a good idea to try and meet before then.

Harry signs his name and then stares at the letter for a while. Meanwhile, Pig is bouncing around his head, hitting Harry’s ears with his wings, the same way that Hermione described happening in their letter.

“Yeah, yeah, here it is,” Harry says, holding out the letter. Pig hurtles out the window at once, with an excited hoot.

Harry leans back and closes his eyes. Maybe he shouldn’t have lied to his friends. Maybe he should have said something about being Voldemort’s son, even though Voldemort and Dumbledore both agreed that it was a good idea to keep it secret for now.

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how betrayed they’ll feel when they find out. He doesn’t know if they’ll ever find out. Even though he doesn’t think he’ll be able to keep the lie up for that long, and he doesn’t believe Nott and Malfoy will, either.

He doesn’t know what the right thing to do is anymore.

*

“Mr.—Gaunt, if I can take a moment to speak with you.”

It’s amusing to watch Lucius Malfoy, of all people, hesitate in the doorway to the study where Harry has been working on his summer essays and some books that Voldemort wants him to read, for some ungodly reason. And more amusing to watch him visibly hesitate among last names.

Harry puts the book in front of him aside. “What can I do for you, Mr. Malfoy?”

“Call me Lucius, please, my lord. You are above me.”

Harry wants to roll his eyes, or rub them, but neither will gain him anything. He nods and turns around to face Mr. Malfoy with the kind of strict attention that Voldemort and all the “courts” will probably expect from him. “Yes, Lucius?”

“I—wanted to apologize for the conflicts between you and my son in Hogwarts. I understand that he often invoked my name to make people bow to him, and I wanted—”

“I’m not going to mistreat Draco because of that.”

Mr. Malfoy freezes, his eyes bright but also wary. “You aren’t?”

“No. We were all different people then. And who knows, maybe I would have gone into Slytherin and been his roommate if things had been different.” If I hadn’t met him before the Sorting, Harry wants to say, but that won’t change anything, and it will only negatively affect Mr. Malfoy, and Draco, and probably Harry himself.

“Are you a Legilimens like your father, my lord?”

“Huh? No. Why?”

“Because you knew what I was going to talk about even before I named the subject to you.”

Harry holds back a sigh. “It seemed that there was no other reason you would start apologizing to me about it.”

“Oh.”

Mr. Malfoy still looks surprised. Harry holds back his eyeroll and nods. “You may go.”

Mr. Malfoy scrambles off. Harry stares back at his book, unseeing. Probably the purebloods still hold his mother against him, even if they’re also pretending to believe that he’s brilliant as Voldemort’s son.

It’s tiring. It’s tiresome.

But there’s nothing Harry can do about it, so he picks up his book and starts studying again.

*


“You lied well to your friends. Where did you learn to do that?”

Harry and Voldemort are eating dinner alone tonight, in a dark green room that has some spell cast on it so that food simply appears on their plates, the way that it does in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Harry starts, because so far Voldemort hasn’t said anything, and glances up at his father.

“The Muggles,” he says truthfully, when he sees those red eyes watching him. “They had convinced everyone around me that I never told the truth anyway, so it wasn’t much of a problem to start lying in reality when it benefited me.”

“They died too quickly.”

Harry swallows the elf-made wine that his “father” decided he should have with a dry throat. Maybe he shouldn’t ask this, especially with Voldemort picturing Muggle torture and speaking in a regretful tone, but he wants to know. “Why did you sleep with my mother?”

“I thought I had told you.”

“That you thought she was an Unspeakable and you wanted to recruit her, yeah—”

“I did not merely think of her as an Unspeakable. I was able recently to confirm with one of my Death Eaters, Augustus Rookwood, that she was one.”

Harry stares at him.

“I suppose that no one would have told you,” Voldemort says carelessly, swirling his wine around in his glass. It makes him look like he’s drinking liquid rubies. “They probably did not know. Lily Potter was recruited by the Unspeakables before she even left Hogwarts, if Rookwood’s reports are true—and he could not lie to me.”

“But—but that’s—why would—”

“She was a ruthless woman, your mother,” Voldemort muses. “It is possible that part of your talent in the Dark Arts comes from her.” He doesn’t look happy to say it. “I suspect that she kept many secrets from her husband and the Order of the Phoenix, including that she had decided to spy on me.”

Harry swallows. He can’t say that he knows much about his mother, except that she married his dad, and she had green eyes, and was good in Potions and Charms, and she defended Snape when James Potter was pranking him.

James Potter. Not his dad.

Then Harry shakes his head a little. No. James is still his dad in the most important way, the man who loved him and died for him.

“What are you thinking?”

“That it’s amazing how little you can know other people, even the ones who gave birth to you.”

A smile widens across Voldemort’s mouth. “Indeed. A lesson for you to remember, my son.”

*

“Hold strong,” Theo murmurs to Harry as they step into the room that they’re going to use for Theo’s Marking, and Draco’s.

Harry nods fractionally, not wanting to give away that Theo said anything to him, and glues a smile into place as Voldemort stands. The only other people in the room at Mr. Nott, the Malfoys, and the Lestranges, Not Snape, though. Most of Voldemort’s court.

And Harry’s.

Harry fights the temptation to hold his breath as he walks over to stand at his father’s side. It’s not like it would make any difference. Blood hasn’t actually been spilled in the plain stone room lately, or infected the air with its scent.

Yet.

“My court,” Voldemort says, his eyes glittering and moving from face to face. “We come together here for a wonderful ritual. We come together here for the Marking of Theodore Nott and Draco Malfoy at the hands of my son, Harry Gaunt.”

I suppose that’s my official last name now, Harry thinks with only a touch of hysteria.

“Go forwards and Mark them as I have shown you.”

And wasn’t that a fun lesson, when Voldemort taught Harry the spell that would brand his Mark into someone’s skin yesterday. That they used Conjured dummies still didn’t make it a good thing to have learned, not when their skin bubbled and they screamed.

Voldemort said it was preparation for the kinds of spells that Harry would have to cast in the future more than it was for the Marking.

Never.

But Harry promised, and Theo and Draco will be in trouble if he refuses. So he steps forwards. Theo kneels in front of him, head uplifted, his eyes meeting Harry’s, for a moment before he ducks his face. His left forearm is bared and raised.

I still can’t believe that he’s doing this, that he’s not running away, Harry thinks, as he touches his wand to Theo’s arm.

An unexpected thought occurs to him. I never seriously thought about running away from the Dursleys’, did I? Because I knew what it was like there, and I always thought that outside, it would be worse.

The thought scores the inside of his mind with sharp claws, but Harry doesn’t have much time to think it. He presses his wand down more firmly and murmurs, “Morsmordre leonis.”

The air of the room flashes with dazzling light, green and red and gold. Theo’s body shudders, but he doesn’t cry out, the way the dummies did. Harry desperately hopes that’s because the spell isn’t as painful as he thought and not because Theo has Silenced himself or has some superhuman pain tolerance.

The Mark crawls into being on Theo’s arm. The head of the lion forms first, then the mane, then the green scaled body and the snake tail. The flames around it, brilliant shadows of red and gold, dart into being, and Harry staggers back with a loud gasp.

It’s done. The Mark on Theo’s arm is a gleaming, highly visible thing, until Theo clenches his fist and concentrates. Then it sinks into his arm as if it was never there, and Theo stands up with a satisfied little smile.

“My lord,” he murmurs, bowing to Harry.

Harry nods, and then glances nervously at Voldemort, hoping he hasn’t done something wrong by letting Theo stand up instead of giving him permission to do it. But Voldemort is watching Harry tolerantly.

“I know that you do things differently, my heir. This is one of them.”

Harry swallows, nods, and then raises a hand to beckon Draco forwards. Although Draco is even paler than usual, he at least doesn’t look scared out of his mind, the way Harry thinks he probably would if he were being initiated as a Death Eater. He kneels, and Harry casts the spell, and Draco’s Mark forms precisely.

When he stands, he walks back over to his parents, and they embrace him, murmuring to him. Theo is standing by his father. Mr. Nott’s hand is on his shoulder.

Harry strangles his own jealousy. Of course he should have known that even if he has a living parent, it will never be a real parental relationship.

“My son has established his court,” Voldemort says aloud. “Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Nott, you will serve him loyally, or I will know why.”

Both Theo and Draco bow to Voldemort, with murmurs of “My lord.” Voldemort nods regally and sweeps out, leaving Harry to scramble and follow him.

“You handled it well,” Voldemort tells him as they walk up a spiral staircase towards light and air again. “You are stronger than you think.”

Harry just bows his head. He doesn’t think it’s his imagination that he can feel bonds thrumming to life in the back of his mind, and he can get a sense of muted excitement, worry, a bit of pain.

He doesn’t know how to protect all the people he needs to protect.

*

Dear Harry,

We’re glad that you’re all right! It must have been horrible to lose your family like that…

Harry sneers a little as he reads through the rest of the letter. Ron and Hermione are relieved for him, grieving for him, glad that they’ll see him on the first of September. They accept his story of the safehouse he was snatched away to with complete ease, and that’s what Harry wanted them to do, but…

Somehow, he still wishes for something different.

Harry shakes his head and reaches for ink and parchment and quills again.

Yeah, I’m still kind of shaken up. But I’ve had time to think about it, and it’s probably for the best that I’m not out in the world right now.

See you on the train.

*

“What is it?”

“Open it and see.”

Harry stares at the strange object in front of him again. It looks like a jeweled oval, sparkling green and gold, with a hinge that suggests the top flips up. Is it a jewelry box? He supposes it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Voldemort will start giving him jewelry, or other people will, even if that would be weird.

He flips the lid open.

He understands at once when he sees the tiny creature coiled inside. It’s not a box at all; it’s an egg. Voldemort probably altered the appearance of the surface so that it would seem jeweled, but it’s an egg, and there is a snake there.

A snake who raises its head, and its golden eyes connect with Harry’s, and he understands instantly that the snake is her and that she is the same species as Nagini and that she loves Harry and she would kill to protect him and she is hungry and—

A sob escapes Harry as he reaches out and touches the snake. He wonders for a moment if she’ll bite him and kill him like Nagini would have killed Mr. Weasley, but she doesn’t. She coils up from the egg and around his arm, and Harry cradles her close and reaches out without looking.

Voldemort has a squirming rat ready. Harry drops the rat into the snake’s mouth, and she slams her mouth shut around it and swallows it whole.

Harry is flooded with love for her. He is flooded with bitterness.

“You are to call me a thing,” says the snake, whose scales are as golden and green as the decorated outside of her egg, and she nudges at him insistently. “I know your name is Harry, your mind tells me so, but you cannot call me Snake. Many others have that name.”

The sound that escapes Harry is close to a laugh this time. “I don’t know what to call you yet.”

“You are to decide.”

Harry touches her scales, aware of Voldemort’s burning eyes on him, and Nagini’s as she rears beside Voldemort. He has no idea. He never anticipated getting a snake. Why would he? He didn’t mean to use his Parseltongue ever again until he came here, unless he got caught in front of a basilisk or something.

“That is it.”

“What’s it?” Harry asks, and feels stupid when she darts her tongue at him.

“You thought of the word, and it was magnificent and terrible. I shall be called Basilisk, for I shall be magnificent and terrible.”

Harry holds Basilisk close, and just shakes his head. He doesn’t know what to say. But it doesn’t seem as though Basilisk needs him to say anything, because she’s gone to sleep in the crook of his arm.

“I don’t know how I’ll keep her hidden at school,” he says, looking at her, not looking up at Voldemort.

“I will give her a charm to wear that will be impossible for anyone but you to remove and will serve as a permanent Disillusionment to all eyes but yours.”

Harry nods. That makes as much sense as anything else, he thinks. He stares at Basilisk and whispers, “Why did you give her to me?”

Voldemort’s hand falls on his shoulder. Harry shudders at the coldness of it, but doesn’t pull away. That’s not what he can do if he wants to survive without pain.

“Because she will give you someone to care for when you have no one else.”

Harry nods again. He understands, yes. Voldemort keeps giving Harry people to protect, and that means that he has to protect him, and he’s chained here, drawn further and further in.

Is it my being close to him that makes him sane enough to understand that? Because having a Horcrux close to him makes his mind clearer?

Or did he always understand me that well, and he would have done this before if we’d had non-hostile meetings before this?

Harry doesn’t know, and he’s not sure, standing there with another hostage to fortune and love in his arms, that it matters.

*

“Do you have all your books, my lord?”

“Yes, Theo,” Harry says, a little irritated. His mother died facing his father when he was one year old. He doesn’t need a mother.

“Just making sure. My lord is a careless lord.”

Harry tries to elbow Theo, who dances out of the way with a dark chuckle. Draco just nods to Harry with a faint smile. He’s a lot more nervous around Harry than Theo is, and often stares at Theo with wide eyes, as if he assumes Harry is going to turn around and curse his friend any second.

“Then let’s go,” Theo says, and picks up a pinch of Floo powder. “Remember, my lord, let me go first, and give me thirty seconds to deal with any ambush waiting for you.”

“My friends wouldn’t be an ambush—”

Theo vanishes through the Floo to King’s Cross without waiting for Harry to finish his sentence. Harry sighs in irritation, but taps his wand against his wrist and sets the thirty-second counter running in the air.

“You did that silently.”

Harry blinks at Draco. “Yeah, I reckon I did,” he says slowly. He’s surprised himself. He’s been working on silent casting, but not much with this spell, and he wouldn’t have expected to succeed with it first.

Draco gives him a pale smile. “Maybe you can teach me how to do that. After all, sixth year is when we start wordless magic.”

Harry nods to him, and then the spell gives a chime and he grabs his own Floo powder. “I’d like that,” he tells Draco, remembering the DA, before he tosses in the powder. “King’s Cross!”

After the usual roaring, spinning trip, he lands on the platform. Theo is waiting for him. Basilisk is curled inside Harry’s bag on his shoulder, but he can feel her shifting, and she speaks softly. “There are many people here.”

“You’ll be safe, I promise,” Harry hisses to her, and wonders how many people he will keep safe, what he will sacrifice to do so, how many sacrifices he can make before he drops from exhaustion.

But for right now at least, he’ll keep going.

“We have to pretend not to know each other now,” Theo says, keeping his voice low. They’re in a sheltered corner of the platform, and no one appears to have noticed them yet. “But remember, Draco and I are only a call away. We’ll feel you through our Marks if you need us.”

Harry nods and tries to give a smile. He knows it comes out strained. “I know. The same applies to you.”

Theo studies him and then rests a hand on his arm, squeezing over the place where a Mark would be if Harry had one. “We’re here to help you bear the burden,” he says. “It will be all right, my lord. Draco and I will make it so.”

He vanishes onto the train before Harry can say anything. Draco comes out of the Floo a moment later and walks past Harry, pretending not to see him.

Harry squeezes his eyes shut as he stands there.

Voldemort saw him half an hour ago, and rested commanding hands on Harry’s shoulders. “Remember what we discussed. You are not to tell anyone of your heritage. You will contact me if anyone seems suspicious.”

Harry nodded, even though he knew that he would do his best to avoid telling Voldemort about anyone, because just figuring out the secret doesn’t mean they deserve to be tortured to death.

“Good.” Voldemort squeezed his arms, searching Harry’s eyes, and then spoke in English. “I am proud of you, my son. So far, you are a worthy heir.”

He left before Harry could say anything. But Harry thinks, now, that the thought of someone being proud of him shouldn’t tempt him so much.

It wouldn’t, if you had grown up with normal people and had a normal life. Whose fault was that?

Harry shakes his head and shifts Hedwig’s cage. She hoots at him, and Basilisk hisses soothingly, and Harry releases his breath. He has them. He has Draco and Theo. He has Ron and Hermione.

For how long?

Harry wonders how long, yes. And he wonders how long he can keep endangering his soul to protect people before he will either decide that some of them just aren’t worth it, or before he’ll lose that very soul.

“Harry!”

Harry opens his eyes. Ron and Hermione are running towards him.

He reaches out and hugs them, making sure to shift so that neither of them is touching his bag where an invisible Basilisk coils. “How are you?”

“Starving!”

“Ron!” Hermione scolds, and smiles at Harry, linking her arm with his as she leads him towards the train. “You ought to tell us where you were now, we’ll get a private compartment and you can tell us everything.”

Harry smiles at his two best friends, and prepares to lie to them, while his mind aches with the bond to his two courtiers and his snake familiar, who is hissing gentle promises to eat everyone who threatens Harry.

For now, this is his life.

For how long?

Who can know?

The End.