lomonaaeren

“Harry, could you—could I ask you to do something?”

Harry blinks and looks up. Daphne is standing in front of him, biting her lip. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her do that before. He rises to his feet, concerned. He was only practicing a few prank spells that Sirius taught him, anyway.

“Of course, Daphne.”

“And not tell you why.”

Harry stares at her. Daphne lifts her hands and holds them out in front of her the way that someone might futilely try to placate an angry dragon. Not that Harry thinks he’s given her any reason to think he would react like that. “I promise, it’s not going to hurt anyone. I just want to make sure that you won’t try to argue me out of it.”

“If it’s not going to hurt anyone, why would I do that?”

“It could be dangerous.”

Harry chews his own lip for a moment. They’re practicing inside today, since outside a howling thunderstorm stalks around the castle, and people are pausing to stare. Even this version of the Room of Requirement isn’t large enough to be truly private, not with how they need to spread themselves out so their spells don’t hit each other. “To you?”

Daphne nods.

Harry stares at her some more, but she looks back at him with those wide eyes. Harry sighs a little. Truly, she’s never asked him for much. And he would feel like a git if he denies this to her.

“All right,” he says, and fumbles in his robe pocket, taking out a simple silver medallion on a chain that he owl-ordered a few days ago. He was going to enchant them with Sirius’s help and offer them to his followers in a week or so, but this isn’t going to wait, it seems. “But let me enchant this first.”

“What is it?”

“Let me concentrate, and then I’ll tell you.”

Daphne makes a face. Apparently, unquestioning trust is something that she’s owed instead of something she wants to give. But she does watch in fascination as Harry touches his wand to the silver chain.

She’s not the only one. People are stopping their practice duels all over the room to crane their necks towards Harry and Daphne. Harry frowns at them, but they don’t look away.

Fine.

Harry half-closes his eyes and focuses his magic through his wand and on the chain. This is a theory he came up with and Sirius agreed would probably work, but he intended to practice it in private first.

Now, no time, not with the fact that Daphne actually approached him for something. That probably means it’s coming up—

Harry carves the thought from his mind, and instead concentrates, as hard as he can, on the idea that he needs to enchant this chain and keep Daphne safe.

The magic draws Ahalam out of his robe pocket. Harry can feel Ahalam weaving back and forth on his shoulder, and he knows that some serpentine power is probably interweaving with his, but it doesn’t matter. His breathing is light and fast, and he opens his eyes to see green lines of magic dancing around the chain.

Someone starts to say something, but someone else who sounds like Hermione snaps them to silence.

Harry lifts his wand and traces the green lines back and forth, keeping his eyes fastened on them. This is what he wanted to happen, but he had no idea that it would.

You did, says a voice in his head that sounds gentle and dreamy, a little like a snake might sound that was more interested in food than magic.

Harry brings his wand down with a sharp little gasp. The green lines slam into the chain and twine around it, and Harry staggers from the sudden outflow of his magic. Then the chain itself, and the star-shaped medallion on the end of it, begin to shine as if they’re something truly valuable. Harry braces himself against empty air and smiles.

“My lord?”

Blaise and Theo speak the words at the same time, and frown at each other. But Theo is the one who says, in a slightly accusing voice, “You didn’t tell us that you would try something like that.”

“I didn’t know I would try it so soon,” Harry admits, making his staggering way back to his feet. “I intended to practice with Sirius first. But Daphne needs it now.”

Daphne flinches at the cool glance Theo gives her. Harry catches Theo’s eye and makes a sharp jerking motion of his hand.

He thinks Theo will be upset, but instead, he subsides with a faint smile. Harry shakes his head as he turns back to Daphne. Theo is one of his best friends, but honestly, sometimes Harry really doesn’t understand him.

“Here you are,” he says, and holds out the medallion to Daphne.

She accepts it gingerly, staring back and forth between it and his face. “What does it do now?”

“I wound Ahalam’s magic as well as my own into it,” Harry explains. “And the bonds that tie us together. It has Lord Slytherin’s magic in it. It’ll keep you safe from a lot of pretty nasty threats.”

“Explain how, please, my lord.”

Daphne sounds more like herself now, head tilted like a curious owl. Harry grins at her and obliges. “There are so many bonds that connect me and the rest of you. It’s like I’m a spider in the center of the web.” He winces as he hears a little moan from Ron, but he keeps pushing ahead. “So the damage that hits the medallion if you’re hurt by a curse will radiate down the lines of the web, and dissipate because it’s spread between so many people. And some of it will vanish because it’ll spend its energy running the bonds instead of hitting a person.”

“So wearing this medallion means I hurt you or the others?”

“Not exactly. Spread between so many people, it’ll feel like an insect bite or a small distraction. And like I mentioned, some of the energy will dissipate because it’ll be running down the strands of the web.”

“How can this be happening?” Daphne whispers as she traces her fingers down the medallion. “I swore no oath to you.”

“But you’re my friend. And you’ve followed me.”

“Well, yes. But that is a bond so abstract in its expression that—”

Harry hastily cuts her off before she can wander into some tangent that he won’t be able to follow and that will probably confuse and bore the others. “I just mean that I feel a connection to you, and this is a way that I can wield that connection. I fed my sense of it into the medallion.”

“But that’s—that’s against accepted magical theory.”

Harry laughs a little, ignoring the way everyone is staring at him. “It doesn’t matter that much, I promise, Daphne. I’m using the magic of Lord Slytherin in a way that makes sense to me, and that could make nonsense of magical theory. But it will work. Do you want to test it?”

Daphne pauses for a long moment and looks around as though expecting someone else to say that this is stupid. But Theo and Blaise are leaning slightly forwards like hounds on the scent, Hermione is staring intently, the twins are lurking and look as if they might volunteer to cast the curse if Harry doesn’t, and Gwen is frowning but looks inclined to participate.

“All right,” Daphne says, and she strings the medallion around her neck, lifting her chin. “I trust you, my lord.”

Harry doesn’t say that the magic in the medallion wouldn’t work if she didn’t. He doesn’t think that’s a good idea. He nods as Daphne backs up and lifts his wand. There’s a long pulse of serpentine magic waiting for him, Ahalam eager to help him, but Harry is too cautious to use the same kind of magic that empowers the medallion against it in the first test.

“Stupefy!”

The red spell flashes towards Daphne and hits the medallion. No, is drawn into the medallion. Harry didn’t deliberately aim at it, because that would be too simple, and he wanted to see what would happen without that. But no, it works as he intended to. The spell vanishes, and Harry feels the slightest brush of discomfort in his head, a tiny bit of blurring in his vision.

Hermione gasps. “I felt it!”

“So did I,” Theo says. “It felt like a tiny Stunner.”

“Would that be a good thing in battle?” Blaise asks thoughtfully. “If each of us was affected, even a little bit, it could throw off our balance or our concentration.”

“I’m going to work on improving it,” Harry reassures them. “Move more of the burden to the bonds themselves, less to the people involved. That should eventually reduce the effect of the spell on us to nothing.”

“And we won’t always be in combat situations,” Susan says. “It could be useful in other contexts than that, whether or not it’s been modified to affect the bonds.” She and Theo exchange glances.

Harry narrows his eyes, wanting to press them, but Daphne cuts in. “Explain to me how you managed to violate magical theory and make this medallion, Lord Slytherin,” she demands.

Harry is happy to explain, and to do it in more detail when Hermione asks questions, but he does have to shake his head when she gets into technical and theoretical terms. “I don’t know about all that,” he says. “I came up with the idea and thought it would work, and so did Sirius.”

Susan and Theo exchange glances again. Harry frowns at them. If they would just tell me—

But then the twins start demanding medallions, and Harry puts Susan and Theo’s plans out of his head.

*

“You know that we were going to wait and practice with the medallions.”

“I know.” Harry sighs as he leans back against the couch in Sirius’s quarters. “I just thought that Daphne needed it, and I had to go ahead and give her one.”

“And the way that you made a medallion after that for everyone who wanted one?”

“Not everyone! Just the first five people who asked.”

Sirius looks at him.

Harry shakes his head and then yawns. He slept well last night after making a bunch of medallions infused with Slytherin magic, but the exhaustion still drags at him. “I know. But honestly, it’s better to test them now and see how they function outside a battle situation. Like Blaise said, the momentary distraction from absorbing a spell might be a lot worse in a duel.”

Sirius says nothing for long enough that Harry’s eyelids start to drift downwards. Then Sirius sighs sharply and shakes his head. “I just worry that you’re getting too far into it.”

“Into exercising the power of Lord Slytherin?” Harry asks around another yawn. “I promise, Hermione and the rest would make sure that I never go too far.”

Sirius laughs in what sounds like shock. “Of course not! I can’t picture you going too far into power and ambition, not that way.”

“Then what way?”

Sirius hesitates long enough for Ahalam to hiss, “I am sleepy. You are sleepy. We should sleep.”

Harry fends off the exhaustion to look at Sirius and raise an eyebrow.

Sirius sighs gustily. “I could see you getting overwhelmed by everyone’s wants and needs, and just spinning yourself into exhaustion to satisfy them. I don’t want that for you, Harry. I know your life is extraordinary in so many ways, but I want it to be as ordinary and normal as possible.”

Harry’s lips twist. This is reminding him of a few conversations with Dumbledore where the Headmaster said that he wanted a normal childhood for Harry.

But he knows Sirius doesn’t have the same silly motivations, so Harry just says, “I think there’s no way I can have that, but thank you for wanting it for me.”

“You’ll at least try to protect yourself and not jump to whatever someone is asking just because they’re asking for it?”

“Yes, he will.”

Harry blinks and turns his head. Did he actually fall asleep for a moment? When did Theo get here?

“Good,” Sirius says.

“Wait? What are you talking about?” Harry asks, around another yawn.

“Because we’ll make sure that you don’t use all your magic like this in the future, no matter how many people want those medallions.” Theo takes a step forwards and draws Harry to his feet. “Come on, my lord. You have a bed calling your name.”

“Oh, you can hear that, too?”

He can hear Theo roll his eyes as his friend guides him out the door. “We won’t let you damage yourself, even if you want to.”

“Don’t want to…damage myself. Just…have to keep you safe.”

Theo says nothing, but he squeezes Harry’s hand for a moment.

At least Harry falls asleep without any trouble once his head touches the pillow. It would be sort of embarrassing if he didn’t after all the tiredness Sirius and Theo had to see from him.