Chapter Thirty-Three of 'Feather and Glass'- Punish

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Thirty-Three—Punish

Harry feels as though the flames of frustration and anger that are boiling up in him are going to come right through his skin. He surges out of his seat and snarls right in Remus Lupin and Sirius Black’s faces.

They both go still, staring at him. Even Lupin, who looked so intimidating a moment ago when he demanded to know what was going on, is just standing there with his mouth open.

“It was a spell that was going to punish him for leaving me with the Muggles and running off to the Continent,” Harry whispers, shaking. He didn’t know how much he was counting on being able to punish Black until now. All the hatred is spilling out of him, flowing in the idiot’s direction. “You left me to be abused and went off on that stupid quest Dumbledore gave you! And then you came back and scolded me for not living up to your standards and licking Muggles’ feet enough! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

Black opens and closes his mouth. Lupin looks gutted. But Harry’s also aware of the way that Blaise’s hand rests on his shoulder, of how Aradia is rising smoothly to her feet.

“Harry,” Black whispers. “That’s not the way it was.”

“Then what fucking way was it?”

“It was—it was me thinking that I could never raise you the way James and Lily would have wanted.” Black is solemn and big-eyed, but that isn’t the way Harry wants him; he wants him writhing on the floor with pain. “And I was leaving you in a place that would be safe.”

Harry laughs aloud. Black flinches from the sound. Blaise’s hand presses harder on his shoulder. Aradia has moved so that she’s in between Harry and Black, her hand curled in such a way that Harry knows she’s holding her wand, Disillusioned.

“You have strange definitions of safety. Really strange.”

“I didn’t know your Muggle relatives would abuse you!”

“At least you admit they could have, now. I suppose that makes some difference.”

Lupin interrupts then. “I’m still waiting for some explanation of this Dark magic,” he says, and his eyes flare with amber that makes Harry stare hard at him. “I barely sensed it in time to save Sirius, and—”

“Smelled it, you mean,” Harry says.

Lupin falls silent and swallows a little. Then he says, “What do you mean, Harry?”, voice all fake and friendly like he never snarled because he wanted to spoil Harry’s revenge.

“You smelled it. And I saw your eyes just now. You’re a werewolf, aren’t you?”

“Wow, you really are a bigot.”

Harry ignores Black other than a single flick of his eyes which he hopes will demonstrate his hatred and his dislike easily enough. He’s focused on Lupin, who he thinks is a softer target. Lupin is turning the color of old cheese, so it certainly seems that way.

“I—I am. I hope that you won’t hold it against me. We made sure to pick a day to visit that’s nowhere near the full moon…”

“And yet you accuse my foster son of bigotry and Dark magic, while hiding the reality of yourself from him and not allowing him to choose or reject your company. Yes, I do name you hypocrite, and I cast you from my home.”

Harry gasps as he feels magic gathering up around him, unfurling on the air in delicate curls of silver and gold. He watches as they grab hold of Lupin and Black and fling them at the wall, making Harry flinch for a second. He wanted revenge, but this seems more like violence that’s going to end up with them splattered on the stone—

It doesn’t. Black and Lupin turn transparent and pass through the wall. Harry can’t feel them when they probably hit the far side of the wards, but he doesn’t think it matters. He slumps back against Aradia bonelessly.

Aradia strokes his hair. “I am sorry that you didn’t get your revenge. We will find something else. Something less noticeable.”

“And this time, we’ll make sure it works.”

Harry smiles at Blaise and then turns to look at Aradia. “Can we play outside in the garden?”

“Of course, Harry.”

Harry still feels sore at heart, but it does lessen a little as he and Blaise run towards the garden. He didn’t succeed, but he’ll find something else. Black will pay.

And he’ll probably keep trying to be part of Harry’s life, along with Lupin, so Harry should have the chance.

*

Aradia watches the boys go, and waits until the door of the dining room closes firmly behind them to shut her eyes. It will do neither Blaise nor Harry any good to watch her writhe in silent self-loathing.

The wards warned me about Lupin. I should have listened to them.

In truth, the warning was inchoate, the kind of warning they would have used if a wizard who had practiced Dark Arts within the last year had passed them. But Aradia still should have looked closely enough to see the amber eyes.

She is a failure.

Aradia paces back and forth across the length of the dining room. The elves have removed the meal and the mess that Lupin made by flinging the specially prepared bowl against the wall. She knows that she can call the boys back in and they will all eat in an hour or so, but she needs to get rid of this first.

She promised herself, when she learned a powerful victim of the Suns is one that made someone in her family suffer, that the suffering would only apply to her. But it seems that Black and Lupin have managed to make Harry suffer, right under her nose.

Unacceptable.

Aradia clenches her hands. She wishes that she could stalk and kill Black and Lupin right away, without waiting, but she knows the dangers of that. Albus Dumbledore looks after them, and he already suspects of her killing Quirrell.

She scolded Blaise for his passion in going after Neville Longbottom right away and taking actions that could be traced. She can hardly fall for the same trap and call herself a fit mother, a fit mentor.

Aradia comes to a stop and slowly releases the anger, the fear. Black and Lupin might have taken Harry from her, but they have not. They might have hurt Blaise or Harry, but they have not—except emotionally.

She can wait. She can ask Harry if he would prefer another method of vengeance. In truth, she is not sure how Harry would feel about her sacrificing Black to the Suns, not because he would care so much if the man died, but because he might think that death too quick.

There is a coldness at the center of Harry that Aradia is proud of.

She straightens her back and lifts a smile to her face, and goes out to reassure the boys that everything is well.

And, although she will not speak the message in quite these terms, that she will not fail them again.

*

“You are unhappy.”

“Well, yeah. Of course I am.”

Artemis nudges closer to Harry and lets her nose rest on his cheek for a long moment. “You can speak to me. I may not be able to help, but I will do my best.”

Harry lets his eyes slip shut for a long moment. They’re in his bedroom in Aradia’s house, and he knows no one will disturb them here. It’s still almost a minute, stroking Artemis’s scales, before he can bring himself to speak.

“It seems like everyone except Blaise and Aradia just wants to hurry out of my life,” Harry whispers. “Neville and Black and Lupin. Maybe not Anthony and Padma, but I don’t know them that well.”

“You have me.”

Harry laughs a little and opens his eyes. “Yes, and you. But I made you. It makes sense that you wouldn’t want to leave me.”

Artemis sways back and forth for a moment, something she often does when she’s in deep thought. Harry lets her. Then she says, “And does that mean that you think you are—unworthy of being loved? I am trying to understand what you mean.”

Harry is quiet himself, letting his hand rest on her scales and feeling the bright soft warmth of her. Of course he doesn’t think he’s unworthy of being loved, not really. What a silly thing to think that would be.

Would it be that silly, when I grew up with the Dursleys?

Harry finally sighs and answers just when Artemis has begun hissing in concern. “I just—it seems like people who should care about me are all concerned about how evil I am. Again, not you, or Blaise or Aradia. And maybe not Anthony or Padma. I shouldn’t say all. But I lost Neville’s friendship, and Black and Lupin are so upset.”

“Do you think they are right, then? Because I do not.”

“Not really? I still hate Black. And I still don’t want to forgive Neville. But it makes me wonder if they’re so urgent because there really is something wrong with me.”

Artemis slithers closer to him, curling up in the hollow beneath his chin. Harry strokes her back and shuts his eyes.

“It is natural to wonder. It is natural to think about things like this. But you cannot take it to heart, Harry. In the end, Neville chose his other friends over you. Black and Lupin chose their quest, or their service, whatever they would call it. You cannot choose them when they have proven you will always come second.”

Harry swallows and nods. Yes, that’s true. In the same way that he would have to survive if Blaise and Aradia abandon him instead of crying after them, he’ll have to go on without Neville, Black, and Lupin, and the relationships they could have had.

The door of his bedroom abruptly opens, spilling light across the floor. Harry sits up with his magic stirring a shaving of wood hanging loose from the windowsill.

“Harry?”

It’s Blaise. Harry gives him a wan smile. “Yeah?”

“You’re not asleep?”

“Do you think I could sleep after what happened today?”

Blaise hesitates for a long moment, then shakes his head. “No. I couldn’t have, either.” He sits on the bed next to Harry. “What are you thinking about?”

“That I hate Black and I still wish he’d raised me. Is that crazy?”

“No. It’s not him, it’s what he represents. Any childhood you would have had with him would have been better than the one you had with the Muggles.”

“Yeah, Artemis said something similar. Everyone around me is a philosopher suddenly.”

Blaise smiles at him without much moving his lips. The light spells embedded in the walls and floor are beginning to glow, or Harry doesn’t think he could see it. “And you aren’t a philosopher?”

Harry shrugs. Blaise waits, so Harry finally says, “Sometimes I think I’m just not—the same as other people. Because I want to survive, and defend myself, and get my revenge, and make friends, and have fun. Well, and eat and sleep and have shelter, of course. But I don’t use the same philosophy you do to talk about it.”

“Maybe you’re just more honest. That’s what most people want, I think.”

Harry sighs and leans against Blaise. Blaise wraps an arm around his shoulders. “Do you have any idea what we should do now, with Black gone beyond the reach of any justice we could bring to bear on him?”

“We’ll lure him closer again.”

“Are we going to try and use the spell that feeds him my despair?”

“No. Not now that we know Lupin is a werewolf. We’ll use the Carving Spell instead.”

Harry leans back and blinks up into Blaise’s eyes. “What’s the Carving Spell?”

Blaise smiles.

*

“I was so close to Harry! I almost had him!”

Remus sighs and leans back in his chair. He and Sirius are sitting in the dining room of the small cottage that Albus found for them in Britain, and his stomach is full of good food and wine. He honestly just wants to go to sleep. But Sirius is pacing back and forth and ranting, the way he was too shocked to do earlier today, and Remus knows they have to have it out.

“You’re talking like you were going to grab and kidnap him, Sirius.”

“Maybe I should have!”

“And how would that have encouraged him to trust you?”

Sirius flops down in his chair at the table again, in front of his barely touched plate. He looks so miserable that Remus softens and reaches out a hand to him. Sirius grabs it in a rushing grip and stares at him with hopeless eyes.

“I didn’t know that he hated me like that. I thought he might be upset or frightened or worried, but not—hatred.”

“And the Dark Arts in that food were pretty extreme, too.”

“What did it smell like?”

Remus swallows. Normally, he would never try to describe something like this, but Sirius is a dog when he’s in his Animagus form, and that means that he knows more about scents than most people do.

“Do you remember that one niffler’s burrow you found in the Forbidden Forest where it had died down there, and then something had taken it over and buried carrion underneath the treasure?”

“That bad?”

“Yes.”

Sirius stands there for a long moment, shaken. Remus watches him sadly. He wishes he could give his best friend different news, but it’s for the best to know that James’s son hates them, no matter how justified or unjustified his hatred may be.

In truth, Remus can understand why Harry would hate them for prioritizing Pettigrew over him, and leaving him with abusive Muggles. But it’s less understandable that he would decide he had to hurt Sirius for it. And it’s not as though either of them could have known that the Muggles would be abusive.

(Although Sirius downplaying that during his conversation with Harry definitely didn’t help).

Sirius finally stirs and whispers, “I don’t know if anything we do can reach him.”

“Do we back off and leave him to the Zabinis?”

A second later, Remus thinks that he probably shouldn’t have phrased it like that. Sirius looks up, and his eyes are aflame, his hands clenched in front of him as if he’s going to hit someone over the head.

“No. No, damn it. We’re not going to back off and let them win. We’re going to rescue my godson from them and teach him to be a good person again.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“I don’t know. But we will!”

Remus sighs into his teacup and decides that of course he’ll be by Sirius’s side, but he’ll recommend some different actions this time.

*

“I wanted to speak to you, Blaise.”

“Yes, Mother?”

Mother turns and paces out of the small sitting room where Blaise has been practicing spells, surrounded by charms that he knows can absorb them. Blaise quickly joins her, and his curiosity increases when he sees they’re going towards one of the balconies where she has sat under the Suns before.

But they don’t go out onto the balcony. Instead, Mother turns and faces Blaise, her expression solemn. “Is teaching Harry the Carving Spell the wisest idea?”

Of course she found that out. Blaise knows the elves could have told her, but it’s also just as likely that Mother overheard them or figured it out from the books that Blaise is studying in the library. Blaise stiffens his shoulders. “Black deserves punishment, and you know that he won’t get that from Harry now, not if he refuses to eat anything we make.”

“On the first part, I agree with you. But I question whether such violent, open methods are the best ones.”

Blaise hesitates. “Are you talking about what Theo and I did with Longbottom this year?”

“Yes, exactly. It seems that you have a tendency to seek out violence and notice in a way that I did not raise you to court.”

Blaise can feel his face getting hot. He doesn’t want to disappoint his mother, and he knows that drawing attention from the authorities is a way to do that. After all, Mother is someone who’s got away with stalking and killing her prey for years despite the suspicion that surrounds her. Not getting caught is far more important than simply being able to commit the action.

“I promise that I won’t do this in the future, Mother.”

“So you will give up on teaching Harry the Carving Spell?”

Blaise hesitates.

“Explain to me why you believe this particular curse is the best one.”

Blaise swallows. Mother’s voice is mild, but she’s looking at him in a way that—well, he wouldn’t want to be looked at by an enemy. “It causes a lot of pain, and it makes the victim feel the sensation of being cut into quarters, but it leaves them alive,” he says carefully. “I believe Black deserves that for how much he hurt Harry.”

“Mmm. And do you know that it is illegal in all countries that are part of the International Confederation of Wizards?”

“I—didn’t know that.”

“But you knew it was illegal in Britain and Italy.”

Blaise sighs. Yes, she would have known that he’d read that much in the books he was studying. “Yeah, but—it’s the best punishment.”

Mother’s hands rest on his shoulders, and she gives him a smile that has a tinge of sadness. “Blaise, you have a finer sense of justice than I would have expected a son of mine to have. But you must temper that justice with a sense of reality. What would Black do if you cast this curse on him?”

“I suppose—he would go and—inform the Wizengamot?’

“Yes.”

“But that’s why I was going to have Harry cast it on him.”

“And Harry is willing to do so?”

Blaise nods once. “Harry was willing to use the despair spell on him, and that’s a lot less likely to cause suicide in the future than the Carving Spell is.”

“You cannot base your actions on predictions of how someone mad will act, and Black must have been mad, to follow Dumbledore’s orders the way he did and abandon his godson. I will begin coaching you on more subtle ways to achieve revenge. Ways that cannot be detected by a werewolf’s nose and will unfold over time, not suddenly, the way that a punishment like this would have.”

“But will it hurt him as much?”

Mother gives him a long, steady look. Blaise looks back. He wants to know, and the way Mother is hesitating makes him wonder if she knows that much about the spell herself.

Then Mother murmurs, “You cannot have pain as your main motivation,” and Blaise realizes she was waiting for him to recognize the problems with what he said. He scowls and digs in.

“I can have pain as my main motivation when it comes to someone like Black, who abandoned Harry.”

“And if other people hurt Harry in the future?”

“Then I’ll make them hurt, too. Or I’ll help Harry hurt them.”

“Think of the curse that you cast on Longbottom. Think of long-term pain as more worth doing than immediate pain, and long-term pain you are never caught for as the most worthwhile of all. You are thirteen, Blaise. You can begin to learn this lesson.”

“You never taught it to me.”

Mother shifts so that she’s looking directly at Blaise, and he can see her face without it being obscured by the sunlight shining through the window behind her. She looks at him with a kind of harsh wonder, and Blaise wonders if he wants to know what she’s thinking. He swallows.

“You have more of sadism than I knew,” Mother murmurs. “It is a surprise. I thought I knew you inside and out.”

Blaise thinks of the promise that he made to himself when he went under the Sorting Hat: that he will be great, and in a way that surpasses Mother.

“I still want to be the guardian of the Suns,” he says quickly. “I wouldn’t make everyone I killed for that suffer. But I want to be—I want to make the people who hurt the people I love hurt. If someone hunted you down and tried to do something to you, I would do the same thing to them. It’s not just Harry.”

Mother tilts her head as though watching a raindrop run down a window. “And why is it that you want to hurt them, instead of kill them? A dead enemy is no longer a threat.”

“Because they should have to live with the knowledge of what they did. They should hurt as much as they made the person I love hurt.”

Mother’s expression now is complex, but she says, “All right. I think I can teach you to control your desire for pain.”

Blaise still thinks that it’s not really a desire for pain as much as it is for respect, but he nods. “All right, Mother.”

“And the first lesson is not teaching the Carving Spell to Harry.”

“All right, Mother,” Blaise repeats, much less enthusiastically than the first time. He’s already promised Harry to teach him that curse, and he doesn’t look forward to the expression on Harry’s face if he breaks that promise.

On the other hand, maybe he can get Mother to help him explain it. She seems to resist Harry’s big, teary eyes better.

*

Neville wakes thrashing and gasping from the nightmare of Voldemort, and bends over, his hands clutching at his scar. When he lifts them up, he sees blood coating his palms, and shudders.

It takes him three tries to clear his throat enough to call, “Alissa?”

His favorite house-elf—named after his mother when he was a little boy and Gran added her to the household—appears without a sound. She looks at him with big green eyes and shakes her head. “Master Neville had another nightmare?”

“Yes. I—could you please bring me some lavender?”

“Master Neville needs something stronger.”

Neville shakes his head more strongly than Alissa’s shaken hers. “Lavender works the best, Alissa.” It really does. Something about the way he works with plants means his magic can get into them and empower them to act better than potions.

Or maybe that’s just because I’m hopeless at Potions.

Neville pushes the thought out of his head as Alissa vanishes and comes back with the small lavender plant that lives in the corner of the kitchens most of the time. Gran saw the plant in Neville’s bedroom years ago and told him to get rid of it, that he didn’t need the soothing effects. He was stronger than that. He was a Longbottom.

But right now, Neville is a shaken Longbottom. He bows his head and breathes the scent in, and he can feel the images of the nightmare blurring in his memory, retreating.

The images were a strange composite of a forest, and rats, and a striking basilisk, and a man walking through a door that looks like the door of the manor. Neville thinks he’s dreaming of Voldemort, but he doesn’t really know why or how. Why would those particular images show up, instead of something else?

If I’m dreaming of what he’s seeing right now, it should be just one picture.

But Neville doesn’t understand what happened to Voldemort the night he confronted Neville, no more than anyone does, so in the end he sighs and hands the lavender back to Alissa. He isn’t any wiser, but at least he’s calm.

And he manages to climb back into bed and fall asleep again immediately, which is all he wants from the world at the moment.

*

“I must have your word that you will tell no one else, Severus.”

“You will have it.”

Severus has become skilled at lying to Albus, over the years of their association. For example, he will promise Albus eventually not to tell anyone else of this, but he isn’t promising at the moment.

For now, because Albus hasn’t noticed or because he has his own motivations for agreeing, he simply nods and accepts Severus’s reassurance. “You know that there was a Dark artifact possessing a student this year and making her summon the basilisk…”

Severus listens without moving as Albus describes his various attempts to test the artifact and destroy it, his conclusion that it is a Horcrux, and that the Dark Lord made several. Severus is locking down his own reactions. He can open his mind like this and let the words pour in as if he is storing a memory in a Pensieve, and come up with various reactions to it later.

When Albus has run down, Severus asks one question. “Have you tried either Fiendfyre or basilisk venom? It seems to me that since Aradia Zabini destroyed the basilisk, she might have some on hand.”

Albus gives him a tired glance. “I will not cast such a Dark spell as Fiendfyre, Severus, not with the reputation it has for turning on its caster. I would have to practice many times in order to become skilled enough at controlling it to release it on the diary. And doing so would endanger my soul for an uncertain end.”

Severus keeps to himself the idea that casting a spell cannot endanger one’s soul, at least not when the person does not commit murder. “And the venom?”

Albus sighs and stares past him at the crackling fire. Severus remains quiet. Albus will share with him what he is thinking, or he will not.

Finally, reluctantly, Albus whispers, “I cannot—I cannot take the chance that she has corrupted the boy that thoroughly.”

“What?”

Albus starts and looks at Severus again, his face relaxing. “Pardon, my old friend. I was not—I wasn’t thinking about the fact that you were still here.”

“Ah. Private thoughts?”

“Indeed. Suffice it to say that I have my own reasons for not being able to ask Aradia Zabini for basilisk venom.”

“And looking abroad for it? Of course the Experimental Breeding Ban has put an end to any modern basilisks in Britain, but other countries still allow it, and as Supreme Mugwump, you might—”

Albus’s face has been growing increasingly tight as Severus spoke, and Severus isn’t really surprised when Albus cuts him off sharply. “No, Severus. I would never misuse my position in such a way.”

“Even to destroy the Dark Lord?”

“I wish you would call him by name, Severus.”

Severus just waits. Albus goes back to staring at the fire again, as if the flames hold an answer to his wretched moral dilemma.

“No,” Albus whispers at last. “There are—there are limits to what I am willing to do to stop Voldemort, lest I become like him. There must be. And opening myself up to political corruption or the blackening of my soul are two of them.” He shakes his head. “Corrupt, I would be far more dangerous than Voldemort.”

Severus excuses himself from the conversation then, after only a few more mild arguments of the kind that Albus would expect him to put forwards. Once he is back in his office, Severus picks up a glass of Firewhisky and stares at it fixedly until his hand stops shaking.

He knows, now, how the Dark Lord became immortal. Why he did not die the night that Mr. Longbottom defeated him. And if Albus is reluctant to pursue the path that he must to put an end to the Horcruxes, Severus certainly will do so.

For the sake of his debts. For the sake of the prophecy he revealed, and the young boy he is coming to see as braver than Severus thought he was.

For the sake of a green-eyed boy who will certainly be among the Dark Lord’s targets in the future.