[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Shattered Pieces of the Human, PG-13, gen, 4/6

[lomonaaeren]

I am very pleased that you have your third courtier, my heir.

That’s what the letter in the black envelope on his pillow the next morning says. Harry stares up at the canopy and screams in a low, thick voice.

“You are upset.”

“Yes,” Harry says, not bothering to conceal it from Basilisk. He tangles her around his fingers and burns the letter with a flash of wandless fire, the same way he did when he got one during the first weeks of summer.

“But he is proud of you.”

“I wish he wasn’t.”

Basilisk pauses, and their bond turns from red-orange to brilliant black. Harry starts. It’s a color that he’s never “felt” before, and he looks down at her in concern from where she is lifting her head to stare at him.

“Do you wish that you were not?”

Harry closes his eyes. He hasn’t thought about it in detail before. He just kept thinking there was no escape from this prison that being Voldemort’s son put him in, and wishing that things were less stressful and would change one way or the other.

But he didn’t really think about suicide, and he doesn’t now. If only because Voldemort would take it out on Draco, Theo, and others. Because his friends would miss him. Because Basilisk might die without the familiar bond—he isn’t sure—and he doesn’t want her to.

Because without him, there is no hope of defeating Voldemort.

“No,” he whispers at last. “I just—I wish I didn’t feel so bad.”

“You must change some things.”

“I know, but I can’t tell the secret, and I can’t abandon you or my Marked people, and I’m probably going to have to Mark Pansy Parkinson, the girl you smelled yesterday, since otherwise Voldemort would be upset with me—”

“You will change the people you can change.”

“What do you mean, Basilisk?”

“You should do less for the people who beg you to do things for them and are not your Marked. Or your friends,” Basilisk adds, although she sounds a little doubtful about that. Harry doesn’t think she understands the concept of “friends,” only those who are blood and those who are bonded. “Do not spend hours doing work that is no use. Only put a little effort into it. Do not practice so often with your flying-thing. You are good and do not need to practice that often. Think, instead.”

“I feel like all I do is think.”

“You must think enough to come to a decision. Good or bad, it will be a decision that ends things. And then we can relax.”

Harry gently strokes Basilisk’s scales. Of course. The constant stress must be hard on her, too, and on Draco and Theo. And if he really has to Mark other people and bond with them (ugh), then they’ll feel the same thing.

He’s doing everything for the good of other people. Making himself feel better isn’t selfish, Harry thinks as carefully and confidently as he can. He can afford to drop some of the effort that doesn’t matter all that much anyway.

If he’s Voldemort’s son and he can’t change that, then he has to put some of those—duties—ahead of things like schoolwork. Voldemort would probably pull some strings to make sure Harry can retake his NEWTS if he has to, the same way that he conjured a guardian from thin air for Harry to spend the holidays with.

Harry’s hand on Basilisk’s scales slows suddenly.

Is he going to spend Christmas with Voldemort?

What will that be like?

Harry swallows and sits up. The point is that he doesn’t have to think about it for a few weeks, and in the meantime, he can at least get rid of some of the everyday stresses, the ones Basilisk talked about.

“You’re so wise,” he tells her, and her bond becomes a series of dancing flickers of purple and green, self-satisfaction and glee.

“Of course I am. I am meant to be with you.”

*

“Well, this is somewhat unexpected, Mr. Potter.”

“I’m sorry, Professor,” Harry says, keeping his voice low and his head bowed as he lays the Quidditch Captain badge on Professor McGonagall’s desk. This will be easier if she thinks he’s really torn up about it. “I just can’t keep up Quidditch practice and supervising tryouts and also doing all my homework. I’m not doing that well in Potions, and if I want to be an Auror, I really need to keep up with it.”

If is doing a lot of work in that sentence, but McGonagall eats it up. Her face softens as she picks up the badge. “Of course, Mr. Potter. Your schoolwork must come first. May I assume that you will at least continue as the team’s Seeker?”

“Oh, yes, Professor. I just don’t need to attend practices as often because—well, honestly, I can fly better than almost anyone else in the school.”

“No need for false modesty, Mr. Potter. I would say anyone else in the school, and probably in history.”

Harry looks up at her with a pleased smile that he can’t hide. The flying talent is his, just his, he thinks. He certainly didn’t get it from his father, he couldn’t have got it from James Potter, and someone probably would have told him about it by now if his mum was a gifted flyer. “Yeah, thanks, Professor.”

“Who would you recommend as Captain in your place, Mr. Potter? I had thought of perhaps giving it to Mr. Weasley, but, frankly, his performance needs to improve.”

Harry nods fervently. He feels bad that Hermione probably Confunded Cormac McLaggen to get Ron on the team, but on the other hand, he has so many other things to worry about that it just didn’t register as something all that important. “I think Katie Bell deserves it, Professor. This is her last year, and she’s absorbed a lot of Oliver’s lessons.”

“Miss Bell it shall be.” Professor McGonagall writes something down on the parchment in front of her and then gives Harry a concerned look. “I do hope that this will increase your ability to focus on what is important, Mr. Potter.”

“I do, too, Professor.”

*

“You gave up being Quidditch Captain?”

“Yeah, but I’m still Seeker, Ron.”

“I’d kill to be Quidditch Captain!”

“Well, maybe next year,” Harry says, and turns his attention back to the Charms essay that he’s writing. He was worrying yesterday about making sure it’s in depth, but right now, he jots down not much more than he would have last year. Flitwick can maybe pull him aside later and give him a concerned lecture.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Ron seems happier after being reminded that he has one more year on the team, and Hermione looks calm and smug in a way that makes Harry surer than ever she cheated to get Ron on the team. But why does that matter? They don’t even know that their best friend is the son of their worst enemy.

Basilisk hisses softly from his bag. She’s taken to reminding him when he starts to stray into thinking about the future too much. Harry shakes his head and concentrates on the essay.

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“It sounded like something hissing.”

Harry sends a comforting, warning thought to Basilisk, and shakes his head a little. “Well, I didn’t do it. Who would I hiss to, anyway?”

“I—suppose.”

Ron and Hermione both eye him consideringly, but Harry asks a question about the Charms essay, and they get diverted. Harry feels a little bad about manipulating them, but it doesn’t seem to harm them.

And at this point, it’s hard to think of anyone around him who isn’t being manipulated in some way.

*

“It will be your task to get close to Professor Slughorn and retrieve the real memory.”

Or I could just ask my father, Harry thinks, slightly hysterically.

He stares at the Pensieve without answering Dumbledore’s declaration for a few moments, and then he looks up. “He’s not really close to me, sir. I mean, he’s disappointed that I’m not better in Potions, and he tells me that I need to be better, but he hasn’t invited me to his Slug Club or anything.”

“You must change that, Harry.”

Harry takes a deep breath. At this point, he doesn’t think that he can know what Dumbledore realizes and what he doesn’t. But his answer to the question will be interesting on grounds other than truth. “Why can’t you, sir? I know that you’re a good Legilimens, and Slughorn trusts and respects you a lot more than he does me—”

“Horace has his reasons not to trust me,” Dumbledore interrupts him. “He didn’t truly want to come back and teach at Hogwarts. He did it only because I convinced him he would be safer from Death Eaters here. But with the limited number of attacks, he’s begun making noises about leaving at the end of the year. Would you know anything about that, Harry?”

“Not really, sir. I told you I’m not close to Professor Slughorn.”

“I meant the limited number of attacks, Harry.”

Harry forms his hands into fists on his lap. Of course Dumbledore sees. But he doesn’t get upset or ask the question again. He simply waits, looking at Harry with the kind of patient scrutiny that isn’t anything but patient.

“I think Voldemort’s trying to show that he can be—some version of a good person,” Harry says, his tongue getting tangled behind his teeth. “He wants to convince me that he can hold his temper, or he doesn’t want to torture people, or something.” He laughs, then hears the way he sounds, and stops. “But of course, if I came over to his side, then he would just go right back to torturing and raiding and murdering, so it’s not even tempting. I only have power over him if I don’t come to his side.”

“I am glad you realize that, Harry. You know he would treat you like an object if you did?”

Harry nods. That, at least, he thinks is true. Voldemort might prize him and put him on a high shelf, but he doesn’t value Harry as a human.

“You would not be human any longer if you went over to Voldemort’s side.”

Harry jolts, wondering if Dumbledore was reading his mind, but the Headmaster goes on in an earnest tone that doesn’t really let Harry tell. “You would be little more than a glorified Death Eater. A bit more precious to him than some of the others, but subject to the same punishments for exercising your free will.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You do know this?”

“Yes, sir. He claims that he wants a son and heir, and he acts as if he was angry about the Dursleys for mistreating me, but he also tried to get me killed over the summer. And he forced me to work with Snape even though I didn’t want to, and he threatened other people to get me to cooperate—” Harry shakes his head, his throat thick with emotion. “He’s acting saner than he was, but it doesn’t mean he’s sane. Or has any idea about how to be a real father.”

“I am so glad to hear you say that, Harry,” Dumbledore murmurs, and gives him a proud smile. “I confess, I thought you would be tempted by the idea of family.”

“Remember what I saw in the Mirror of Erised, sir? That’s my idea of family. And even if I accept that Voldemort was the man who sired me and not James Potter, he still killed my mother.”

“Yes, that is very true.” Dumbledore pulls his glasses off to wipe them on his robe. “And he was the one ultimately responsible for your years of mistreatment at the hands of Muggles that he pretends to be so angry about.”

“Well, him and you, sir.”

There’s silence. Harry once again wants to slap himself, the way he did for blurting stupid things out of in front of Voldemort. You should remember that even if he has your best interests at heart, this won’t make him inclined to protect them.

“Harry.”

Dumbledore’s voice is deep and grieved, his eyes fastened on Harry. Harry takes a deep breath and lives in the world that he made when he uttered those words, half-shrugging. “It’s true, sir. You took me there.”

“I never thought they would abuse you thus.”

“You said last year that there would be, you thought there would be, ten dark and difficult years. Are you saying you didn’t really believe that, sir?”

“Not dark or difficult in the specific way that you suffered, no.”

“That’s just semantics,” Harry says, exhausted. Then he wants to slap himself again, because semantics is a Hermione word—or, more accurately at this point, a Theo word. All he needs is for Dumbledore to start wondering about who he’s spending time with. “But you put me there, and you knew I would suffer, and I did.”

“I am sorry for it, my boy. Do you think Voldemort will ever be sorry for what he inflicts on you?”

At least Harry knows better than to talk about the sort of half-apologies he’s sometimes got from Voldemort. Or that Voldemort probably thinks killing the Dursleys and torturing Hagrid is some sort of apology. He leans back and shakes his head a little. “Tell me something.”

“If I can.”

“If the Dursleys were still alive and their house still existed, would you have sent me back there this summer?”

Dumbledore’s silence is answer enough. Harry grabs his bag and stands.

“Please, Harry, do not let an argument with me turn you against our side of the war. You know that I still wish to protect people, which is not what Voldemort wants to do. You know there is still a clear difference between us.”

Harry pauses as he’s about to leave the office. He turns around. The Headmaster is leaning forwards as if he’s about to rise from his seat. Fawkes is watching Harry with uneasy eyes.

“Yes, there’s a difference,” Harry says quietly. “Voldemort wants to protect me, but would be happy if lots of other people died. Or he just wouldn’t care. You want to protect lots of other people, but you don’t want to protect me.”

“Harry—”

“Good-bye, sir.”

Harry walks out of the office and takes the moving staircase down with his eyes shut more than half the time.

This is the best method he can think of to warn Dumbledore that Voldemort is trying to win Harry over to his side with the temptation of family.

If Dumbledore doesn’t do anything about it, that’s his problem.

*

“We won’t be able to do the exact same kind of Marking here that we did during the summer.”

“That doesn’t matter, my lord.”

Theo has been walking beside Harry, his voice and eyes quiet and clever and quick, since Harry left Gryffindor Tower under his Invisibility Cloak. At least one Gryffindor must have challenged a Slytherin for being so near the Fat Lady, but Theo ignored them, if so.

Or else he Memory Charmed them, and they came back into the Tower none the wiser. Harry wouldn’t put it past Theo.

“Why doesn’t it matter?” he asks, dragging his mind back to the conversation happening with Theo instead of the multiple arguments that he might have in his head about things.

“Because we have a room that’s been used for rituals before, and you know the spell, and Draco and I shared our experiences with Pansy. She’s as prepared as she can be to be Marked when she never has been.”

“Does she want to be?”

Theo pauses at the top of a staircase to give him a chiding look. “My lord, you know the truth about that by now.”

“There’s a difference between wanting to be Marked by me specifically and just wanting to avoid a worse fate.”

“And sometimes they are the same,” Theo says, and keeps walking down, leaving Harry to sigh and pull the Cloak’s hood over his face. He can’t afford to be spotted now, whereas it wouldn’t be a big problem for Theo.

They go down further into the dungeons than Harry knew corridors existed. They reach a door at last that makes Harry jump when he sees it. It’s not just that it’s made of iron and set deep in the stone. It’s that he can feel the Darkness radiating from it the way he did from some objects in Malfoy Manor.

“My lord.”

Parkinson takes a step out of the darkness and performs an odd gesture to him, holding up the hem of her robes. It takes a long moment for Harry to realize that she’s curtseying, because his brain stalls on the word. He just gapes at her, and Parkinson blinks at him and then at Theo.

“Has he changed his mind about accepting me?” she asks Theo.

“Of course not. One thing we know about our lord, he can never turn away a hopeless case.”

Harry turns around and scowls at Theo, jolted out of his preoccupation. Theo winks at him and then steps up to the iron door. He holds his hands towards it. A second later, Parkinson and Draco join him, repeating the gesture.

“We have come to bring Pansy Parkinson into a lord’s fold,” Theo says, his voice sounding like he’s reciting a poem.

The door seems to hesitate for a long moment, although Harry doesn’t think it’s sentient. At least, he really hopes not. But then it clicks open, and Harry shivers even harder in the flood of cold air that comes from beyond it.

“You must lead the way into the room, my lord.”

Theo’s face is solemn, and already it seems to be lit by the flickering shadows of fire, although Harry can’t see any light from beyond the door. He ends up biting his lip, nodding, and stepping into the room.

He shivers so hard that he wonders if he’ll be able to conduct the ritual. The next moment, though, fire springs into being on the torches that crowd the walls and in a fireplace that stands on the wall opposite the door. Harry finds himself holding out his hands before he even knew he was going to do it.

Then he looks around at the actual other things in the room.

There’s a carving in each wall that seems to be a circle elaborated different ways: with rings around it, with a pentagram inside it, and so on. And there’s a similar circle in the floor. Harry walks over to it, staring.

The circle is covered with runes that look a little like some of the ones Harry has seen on Hermione’s homework. The outside of the circle is bright and harsh with red lines and circles and triangles. Harry bites his lip and steps back from it. Magic seems to trail him, crackling along his skin like static electricity.

“You must empower the circle, my lord.”

Theo’s voice is low and spooky enough to make Harry jump. He turns around and looks a little accusingly back and forth between Theo, Draco, and Parkinson. “This isn’t like the ritual we did at Malfoy Manor at all.”

“The circle was already empowered there,” Theo says, although his eyes flash a little, maybe because he thinks Harry shouldn’t have mentioned Malfoy Manor in front of Parkinson. “This is different, but you can do it, my lord. And it requires willingness and acceptance more than anything else.”

“On both our parts.”

“Of course on both our parts,” Parkinson says. She shakes her cloak back and then kneels in the center of the circle. Harry never even saw her step across the outside of it. She stays with her eyes fastened on him. “I’m ready, as soon as you empower the circle.”

Harry is shivering. He wonders in a ringing part of his mind if he really hoped this wouldn’t happen. Even though he came here prepared to do it.

His voice is thin as he says, “I don’t know how to do that.”

“Let me show you, my lord.”

Theo kneels in front of Harry, between him and the outer limit of the circle. He holds up his wand and cuts the side of his arm. Harry starts forwards with a little cry, but Theo shakes his head impatiently, and Harry hesitates.

“Command my blood to flow into the circle,” Theo says, eyes fastened on Harry. “You can do it, my lord. Harry. Draw on our bond, and say that my blood must obey you. It will do so. I obey you in all things.”

Except for thinking about how I don’t want to do this…

But Harry takes a deep breath, because otherwise Theo will just go on bleeding, and that is not acceptable. He concentrates on the vassal bond that links him to Theo, and sure enough, the blood flows away from Theo’s arm and pours into the circle incised in the stone.

It catches on fire. It shimmers softly, with shades of red and gold, and Harry swallows and turns to Parkinson.

She smiles at him. She seems a little tentative, but Harry can’t blame her for that. “I am ready, my lord.”

Okay. Okay.

Harry steps forwards and lowers his wand to rest on Parkinson’s arm. When he concentrates, he thinks he can feel the same heavy sort of magic that was present in the ritual room at Malfoy Manor. He didn’t know that was part of an empowered circle, or whatever. He just thought it was—well, natural.

He hisses, “Morsmordre leonis.”

Parkinson makes a low, rough sound of pain as the Mark forms on her arm. Harry keeps his mind focused on the good things he can do for her, how he can help save her from the life that her father tried to make her take up.

Then the bond springs to life between Parkinson’s mind and his. It’s bright, ringing like a Galleon dropped on a stone floor, and—

“Harry!”

Harry jumps and spins around. Ron and Hermione are standing in the entrance to the ritual room, their eyes so wide that it looks as if they’re distorting the skin of their faces.

“What are you doing?” Hermione whispers.