[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Shattered Pieces of the Human, PG-13, gen, 6/7

[lomonaaeren]

Ron and Hermione both glare at him the next morning, in betrayal so deep and thick that Harry turns his head away.

“I could bite them.”

“No biting.”

“But they deserve it. Now they are more useless than ever.”

“At least I don’t have to keep the secret from them any longer,” Harry murmurs as he lifts Basilisk into his bag, and ignores the fact that he’s still keeping his familiar secret from them.

“But I could bite them.”

“No.”

Ron and Hermione walk out of the portrait hole in front of him, distant enough that no one can mistake they had an argument. Harry sighs after them, and finds himself walking into the Great Hall beside Neville.

“What happened?” Neville asks, eyes darting between Harry and his friends. Former friends, maybe. At this point, Harry has no real name for what they are to him, or what he wishes they would be.

“We had an argument.”

“Oh, really?”

Harry smiles a little. Neville is much more confident and brave and sarcastic than he was in first year, and even though Harry doesn’t intend to tell Neville the truth behind what happened, it’s nice to spend some time with him.

“Yeah.” Harry sits down in front of his plate at the Gryffindor table and slips a few pieces of scrambled egg up to Basilisk, still Disillusioned on his shoulder. He’s less worried about Neville seeing them disappear than he would be with Hermione. “But this time, I don’t know if it’ll be repaired.”

Neville is quiet enough that Harry glances at him as he sips his tea. Neville is frowning, his eyes darting back and forth between Harry and Ron and Hermione. Ron and Hermione aren’t hiding their glares in Harry’s direction, although they don’t whisper loudly enough to be overheard. They literally can’t, according to Theo.

“I don’t think that I’ve seen the thing the three of you can’t come back from. You came back from the arguments you had in third year and fourth.”

“Those were third year and fourth.”

“So this has something to do with our being older now?”

“You could say that.” Harry finishes the tea and starts on his eggs, ignoring Basilisk’s soft hissing for more. She at least can’t hiss any more loudly, or she’ll attract attention.

“Care to drop a bloke a hint?”

Harry sighs and wipes his mouth with his napkin. “I kept something from them because someone else practically ordered me to. They found out last night. They’re betrayed by the secret and betrayed by the fact that I kept it from them.”

Neville’s eyebrows rise, and he shoots a quick glance in Dumbledore’s direction. Yeah, that would make sense, Harry thinks. Maybe he can use the Headmaster as an excuse. “Would they really expect you to betray the secrets…this person ordered you to hold onto?”

“One of the secrets is a pretty awful one.”

“Where you were this summer?”

Harry gapes at Neville. Neville snorts at him and shakes his head as he pours himself another cup of tea. “I heard Hermione complaining weeks ago that they still didn’t know. And if they found out and thought it was awful, then I could see them reacting like this.”

“Yeah,” Harry says at last. “It has something to do with that.”

Neville nods and sips his tea. “Then I’m not going to ask you to confess the secret to me, when you won’t do it for Ron or Hermione, either.” He taps his finger on the table next to Harry. “But consider whether you have to give up the friendship with them forever.”

“At this point, it’s much more about whether they want to stay friends with me.”

Neville’s eyes say that he doesn’t entirely believe that, but he just nods and politely pretends, finally gathering up the last of his breakfast in a napkin as he hurries out the door. Harry leans back and looks up at the professors for lack of a better place to look. The Gryffindor and the Slytherin tables are both painful for right now.

He meets Dumbledore’s eye. Dumbledore nods to him somberly.

I’ll get another summons for a lesson tonight, Harry thinks gloomily, and swallows his tea before he stands.

“I want to go with you to the lesson.”

“No,” Harry hisses, concealing the sound under a clatter of Ravenclaw third-years leaving the Great Hall.

“But I want to bite him.”

At least arguing with Basilisk about whether she can bite Dumbledore or not occupies him so that he doesn’t feel too bad walking by himself to Potions. And when Theo and Draco and Pansy slide into the chairs around him, he stops feeling so alone.

Maybe he shouldn’t, just like he shouldn’t trust Voldemort’s word that he won’t torture or kill Ron and Hermione. But it’s the way things are.

*

“You seem to have had a falling-out with Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley, Harry.”

“Yeah.”

Basilisk really wanted to come, and Harry almost wishes that he’d brought her, because he could use the sense of her bond that’s only so clear when she’s with him. But there’s too much chance that Dumbledore would see her.

Dumbledore waits. The fire flickers and dances on the hearth. Harry stares stolidly at the desk. He’s not as tired as he used to be, but part of him has cooled and hardened like stone—or lava from a volcano. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, is going to have it anyway, and the thought no longer panics him.

“What happened?” Dumbledore finally asks, in such a heavy, resigned tone that Harry wants to wince. But he doesn’t do it.

He leans back in his chair and looks at Dumbledore. “Ron and Hermione found out.”

“And they are not pleased?”

Dumbledore is phrasing it so delicately that Harry almost laughs. “No. They said that maybe I had to go along to survive during the summer, but now that I’m back in school, I should stop having anything to do with Slytherins. And maybe it would have been better for me to die. I don’t know. They weren’t very clear about that.”

Dumbledore intently leans forwards over the desk. “And what do you think?”

“I told them that I couldn’t abandon people whose lives Voldemort had threatened during the summer just because we were back at school. I said—”

“You could, Harry. If you decided that other things were worth more.”

Harry narrows his eyes and studies the Headmaster. Is this some kind of test? Is he waiting for Harry to cross a line or talk about how a line can’t be crossed, and then waiting to see if he agrees with Harry about them?

“No,” Harry says, when he’s given up on being able to tell from Dumbledore’s unblinking stare. “I couldn’t abandon them.”

“Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.” Dumbledore’s voice is soft, his eyes focused like Harry hasn’t seen since they started doing the memory-lessons. “I know that Mr. Weasley told you that once.”

“In chess, yeah. This isn’t chess.”

“No. It is a much larger, more dangerous, and more important game.”

Harry doesn’t answer.

“If it turned out that I could offer the Slytherins you are so concerned about shelter and safety,” Dumbledore goes on, his hands clenching the desk, “would you be able to stop protecting them in the way you clearly are?”

“They wouldn’t take it.”

“Why is that?”

Harry studies Dumbledore, but finally decides that even if he has an idea about why that’s the case, he’s not about to show it. Harry says, “Because they don’t trust that you won’t make demands of them, like having them become spies.”

Dumbledore is silent. Fawkes makes a low croon from his perch that gets them both to look at him, but by then, Fawkes is just preening his feathers with single-minded concentration.

Dumbledore faces Harry again. “I would not have made such demands of children.”

It’s his summer, and the training he’s received at the hands of all sorts of Slytherins, that lets Harry say, “And what about the ones that won’t be children? Most of the Slytherins will turn seventeen this year, and the ones who won’t will come of age during the summer. Would you still consider them children for the purposes of this conversation?”

Dumbledore exhales shakily and lifts his hand to his eye. Maybe he’s knuckling away a tear. Maybe he isn’t. “It does sadden me, Harry, that you trust Voldemort over me, and the Slytherins who cluster around the Dark Lord’s heir over your friends.”

“At this point, I don’t know how much it is about trust. It’s about who can help me protect the most people.”

“I would protect more than Voldemort would.”

“Would making them into spies protect them?”

“It would ensure that they could help defend others.”

Harry shrugs. “Some of them would choose that.” His mind is full of Theo flushed with delight at having put that spell on Ron and Hermione. Then again, he’s not sure Theo would choose defending other people instead of just defending Harry. “Some of them wouldn’t, and they shouldn’t be forced to.”

“I am not talking about forcing them. But this war will leave no one alone. Everyone should participate to their fullest capacity.”

“And why would being spies be their fullest capacity?”

Dumbledore is silent and still. He seems to be staring beyond Harry and at him at the same time. Harry glances down at his hands. He’s telling the truth as far as it goes, but he doesn’t think his Occlumency—such as it is—is good enough to defend against the Headmaster’s Legilimency.

“There is little else that they could do,” Dumbledore whispers at last. “I do not think they would step onto a battlefield, or participate in getting the younger students to safety in the event of an attack on Hogwarts—”

“How do you know? Have you asked them?”

“If they are unwilling to spy, why would they be willing to do that?”

Harry leans forwards. “Because spying is more dangerous? They might be willing to defend their own lives, but not take those lives into their own hands for the sake of scraps of information.”

“You are deeply committed to defending these students whom you did not know that well before this summer, Harry. In particular, I remember your not getting along well with Mr. Draco Malfoy.”

Harry takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Voldemort played on my sympathies by pointing out how easily they could be in danger, sir. In particular, he might have Marked them as Death Eaters. Yeah, I wanted to protect them. Which means not asking them to spy.”

“And why have you chosen this allegiance over your longer allegiance to your friends?”

“Because they’re not in as much danger.”

“I am—somewhat surprised to hear you say that, given everything,” Dumbledore says slowly, still as if he’s a unicorn picking his way over a field of broken glass. “After all, Miss Granger faces blood prejudice and attacks from Death Eaters simply because of who she is.”

“And Parkinson and Malfoy and Nott face being used by Voldemort and their parents. At least Hermione has supportive parents. I wouldn’t wish the kinds of parents they have on anyone.”

“Although you have one yourself?”

Harry laughs, quietly, bitterly. It’s not even an effort, remembering what happened with Voldemort last night. “I have one who’s fascinated because of my newness. If he knew I was his son from the time I was a baby, he would probably be doing the exact same thing to me, or worse. As it is, he’s promised not to kill or torture Ron or Hermione for knowing this secret, because I asked.”

“And what did you have to promise in return?”

“That I would be happy.”

Dumbledore pauses. Harry doesn’t think this is entirely odd to him, but he does seem to think that Harry would have had to promise something more elaborate. Harry just stares at Dumbledore. His Occlumency is pitiful. Dumbledore ought to know that he’s telling the truth.

“And if your happiness costs the world a great deal?” the Headmaster whispers at last.

Harry’s impatience and exasperation overflows and pours out of his mouth. “Why is it my happiness that would cost the world everything? Why not Snape’s? Why not Ron or Hermione’s? I’m making the best choices that I can in an impossible situation! You want me to somehow make things better and get along with everyone while also not wavering or faltering. Ron and Hermione can whimper all they want about how they would never go along with Voldemort, but they aren’t his children, either, or the Boy-Who-Lived! Snape can whimper about how much he hates my d—James Potter, but I’m not even his son, so why should I care about Snape? You can whimper at me about how everything I want costs too much, but you aren’t making a move yourself to actually help the Slytherins. You didn’t rescue me this summer. You sent me to the Dursleys.”

“Harry—”

“I just want an answer to my question, Headmaster. Why is my happiness the only one that’s costly?”

“It is not,” the Headmaster says at last, in a whisper so deep and low that Harry thinks he feels it vibrating in his bones. “But it is the only one that the world may not be able to afford.”

Harry breathes for a moment. Then he realizes he’s doing the same thing Voldemort asked him to do in the dream last night, and almost laughs. He stands up. “All right, sir. Thank you for clarifying that.”

“I would ask you to stay, Harry, so that we can discuss what we are to do about your friends.”

“There’s no problem with that, sir. They won’t be able to tell anyone that I’m Voldemort’s son, so the secret is preserved.”

“Harry—”

“I didn’t want to make these choices, but I made them.”

“Please send Professor Snape to me.”

Harry steps through the door of the Headmaster’s office, glancing over his shoulder. Dumbledore looks broken, a hand over his eyes. Fawkes is watching Harry still, and gives a sorrowful little chirrup.

Harry nods back, more to the phoenix than the Headmaster, and shuts the door behind him.

*

“Should we be worried that Snape is meeting more often with the Headmaster?”

Harry shrugs and steps back, focusing his eyes on the dueling target in front of him. One of the good consequences of Ron and Hermione finding out about Harry’s heritage is that he can slip away to spend time with the Slytherins more often now. Ron and Hermione were the only ones beside his courtiers that he talked with on a regular basis or who kept track of him. Even if some of them notice the breach, like Neville, they’re not following Harry around or asking for explanations.

“I don’t know. Dumbledore hasn’t called me back for a meeting since—you know the one.”

“The immensely satisfying one.”

“I don’t know if my having an argument with the Headmaster is all that impressive, Theo. Or that good.”

Theo gives Harry a complicated smile with something dark underneath it, but honestly, since when do Theo’s smiles not have something dark underneath them? “You showed us the memory. You know what I think of it.”

Yes, Harry does. Theo is pleased that someone defended him “for once,” as he puts it, even though Harry didn’t mention a lot about Theo’s individual circumstances. Theo has taken to floating Harry’s books along in the corridors when no one’s there to see them and also to hexing other Slytherins who apparently sneer about Harry’s Potions performance in their common room.

Harry has come to accept that he probably can’t stop it, and also that he has other things to worry about. That seems to please Theo even more.

“Again, my lord. You were a little slow with the last one.”

“I was talking to Theo, Pansy,” Harry complains, but he raises his wand and shuffles into place across from the target they’ve been using. The Room of Requirement produces good ones, human-like enough to practice with and different enough from humans that it’s not disturbing to hit them.

“And in a duel, will that excuse be good enough?”

Harry starts to answer, but then he feels the change in the air behind him, and he drops and rolls on the soft, cushiony mat that the Room of Requirement has covered the floor with.

Pansy and Draco have both cast spells at him. They meet in midair and clash, sending out a ripple of blue and golden light that Pansy and Draco both duck. It reminds Harry just a tiny bit of the Priori Incantatem effect that happens when spells from his and Voldemort’s wands connect.

But not much like it.

“What are you doing?” Harry demands, forcing his way back to his feet and glaring at them.

Pansy smiles at him, while Draco lingers behind her, peeking over her shoulder at Harry. Harry has the distinct impression that Draco will claim credit for the idea if Harry likes it, and won’t if Harry doesn’t. “We think that you need to learn how to duel against multiple opponents, my lord. The Order of the Phoenix likes to do that kind of thing in battle.”

Harry has to swallow several times before he can get past the notion of fighting Order members. Like Dumbledore. Like Sirius. “And attacking me without warning is the way to get me used to that?”

“You managed to duck,” Draco says. “And I’m impressed, because we cast silently.”

Yeah, he’s claiming credit for a share of the idea. Harry rubs the back of his neck and frowns a little. “Well, I felt the energy building in the air. The spell energy?” he adds, when Pansy and Draco both stare at him. “The magic that you use to cast the spells?”

Merlin, this is going to be embarrassing if it turns out to be another freakish Harry Potter-Gaunt thing and no one else can feel the energy.

Theo laughs quietly. He’s lounging against the wall of the Room, his eyes so bright that Harry finds it hard to look at him. “I told you that our lord is a remarkable lord,” he says. “And that it wouldn’t work.”

“So normal people can’t sense that kind of thing?”

“Don’t use the word normal, my lord.” Theo glares at him. “It’s an uncommon ability. And I would want you to hone it before trying to rely on it in battle. You might have been able to sense it from Pansy and Draco so well because they’re your courtiers. We’ll work until you can identify it from enemies and strangers, too.”

Harry bites his lip and nods. Then he decides he wants to jab back a little. “Did you not join in with them because you were being a distraction, Theo?”

“I can’t cast magic at you, my lord,” Theo says very softly. “Except if I were using it to save your life, or heal you, or the like. My bond is different from the bonds of others.” He shrugs, his tone holding something like wistfulness, but his expression and the bond are both smug. “My loyalty to you runs too deep. Unlike some other people’s.”

Harry opens his mouth, and then closes it again, because he doesn’t know what to say.

“Oh, fuck off, Nott,” Draco is snapping. “Not all of us had the ability to trust in a lord right away.”

“I was talking about Weasley and Granger, Draco, but if you have anything you want to disclose, please do so.”

“You’re such a wanker, Nott.”

Harry feels a smile cross his face as he watches Theo and Draco argue. Maybe it shouldn’t, maybe he should just act as though he’s the stern lord and above it all, but he can’t help it.

“You’re good for us.”

Harry blinks at Pansy, who has come up to stand beside him, but who’s looking at Theo and Draco arguing instead of him. “For your dueling practice and protection?”

“And for us as people.” Pansy tilts her head at him, her smile sad, but the look in her dark eyes as hard as granite. “I told you about Draco not smiling like himself in a year, but now he does, all the time. He laughed at a joke Crabbe made in the common room the other day, and he hasn’t laughed much in the last year, either.”

“Crabbe makes jokes?”

Pansy ignores that. “And Theo has relaxed. He was always on the edge of violence before. Simmering with it. There were people three years older than him who avoided him because they thought that he would lash out any second. Now he’s calmed down and he can be around other people without scaring them. Especially the firsties.”

“Do—do other Slytherins know where these changes come from?”

“Not everyone’s put it together yet, and Theo and Draco haven’t approached anyone as openly as they approached me. But it will come.”

Harry rubs his forehead. “I don’t think all of them can possibly be in situations as bad as yours, right? I mean, not all of them will have parents who are pressuring them to serve Vol—the Dark Lord.”

Pansy, who’s tensed like she’s about to flinch, settles down and smiles a little. “No, but some of them might simply want the power.”

“The power of—following someone else?”

“There are different kinds of power, Harry. If you think that Theo is powerless, then I’m amazed you’ve survived as his lord.”

Harry shakes his head. “It’s not the same as independence and not having obligations. Following your own will.”

“None of us have that luxury.” Pansy folds her arms. “We owe each other too much, or our family owes other families. I know that you might not be happy with this, but believe me, you’re not crushing the dreams of anyone who wanted to stand on their own. If someone does manage that, they wouldn’t approach you to serve you in the first place.”

Harry nods slowly. “Thanks, Pansy. You’re a great courtier.”

She actually blushes a little, something that Harry doesn’t think he’s seen her do in six years of sharing classes with her, and gives a little curtsey to him. “Thank you, my lord. Now, let’s interrupt Draco and Theo’s argument so we can do some more dueling practice.”

And they do so, and Harry feels something foreign welling up in him. It’s so foreign that it takes him some time to really recognize it.

Happiness. He’s feeling it again.

Voldemort is going to be happy, too, he thinks, but for once, the thought holds no fear or resentment.