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lomonaaeren“You could have got all Outstandings if you tried.”
“I was busy!”
“Not busier than I was, and I got all Outstandings!”
“Oh, except for Runes.”
“Boys.”
Theo jerked around. Father was standing in the doorway of the dining room, his eyes full of amusement as he looked at them. But he held out his good hand, and it was clear what he was asking for.
Theo put his OWL results in his father’s hand with no sense of shame. One Exceeds Expectations was nothing to be ashamed of. And he only hadn’t concentrated as much on Runes because there had been an exceedingly demanding Arithmancy project due the same week that he would have studied for it.
Father looked over the marks, nodding and sometimes pursing his lips. Then he looked up. “I am extraordinarily proud of you, Theo,” he said softly.
“Thank you, Father.”
“And you, Harry?”
Theo felt an odd sense of peace when Harry also put his marks straight into Father’s hands. Technically, maybe Black should have had more right to look at them, but he was a fun guardian instead of one who would see the importance of academics, the way Father was.
“I notice two marks that are less than Outstanding here. Why is that?”
“Theo handles the Arithmancy.”
Father paused, then snorted. “So you are saying that you didn’t feel the need to study Arithmancy as much because you presume that Theo will be handling it for you in the future as you move forwards?”
“Yes, Eustace.”
“And why the Exceeds Expectations in Astronomy?”
“The stars aren’t interesting.”
Father snorted again and folded up the scroll, tossing it easily back to Harry. Theo wondered if he was the only one who saw the way that Father’s face momentarily tightened with the pain of his cursed arm swinging a little back and forth. “Do you plan to take NEWT Astronomy?”
“No, sir.”
“I do prefer it when you call me Eustace, Harry.” Father took a step towards the dining room, and then paused to look over his shoulder towards Harry. “Keep in mind that there may be many things that you find uninteresting in the future, but which will still be useful. Although I will admit, as someone who took NEWT Astronomy myself, I never found much use for it.”
Harry’s expression darted across his face like the Fiendfyre had darted at the Horcruxes. “Yes, Eustace.”
Father nodded and walked over to take his usual place at the head of the table. Theo sat down next to Harry feeling a little shocked. How could Father say that NEWT Astronomy wasn’t useful and encourage Harry in his reckless pursuit of disregarding knowledge? It was knowledge!
“You look as if a house-elf gave you a sour apple, Theo.”
Theo cleared his throat. “I suppose that—I hadn’t expected you to encourage us to drop classes, Father.”
Father shook his head as he began to put scones his plate. Theo eyed him and noticed how often he was using his left hand instead of the right. “You have had little choice in your studies up until this point, with the exception of the classes that you began in your third year. Outside of school, the case is different, and if you picked up a useful study, I would expect you to pursue it until you could coherently describe why it was not of use. But while you are still in school, its being boring and a class you did not choose is enough.”
Theo thought about it, then reluctantly nodded to concede Father’s point. Then he turned to Harry. “I still got more Outstandings than you did—did you just stick out your tongue at me?”
“No.”
“You did, Harry! I saw it!”
“You got one more Outstanding than I did. And you weren’t planning to continue NEWT Astronomy, either.”
“That’s only because Sinistra is a boring professor and hasn’t been able to meet Father’s standard of coherently describing a subject’s usefulness in the five years we’ve studied under here. I never said that I planned not to study it on my own.”
“No, you never did.”
Theo narrowed his eyes, but the possibilities for retaliation were limited when he was sitting at the same table as both Father and Harry. He tried to kick Harry in the shin, missed, and then went back to contemplating his own plate.
In truth, he hadn’t really planned to keep up with his Astronomy studies. He meant what he’d said to Harry about the boredom he’d experienced in Sinistra’s classes, and Astronomy wasn’t useful to his short-term goals of helping Harry destroy Voldemort or Father escape the curse. Or any long-term ones that Theo could think of beyond that, honestly.
But now he had said that he would study it. And he was honor-bound to keep his word.
Out of the corner of his eye, Theo saw Harry snickering, and this time, managed to kick him in the shin.
*
“Harry!”
Harry blinked and looked up. He and Theo had come to Diagon Alley more to buy quills, ink, parchment, and new books than the ones they would need for their NEWT classes, since Eustace had had copies of most of those already. But it had turned into a longer trip than they’d planned on, of course, the instant they got near Flourish and Blotts, and now Hermione was running up to them, waving frantically.
“Merlin give me patience,” Harry heard Theo mutter, before he turned and disappeared behind a shelf.
Harry rolled an eye towards him and muttered, “Traitor,” under his breath, then turned to greet Hermione. Ron was trailing behind her, looking around for—Harry didn’t know who, actually. Maybe he wanted to make sure he wouldn’t have to make conversation with Theo.
That was the last thing Theo wanted, too, so at least in this, their goals were complementary. Harry considered telling Ron that, then discarded the idea. He didn’t need to endure that whinging.
“How have you been?” Hermione chirped, hugging him. Harry hugged her back, relieved that some of the awkwardness between them appeared to have been left behind in last term. Then Hermione stepped back and promptly brought it back by lowering her voice and asking, “Have you joined the Order of the Phoenix yet?”
“I don’t want to, and Dumbledore doesn’t want me to,” Harry said crisply, before turning and shaking Ron’s hand.
Hermione’s lips pinched shut, but Ron spoke without looking at her, maybe thinking that he could go on to a different subject now that she’d raised the first one. “Did you see the book that Snape assigned?”
Harry blinked. “Snape?”
“The Headmaster let it slip to mum and dad. Snape is going to be our new Defense professor.”
Harry stared incredulously. He couldn’t imagine how that was going to work, when Snape had to provide instruction to the students that was a lot more direct and nuanced than he did in Potions. On the other hand, maybe he would just scream “Dunderhead!” at them and refuse to explain, as usual.
More to the point, Harry wasn’t sure how it would work when he and Snape had only got along in the last few years by ignoring each other.
At least it explained the more practical nature of the book that was the only one he and Theo had had to buy for Hogwarts.
“Who’s going to be the Potions professor?” Hermione was bouncing lightly in place and had her hands clenched around the top of a satchel that already seemed to be bulging with books. “That’s what I’m worried about. NEWT Potions class is intense! If we don’t have a good instructor, we might not manage to get a good job at the Ministry, or become Healers for students who want to do that, or—oh, all sorts of things!”
Harry smiled a little at her, glad that she had moved on from the subject of the Order. “Maybe they’ll bring back someone who retired.”
“I think the only retired Professor who’s still alive is—oh! Professor Slughorn! I read about him! He invented…”
Harry nodded along to Hermione’s words. He had read about Professor Slughorn, too, or at least about a well-known Potions brewer from the Slughorn family. He didn’t think it really mattered which one.
He was much busier trying to decide if Potions being a better class made up for Defense being worse.
Eventually, Theo couldn’t hide behind the shelves anymore, and stepped out to greet Ron and Hermione with a slight grimace. They both gave him uncomfortable glances and said nothing. Harry sighed.
“Let’s go get ice cream,” he said, in the belief that that would both lessen the awkwardness and make it harder for people to argue when their mouths were full.
No one had any fault to find with that, and Ron and Hermione scampered ahead to the ice cream shop. Theo kept pace with Harry as they walked up Diagon Alley’s main street behind them. They would have to go the bookshops in Knockturn Alley later.
“I don’t know how you stand them,” Theo said in a low voice.
“I don’t have so many friends that I want to give them up.”
Theo considered that, then nodded. Harry knew that Theo would probably say that he didn’t have any friends himself, except maybe Padma Patil. Both Theo and Harry had put each other in a different category since the first kiss they’d shared.
“Even though you can’t trust them with half of the things we’re doing and they dislike me for being a Death Eater’s son…”
“I just keep things compartmentalized,” Harry said. “But not for you. You always know what I’m doing.”
Theo had a self-satisfied smile on his face as he pulled Harry to a stop to kiss him. And if it was in the middle of Diagon Alley and a few people passing stared or gawked in outrage, that mattered less than joining the Order to Harry.
Theo broke away with a dark look in his eyes that made Harry bite his lip. Very soon, he thought, he’d be ready for more than just kissing.
“Mate! Come on!”
Harry rolled his eyes a little at the way Ron had spoken that left Theo out, then grabbed his boyfriend’s hand and dragged him off for half an hour of eating ice cream with a martyred expression.
*
“You are not to worry about me, Theo.”
“Of course I worry about you, Father.”
Theo kept his voice low. They were on the platform in front of the Hogwarts Express, with clouds of steam from the train swirling around them. Black and Harry had left them alone for a private good-bye. Theo stared, despite himself, at the shimmer of the illusion around Father’s hand that hid his curse from those who had no need to see such weakness.
Father gripped his shoulder, hard, with his good hand. Theo blinked and looked up.
“I mean that you are not to worry so much it disrupts your studies,” Father said, voice low, eyes blazing. “Or even troubles your relationship with Harry, or other things you may wish to do. I am immensely proud of you, Theo. You have become the young man I always thought you were, and I mourn the most that your mother is not alive to see it.”
Theo’s eyes stung, which was horrific, given that they were in public. He settled for leaning forwards and embracing his father. And if someone thought that was strange when they were Eustace Nott the Terrible Death Eater and Theodore His Indifferent Ravenclaw Son, they could bugger off.
Father drew back at last, shaking his head. “Go, before I beg you to stay.”
Theo bit his lip, wanting to say he would, but he knew that he didn’t really want to, and neither did Father, no matter what he might say in the impulse of the moment. He waved, and then he ran and sprang onto the Express.
His last sight was of Father with his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes steady on Theo’s as the train pulled away.
Theo slumped back against the wall and took a deep breath.
“There you are, Theo.”
It was Padma Patil, bustling up to him with her arms laden with scrolls of parchment. Theo stood up. Last year, he had been helping her with the unusual fact that her brother had issued an edict forbidding any member of her family from helping her after she finished her seventh year at Hogwarts—an edict that seemed to have been planned. They had advanced both in research on it and in ways to make the members of her family that Padma thought were responsible pay.
Padma did pause, looking at him. “Are you all right?”
“Coming back from summer to Hogwarts is always a little hard.”
Padma blinked, but she had the sense not to question him. “There is that. Come on, do you want to look at this letter of Parvati’s I managed to liberate? I left a copy behind so that she wouldn’t know.”
Theo nodded shortly and followed her. At the moment, an academic discussion about handwriting, intentions, and revenge sounded better than the kind of discussion he would get with Harry’s friends.
Theo wasn’t in any mood to hear insults about his father’s past allegiances today.
*
“Harry, if you would come to my office, please?”
Dumbledore had swept by the line of Ravenclaws making for the Tower as they were leaving the welcoming feast. Harry blinked at Theo, who shrugged, and they broke away from the rest to follow the Headmaster.
They’d gone up two staircases before Dumbledore looked back, and checked his step with a sigh. “Harry, I need to speak to you alone, please.”
“Theo comes with me,” Harry said, smiling a little as he felt Theo put his hand on Harry’s back. It didn’t really matter if Dumbledore saw it, one way or the other. He would certainly know how Theo felt from his fixed, steady gaze. “That’s the way it is. You can speak to us together or not to me at all.”
Dumbledore was silent, watching them. Harry just waited. The Headmaster wasn’t really an enemy, but he hadn’t been much help in the past, either, what with not managing to protect Harry from the Tournament, conducting an investigation into it in secret, and leaving Sirius in prison.
“Very well,” Dumbledore said at last, with a sigh that seemed to reach deep into his heart. “If you would follow.” And he resumed sweeping up the stairs.
“What does he think we’re doing?” Theo whispered.
Harry kicked his shin, and they finished the trek to the Headmaster’s office.
Of course, when they got there, Dumbledore delayed, asking them what kind of tea they’d like and if they’d admired Fawkes’s new colors from his most recent burning day yet. Harry ignored most of it, other than telling Dumbledore he wanted two sugars in his tea. Theo just looked at the books on the shelves with a covetous expression.
Harry was starting to think that Dumbledore delayed and hid things so often because he either liked drama, or sometimes he just had no idea what to do next.
When Harry and Theo were settled with teacups in front of them, Dumbledore clasped his hands and looked at Harry over the top of his glasses. “I believe that Voldemort will soon make a move to return to a body.”
Harry sighed and sipped his tea instead of erupting in shrieks of terror like he thought Dumbledore might have expected. “What is your source for that information, sir? He’s been quiet for over a year.”
“I’m afraid that my source must remain confidential, Harry.”
“Professor Snape,” Theo remarked.
Dumbledore made a faint noise. Harry turned and looked at Theo. “Oh, right. Sometimes I forget he was a Death Eater. He’s done a champion job at leaving me alone in the last few terms.”
“Harry, I would please ask you to have some respect for Professor Snape. He occupies a dangerous position.”
“One that happened in the first place because he willingly took the Dark Mark.”
“Just like your boyfriend’s father.”
Theo took a deep, angry breath. Harry reached out and squeezed his knee. Theo whipped his head around and glared, and Harry nodded. “I know,” he said, “but he’s never going to trust Eustace no matter what, and the best thing we can do is make sure that he can’t divide us.”
Theo nodded, bit his lip, and reached for his teacup again.
“I am not trying to divide you, Harry. Indeed, I believe it imperative that we unite in the face of the threat Voldemort represents.”
“Then leave off on insulting Eustace,” Harry said, slouching back in his chair, “who has been more of a father to me than Vernon Dursley ever was.”
Dumbledore closed his eyes and nodded. “Very well. But yes, I am certain that Voldemort is making a move of the kind that he has not since he tried to have Barty Crouch, Jr., seize you. I wanted to know if you had had any strange dreams lately?”
He flung the question like a spear, but it seemed so strange that Harry merely blinked and shook his head. “No, sir.”
“You are certain? Not even waking up with a sensation of terror and not remembering your dreams?”
“No, sir. I rarely dream.”
“Except of me, right?”
Theo was using his most obnoxious voice and leaning right over into Harry’s space. Harry shoved him back, smiling, and then lowered his eyelids and said softly, “Best not to ask what I dream of you doing, Theo.”
Astonishingly, Theo flushed and stared at Harry with his mouth slightly open, both eyes and lips glistening. Harry blinked. Wow. Maybe looking at Theo from under his eyelids like that was more effective than he’d thought.
“Boys.”
Harry thought about tormenting Dumbledore some more, but Eustace and Sirius would probably have disapproved if they were here. He nodded and faced the Headmaster again. “Sorry, sir. So what do you want us to do about it?”
“You will have noticed that there is a new Potions professor this year.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He has important information related to the means that Voldemort has used to keep himself alive. I have tried to represent to Professor Slughorn the importance of sharing this information with me, but he refuses, clinging to the notion that Voldemort has no reason to hunt him down if he does not tell it to anyone. However, he might share it with the Boy-Who-Lived.”
“You want me to trade on my fame?”
Dumbledore nodded, leaning over his desk and staring Harry in the eye as if this were in any way a reasonable request.
“Sorry, sir, but I haven’t really played up to my reputation for the past few years. What makes you think he would fall for it?”
“You are to persuade him, Harry, rather than trick him.”
“But it’s the same problem. If you can’t persuade him, sir, why do you think I can?”
“I know that you will find a way.”
“He wasn’t able to do it, so he just hopes that you will,” Theo translated helpfully.
Dumbledore gave Theo a mild glance that refused to engage, and sipped at his tea.
“You’re probably right,” Harry told Theo, and then turned back to Dumbledore. “What kind of information is it that I’m supposed to get from him, sir?”
“I believe I said. Information related to Voldemort’s means of immortality.”
Harry blinked. Oh. He probably means Horcruxes. Not that he thought Dumbledore would give him the name.
And it was irritating to try and get something from Professor Slughorn without the name. Harry tried one more time. “Can you give me any more details, sir? Anything that would work better than just walking up to him and saying, ‘Can you tell me this information that you’re afraid Voldemort will kill you for?’”
“All in good time, Harry. When we have the information, we will discuss it in more detail.”
“That’s a circular argument, Headmaster.”
For a moment, Dumbledore’s eyes glimmered with amusement. “Perhaps you will learn more about the subject if you think less like a Ravenclaw and more like a Gryffindor, Harry.”
*
“Why did you just nod and smile and agree to do what Dumbledore told you to do in regard to Slughorn?”
Theo couldn’t have said why it bothered him so much until he voiced it. And then, of course, he knew. Harry was his boyfriend, fierce and determined and strong as anyone Theo had ever seen—stronger than most. He knew a lot of people who would have collapsed under the burden of being Voldemort’s nemesis.
It was obscene that he would feel as though he had to yield to a Headmaster who played word games and kept secrets and was so much weaker than Harry was.
Weak, or he would have confronted Voldemort long ago.
Harry glanced at Theo and shrugged as he dragged his robes off. Theo let his eyes slip over Harry’s shoulder and down his flank, and Harry smiled and turned a little so that Theo could get his fill of strong muscles and rippling skin.
“It got us out of there faster, and he has his mind made up,” Harry said mildly. “Arguing with him didn’t seem like it would do any good.”
Theo blinked. “So you just—intend not to do it.”
“Of course not.” Harry laughed softly as he shook his hair back. It had got longer during the summer, and the weight dragged it down and removed some of the messiness from it. Theo couldn’t decide whether he preferred it this way or shorter. He would have to spend more time touching it to really know. “He barely gave me instructions, and he wouldn’t even tell me the name of the objects.” An eye-flick towards their roommates, although they were holding their discussion behind a Privacy Charm as usual. “I can truthfully say that the mission is just taking me longer than I thought if he asks.”
“You’re so clever.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.”
Harry’s voice had deepened. Theo took a step towards him, enthralled, only to stop as a pillow nearly hit him in the face.
“We had to put up with you constantly making eyes at each other during dinner, we’re not putting it up with it now!” Michael Corner announced, and then rolled over and into his bed, pulling the curtains emphatically shut.
Theo might have thought about cursing him, but Harry was laughing, soft and full and true. Theo settled for giving him one more heated look instead, and climbing into his own bed and drawing the curtains.
If he thought about Harry in a more intimate way that night, he had Silencing Charms up, and no one else had to put up with it.
*
“Potter, can I talk to you?”
Harry turned around with an incredulous blink. Draco Malfoy, of all people, had come up behind him in the Charms corridor and was speaking to him in a voice that had a tremor instead of a hint of arrogance to it.
Behind him, Harry heard Theo unfold from where he’d been leaning against the wall. Harry reached back with a hand to stay his boyfriend and said softly, “What can possibly be so urgent that you’re doing it right before class, Malfoy?”
“Something I can’t talk about here.”
Harry glanced at Theo. Theo looked back and forth between him and Malfoy, eyes glinting as cruelly as an eagle’s, before he lifted a hand.
Up to you.
Harry nodded. He knew Theo might still think Malfoy a danger, but not the kind of danger that Harry couldn’t handle. And they did still have five minutes before Professor Flitwick usually opened the door.
Mind made up, Harry gestured to Malfoy and led him around the corner. Then he turned and folded his arms. “Talk.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
Harry raised the Privacy Charm that he and Theo used when they talked about Horcruxes and Eustace’s curse, and then waited.
Malfoy licked his lips and slumped against the wall. Harry blinked. He had never spoken to Malfoy on a regular basis, but he knew that Malfoy had insulted Hermione and really cared about blood status and strutted around talking about his father. There was no room for slumping in what Harry knew of him.
“The Dark Lord is coming back,” Malfoy whispered.
Harry carefully controlled his reaction. “I’ve heard rumors to that effect.”
“He—he isn’t pleased—” Malfoy stopped. Then he began, “I don’t think that he’s displeased with me, because he’s given me a great task, a way to earn his favor and prove myself worthy, but he is with my father.”
Harry blinked, certain facts colliding in his head and producing a new pattern. Dobby had been the Malfoys’ elf, and Dobby had been certain that Harry was in danger during his second year. And then the diary had shown up.
Is Voldemort upset because Lucius Malfoy lost a Horcrux?
Harry had to work to contain his glee, because Malfoy wouldn’t have understood and might have reported it to someone who could put the pieces together on their side of the puzzle. He nodded. “All right.”
“The task is—it’s one that I can’t talk to certain people about.” For a brief moment, Malfoy’s hand cupped near his eyes as if forming half-moon glasses. “But I thought you might be able to help me out of it.”
“Just because I’m Voldemort’s nemesis?”
Malfoy flinched and yelped. But when he caught himself again, he looked determinedly off to the side, one hand closing into a fist where it rested on the stones.
“Never mind,” he said bitterly. “Asking you was a stupid idea anyway.”
“It doesn’t have to be. But I need to know more about this task, and what exactly you want me to do.”
“All right,” Malfoy whispered, after a moment when they stared at each other, and both of them heard Flitwick opening his classroom door. “But I’ll have to tell you tonight. Midnight, the Astronomy Tower?”
Harry blinked and nodded. Then he watched Malfoy slip away, approaching the Charms classroom by a different angle, before he shook his head and walked back to join Theo. He was just in time to slip into his own seat before Professor Flitwick began the class.
He and Theo were too busy taking notes for a while to communicate, but when Theo leaned towards him expectantly during their practice, Harry raised the Privacy Charm and said softly, “Voldemort gave Malfoy a task that he wants help escaping from.”
“You think he has a body?”
“I think that he can at least communicate with his Death Eaters. Or people he wants to be his Death Eaters.”
Theo’s face reflected intense distaste for a second, but his eyes rested on Malfoy, and his face softened. “No one deserves that.”
“I agree. So we’ll do something about it.”
