lomonaaeren

“Nothing?”

“Nothing in this book.”

Harry nodded and sighed, accepting the book Theo handed him to put into the pile of useless ones. Or, well, books that offered information they couldn’t use right now. Some of it, Harry wanted to return to, when the relentless pressure of the Horcrux hunt had lessened.

But for now? They said nothing about what kind of Legilimency could function through walls or from a distance. Most said that a master Legilimens didn’t need direct eye contact to read someone’s mind, and certainly didn’t need to verbalize the spell. But they still had to be in the same room. They couldn’t just reach out and skim someone’s mind when that person wasn’t next to them.

And the question Theo had brought up still hammered on Harry’s mind. Who else in the school was Dumbledore worried about? Why would he know that someone was practicing Legilimency but not warn Harry against that person?

“Because he’s a wanker,” Harry said under his breath.

“What?” Theo popped his head up from the next book he was considering, nose covered with ink.

“Nothing,” Harry said, and reached for a book called The Unknown Arts of the Mind. Sirius was sending them things from the Grimmauld Place library—Harry thought the house’s name hilariously appropriate from the one time he’d visited—and the Nott library, and they had found a little in the Hogwarts library, but not nearly enough.

“You’re wondering why Dumbledore doesn’t warn you if he knows it’s a specific person.”

“Not much gets past you.”

Theo visibly ignored the sarcasm and leaned forwards. “Do you think he wants you to figure it out yourself, the way he did with Slughorn?”

“If he’s worried about his plans being discovered, then it makes more sense to warn me, because otherwise I might meet this person—outside Hogwarts if not in it—and betray us. I wouldn’t if I was on my guard.”

“Unless being on guard is part of the problem and would warn this person.”

“But then they could still read the plans out of my head. Even the name of Horcruxes would be enough.”

Theo nodded. They were on Theo’s bed with the curtains spelled shut using some vicious curses that Theo said his father had invented, so they could speak freely. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense the way the Headmaster has spoken about it.”

“Yeah. It’s a threat but not a threat, it’s one that he’s worried about but not worried enough to tell me in a lot of detail about. Then again, he didn’t tell me in detail how he wanted me to get the information from Slughorn, either.”

“Six. At least we know that.”

Harry nodded and curled up next to Theo, flipping through the book he held. It was possible that he’d need to go through it again when he was less distracted, but he’d been studying so hard that he deserved a brief holiday. “Yeah. Mind you, I thought it was probably either three or seven, we know he was interested in Arithmancy and those are powerful numbers—”

“And we already knew it was more than three.”

“As long as it wasn’t thirteen.”

Harry caught Theo’s grimace from the corner of his eye. Then Theo sighed and said, “The problem is that we don’t have any idea what the last one could be. Slytherin’s locket seems likely, but where it is we don’t know. I would have thought that perhaps he would use his wand, but we know it has a phoenix feather core and that would self-destruct before it would take a Horcrux enchantment. A familiar would be a possibility, too, but—”

“He can’t have a familiar bond as a wraith,” Harry finished, nodding. “And most familiars would be long dead. An owl, maybe not, but your father never said that he had a familiar at all.”

“No. And he stood in Voldemort’s inner circle for years longer than anyone who’s active now. He would have known.”

“I suppose if Voldemort acquired and enchanted one right before he went after me…?”

“Where is it, though?” Theo shook his head. “The bond wouldn’t have lasted past the time he became a wraith, and even if the Horcrux part of it did keep the beast tethered to Voldemort somehow, you’d think someone would have reported seeing it. Draco would have passed on word of a strange animal hanging around the Manor even if he doesn’t know why it’s important.”

“A snake.”

“What?”

“Do you think he would have taken any familiar other than a snake?”

“Well. Probably not, with how proud he is of his Slytherin heritage. But we don’t have any reports of a snake, either.”

“No.” Harry drummed his quill on the edge of the parchment, then sighed, shaking his head. Crouch had been questioned under Veritaserum, and Eustace had questioned him about the curse on the ring before he’d died. Harry had to think one of those interrogations would have turned up evidence of Voldemort having a snake familiar if questioning a Death Eater was going to. “Is there another artifact of Slytherin’s beyond that locket that we could look for?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Hmm.”

“You think we could ask some actual Slytherins?”

“Sorry, was I doing that thing where I treat you like an honorary Slytherin for no reason again?”

“Not annoyingly so,” Theo said softly, smoothing a hand down Harry’s hair. Harry let his eyes flutter shut. He might have considered that a weakness with anyone but Theo. Theo, though, was his. “I just meant that they might have some legends of their Founder’s artifacts that we don’t.”

Harry wanted to argue that they hadn’t known the truth about Ravenclaw’s diadem, either, but the point would just be a semantic one. He nodded. “Let’s ask Draco.”

“I’m wary of bringing too much attention to him. I’d rather ask Blaise Zabini.”

“Oh, all right.” Harry shrugged. He hadn’t really had interactions with Zabini beyond the occasional assigned work in class. “If you want to, we can.”

“You are so beautifully obedient to my wishes.”

“Wow, if you could see the look on your face right now. It’s like you never want me to have sex with you again.”

Theo proved him wrong a few seconds later, which Harry thought he had the right to be smug about.

*

“I’m here as you requested, Nott.” A flicker of Blaise’s eyebrows. “Potter.”

Theo leaned back on the wall and smiled a little at Blaise. This was an out-of-the-way staircase where few students would come even on their way to classes or common rooms, and at the moment, most younger students were in Potions or Charms or the like. “Hello, Zabini.”

Harry looked back and forth between him and Blaise, no doubt picking up on some undercurrents, but he didn’t ask.

Undercurrents. Yes.

Theo stared at Blaise, who stared back. Only the tightness at the corner of his jaw would reveal to someone who knew him well that he was angry. He had sent a message to Theo last year propositioning him, and saying that he knew he could give Theo a good time, unlike “the scrawny Ravenclaw you’re obsessed with.”

Theo had responded with a short message that had said simply, No.

On its own, his refusal wouldn’t have angered Blaise, Theo knew. He would have shrugged and simply found someone to fuck in his own House. But the way that Theo stood beside Harry with an arm draped over his shoulders, the way he and Harry were orientated on one another, the languid manner Theo adopted now…

Oh, it would irritate Blaise to see someone he despised occupying a space he had aspired, however briefly, to occupy. Oh, yes.

And it would irritate him, too, that Harry was so obviously in love with Theo. Love was something Blaise coveted, given his mother’s—activities, but had no idea how to achieve.

Theo smiled at Blaise, making sure it kept the languid edge, and saw the way that Blaise tightened to the point of snapping.

“We had some questions,” Theo murmured, tilting his head, “about artifacts that Salazar Slytherin left behind. Or, rather, Harry had some questions. He only knows about the locket that Slytherin’s descendants are said to be obsessed with.”

Theo widened his eyes, let his voice dip, adopted a thousand subtle little signals that would tell Blaise that Theo was less impressed by Harry’s brain than he’d hoped to be, no matter how satisfied with his body and emotions. And that would goad Blaise, in turn, with the sharpest prod he could ever feel: his own pride.

Blaise would know he was being goaded. But it wouldn’t matter. His own nature would force him to step into the trap.

“The locket is the one that everyone knows about,” Blaise said, his voice weighing the slightest bit on the word everyone.

“Yes,” Harry said slowly, staring back and forth between Blaise and Theo. He was obviously left on the outside, oblivious, or knowing just enough to worry. That would appeal to Blaise, too.

Blaise lowered his own voice, eyes locked on Theo and not Harry. “There are rumors of another.”

“Oh?” Theo pressed down with his hand on Harry’s shoulder and let himself lean in, closer to Blaise, almost shoving Harry out of the way. “Another piece of jewelry?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t pay enough attention to the rumors when I first heard them. I had better things to think about.”

Fucking you, said his eyes.

Theo had been a little flattered, last year, when Blaise sent that letter, but to his astonishment, he was a bit bored now. Now that he’d been with someone who had love and not lust in his eyes, he could see why Father had turned away from everyone after Mother had died.

But he wasn’t here to be truthful, so he only said, “Could you be persuaded to pay attention to them now?”

“Perhaps. For the right price.”

Theo looked at Blaise’s mouth, then jerked his eyes back to Blaise’s again. “Galleons?”

“I could take Galleons, if that’s all that’s on offer.”

Harry remained silent, still. Theo knew he would have to make up for this later, but he was already looking forwards to it. He smiled a little at Blaise and said, “That would depend on the quality of the information.”

A ghost of a smile worked its way across Blaise’s mouth, and he nodded. “Then I’ll see what I can dig up. I’ll send you an owl when I want to meet?”

“Oh. Of course.”

Weight, emphasis on the words, the way he looked aside. Theo was playing a game, and Blaise probably knew it, but Blaise also took risks. Theo had known him at least as well as Draco, when they were children, and his mother was in and out of Britain at the behest of her businesses and a few of her husbands. Blaise had always been the one who wanted to take part in the games that Draco had scorned as Gryffindorish.

(Well, except Quidditch. Draco was a complete Gryffindor at Quidditch, no matter what he wanted to tell himself).

Now, Blaise would tell himself that of course Theo would probably never sleep with him, or there was only a slight chance, but that slight chance would lure him on.

“Then I’ll be in touch,” Blaise said, and Theo watched Blaise internally debate whether he wanted to reach for Theo’s hand and press a kiss to the back of it. In the end, he settled for nothing more than a long look and a slow step away, as if he wanted Theo to see his arse from the best angle.

As if. Of course it’s that.

Harry turned to him as soon as Blaise was beyond reasonable earshot, paused, shook his head, then raised a ward anyway. He squinted, hard, at Theo.

Then he snorted and relaxed. “You were fucking with him by pretending to fuck with him.”

Theo laughed low and crowded Harry against the stone wall behind them. Harry’s eyes opened a little wider, and he licked his lips in a way that Theo found incredibly distracting.

“I was,” Theo said. “And also pretending to fuck with him because he did offer me sex last year, and he thinks that you’re a mediocre person compared to him, so he doesn’t understand why I chose you.”

“Then I’ll just have to prove him wrong,” Harry said, harsh and hot and breathless, and seized Theo to drag him down into a kiss.

*

Hedwig brought Harry a note from Dumbledore a few days later. Theo glanced over and read it with him.

Please come to my office alone, Harry. I have something extremely important to reveal to you, one of the secrets you asked about. But I cannot do it in front of young Mr. Nott. I do not trust his father.

Theo raised his eyebrows and looked up at the professors’ table. Harry looked with him and saw Dumbledore looking at him, grave and otherwise unreadable.

“He’s not happy that you read it,” Harry told Theo.

“I don’t mind if you go alone, since I know that you’ll tell me everything later,” Theo said. He leaned towards Harry and lowered his voice. “Besides, it’ll give me an excuse to meet with Zabini and let him think what he thinks.”

Harry smiled at him. “Just don’t kiss him.”

“Just don’t get put under some sort of secrecy oath that makes it impossible for you to tell me what happened.”

Harry nodded his agreement, and watched Theo with a fond little smile as he stood and sauntered towards the door of the Great Hall. He turned to look back at Zabini for a second, then jerked his eyes away as though he’d been caught staring. Harry chuckled as he noted Zabini hurrying after Theo.

“Aren’t you jealous, Potter?”

Harry turned to Anthony Goldstein, who often sat on the other side of Theo but didn’t say anything to them most mornings. “Of what?”

“Blaise Zabini wants to fuck your boyfriend.”

“Sure, but Theo doesn’t want to fuck anyone except me.”

“That’s what they all say,” Goldstein muttered, and his eyes wandered towards the Gryffindor table.

Harry raised his eyebrows. It seemed that Goldstein was having trouble with his Gryffindor girlfriend, or had broken up with her, or had an argument, or whatever.

“I trust Theo,” was all he said, and went about finishing his breakfast so that he could go and finish an unimportant essay, which would be followed by much more important Horcrux research.

But first, the meeting with Dumbledore.

*

“Do I have a realistic chance?’

Theo paused and studied Blaise. Blaise had led him to a discreet corner of the dungeons that was popular with students who wanted to snog without the prefects stumbling on them. Precisely for that reason, Theo would have thought the prefects would check it more, but he had accepted that not everyone could be as logical as he was.

“Of dating me?” Theo asked softly. Maybe this mattered more to Blaise than he’d thought.

“Of going to bed with you.”

“If that’s all you want, then no.”

Blaise stared at him. Theo stared back.

“Really? You want—what? Feelings? Commitments? Promises of forever?” Blaise shook his head, looking disgusted. “Do you know how rarely people mean those?”

“Sure,” Theo said. He reckoned that Blaise would have a unique perspective on it, given his mother, but that probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say at the moment. “But that makes it all the more precious to me, if it’s rare.”

“I didn’t think you were someone like that.”

“Who valued love?”

“Well, no. With your father, and the side of the war that you would naturally be on. Maybe you aren’t in Slytherin, but you know that love is a deception, right? A lie?”

“I know people who use it as a weapon, yes. That doesn’t mean everyone does.”

Blaise leaned against the wall as if Theo had knocked his legs from under him. Then he whistled, low and sharp. “I see. I suppose I’m less interested in fucking you than I was, after all.”

Theo nodded. “All right. And you don’t know anything about a Slytherin artifact other than the locket, right?”

Blaise blinked, and then reluctant amusement moved across his face. “You’re someone who values love, but not someone who’s above using someone else you think might love you?”

“Someone who was goaded by pride and his hatred of my boyfriend more than anything else? I don’t feel bad about that at all.”

Blaise laughed, and Theo was a little relieved to judge it honest laughter. Blaise wouldn’t come after Theo for tricking him. Theo would certainly have defended himself if Blaise had, but he could have been facing a formidable opponent.

“All right,” Blaise said, nodding a little. “So we were using each other, and no harm done. I still think Harry fucking Potter of all people doesn’t deserve you, but you’ll go for him no matter what I say.” He flipped Theo a little salute. “I hope for your sake that you survive it.”

“Thank you very much,” Theo said gravely. He watched as Blaise nodded to him and disappeared down the corridor.

He and Blaise were a little alike, yes, he thought as he walked upstairs again. In another life, where Theo was a Slytherin, maybe they would have fucked sometimes.

But in this life, where Theo was a Ravenclaw, he couldn’t imagine being with anyone other than Harry.

*

“Please sit down, my boy.”

Dumbledore was smiling, but it was a strained, anxious smile. Harry concealed a sigh as he sat. He wished that he could believe Dumbledore had just learned about something and was afraid of telling him about it because of that, but he didn’t.

This is something he’s known about for a long time, something he specifically waited to tell me about because he wanted to say it when I was alone and didn’t have Theo with me.

“Tea?”

“No, sir. Information.”

Dumbledore paused in the act of reaching for the kettle. He turned around and studied Harry, and despite how anxious he had seemed a moment before, he seemed perfectly calm and in control now.

Knew it.

“How much do you know about the art of Legilimency?” Dumbledore asked suddenly.

“I know that it’s apparently impossible to do from a distance, the way you seem to have been worried about. Theo and I have been doing research on it for long enough that I think I can safely say that.”

“Yes, you might say that, Harry. But you are ignorant of the way that Legilimency works in the case of a genius like Lord Voldemort.”

Harry sat up. This did sound like information he and Theo hadn’t been able to find in the books, which meant that it might be actually new. “How would he do that, sir? Is it because he came up with a variation on the spell?”

“No, Harry. It is because he would be reading your thoughts from inside your head.”

For a moment, Harry’s thoughts whirled back and forth. Then he said, “That’s why you’ve been asking me about my dreams.”

“Yes. I wanted to know if you had had any visions. It is possible that Voldemort would deliberately send you some as a trap. It’s also possible that he would leak information to you accidentally without meaning to.”

“Because—because of the Killing Curse that connected us?”

Dumbledore gazed steadily at him, and Harry found the words to voice the suspicion that he knew Dumbledore had been trying to encourage without coming right out and stating it.

“Because I’m a Horcrux,” Harry said, and closed his eyes.