[This Lord Business Series]: I Have Been a Brother to O.W.L.S., 28/?

[lomonaaeren]

Harry has noticed Professor Flitwick watching him in Charms class today, but he didn’t pay it any mind until the professor asked him to stay after. Now Harry is standing in Flitwick’s office and watching the little professor bustle around making tea, and wondering if any of his followers are outside the door ready to storm it if he doesn’t appear in a certain amount of time.

No, wait. Of course they are. It just matters which ones are.

“Here you are, Mr. Potter.”

Harry accepts the tea with a murmured thanks, and then sits down on the edge of the chair that Professor Flitwick pushes towards him with a quick smile. Harry doesn’t see any signs of hostile intent, and it’s certainly true that the Charms professor has never hated him like Snape did, but he’s also not telling Harry what he wants to talk about.

After everything, that strikes Harry as a bad sign.

Professor Flitwick sips from his teacup, sighs, and then puts it down, leaning forwards to focus intently on Harry. “Mr. Potter, are you aware that you are unlikely to pass your Charms O.W.L. at the rate you are going?”

Harry blinks. “Sorry, professor? I didn’t think that my class performance was that dismal.”

“Your practical performance is astounding.” Flitwick waves his hand to dismiss this as if it’s a bad thing. “But your theoretical performance in your essays is very weak. And I called on you to answer a question last week, and you gave me one completely disconnected from the actual question I had asked. Why is that, Mr. Potter?”

Harry does actually remember that, but only because Hermione scolded him about it afterwards. He sighs. “I’m sorry, professor. Everything that’s happening lately with politics and my friends being hurt and being Lord Slytherin has been distracting me.”

“Your O.W.L.S. are the most important investment you can make in your future, Mr. Potter—”

Flitwick stops speaking. It takes Harry a moment to realize that’s because he’s laughing, and his laughter is ringing around the professor’s office and apparently bouncing off invisible walls.

“Well, Mr. Potter, really!”

Flitwick looks so offended that Harry raises his hands in apology. “Sorry, professor,” he says. “But do you really think that? I think the most important investment I can make in my future is surviving it.”

“Well, of course. But how can you get a job in the Ministry or elsewhere without good O.W.L. scores? And of course that influences the classes that you can take in your last two years at Hogwarts—”

“I know, sir. But I have to get there first. And Voldemort is going to keep trying to kill me no matter how hard I study. I think that I need to study Defense more than anything else, so that’s what I’ve been doing.”

And that’s what will keep my followers alive the most easily, too.

“Charms can be an important component of a successful defense,” Professor Flitwick says earnestly. “I was an award-winning duelist myself, you know, and I specialized mostly in charms.”

Harry raises his eyebrows. He didn’t think about that. “Well, I would ask for dueling lessons, sir, but I know that you’re too busy to—”

“I actually offer study time after my last class each Tuesday evening. Were you unaware, Mr. Potter?”

“I—yes, sir.”

Professor Flitwick studies him for a long moment. When he speaks, it’s gentle, but Harry still flinches as though under a whip. “I think that you’ve been carrying a burden far beyond your years, and for years now, Mr. Potter,” he says quietly. “I would invite you to remember that you are also an ordinary student, one who deserves just as much time and care to spend on your schoolwork as others do.”

Harry bows his head. He could say lots of things in response to that, including that he thinks he has to be Lord Slytherin before anything else, that he would forgive himself for failing the O.W.L.S. but he would never forgive himself for letting one of his friends be hurt, that the words expects a lot more of him than any “ordinary student.”

But he lets the words die out when he meets Flitwick’s steady, compassionate gaze. Honestly, the man looks as if he knows that and as if he would fight for Harry’s right to be an ordinary student anyway.

Harry smiles. “Thank you, sir. I’ll take you up on that offer of dueling training.”

“Of course, Mr. Potter. As long as you promise to concentrate harder on the theory portion of Charms.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry says. He’s not even irritated at the condition. It makes sense that Flitwick would set it.

And in the meantime, he thinks Hermione will be thrilled to help him draw up a study schedule to focus more on Charms theory.

*

“Who’s that?”

Harry blinks and leans around Ron to see who he’s talking about. An older witch is standing in the middle of the Great Hall, looking around, as huffy as Harry is when Hermione forces him to study too much for his Charms theory. She has sleek grey hair and pale skin and looks as if all her clothes are made of crystal. “I don’t know, honestly.”

“Harry! Tell me why you think that the Severing Charm is separate from the Severing Curse.”

Harry turns back to Hermione with a little sigh. Yes, Hermione finds it thrilling that Harry wants to review for his Charms theory exam. Harry wishes it were a little more thrilling for him. “Well, the Severing Charm causes less damage.”

“That depends on the force you cast it with. The difference between a charm and a curse isn’t impact.”

“What is it, then?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

Harry sighs again. Professor McGonagall is walking towards the unknown witch, who is staring down her nose as though McGonagall is someone completely unimpressive. Probably not a former Gryffindor, then. “I don’t know, Hermione.”

“Harry Potter! We went over this yesterday!”

Harry’s about to defend himself by pointing out that he had to stop Fred and George from attacking Seamus over a misunderstanding yesterday, but the unknown witch whips her head in his direction and says in a loud voice, “Harry Potter?”

“Yes?” Harry gives her a confused smile. He wonders if she’s someone else from the Ministry who is upset about him giving wands to the goblins or something. Honestly, at this point it would be a good holiday from Hermione’s relentless drilling.

“Well, finally!” The witch moves towards him, in the careful way of someone who needs a cane but refuses to use it. McGonagall hovers along beside her, frowning but also looking as though she doesn’t think she can interfere. “I want to know what you mean by sending me all those nasty letters, young man!”

Harry gapes at her. Hermione is looking back and forth between them so fast that Harry thinks she wants the ability to swivel her head all the way around like an owl’s.

“You don’t even recognize the person you’ve been tormenting with your nonsense?”

Harry thinks it must be her, but—“Olive Hornby?”

“The very same!” The woman halts in front of the Gryffindor table and glares at Harry down her nose the same way she did with McGonagall. “What do you mean by it, sending me all these letters and telling me that it was on the behalf of someone named Myrtle Warren? I don’t know any Myrtle Warren!”

“I think that’s a lie.”

Harry didn’t know he would speak the words until they were out, but, well, now they’re out and he did. Hornby gapes at him, spluttering soundlessly. Harry raises his hands and shrugs.

“What do you mean by it, young man?”

“You would have told me in your letters back if you really didn’t know who she was. Instead, you just like to yell at me for sending letters at all. And it’s not like you don’t know who I am.”

Hornby glares some more. Harry looks back at her. He can hear giggles spreading through the Great Hall, and he thinks that a few people have probably put together the mention of Myrtle with Moaning Myrtle, even if they didn’t know her last name.

“She’s dead.”

“I’m writing letters for her because she can’t be solid, yes. But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t deserve an apology for what you did to her.”

“It was more than fifty years ago!”

“So you shouldn’t have a problem with apologizing, should you?”

Hornby folds her arms and stomps what looks like a rock crystal boot. “You’re a stubborn little bastard.”

“Sure. But I’ll just keep writing the letters and listening to your Howlers until you give an apology to Myrtle.”

Hornby glares at him. Harry looks back. He can feel Hermione tugging at his arm, maybe because she’s embarrassed about the way he’s talking to Hornby and maybe because he lied to her about not knowing who Hornby was. But he doesn’t look at her. He just leans forwards with his elbows folded on the table and stares at Hornby.

“You cannot call my student a stubborn little bastard, Olive!” Professor McGonagall says, sounding a little shocked.

Huh, she must have known her before even if they weren’t students at the same time, Harry thinks.

Hornby glares at McGonagall in turn. “I’ll call him what he is! I’m an old woman, I’ve earned the right to talk to people the way I want!”

“Ah. So you’re still a bully, then.”

Hornby glares at Harry again. Her hands are opening and closing as if she longs to punch him the Muggle way instead of curse him. Harry just grins at her and leans back in his seat.

“You could talk to Myrtle,” Harry says. “She’s still upset about what happened fifty years ago. She’s a ghost, they get trapped in the emotions of the past. Why not just apologize so that you can both move on?”

“I wasn’t wrong!”

“Then I suppose we’ll have to keep exchanging letters.”

Hornby would make a good rival for the dragon that Norberta has probably grown into, with the way that she’s huffing and stomping one foot like a paw scraping the ground. “I want them to stop!”

“Then apologize.”

“I wasn’t wrong!”

Harry spreads his hands.

Hornby turns around and walks out of the Great Hall with her feet clumping along as though she’s dragging a huge weight. Harry shakes his head. He’s continually amazed by how many people in the magical world will cling to their pride to avoid admitting they were wrong, even if doing so would rid them of a major inconvenience.

“Harry, you said—”

“Wouldn’t it be worth it to stop getting Howlers? Just stop writing letters for her!”

“You tell her, Lord Slytherin!”

Harry half-smiles at the people who are congratulating him or complaining at him and turns to deal with Hermione. “Sorry I lied to you.”

“Harry.”

“If she’d agreed to stop sending Howlers, I would have more time to study Charms theory.”

“Harry, we are going to talk about this—”

*

“Why would you write letters for a ghost?”

Harry glances up with a half-smile as he watches Draco come to a stop in front of him. They’re practicing outside again on a windy, sunny day, and he just finished helping Luna and a few other younger students create a Patronus. Draco seems to have been waiting to talk to him. “Why not? She helped me, and she asked this in return. And I do think that Olive Hornby ought to apologize.”

“Why?”

“She taunted Myrtle so badly that it’s part of the reason she died, and part of the reason that Myrtle is still here as a ghost after fifty years. Why wouldn’t I want to try and help Myrtle when that’s true?”

Draco hesitates. Then he says, “It could cause trouble.”

“Why? Olive Hornby is no one particularly famous or powerful, I think, or she would have mentioned it when she confronted me.”

“Other people might think that you care more about ghosts than humans. Or more about merfolk or goblins than humans, whoever you’re helping that’s human.”

Harry leans forwards. “Have you heard other Slytherins say that?”

Draco shifts from foot to foot. Then he murmurs, “Not really. But some of them are talking about their older brothers and sisters or cousins saying it.”

Harry nods. “Well, it’s true that nothing I can do will please everyone. I’ll try not to upset anyone unnecessarily. But when it comes to helping people who’ve been ignored for too long, or someone whose only crime is annoying people by flooding a bathroom she’s been trapped in for fifty years…anyone I upset is the one who’s upsetting themselves unnecessarily.”

Draco smiles unwillingly. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“I think it’s being Lord Slytherin and having other people like you to help me that makes me that way. I was pretty ordinary three years ago.”

“I’m sure we’re grateful that it’s not three years ago.”

Harry laughs a little, and Draco laughs, and then Luna comes back to ask Harry whether someone can change the form of their Patronus, and Draco fades back into the group he was practicing with, which includes Blaise and Daphne.

Harry is smiling as he speaks with Luna, but it’s not solely due to her.