lomonaaeren

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Chapter Seventeen—Blood of the Father

“I can’t believe that Flint has to stay another term. Although we couldn’t ask for a better Captain for our team…”

Harry hesitated, one finger rising to prod at his temple, and looked around. It felt as though something was calling his attention, catching it unnaturally. Over the summer—as he worked on the poison that would need more time to brew before it could affect Professor Potter’s husband—he had read about the way that someone doused in a love potion or an attraction one could make people pant after them unnaturally.

This didn’t feel like he would imagine such a thing would feel, but it wasn’t totally different, either.

“What’s wrong with you, Harry?”

And now he was acting differently enough for Theo and Draco to notice. Harry half-bowed his head and turned around with an apologetic expression. “I think someone brewed an attraction potion and it’s misfiring,” he said. “I know there’s no reason someone would have brewed one for me, but it feels like they did.”

“Why wouldn’t they have brewed it for you?”

Harry did his best not to stare at Draco, who had been acting a little strange for the past few weeks. But this was stranger yet. “I’m a no-name Muggleborn, Draco. Not rich or powerful.”

“Someone could be trying to force you to brew for them,” Theo broke in, seeming anxious not to be left out. Harry would have found it cute if it were anyone doing this but a snotty pureblood. “They must know by now that you have the connections and the ingredients and the skill to do a good job.”

Harry just lowered his eyes to the floor of the train as they walked away from the compartment where the tugging sensation had come from. “You may be right.”

“I must be right. You’re skilled. Everyone knows it by now. Even Professor Potter was trying to get your attention last year.”

“Everyone knows that she teaches Muggle Studies instead of Potions, whatever skill she likes to brag about. Maybe she’s jealous of a younger talent.”

“Not that any of us are taking Muggle Studies.”

“Did I say we were, Theo?”

Harry just nodded and went along with them, although he turned his head towards the train compartment as he walked past. There was indeed something in there tugging and pulling on his attention like he had read the smell of Amortentia could.

But even if he wasn’t skilled in the kinds of magic that Theo and Draco were yet, he had read a little about how to protect his mind. Harry glanced away, down at his feet, and kept moving down the central aisle of the train, towards the back and the compartment that Theo and Draco eventually chose.

He wouldn’t allow himself to be trapped and give the mastery of his mind up for anything, and certainly not for mere curiosity.

*

Sirius, in Remus’s skin, sat alone in the compartment he had chosen throughout the train ride and wondered why the mild attention-getting spell he had cast, combined with a curiosity-enhancing charm, hadn’t worked.

*

“It is my pleasure to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Remus Lupin.”

Lily applauded louder than most of the others, although she didn’t care who knew it. After all, some of the professors here would know about Remus’s friendship with James and Sirius, and she couldn’t keep the wide, hopeful smile from her face. Sirius had told her about failing to talk to Harry on the train, but there would be other opportunities.

Harry wasn’t exactly a prodigy in Defense the way he was in Potions, but he would come to see and appreciate a teacher who had no ulterior motives the way Horace did in wanting to cultivate and collect a student who might be famous someday.

This would work.

*

“Welcome to your first Defense class of the year!”

Professor Lupin was disconcertingly cheerful, Harry reflected. At least he didn’t talk about stupid things the way that Professor Potter and the Headmaster were always trying to, but he beamed around at the class of mingled Gryffindors and Slytherins. And he seemed positively gleeful about calling on people.

“Mr.—” Professor Lupin choked. Then he cleared his throat. “Mr. Grayson, what is the spell that can combat a boggart?”

“It’s called Riddikulus, sir,” Harry said, casting his eyes down at the book on his desk. It was where he had read it, after all.

“Quite right, quite right! And what happens when you cast it on a boggart?”

“You need to use it to change the boggart into something funny, sir. Then it can’t frighten you any longer.”

“Quite right, quite right! Take fifteen points for Slytherin!”

Some of the Gryffindors stirred and muttered, and Granger gave him a look of dislike. Harry knew she had earned plenty more points than he had, but she might not have earned so many at once. He sat back acting modest and baffled, and Professor Lupin winked at him and swept on to ask other people questions.

They were apparently going to face a boggart eventually. Harry walked slowly back to the Slytherin common room wondering if he should pretend to be sick so that he could get out of that. Even if some of the Slytherins knew he was feigning, they didn’t expect him to be particularly courageous or eager to do well in class.

“Thinking about your potion, Harry?”

Harry gave Draco a meaningless smile. Draco knew that his father had given Harry a Potions commission, and preened about it ridiculously, but he had no idea what kind of potion it was or what it was meant to do. “Thinking that I’d rather be brewing than in a class with a professor who wants people to like him that desperately.”

“Isn’t Slughorn like that, too?”

Theo had joined the conversation. He had often done that, over the summer, as if to show that Draco and Harry didn’t have some kind of private bond. Harry kept his amusement to himself as he shrugged. “I know why Professor Slughorn does it. He’s always on the lookout for students who might do him favors in the future. But why does Professor Lupin do it?”

“I don’t know much about him,” Theo said thoughtfully. “That he was a Gryffindor in school. That’s about all.”

“How did you know that?”

“Some of us pay attention to what our parents say about their schoolmates, Draco.”

Harry dropped to walk behind them as the argument started. He honestly didn’t think that was the way Theo had learned it. Even though Lupin looked somewhat aged, there was no way he was as old as Theo’s father.

Which probably meant he had learned it as a Death Eater. Which made Lupin part of the opposition, the Order of the Phoenix he’d heard some older students talk about.

Harry shook his head slowly. It was strange to think that he probably would have been part of that opposition in other circumstances. After all, he was a Muggleborn, and the Dark Lord wasn’t exactly known for favoring them. He might have Sorted into Gryffindor or Hufflepuff if he’d had a more normal childhood.

But he hadn’t. And what he had, he couldn’t regret. The personal favor of the Dark Lord himself outweighed all the other considerations.

He would have to watch himself around Lupin.

*

Lord Voldemort’s arrival in Malfoy Manor was silent, as it always had been since Abraxas wove him into the wards years ago. He glided through the house, keeping his magic and thus his overpowering rage to himself. It wouldn’t do to warn Lucius about what was coming.

He stepped into Lucius’s study and released his hold on his magic. Lucius sank to his knees with a gasp. Only part of that was about the power hovering in the air around him like smoke, Lord Voldemort knew. The rest was about the Mark on his arm burning with pain and fury.

“I told you that the boy was under my personal protection.”

“My lord…my lord…”

“I told you that you were still alive contingent on my finding a use for you, after what you did with the diary. And you do this?”

“My lord,” Lucius whispered hoarsely, bowing his head so that his brow touched the floor.

Lord Voldemort did not deign to touch the man. He used his magic instead, to make Lucius feel as if one of his ribs had been staved in. Lucius sagged to the side with a gasp, unable to even fully cry out, his arm curved around his side.

The rib was not truly broken. More mercy than Lucius deserved, but it would have kept him from carrying out some of the tasks that Lord Voldemort had for him.

“You will write a letter to Harry Grayson personally apologizing for making him think that he had to brew the poison for James Potter in order to stay under your roof, when that was not your decision,” said Lord Voldemort, and made the words spark and snap on Lucius’s skin like the fangs of weak snakes. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lord. Of course, my lord.”

“Meet my eyes, Lucius.”

At least he could do that quickly in the midst of pain. Lord Voldemort dived into his mind and made a few changes, yanking and resettling the “ropes” of Lucius’s mind roughly. It was best that he knew there had been changes.

It would keep him from trying to break through those changes and defy his lord again.

“Your disobedient to me is impossible now,” Lord Voldemort told his servant coldly when Lucius had recovered from vomiting and sunk down with his forehead on the floor again. “You will not interfere with any course that Harry Grayson might choose to pursue, and you will give him shelter in your house for the summers and holidays as long as he wishes to ask it of you.”

“Yes, my lord. Of course, my lord.”

Lord Voldemort turned and left the study. In the corridor, he came unexpectedly into contact with Narcissa Malfoy. She stepped back and bowed to him, but it was clear she had come to seek him out on purpose.

“What is it, Narcissa?”

“What did you do to Lucius, my lord?”

Lord Voldemort smiled. She flinched a little, but kept looking at him. Narcissa was dangerous, he thought idly. All of the Blacks were, when properly pushed. Sirius Black was probably the least dangerous, although the most erratic, simply because he had turned his back on the legal and magical protection his family could have afforded him.

“I changed his mind regarding giving Harry Grayson potions projects that are meant to get the boy in trouble.”

“He did that?”

Lord Voldemort raked his gaze through her mind and found no trace of a lie. It seemed that Narcissa hadn’t known about Lucius’s little plan. She might resent giving shelter and social cachet to a Muggleborn, but she would not try to harm him.

“He did. I hope I do not need to remind you that I commanded the boy to be made welcome here?”

“No, my lord.”

“And you would not try to take advantage of Mr. Grayson, I hope.”

“No. I would not.” Narcissa hesitated, and Lord Voldemort waited, because he could sense that the thoughts bubbling behind her calm exterior were not of the kind that would cause Lord Voldemort to have to strike at her. “My lord, I value the boy for giving his friendship to Draco. My son is more thoughtful and more collected since Mr. Grayson has been visiting us.”

Lord Voldemort nodded, appeased. Narcissa would protect those she cared for, even if it were not in the same way that she would protect her family. “Very well. Then I trust you to keep Lucius from getting out of line again.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Narcissa’s eyes had a vicious gleam to them as she disappeared into her husband’s study. Lord Voldemort turned and made his way to the Floo.

To think, he would not know that Lucius had assigned the boy the potion in the first place if Grayson had not written to him, asking about why some of the ingredients had reacted in the way they had. Grayson, humbling himself as he did in their interactions, had probably assumed that the orders had come ultimately from the Dark Lord.

Or that he had no choice but to play along because otherwise, the Dark Lord would take a dislike to him.

Lord Voldemort lengthened his stride. If he hurried, his owl would carry a letter to Harry Grayson in time to reach him at breakfast tomorrow morning.

It was time for the boy to know who he belonged to, and that he was not to work on private potions projects from Death Eaters without the explicit orders of his lord.

*

“Who’s that letter from?”

“Someone important.”

Harry had turned in such a way that Theo couldn’t see the writing on the letter. He tamed his curiosity and leaned back in his chair with a little shrug, as if the letter didn’t matter to him that much.

And maybe it shouldn’t. After all, other Slytherins in the House who might try to influence Harry or take him away could just talk to him right there. They probably wouldn’t bother with sending a letter.

And in the case of Draco, were trying.

“You’re sure that you won’t share the letter with us, Harry?”

Harry shook his head just as he had to Theo, but he flashed a smile at Draco, which made something angry heat up in Theo’s chest. He took a deep breath and forced it away. This felt—it felt like he had been when he was a child and Father kept him from eating sweets because Theo had done something wrong that day. As though his magic could have exploded out of him and scorched Draco.

But that was ridiculous. Harry was not—a pile of sweets, and Draco was not Father.

Theo would have to think more on this, and think, too, about what he wanted to do with regards to the anger.

*

Harry waited until he was alone, of course, to examine the Dark Lord’s letter more closely.

I have spoken to Lucius and can assure you that he will not ask you to take on another Potions project. You may continue the current one at your discretion. A poison for Auror Potter would be useful, but he is not at the top of my list of enemies.

Harry smiled. He would like to continue with the potion, and now he could do that without apologizing to the Dark Lord for how long he was taking.

And Mr. Malfoy had been punished.

Harry had to close his eyes and lean back for a moment against the wall of the private room where he did his brewing. He felt breathless, powerful, as though he could have leaped off a broom and drifted to the ground like a feather.

He had power over a pureblood. He had spoken against Lucius and the Dark Lord had acted against him.

Granted, it had been accidental, with Harry assuming that Lucius was the one with power in the situation and that the Dark Lord would be angry if Harry complained or hesitated or took too long at a task. But he had succeeded.

It felt—wonderful, frankly.

Harry opened his eyes, smiled, and began to arrange his vials. He had only a short time to brew today. Then he was going to meet up with a few Ravenclaw half-bloods and one Muggleborn to study Arithmancy together. Harry had thought it was a good idea to start extending his connections beyond purebloods and his House.

And he had another task, as well.

*

“Professor Lupin? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Sirius had to fight to keep an exclamation from blurting out of his mouth. He had come to think, a few weeks into the term, that he would never catch or keep Harry’s attention. But he turned around and smiled at Harry. “Of course, Mr. Grayson,” he said, remembering not to say the name that would make him choke at the last minute. “Is there something you wanted to ask me?”

“Yes, sir.” Harry came a little further into the classroom. He was such a contained child. Sirius could remember sprawling everywhere and laughing uproariously at that age, but Harry just walked with all his energy and his magic contained in his body.

Probably the cursed Slytherins’ influence.

“Well, take a seat,” Sirius said, and waved Remus’s hand at the chair that sat near the desk, where he’d been having a few students sit while they practiced spells under his supervision. “What can I do for you?”

Harry sat down and bit his lip, his eyes fastened for a moment on Sirius so piercingly that Sirius almost thought they could see through the Polyjuice. Then he relaxed with a long breath. “I—I wanted to know some more about the war, sir.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. One of my roommates commented that you were a Gryffindor, and part of something called the Order of the Phoenix?”

Sirius grimaced, but nodded. “Yeah, I was. And you wanted to know about it?”

Harry lowered his gaze to the floor. “Do you know what it’s like to be a Muggleborn in Slytherin?”

“Not really. I was a—half-blood in Gryffindor, and I think Gryffindor is a lot more friendly on matters of blood status.”

Harry half-smiled. “Yeah, I think so.” He took a deep, shivering breath. “They’ve stopped now because they’ve seen that I can be useful, but until the middle of last term, one of my supposed friends called me a Mudblood all the time.”

“That’s horrible!”

“Yeah.” Harry raised his eyes. “And it occurred to me that I would only get a biased view of the war in Slytherin. I wanted to know more about the other side. More about the side that accepted people like me no matter where we came from. Even though I don’t have any idea who my parents were.”

I know your parents. They love you. They want you to come home.

But saying that kind of thing would just make him choke, and this was the sort of opportunity that they had been trying to make happen and might never get again. Sirius forced a smile onto his face, and it was even sincere. “I’d be happy to talk to you.”

*

That was simple.

Harry walked away from the Defense classroom shaking his head. Professor Lupin was almost pathetically eager to share information with Harry. Harry had to wonder what it was about the professors in general—Slughorn was a bit of an exception—and the Headmaster that made them so desperate to rescue poor orphaned Muggleborns.

But in the end, it didn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that he had got some information that would be of interest to the Dark Lord.

Harry intended to increase his value to the most powerful wizard in Britain in every way possible.