[This Lord Business Series]: I Have Been a Brother to O.W.L.S., 31/?

[lomonaaeren]

“We are not forming a Committee to Assassinate Dumbledore, Hermione.”

“We might need to.”

Harry stares at her. Hermione’s lips are pursed, and her hands are folded so that her fingernails cut into her robes. They’re sitting in the version of the Room of Requirement that lets them all have a chair at the same table, with a cheerful fireplace on the hearth, but Hermione doesn’t seem cheerful at all.

Harry gives a rusty laugh. “Hermione, just a few months ago, you were telling me about the ways that I acted like Dumbledore.”

“He would hurt you if he knows that you have a Horcrux in your head.”

“Now, now,” Susan says, with a bright little smile that Harry eyes sideways and which already made Ahalam retreat down into his robe collar. “He could just be hoping to appeal to Harry’s better nature to have him commit suicide or the like.”

“Uh, Susan?”

“Yes, Harry?”

“Will you tone it down a little? You’re scaring Ahalam.”

“I also want to scare Dumbledore,” Susan says, but her smile falters for the first time. “You realize that he will try to kill you. Directly or indirectly.”

“Let him try.”

Harry blinks and turns to face Sirius. Both Sirius and Theo have been silent so far, since Harry asked them to come to the Room and told them what he thinks Dumbledore suspects about his scar. Theo’s eyes are distant, and Harry has already told him to stand down. But he doesn’t have that sort of power over Sirius, and right now, his godfather’s eyes are bright with rage.

“I thought, uh, that you weren’t opposed to fighting on the same side as Dumbledore,” Harry says cautiously. Sirius hasn’t said anything about it one way or the other, although Harry knows that after Dumbledore tried to force him to hold the Tournament at Hogwarts, Sirius doesn’t really trust the Headmaster, either.

“That was before you thought that he might kill you.”

“Would you sacrifice the war for me?” Harry asks quietly. “Really?”

Sirius stares at him with incandescent fury in his eyes. Then he says, “Excuse us,” grabs Harry’s arm, and drags him to a far corner of the Room. A wall rises to separate Harry from his friends, glowing with the kind of magic that Harry knows means there are privacy wards on it.

“Uh, Sirius?”

Ahalam pokes his head out from beneath Harry’s robes, says, “The dog-man is scary,” and dives back out of sight again.

“You are important,” Sirius says. “I need you to remember that. You matter.”

“Um, yes, I know that. Ron and Hermione taught me that even before people like Susan and Theo came into my life, and they remind me every day. You remind me.”

“No,” Sirius says, and acts as if he’s going to shake Harry’s shoulders, only holding himself back at the last minute. He closes his eyes in what looks like frustration. “You don’t only matter because we would be devastated if you died, Harry. Or because of what you can do for us. You matter in and of yourself.”

“Er. I know that.”

“Then why did you all but order me to sacrifice you for the war?” Sirius yells. The wall behind them glows for a minute in a way that probably means the wards are keeping his voice inside them.

Harry closes his eyes. “Sirius. This is bigger than me.”

“Bollocks!”

“It is. I mean, I can understand why you wouldn’t want to fight on the same side as Dumbledore, but what about all the innocent Muggleborn kids going to Diagon Alley each year, who could die if Voldemort doesn’t?”

“Fuck the innocent Muggleborn kids! I don’t care about them, just like their parents don’t care about you! You are my concern.”

“Okay. And if I told you that I would rather die than see an innocent come to harm?”

“What if you had to choose between an innocent being harmed and one of your followers being harmed?”

Harry takes a deep breath. He meant what he said to Dumbledore about accepting the necessity of killing if he had to, but that’s different from watching someone die when he could have saved them.

“I do care more about my followers than about other people I don’t know,” he whispers. “But I wonder if I have the right to do it.”

“Other people do it every day,” Sirius says, leaning forwards to stare intently into his eyes. “They don’t think it’s immoral. And it’s different than actively putting someone else in danger. That includes you, Harry.”

“I know.”

“But you’re acting as though you don’t think that you’ll survive this war.”

“I don’t know what Susan and Theo are planning. They refuse to tell me. I don’t know if it’ll work, Sirius. And worse than seeing all of you devastated because I’m dying would be seeing the Horcrux hurt you.”

Sirius closes his eyes for a minute. Then he reaches out and hugs Harry the way he did when Harry came to see him after the Chamber. Harry holds onto him and lets Sirius shake his way through his reaction.

Sirius finally whispers, “I can’t change the heart of you, and I don’t want to. But I just ask that you—let Susan and Theo work. I suspect what they’re up to, but I don’t know. And if they can pull it off, it’s going to be amazing.”

“If.”

Sirius nods and leans down to rest his head on Harry’s shoulder for a second. It startles Harry. He honestly didn’t realize he’d grown that tall. He’s still sort of short compared to others of his friends, especially Ron.

“Of course,” Sirius whispers. “Everything depends on whether they can make it work.”

Harry exhales and pulls back with a weak joke. “And now everything depends on whether I can keep them from murdering Dumbledore.”

“It might not be a bad idea.”

“If nothing else, it would bring an attack on the school right away. He’s still the only wizard that Voldemort fears.”

“You don’t think that he’s afraid of you.”

Harry shakes his head as he watches the warded wall dissolve, the Room responding to Sirius’s desires. “No, I think that he believes the times that I’ve escaped him are more about luck and help than anything else.”

When they step out from behind where the wall was, it’s to see Susan and Hermione abruptly pull their heads apart and give him identical smiles. Harry narrows his eyes. “Do I have to make a direct order for you not to hurt Dumbledore?”

“What makes you think a direct order would work on me?” Hermione asks, sounding honestly curious.

“Hermione, please.”

“You found what works,” she says, and sits back with her arms folded as she scowls at him. “Fine. But I want an explanation later on.”

Harry takes a deep breath and turns to face Susan and Theo. “Please don’t kill him.”

“We weren’t planning to do it immediately.”

“Susan, please.”

“What makes you think that works with me?”

Harry continues gazing at her as calmly as he can, and Susan rolls her eyes and looks away. “Fine. Merlin.”

Harry glances at Ron and Ernie, but both of them just continue as silent as they’ve been since Harry told them. Ron is red and has his fists clenched. Ernie might actually gnaw off his lip at this rate.

“I don’t want to do anything to hurt him,” Ron mutters. “I might do something if he points his wand at you, but I think we all know that he isn’t going to do that.”

Harry half-smiles. “Yeah. He’s more the sort who would want me to hurt myself to get rid of the Horcrux. Susan was right about that.”

“I’m always right.”

Harry ignores the bickering that erupts between Susan and Ron, comforting though it is, and focuses on Ernie.

“You think I’d do something?”

“I think that you’re incredibly brave and inspired by my example,” Harry says. “Anyone who could continue associating with the twins after they attacked him is incredibly brave.” That wins him a smile. “But I do think you could get hurt with that bravery, and I don’t want you thinking that you need to do something about Dumbledore.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Ernie says, and bows from the waist with a pompous flourish that Harry knows is making Hermione roll her eyes without his even turning to look. But Harry knows by now that Ernie uses that formality to defend his sense of himself, and he manages not to crack a smile. “I would prefer not to involved at all.”

“That’s fine,” Harry says, and turns to face Theo, who has been worryingly silent.

Theo sees him looking and offers a dazzling smile. “Could I have a private conversation with you, my lord?”

“Yes, that would be fine.” Harry nods to the others, and they stand with varying degrees of reluctance. From the way that Sirius and Hermione look back and forth between Harry and Theo, though, Harry thinks that they’re not worried about Harry not managing to command Theo to stand down. They’re worried that Theo might get permission to do something they didn’t.

Finally, they leave, and Harry asks, “What are you thinking, Theo?”

Theo turns away from the wall he’s been staring at. The Room has actually formed an enchanted window there for him, but it vanishes before Harry can see what it was showing. “That I find it hard not to go and kill him now, Harry. How dare he be a threat to you. How dare he bring you into more danger than you were already.”

Harry swallows. Maybe he really should have been more against Theo swearing that oath to him. He thinks it’s influencing Theo now. He’s all but vibrating with intensity.

“I can’t let you kill him because it would encourage Voldemort to attack.”

Theo pauses. Then he nods slowly. “All right. But in that case, I need permission to do something else to him.”

“What?”

“Ensure that he dies if he makes a move against you.”

“If he makes a move against me,” Harry says cautiously.

Theo smiles. The smile is bloodthirsty and savage and oddly soothing. Harry knows that Theo will never hurt him, and all the fury Theo might feel and all the magic he can summon will only ever be used in defense of Harry. “I think that he will, my lord. I think that he might only have held back thus far because he doesn’t how much you know about the Horcruxes.”

“All right. But that doesn’t mean he’ll attack directly.”

“No. But it might be something like Legilimency to convince you to sacrifice yourself.”

Harry grimaces and nods. That would be a subtle kind of attack that he might well mistake as his own thoughts, considering how often he’s thought he would need to die to win the war. “All right.”

“So I’ll set up a curse with a contingency.”

“A curse? Theo—”

Theo snarls, and Harry pauses. The sensation of magic fills the air in the Room like a thunderstorm, heavy and so dangerous that Harry’s skin hurts. And so does something that tugs on the center of his chest as if an invisible thread in the web is tying him to Theo.

“It is a spell that will kill him if he attacks you, my lord,” Theo says, his voice low and precise. “What did you think it would be?”

In truth, Harry didn’t think it through. Of course it would be a curse.

And now he’s faced with the choice that Sirius talked about, choosing between one of his followers and someone else.

Although maybe Dumbledore wouldn’t qualify as innocent.

Harry takes a deep breath. “I want you to set it up so that the curse that’s already on his hand accelerates and kills him,” he says, as calmly and clearly as he can. “Not anything else, not anything different. And set it up with a contingency so that it doesn’t affect him unless he attacks me in some way.”

“I never intended anything different.”

Harry gives him an unimpressed glance, and Theo shrugs without repentance. “I never planned anything different that you would allow,” he amends.

Harry gives a short nod. “All right. Then you can set it up.”

“What changed your mind?”

Harry sighs, his thoughts swirling around. He accepted death, he accepted killing, he spoke with Sirius…

But he doesn’t know how true all those reasons are, and he doesn’t know which one would most convince Theo, so he just tells one of the truths instead of trying for all of them. “I’m tired of Dumbledore threatening me, and our having to shield the knowledge of the Horcrux in me from him would just be too much.”

Theo grins and bows to him. “I understand, my lord. I shall make absolutely sure that the curse is set up with a contingency and that it’ll only affect him if he tries to harm you.” He sweeps another bow and starts out of the Room.

“Theo?”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Why were you willing to tell me about this, but not about whatever you and Susan are setting up?”

Theo glances back at him with an eyebrow arched. “Because you would be upset if you learned about the other one.”

He’s gone before Harry can press him, and Harry groans and massages his forehead with one hand.

“Cheese.”

“You don’t need cheese, Ahalam.”

“Snakes who were frightened are owed cheese.” Ahalam writhes into place on his shoulder. “Or bracelets,” he adds after a moment. “Bracelets are also acceptable.”

Harry snorts and turns around, wishing for a bracelet. The Room drops one out of pure air into the middle of the table they were using. It’s thin and silvery, ornamented with turquoises and rubies.

Ahalam sways back and forth as Harry slides the bracelet over his head. It shrinks as it moves, so that it wraps tightly around his body but doesn’t seem like it’ll interfere with his slithering.

“Yes! Yay!”

Harry has to laugh. Ahalam can always cheer him up when other humans are being stubborn.

“There could also be cheese.”

“No.”

“But there could be.”

“No!”

“Maybe there could be. Cheese, Room!”

Harry gapes at Ahalam before he can stop himself. Of course the little snake has heard Harry and the others commanding the Room, but he had no idea that—

Well, that Ahalam would figure out that maybe the Room could understand Parseltongue, and conjure things in response to a snake’s demands.

However, it turns out that all the Room does is conjure an illusion of cheese in the center of the table. Harry walks over and lets Ahalam lean down and bite it before his little snake is satisfied that it isn’t real.

Of course, then Harry has to put up with a sulky snake all the way back to Gryffindor Tower, so maybe it wasn’t worth it.