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Chapter Twenty—Crystal Visions

Draco scowled as he watched Harry carefully wrap up the crystal cauldron that Theo had got him. He wasn’t blind to the way that Harry’s hands lingered on the sides, and a little smile lingered on his mouth.

Stupid Theo.

But at least Theo’s gift of the crystal cauldron also meant that Draco couldn’t blind himself any longer to what he wanted. He wanted to court Harry. He wanted to be the one Harry would smile at when he woke up or turned his attention away from a book. He wanted to be the one Harry would pay more attention to than books.

Or than stupid Theo.

“Are you all right, Draco? You’ve seemed upset for days now.”

Draco took a deep breath and pushed thoughts about stupid Theo aside. “I’m all right, Harry. Why do you ask?”

“What I said.” Harry shut the lid of his trunk that the cauldron had shrunk down to fit and eyed him again. “This is a bad mood that’s gone on for days, and I can’t figure out what I must have done to cause it.”

You didn’t cause it.”

“Then it was your father?”

Draco shook his head quickly. He was glad that Father hadn’t said a word against Harry since the Christmas holidays had begun, and he didn’t know exactly what had caused the change, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was Father acknowledging Harry’s value at last.

“Your mother?”

“No,” Draco snapped, frustrated, and then decided that he would throw caution to the winds and speak the truth. Maybe it would let Harry understand some things that so far he’d been ignorant of. “It was stupid Theo.”

“You’re upset that he got me the cauldron.”

Yes.

Harry leaned towards Draco, his eyes brilliant and focused and—Draco swallowed a little. He’d wanted Harry’s exclusive attention, had waited for it, and now that he had it, he was finding it a little overwhelming.

“You don’t understand,” Harry said, carefully and clearly enunciating the words. “You’ve grown up with wealth your whole life. You could buy a crystal cauldron for yourself if your wanted, or ask your parents for it. You don’t know what it means to me.” He turned away and went back to packing his trunk.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“No, that’s—that’s not what I meant, Harry.”

“Then what did you mean?”

Draco swallowed again. He hadn’t intended to discuss the idea of courting Harry with Harry right away. He’d thought he would take some time to think about it, speak with his mother, maybe, and ask about what courting gifts she thought appropriate.

But seeing the distrust in Harry’s wide eyes told Draco that his hold on Harry was much more limited than he’d thought. So he did the only thing that he could, and murmured, “I want to court you myself.”

Harry stared at him. Draco stared back. Then Harry said, “Did you only come to that conclusion because Theo started courting me first?”

Harry’s face was almost shuttered, and his voice was a flat thing almost without tone. So Draco told the truth. “No. I was thinking about courting you before, but I didn’t know Theo was. So I thought I had time.”

“To decide if you want to court a Mudblood?”

No! I never thought of you that way, Harry.”

“Yes, you did. You went out of your way during our first year to make sure that I knew my place.

Draco swallowed yet again and said the hardest thing of his life. “I’m sorry. I was being stupid.”

Harry’s eyes widened. He must not have ever believed I would say it. Draco took a difficult, painful breath. He needed to think so much more carefully, act so much more carefully again, if he was going to interact with Harry.

“Apology accepted,” Harry murmured after a moment. “I’m amazed you had the strength to say it.”

Draco ducked his head and waited for the blush that filled his cheeks to go away. Then he lifted his head. “So you’ll me court you?”

“Yes,” Harry said, an odd little spark in his eye. “I will.”

Draco smiled at him, and then glanced at his trunk. Harry glanced at it, too, but didn’t take the action that Draco expected him to. Draco cleared his throat. “It’s traditional to get rid of any courting gifts that you might have already when you’ve newly accepted a different courtship.”

“I didn’t say it was exclusive, Draco.”

“What?”

Harry gave Draco a sharp smile that Draco had never seen before, but which Draco had to admit, a little helplessly, looked good on him. “I’m going to let both you and Theo court me at the same time. I want to see what you’ll come up with. And I totally deserve gifts from both of you for putting up with your behavior in first year and most of second.” He turned and walked over to the trunk, then shrank it with a tap of his wand to the lock.

And then he walked to the doorway of the bedroom that he’d been using at the Manor, leaving Draco standing there with his mouth a little open.

Of course, it was what he would have done himself, if two people had offered to court him at once. Played them off against each other, waited to see whose gifts were the best and who offered the most to him personally. Waited to see if he would fall in love, although that was a lesser consideration at the beginning of a courtship. It could always come later.

He just hadn’t expected to ever find himself in the position of one of two suitors. After all, half his yearmates and even most of the older students would drop everything the minute that they heard that he was available for a courtship. It wasn’t—

It wasn’t the way he had planned things to work out.

But then again, that was true of everything he had experienced since making a friend of Harry.

“All right,” Draco said at last, knowing he sounded sulky now. “But as soon as you make your choice between us, you have to let me know.”

“If I decide that I can’t get any more gifts out of you, of course.”

Harry left the room with his trunk while Draco was still gaping at him, and then Draco had to shake his head and scramble to pack his own trunk, a chore he had never left to the house-elves since Dobby had accidentally left his favorite cloak at home.

Well, his mother had always told him to marry a true Slytherin, since they would be the only ones who could understand him…

He hoped she would be pleased with his choice.

*

“Did you like the cauldron?”

“Very much.”

Theo kept his eyes on Harry’s face, trying to understand what he was feeling from his facial expression. Harry smiled at him, but honestly, it wasn’t that different from the smiles he had given Theo when they weren’t courting.

“And do you say yes?” Theo finally pressed, because he didn’t think he would get an answer otherwise.

“Draco had to tell me what the cauldron meant,” Harry said, and his smile came and went, as fast as the scenery whipping past outside the windows of the Hogwarts Express. “But yes, I conditionally accept.”

“Conditionally?”

“You’ve been quick to accuse me of not being a pureblood in the past, Theo.” Harry leaned back on the seat, and Theo swallowed. The look in Harry’s eyes right now was so like the look on his face when Theo had seen him in meditation. At least it proves I know him. “I think you might do the same thing again if you were disappointed somehow—”

“I wouldn’t, Harry, I swear.”

“I don’t see a reason to believe that yet.”

Theo strangled his impatience and managed to nod, stiffly. “I can see why you would fear that,” he had to say, because there was no convincing Harry it would never happen with just assurances. He would have to prove himself. “So you’ll end the courtship if I—say something stupid to you in the future?”

“Or if I like Draco’s gifts better.”

“What?”

“Oh, the expression on your face,” Harry said, and leaned forwards with his eyes gleaming. Theo thought his attention would always be caught by Harry’s eyes, blue and hazel and some other shade of darting green. “Draco explained to me that he was upset by your gift because he also wanted to court me. I said yes.”

“But you agreed to mine first!”

“Yes, but he might have more impressive gifts.”

“And that’s all you care about? Which of us gives you more expensive things? Not which of us—cares about you more? Would give you a higher position in life?”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t count the expense of the gifts as the selling point, Theo—although I like the crystal cauldron well enough, don’t get me wrong. I count how well you can make up for what you did in the past and how much you really do value me over all the blood purity nonsense you’ve been trained to believe.”

“You seemed to believe it, too.”

“I thought I had to mimic you to get along in the world. It’s recently been brought home to me that that’s not the case.”

“The—apprenticeship that Slughorn persuaded you to accept?’

“Oh, he only thinks he had something to do with it.”

Theo studied Harry closely. Harry looked back at him with those shining eyes and his mouth curved in a firm smirk.

“It’s not a coincidence that Draco left us alone for this conversation, is it?”

“No. I told him that his first courting gift to me could be the opportunity to explain it to you in private. He fussed a little, but agreed.”

The fussing Draco might do in a situation like this was familiar to Theo, but not the agreement. He shook his head in both wonder and irritation. “He must really want you to agree to something like this.”

“He does.” Harry tossed him a bright smile. “It only remains to be seen if you really want me as much, Theo. Will you withdraw your offer of courtship and leave Draco to win me? You should know that I have every intention of keeping that crystal cauldron no matter what I do, even if Draco said it’s traditional to return gifts.”

Theo took a deep breath. He wanted to refuse. He wanted to throw a tantrum worthy of Draco himself and demand Harry’s undivided attention.

But then again, his immature behavior in the past was exactly why Harry was skeptical about Theo’s intentions now. Theo managed to bite his lip, nod, and say slowly, “Yes…I’ll live with it. A non-exclusive courtship wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I have no doubt that I can win you. If you allow me a fair chance,” he added. If Harry was already secretly planning to accept Draco, then Theo would pull back to preserve what was left of his pride.

“Why wouldn’t I, Theo? That cauldron was a marvelous gift.”

“You really liked it, then.”

“I really did.”

Harry smiled at him, and Theo decided abruptly that unless Harry did something unforgivable or dismissed him, he was going to see this through to the end. It was intolerable that Draco might get to spend every day with Harry for the rest of their lives, kissing him, touching him, looking into his eyes…

Father would say that you are spending too much time and thought on this.

Father was never in love like me, Theo thought, and knew it to be true as he relaxed back against the seat and chatted with Harry. He ignored Draco thoroughly when the prat came back in, and Theo didn’t think he was imagining Harry’s glance of approval in his direction.

He made sure to send Draco a sickly sweet smile, then, and watched Draco struggle not to explode in anger.

Good. I can make him look immature and annoying by comparison. It won’t even be difficult.

There was the fact that Draco and Harry were Quidditch teammates, and would spend time around each other that Theo couldn’t intrude on, but he forced himself to ignore that. There were more important things.

By the thoughtful, beaming smile Harry kept looking at Theo with, he agreed.

*

“What did you say, Horace?”

“Are you having hearing problems, Lily? There’s a potion for that, you know!”

Lily clenched her hand under the table and strove to keep a pleasant expression on her face, despite how she wanted to snap and scream at Horace’s stupid joke. They were in the middle of a staff meeting—or rather, the end of a staff meeting—and screaming would attract too much attention. Too many people on Hogwarts’s staff had no idea about the tragedy that had unfolded when she and James accidentally disowned Harry.

“I thought you said that Mr.—Grayson had a crystal cauldron,” she said, and summoned up a smile. “But surely he couldn’t have afforded that kind of thing?”

“But it’s exactly the kind of that someone might give him for a courting gift!” Horace shot her a broad wink.

“A courting gift?” Lily knew that she had almost screeched when Horace gave her a strange look. She managed to sit back and turn it into a chuckle and a shake of her head. “Aren’t they a bit young for that?”

“Not always. And not the Nott or Malfoy boys. They were raised to know what they wanted and go after it. Always a trait of their ancestors! Why, I remember that one year young Abraxas…”

Lily listened as little to Horace’s reminiscing as she thought she could get away with. Her mind was spinning, and with far more than the tiredness that had accompanied her during the long nights of sitting at James’s bedside, hoping in vain that he would get better.

Harry was being courted by the sons of one or maybe two Death Eaters. Lily didn’t know which one had given him the crystal cauldron, but she didn’t think it mattered.

What mattered was that Harry was in danger. Maybe not of being killed, not if they had decided to send courting gestures to a supposed Muggleborn, but certainly of being used for his Potions talent and corrupted the way Severus had been.

Lily bit her lip. She wished that James were awake at the moment so she could speak to him and get his advice, but the Healers had put him in a magical coma so they could work on the poison that was dissolving his organs. She would have to make the decisions on her own—

No, wait, of course she didn’t have to do that. Sirius was here at the school, and no one would blink at seeing them together since Remus was also known to be a friend of James’s. A few people had asked her pointed questions about when Remus had come back from exile and why he was teaching at Hogwarts, but Lily had just given them vague smiles and directed them to Albus, who was better at deflecting questions like that.

So Lily lingered until she could catch Sirius by the arm before he would have left the staff room. He gave her a strained smile and allowed himself to be drawn over into a corner.

“Did you hear what I did?” Lily whispered.

“Yeah.” Sirius took a deep breath, strange to watch since he breathed so differently from Remus. You never think that about your friends until you see them under Polyjuice Potion, Lily decided absently. “But what can we do about it? It seems obvious that Harry is going to accept the courtships of these Death Eaters.”

“Do you think it’s because he’s desperate? Could we offer him a crystal cauldron or whatever they do without obligations? We could certainly afford one.”

Sirius stared at her for a long moment. Then he shook his head. “I don’t think that would work, Lily.”

“Why not? He might be into taking them for all he can get, but we can show him that he can have what he wants without compromising his morals.”

What morals?”

Lily blinked and barely managed to keep her mouth from dropping open, or calling Sirius by his real name. “Remus, you really think that—you’ve been meeting with him for months, and you think he has no morals?’

Sirius exhaled hard and rubbed his hand over his face. Then he spoke quietly, since Horace was still talking to Pomona in the corner. “I think that he’s been battered by life into a shape we won’t unbend him from. There will be no coming back from that. We could try giving him a crystal cauldron, but if what he wants is to be courted the way he’s being now…”

“We have to try.”

Sirius closed his eyes and stood still for long enough that Lily thought he would give up. Then he half-shrugged. “If you think we should do that, then we’ll try.”

“Don’t you care?”

Sirius spent a long moment staring with Remus’s eyes at the door of the staff room. Then he said quietly, “The time when I could have cared is gone,” and shouldered past her and out the doorway.

Lily swallowed. Was consuming Remus’s hair in Polyjuice affecting Sirius more than she’d thought? But then again, if it were, she would have expected him to be even more defensive of and invested in Harry’s fate, not dismissive of it. The last words Remus had spoken to them before he left were…

She shook her head. She wouldn’t go down that road again.

But in the meantime, she would do what she could to prevent Harry from being corrupted into a good little Death Eater.


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