[This Lordship Business]: I Have Been a Brother to O.W.L.S, 36/38

[lomonaaeren]

“Voldemort has no right to be courting you.”

“It’s not like I wanted him to, Sirius. I had no idea he would send that letter and the—the scroll.”

“Nevertheless,” Sirius says, writing busily on a piece of parchment in front of him, “he has no right to be courting you.”

Sirius seems much less upset about the whole “Voldemort wants to court me” thing than Harry anticipated. When he told Sirius in his private quarters after lunch, Sirius listened intently, asked a few questions about how Harry’s followers were responding, and then went and got the parchment. Harry tries to lean over his shoulder and see what it is.

“Now, now, now,” Sirius says, somehow managing to turn so that Harry can’t see anything of what he’s writing. “This is adult business.”

“Did—did Voldemort offering to court me remind you that you wanted to date someone, or something?’

Sirius turns and looks at him. Harry looks stubbornly back, even though he can feel his ears turning red. It’s not like he—minds if Sirius wants to date someone. Have sex with someone, even though it’s sort of strange to think about. Sirius shouldn’t have to sit in his rooms all the time and pretend he doesn’t have a social life because of Harry.

“It has nothing to do with that,” Sirius says finally, his voice gentle. “It just reminded me that I was neglecting one of my duties as your guardian.”

“Which one?”

Sirius seals the parchment into an envelope before he replies. “I have the final say in who you get to court, Harry. If there are any marriage contracts, I will be signing them. That’s what this little noseless upstart forgot.” Harry chokes. “He should have approached me if he wanted to court you.”

Harry gapes at him.

“I can be a proper guardian, when I try,” Sirius says, with a little sniff, and stands up to turn towards the door. “Mother would be so proud.” He wipes a fake tear away and keeps walking.

Harry is so stunned that he has to run to catch up with Sirius, and by then, his godfather is halfway to the Owlery. Harry gasps as he says, “Sirius, you really don’t have to do this.”

Ahalam stirs in Harry’s robe pocket. He finally seems to have slept off the cheese coma and his lack of interest in Voldemort’s courting, which he discarded as a “human thing” once he realized that it didn’t involve admiring snakes. Now he sticks his head up. “What does the dog-man not have to do?”

“Write to Voldemort and tell him not to court me.”

“He should do that. He should say that the strange pale one has to admire your scales instead.”

Sirius winks at Harry and runs up the last few steps. Harry runs after him, sure that Sirius won’t find an owl willing to carry the message by the time Harry can get there and snatch the envelope away.

But he reckoned without Hedwig. Hedwig did land on the table at breakfast shortly after the owl that delivered Voldemort’s courting proposal, but she acted stiff and hurt. Now she gleefully snatches Sirius’s letter and soars out the window.

“Sirius.”

“He should have applied to me first,” Sirius says, and gives a great sniff, draping the back of his hand over his forehead. “It’s shocking that he didn’t. Shocking, I tell you. He wants to abide by all the prim and proper pureblood stuff, supposedly, but then he does this?” He shakes his head. “I just don’t know what our young Dark Lords are coming to these days.”

“Sirius, you can’t really—”

“Anyone else who wants to court you will have to apply to me first.”

Sirius flounces down the stairs, and Harry feels, both disturbed and a little happy. At least Sirius didn’t take the news as badly as Harry thought he might. And at least a letter to Voldemort will make Voldemort angry, but probably not angrier than he was already.

Harry really hopes that he doesn’t get more black roses in response, though.

*

He doesn’t. But Hedwig carries a huge package to Sirius a few days later, and Harry groans from the bottom of his heart.

Hermione follows the trajectory of his gaze, and sighs. “Do you think that Voldemort took Sirius—seriously?”

“I hope not, but he probably did,” Harry says gloomily. He watches Sirius nodding as he looks at the package and the note fastened to it, though, which is odd. Does he intend to use this to trap Voldemort somehow?

But then Sirius stands up and carries the package over to the Gryffindor table. “I think this is for you, Harry,” he says in a loud voice there’s no hiding from. Even some of the people at the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables who aren’t in Harry’s circle are craning their heads to see, enthralled.

“What the fuck?” Harry mouths to Sirius, but Sirius smiles and continues to hold out the package.

“He has my permission to court you,” Sirius says, again loudly enough for his voice to reach all the staring, craning people.

Harry looks at Hermione. Hermione whips out her wand and casts Finite Incantatem on Sirius without even being asked.

Sirius gives them such a wounded expression that Harry almost laughs. “I am myself,” he says. “Of course I am. I’m just saying that he has my permission to court you.”

Harry puts his hand over his eyes for a second. Then he sighs and opens the package. The letter can wait, as far as he’s concerned.

He blinks when he takes out a large blue stone that has a pulsing, subtle warmth to it. He turns it over, and another note on the bottom of the rock catches his eye. Harry reads it before he can glance away.

So Ahalam can sleep comfortably.

Something in Harry’s mood must have shifted enough for Ahalam to sense it, because he pokes his head out of Harry’s robe pocket. “It is shiny! It is for me!”

“It is for you,” Harry says slowly, while he wonders just how the fuck Voldemort knew Ahalam’s name. Is it something he read out of Susan’s mind when she “betrayed” Harry to him? Or Harry’s? But then, wouldn’t he have sensed the plan that Susan and Theo had cooked up?

Harry shakes his head and holds the rock out. Ahalam promptly slithers off his shoulder and onto the rock, arching his neck back and forth. “The color complements my scales.”

“Where did you learn the word complement?”

“You do not think the prettiest snake is smart?”

Ahalam sounds so hurt that Harry closes his eyes for a moment. Then he says, “I just didn’t think the prettiest snake would know a word like that in Parseltongue.”

“I know many words,” Ahalam says, and coils contentedly on the rock. “Such as warm. And wonderful.”

Harry snorts and finally turns to open the envelope. He pauses when he does, though, because the handwriting isn’t the same as it was on the scroll Voldemort sent.

He darts a glance sideways at Sirius, who widens his eyes and asks, “You think I would have let that wanker court you? Really?”

“Sirius Black.”

So many people are laughing that Harry knows McGonagall’s reprimand won’t have the effect she wants. Besides, Sirius is already winking at him and gesturing towards the note and the rock. Harry shakes his head and glances down at it again.

Lord Slytherin,

I heard that I should contact your godfather before attempting to court you, so I did. But I did also send a gift that I hope you and your familiar will enjoy whether or not you decide to pursue a formal courtship with me.

Sincerely, and ever yours,
Theodore Nott.

Harry shoots a glance across the Great Hall at the Slytherin table. His Slytherin followers are already staring at Theo, who lounges back on his seat and smiles at Harry with enough smugness to make Harry smile helplessly back.

He doesn’t know if he’ll actually allow Theo to court him. But he has to admit, it’s a nice distraction from Voldemort, and Regulus, and even the upcoming O.W.L. exams.

“He sent a nice rock,” Ahalam says, his voice full of the soft sleepiness that he normally only gets out in the sun.

Yes, Harry thinks, stroking one finger over the surface of the blue stone while he beams at Theo, he did.