Chapter Twenty-Five of 'Winged Victory'- Talking to Himself

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Twenty-Five—Talking to Himself

“Theo, where are you going?”

“This way,” Theo says, without turning around. Harry and Blaise were heading directly to the entrance hall, but Theo knows a secret passage that will bring them out in the same general direction of Black without taking them through such a public place.

“Do you think that’s necessary?”

“What do you want to bet that Dumbledore’s watching?”

That’s enough for Harry. Blaise looks a little doubtful, but they’re too busy running for him to stop and make a coherent argument. Honestly, Theo is impressed that Blaise, who has never been that much into physical exercise, is keeping up as much as he does.

Harry plays Quidditch and said something once about having learned to run away from his cousin early on. Theo—

Well, Theo learned to run for other reasons.

They come out of the secret passage on a patch of moonlight-soaked grass that makes Blaise stare around. Theo leaves him to categorize the exact placement of the exit if he wants to. He hurtles around the base of the tower and towards the road that leads to Hogsmeade, Harry still easily keeping pace with him.

“Damn it, wait for me!”

Theo turns his head a little to show that he heard Blaise, but he keeps running. By now, Black has probably been alone with the cup for at least ten minutes. Who knows what it could have done to him?

Or him to it, I suppose.

They end their run when they reach the grass near the gates and see Black standing in front of the actual gates, his hands clasped around a cup that seems to shine golden even in the muted colors of the night. Black’s hands are shaking, and a little snarl is working over his face. He raises his head a second later and howls like a dog, even through a human throat.

“Sirius!”

With the way that Harry is hurtling along, he might try to touch the cup to take it away from Black. Theo snaps his wand down and Summons the Horcrux.

It goes soaring straight out of Black’s hands as if waiting for this opportunity, and Theo raises a shield. The cup bounces off it and lands on the grass, rolling. Theo stoops without stopping and casts a shield around his hands before picking it up. Blaise was reaching, too, and Theo thinks he can handle the cup better than his best friend, whatever Blaise might have learned from his mother.

Oddly, the cup shudders and spins in Theo’s hands. Theo narrows his eyes. He isn’t feeling anything because of the shield on his skin, but—

Then the cup reaches out and grabs his mind.

*

“Here you are.”

Theo blinks and looks around. He’s standing in a large, dim room that he doesn’t recognize. Mist shifts back and forth along the stone walls, and he can see distorted shadows moving with it. When he takes a step closer to the wall, some of the shadows echo it, and he realizes they’re reflections.

The entire room is covered with mirrors.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” Theo says, turning to face the man leaning on a wall not far from him. He expected a manifestation of Voldemort, after all. “But I didn’t see that I needed to pay attention to you right away.”

The man flushes and takes a step forwards. Abruptly, the ceiling flares with white radiance, and Theo can see his face.

It’s not Voldemort after all.

“This is what you could have been,” his future self, taller and thinner and meaner and glowing with power, whispers. “If you didn’t give in and become no more than an appendage of Harry Potter.”

Theo blinks a little. Then he says, “You think I was born to be a wanker?”

“Do I look like one?”

“Someone who goes to bed alone every night and only gets solace from his hand? Yes, you do.”

His other self recoils a step. Theo stands still, watching him. He has to admit this is an innovative defense for the cup to have, and that he’s glad they got to Black when they did. That prick probably has no protection against himself, and would have an even harder time acknowledging his own self-loathing than what he did to Harry as a baby.

The silence breaks as his older self says wonderingly, “I see that I was too late. You’re so devoted to someone who offers you a bit of attention. Are you really that determined to turn away from Father, that you would embrace a person who will do you no good because he’s the opposite of what we were raised to be?”

“Explain to me why Harry won’t do me any good.”

The other Theo relaxes, his eyes bright. He moves another step forwards. “Do you remember that you used to dream of power when you were little?”

“Yes. The power to make Mother return and Father love me.”

“More than that,” Theo’s other self says, after a second’s pause. Perhaps it would be too short for some people to notice it, but Theo notices it, and rejoices in what it signifies. “You wanted to be free and so strong that no one could ever attack you again, or force you to submit to their will.”

Theo nods obediently. This is familiar territory, and he thinks he sees where the cup’s defense is going now.

“But instead, you have Harry Potter controlling you. Making you fawn on him. More powerful than you.” His older self takes yet another long step forwards, the grey cloak that he wears fluttering behind him. “Is this what you wanted when you were younger? Is this what you gave up your independence for? Is this what you want for the rest of your life?”

“You think he’s in control of me?”

“You are not in control of him. That means he rules you.”

Theo throws back his head and laughs. Again his older self pauses, and Theo shakes his head and moves in. It was a little interesting to talk to himself, but he’s tired of the game, and interested in piercing through the cup’s defenses.

“You understand nothing about love,” Theo whispers. “I don’t think you’re me, anyway. I think you’re Voldemort’s soul-shard, coming up with arguments to hold me here. But I will answer you one more time as if you were me.

“That boy who lay in his bed dreaming of absolute power did it because he couldn’t imagine a future where he had love. But I have it now, and I would never give it up for some arbitrary dream of domination.”

He strikes while the soul-shard is still opening his mouth to answer. There is a scream, and Theo feels a shiver of pain traveling through him, but the shadow dissolves in front of him, and all the reflections flare bright in the mirror for a moment before the stone hall and the mist and the glass all dissolve around him.

Voldemort has never understood love. Neither did Father. It doomed them both. It will save us.

*

“Theo!”

Theo staggers as he comes out of the illusion the cup cast over him. He shakes his head and stands. The golden cup clatters on the ground at his feet, and Theo casts a shield around it when he sees Blaise reaching for it.

His best friend stops and gives him an injured look. “I wouldn’t have touched it,” he grumbles. “I’m not that stupid, you know.”

Theo gives him a half-hearted smile and manages to hold out his arms just in time for Harry to crash into them. Harry grabs him and holds him close, nuzzling his face into the side of Theo’s neck for a minute. Theo caresses his boyfriend’s shoulders and kisses his cheek, ignoring the face Blaise is making.

“You weren’t there for a minute,” Harry whispers.

“I disappeared?’

“You wavered back and forth like you were a shadow. And I saw a shadow come out of the cup to confront you.” Harry steps back but keeps his hands wrapped around Theo’s shoulders, his worried eyes on Theo’s face. “It was the soul-shard, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Theo admits. “He took my own form and taunted me that I would become weak by being involved with you.”

Harry’s face crimps up. “Bastard.”

“Yeah.” Theo kisses Harry again, a slow, lingering kiss that makes Blaise sigh and Black stare at them with wide, motionless eyes. “But he refused to believe that loving you doesn’t make me weak, and that was what let me come back to you.”

Harry smiles and leans in for another kiss, but Blaise clears his throat loudly and asks, “Were you going to explain this to the rest of us?’

“Yes, all right,” Harry says, turning around. He catches Black’s eyes for a moment. Black stares at the ground instead of interfering, more subdued than he’s been since Theo first met him. “This is an artifact of Voldemort’s that he uses to maintain his immortality. I told you a little about the diary in second year, Blaise. It’s like that.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Black says, in what seems to be a mixture of indignation and petulance.

“I didn’t think that it would manage to take you over. The diary couldn’t unless you wrote in it. How did you find it, Sirius?”

Black lifts his head, indignation retreating for happiness. “I thought that You-Know-Who might have given an important artifact to Bellatrix. She was his favorite in the last days of the war, and the Order tried to kill her lots of times but never got close. And I had the right to enter the Gringotts vault because she thought it was amusing to give me access when she married Rodolphus to taunt him. We—were close then.”

Harry’s expression clears as he nods. “And she never revoked your access?”

“She might have thought to, but she’s been in Azkaban for years. And she might still believe that I was a Death Eater.”

“That’s good,” Theo says.

Black turns and stares at him for a long moment. Then he swallows. “You really weren’t tempted by that thing?” he asks, nodding at the shielded cup on the ground without attempting to touch it.

Theo is glad for that much. It would be a bit taxing to rescue Black from the consequences of his stupidity twice in thirty minutes. “No,” he says. “It showed me a shadow of myself that wasn’t tempting at all. All it did was rant at me about power and how I wanted power as a child. And I did. Power to make my parents love me—or come back, in the case of my mother. But now I want something else.”

He turns and smiles at Harry, and receives a smile from his boyfriend that could light the world on fire in return. It’s really amazing how no one tried to date Harry before he did. How do other people not notice the light he radiates?

“Yeah, well,” Black mutters. He shakes himself all over and stares at the cup again. “How are we going to destroy it?”

Harry reaches into a satchel slung over his shoulder. Theo is the only calm one when he brings out a basilisk fang, the base of the fang wrapped in silk. Then again, he knew Harry was going to take it from the basilisk’s corpse.

“Harry…” Black’s voice is a dry little rustle.

“It’s all right,” Harry says, and he can radiate calm when he wants to, as well. “I used a basilisk fang to destroy the diary in second year. And so I know that this will work on the cup, too.” He takes a sharp step forwards before anyone else can argue and brings the fang down on the cup’s base.

There’s a scream and a shudder, and Theo claps his hands over his ears as the rising, thin sound goes on and on and on. The black blood that bubbles out of the Horcrux makes Blaise start back with an exclamation of disgust. Black leaps out of the way and actually transforms into a dog in mid-leap, which would make Theo laugh if he weren’t shuddering.

The scream soars, and soars, and then ends. Theo looks down at the pitted, smoking metal of the cup with a sense of satisfaction.

“What was that?” Black whispers.

“The death of a powerful artifact,” Harry says simply, and tucks the basilisk fang away.

Black shakes his head, glancing between Harry and Theo with uneasiness in his eyes. It’s enough to make Theo say sharply, “Do you think we want Voldemort to survive? That we would kill this one in a way that would make him still able to use it?”

“I—” Black swallows with a click of his throat. “No, that’s not it.”

“Then what? Stop glaring at us.”

Black lowers his eyes and gives such a long sigh that Theo wouldn’t be surprised to see his toes fall off. “I wasn’t glaring at you,” Black whispers. “I don’t distrust you. I just think of how young you are, years younger than we were when we were fighting our war, and I’m—sorry, that’s all. I wish you didn’t have to.”

Theo blinks, then nods. That’s not something he expected to hear from Black, but he can accept it, even if he suspects it’s more for Harry than him. “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“I don’t think we have debts between us, Black. You and I are fine.”

Black gives Theo a hilarious look, as though expecting him to manifest another head on his shoulders that will deny what he said. Then he turns away with a limp shrug and a hopeful look at Harry. “And you and I?”

“You brought the cup to us and put yourself in great danger, Sirius,” Harry says, so gently that Theo has to roll his eyes a little. “I do accept that you’re my godfather and you’re doing the best you can to help us. And if you’ve finally given up your grudge against Theo—”

“I had good reasons for that grudge!”

“And now?”

Black gives Theo a slightly miserable look. Theo just stands where he is with a stoic expression. He isn’t about to make this any harder or easier for Black right at the moment, not with the way that he knows Black would try to blame him.

“I suppose he’s fine,” Black mumbles.

Harry gives one of those brilliant smiles again. Theo doesn’t even realize that he’s stepped towards Harry until Blaise coughs. Theo rolls his eyes at his best friend, who promptly rolls them back.

“We don’t all need to see you snogging on a regular basis to maintain full and happy lives,” Blaise mutters.

Theo goes off, for a moment, into a thought about who would need that, and then shakes himself free. He nods to Black and takes Harry’s hand. “You had success finding one of these objects,” he says. “Do you think you could find another?”

“Theo!”

“What?”

“You can’t just use my godfather as a—a Summoning spell for—artifacts!” Harry’s face is bright red, probably because he almost spoke the term “Horcruxes.” “He found this one, but it was a huge chance he took! Leave him alone!”

“I was only asking.”

“Of course I can do it, Harry!”

“But it’s not fair that you should have to!” Harry turns to face Black, waving his hands around, and even with the shine in his face coming from exasperation and not joy, Theo thinks that he’s lovely. “We don’t have such a clear picture of where we need to hunt for the next one, anyway—”

“How did you find these pictures in the first place?” Blaise interrupts. “These artifacts? I find myself curious.”

“Theo got an invitation from Voldemort to go visit him. Voldemort was trying to corrupt Theo and come at me through him. Theo performed a spell that showed some of the locations of the artifacts instead,” Harry says in a bored and impatient voice. “You knew some of that, Blaise—”

“I didn’t!”

“He was about to mention you, Black. Why do you think he was explaining this in the first place, when Blaise already knows this?’

“I knew that you cast some kind of spell. But I don’t know all the details, Theo. Don’t you think it’s time that you stop hiding them from me?”

Theo is silent for a long moment. He does want to trust Blaise. He does trust Blaise, more than he ever will Black. But there’s the fact that Blaise’s first loyalty is to his mother, and he might tell her about the Horcruxes so she could avenge herself for the threats that Voldemort made to her.

“You don’t trust me.” Blaise’s voice is low and hurt.

“You would have to swear oaths,” Theo says. “The knowledge was first revealed to us by Dumbledore, who was trying to use it to drive me and Harry apart.”

“What?” Black interrupts.

“Why would he think it would do that?” Blaise asks at the same time.

“Dumbledore thought that Theo would give up when he realized how much work it’s going to be to kill Voldemort,” Harry says, stepping in smoothly. “After all, I won’t be safe until Voldemort is dead, and he can’t die until we find and destroy all these artifacts. It could take months. Years. Dumbledore thought Theo’s interest in me would wane before then.”

Blaise stares back and forth between them. Theo braces himself. It would hurt beyond measure if Blaise turned away from him now, but—

“Has he met you?”

“What?” Theo is the one who sounds like an idiot now.

“I said, has he met you?” Blaise waves his hand between Theo and Harry. “You are sickeningly-sweet-gone on each other. Smitten. Snogging in the corridors. And he thought it would fade?”

Theo laughs a little and leans on Harry, who is looking at him with all the sappy indulgence that Theo could wish for. “He’s met us, but he still thinks that he can either convince me to walk away from Harry or Harry to give up on me.”

Blaise shakes his head. “All right. So you know where some more of these artifacts are?”

“Only vague clues. I was lucky to recognize the vision of the cup as being in Gringotts. I don’t know how we’ll find the others.”

“I can do it,” Black insists.

“And I’ll help,” says Blaise, calm but stern enough, with a glitter in his eyes that Theo knows better than to refuse.

Theo smiles at them both, Harry’s not-so-mad godfather and his best friend, and says simply, “We’ll welcome you in our battle. As soon as you swear the oaths.”