Chapter Forty-Nine of 'Feather and Glass'- Love in the Time of Conflict

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Forty-Nine—Love in the Time of Conflict

“Are you all right, Harry?”

Blaise knows it’s not his imagination that Harry is almost falling asleep in his porridge. But Harry lifts his head and blinks a little and shakes it with such a firm set to his chin that Blaise knows his boyfriend probably won’t tell him anything.

“I’m fine.”

Artemis crawls out of Harry’s robe pocket and hisses at him. Harry bites his lip, looking down at her. Then he hisses back.

Artemis isn’t soothed by it, whatever it is, and gives a long and complicated stream. Blaise still can’t speak Parseltongue and can’t recognize more than a sound here or there, but he knows what Artemis sounds like when she’s angry.

“I’m fine.”

Blaise leans forwards and catches Harry’s eye. “You know that we would never hurt or betray you, right?” he asks quietly. He’s trying to keep the hurt out of his voice. Harry should know it by now. Blaise thought Harry trusted him and Mother. “We would never make fun of you for suffering something like this, either.”

“It’s—dreams.”

“Dreams?”

Harry nods, his head ducked and his eyes locked on Blaise’s face. It strikes Blaise how cautious Harry is about something like this, even after years of knowing them. Harry wouldn’t hesitate to come to them with a wound or someone attacking him, Blaise thinks, but something embarrassing still puts him on edge.

Blaise makes his voice as calm as he can. “All right. What are they about?”

“It’s stupid.”

“I asked you about them, so it’s not.”

Harry stares at him for a moment more, then relaxes in a long rush, shaking his head and leaning back on the chair. “I still don’t think that you’re fully prepared for hearing about it, or that you can do anything, but—I’ll tell you.”

“I can’t do anything about them if you don’t tell me about them.”

Harry laughs abruptly, and then murmurs, “All right. I’m dreaming about the night that Voldemort came after my parents, I think. And maybe Neville’s parents. I dream about a man and a woman I don’t know moving around the cottage, but they glide in and out of my parents like ghosts. I suppose, if that spell Aradia talked about was already working, that might be why I dream of it that way.”

Blaise nods. “Were you having these dreams before Mother told you about the spell?”

“No. Which is another thing. What if they’re not real memories, but only thoughts inspired by the spell Aradia talked about?”

“I don’t know that we can tell the difference, but I am always willing to listen, Harry.”

Harry smiles at him, and then gets up and comes around the table. Blaise wonders for a moment if this is just another reason for Harry to put off telling him the truth, but then Harry presses soft warm lips against his, and Blaise decides that it doesn’t matter. He settles his hands on Harry’s hips and kisses him back—

Mother clears her throat from the doorway.

Blaise pulls back with so much heat in his cheeks that it feels like he’s asked Ignis to breathe on them, but Harry just smiles and hisses something to Artemis before he goes back to his own chair, not embarrassed at all. Blaise sighs. At least he knows Harry does trust them, and his caution was only a small wobble in that trust.

“Not that I object to a kiss in the morning, but it looks as if you were having a serious discussion,” Mother says dryly, taking her seat at the head of the table. “Perhaps you could explain to me, Harry?”

Blaise listens to Harry explain with his hands flashing back and forth, his eyes bright and wide open. He’s so magnificent, Blaise thinks. And all his.

He will tolerate no one coming between him and Harry.

Not Black, not Lupin, not Dumbledore, not someone who in the future might want to date either Harry or Blaise. No one.

*

“So you think they are real memories?”

Aradia lifts her head carefully from the Pensieve in which she asked Harry to place the images from his dreams. Harry is leaning on the table, his eyes fastened on hers and his hands clenched on the wood. Aradia knows her answer matters immensely to him, so she considers it just as carefully as she moved.

The truth is, she is not sure whether the memories are real or not. But she can soften the blow while still telling Harry the truth, which she knows is always what he would prefer.

“I can see soft edges to the memories in the way that I would see others that might have been produced from within a Memory Charm,” she murmurs. “So I am not sure if they are real or not, Harry.”

Harry sags.

“But consider that the influence of Augusta’s spell I told you about might have awakened true memories, now that you know it exists.” Aradia leans towards Harry and touches his shoulder. The light of the Suns streams through the glass behind him, and Harry lifts his head and looks a little better. “It doesn’t mean they are completely false. It might mean they are only altered.”

“Altered?”

“By your age at the time. By your age now, as you recall them. But you need not feel embarrassed about them. I do not think less of you for them.”

Harry bites his lip, his eyes fastened on her. Aradia looks as reassuring as she can. She means what she is saying. Harry does not have anything to be embarrassed about. He is more perceptive and bolder than many wizards and witches of age whom Aradia knows.

She can imagine many of them refusing to confront the truth, simply hiding from the idea that reality as they know it may not be the true reality. Harry is at least willing to face it.

And more, Aradia thinks proudly as she watches resolve harden Harry’s face.

“All right,” Harry says quietly. “Thank you for telling me.” He takes a deep breath. “So you’ll keep studying and looking into it, and maybe knowing more about it when you create your own spell-trap?”

“We’ll keep studying and looking into it,” Blaise adds, placing a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

Harry turns towards him like a flower towards the sun, and Aradia hides her smile. She had no idea that Blaise befriending Harry on Diagon Alley three years ago would result in this, but she is more than glad it has. She feared once that Blaise might always walk alone, and she knew that he feared it as well.

“All right,” Harry breathes.

Aradia allows them to return to their meal, while she prepares to descend into the Pensieve again. She does want to study Harry’s memories. They are doubtless altered by the spell Augusta cast, but they are also the only series of memories of that night which she has access to.

Currently, at least.

Aradia snorts at the thought that Dumbledore. Augusta, or Black or Lupin might be persuaded to donate their memories for further study, and then begins watching that night from the beginning again.

*

Sirius is bored.

In Azkaban, he wasn’t bored; he was crushed daily by the presence of the Dementors, and his alternative was the dog’s simpler mind or the creeping madness he could sense drawing nearer each day. But now he’s free.

And yet not free. No matter what he does, the door into his “sanctuary” stays locked with powerful wards.

Sirius can understand why Albus doesn’t trust him, exactly. The last time he was free, he committed murder—sort of, if one has to consider the execution of a traitor murder. But Remus’s lack of trust is a blow.

He wouldn’t destroy things. He honestly wouldn’t. He understands now that they won’t get anywhere with Harry if they yell at him. But they could let Sirius out and talk to him instead of only showing up a couple times a week.

Or a day. Admittedly, Sirius is losing track of how much time has passed in this prison.

He looks up from the book that Remus gave him—something horribly boring on the history of Arithmancy—and perks up as the door opens. At least a visitor will relieve the horrible pressure of his loneliness.

Remus comes in by himself, which is an excellent sign. Most of the time, it’s either Remus and Albus together, or Albus alone. Sirius sets aside the book. Maybe he stands a better chance of persuading his best friend than the Headmaster of Hogwarts, who of course has larger political considerations than Sirius himself.

“Moony!”

“Padfoot,” Remus answers with a smile. But it’s a strained smile. Sirius cocks his head, not really caring if it makes him look like a dog. This is interesting. He wants to know everything that’s happening.

“Is something wrong?”

Remus sighs a little as he sits down next to Sirius in the chair beside the bed. “Not wrong, exactly. But Albus is convinced that the deaths in the school are the work of You-Know-Who, and so was your arrest.”

“What?”

Remus nods. “He thinks that You-Know-Who influenced some of the members of the Wizengamot who oversaw your trial, but he’s having trouble proving it.”

Sirius didn’t even think of that. Of course he should have. Of course You-Know-Who would want people who fought faithfully at Albus’s side locked away if he couldn’t kill them. And who knows, maybe he feels some twisted form of loyalty to Wormtail, or at least outrage at his death.

“He can’t just use Legilimency on them?”

“Sirius. That’s illegal.”

Sirius leans forwards and holds Remus’s eye until his friend begins to smile, reluctantly. “He can’t just use Legilimency on them?” Sirius repeats, satisfied that he’s made his point.

“They’re the sort who would be trained in Occlumency.”

Sirius leans back on his pillow with a disappointed pout. That’s true enough, and not something he really has an answer for. He sort of learned Occlumency at one point during the war to keep You-Know-Who out of his mind if he was captured, but he has to admit that he doesn’t remember it.

And he doesn’t want people able to resist Albus’s Legilimency, really. He’s the kind who does use it for the proper purpose.

“So what else is new?”

“Harry spent the Christmas holiday with the Zabinis.”

Remus is watching Sirius as if expecting an explosion, but Sirius just shakes his head a little. For now, he has to accept that Harry is lost and there’s nothing to be done about that. Maybe he can launch a long-term plan to bring his godson back to their side, but he won’t scream about it all the time. “I expected it.”

“I never—Lily and James would be so concerned about him.”

“James would be upset about his being Sorted into Ravenclaw in the first place,” Sirius mutters. He can’t understand how that happened, given Harry’s character when he was a baby and his parents’ Sortings. But—“I know we have bigger things to deal with right now, Remus. Why don’t you tell me more about the deaths in the school?”

“You could stand hearing about them?”

“Why not?”

“You wouldn’t consider breaking out of your room to go looking for the connection between them and You-Know-Who’s activities? If there is one?”

Sirius sighs and gives Remus the huge dog eyes that he learned after he became an Animagus. Remus looks unimpressed. Then again, he’s had years to get used to them.

“I want out of this room,” Sirius admits, because Remus wouldn’t believe him saying anything else. “But at least I could think about the problems here, and try to figure out if there’s any connection between them. It would be fun. Like a puzzle.”

“I suppose I could bring you the journal I’m keeping on them.”

“The journal? Even though you don’t think Albus is right about anything You-Know-Who-related concerning them?”

“They’re still important, even though I don’t think they’re all connected to him. A student died in a Potions accident. Another flew his broom into the Quidditch stands. And another one just disappeared.”

“Who were they?”

“Slytherin students, all seventh-years. I have to admit that I wouldn’t put as much stock in their being connected if not for their House and their year. They could have known each other, although the Slytherin students I’ve questioned won’t admit it. And the one who disappeared is a Lestrange.”

Sirius growls before he can stop himself. Remus glares at him. Sirius leans back and tries to breathe out the memory of Bellatrix, whom he heard cackling in a cell not far away from him.

He never got more than a glimpse of her, but he knows it was her.

“This doesn’t convince me that you’re not going to run off and try to do something crazy.”

Sirius shakes himself in the way that he would if he were a dog getting water off his coat, and a reluctant smile tugs at Remus’s mouth. Relieved that he’s reassured his friend, Sirius returns to the first question that popped into his head (aside from who would miss a Lestrange). “Why would You-Know-Who want to hurt Slytherins? Purebloods, I’m assuming?”

“I think Callahan—the one who crashed his broom—might have been a half-blood, but yes for the others.” Remus shrugs. “Albus had a few theories, but honestly, I think he’s trying to force the theory he already had to fit. He’s uneasy about the fact that You-Know-Who was here as a wraith two years ago and in an artifact that possessed Ginny Weasley last year. That he hasn’t attacked yet this term is…disconcerting.”

“Who knows what the crazy bastard thinks, or if he can even plan?”

That wins a laugh out of Remus, something Sirius counts as a gain. “That’s true. But Albus is convinced, and you know how smart he is.”

Sirius nods. Albus is renowned for his magical power, but it was his tactical genius that saved them again and again during the war. If he thinks all this has something to do with You-Know-Who, Sirius is inclined to believe him.

“Can I at least see the journal?”

“Of course, Sirius.” Remus stirs. “I’m sorry, I have to get to my next third-year Defense class soon.”

“Is it one that has Harry in it?”

Remus swallows. “It is.”

“I know you can’t give him a message from me, but maybe you could observe him for a memory in a Pensieve?”

“What would that memory contain?” Remus asks slowly.

“I’m just trying to figure out how he became the way he is. I know that what I did didn’t work. I know that I can’t just charge in there and try to get him to like me again.” Sirius swallows. “But I can’t give up on him completely, either. Lily and James wouldn’t want me to. I just—I need to study him, observe him, figure him out, and hope that I can understand him better in the future.”

“And you’re not going to break out of this room to do it?”

Sirius sighs, some of his earlier resolve to find a way out draining away. “I want to. But look what happened last time.”

“This is—unexpectedly rational of you, Sirius.”

Sirius makes a scoffing noise, but he knows that Remus has reason to doubt his rationality after the way he punished Peter and stayed in Azkaban. “I know. But I was thinking earlier that I don’t even know why he’s a Ravenclaw. How did my little Gryffindor godson grow up into that?”

“You think he was a Gryffindor as a baby?”

Remus is staring at him with raised eyebrows in a way that Sirius knows means no good. He makes a hasty gesture. “I mean, not literally. But he wanted to ride that toy broom I got him when he was a year old, and he didn’t show any fear of anything. How did that restless little boy become a Ravenclaw like he is now?”

“We might be putting too much stock in House prejudices. And I think we know exactly what happened.”

“I know the Muggles abused him. But enough to change his essential character?”

“Maybe his essential character as a baby isn’t his as a boy, Sirius.”

“I know that! But that’s why I’m trying to learn who he is now. And what he’s like when he’s casting magic.” Sirius shakes his head. “I know I saw him when I took over your class, but—I wasn’t paying attention. I was blinded by my own preconceptions. I need to learn to see him the way he really is.”

Remus studies him for long enough that Sirius thinks he’s going to refuse to give Sirius that Pensieve memory. Then he nods. “If you really can make that commitment…that would be a good thing. Sirius. But only if you can.”

“I want to.”

“Can you?”

“I’ll try my best. And I give you permission to blast my bollocks off if I don’t.”

It’s an old joke between them, based on a time when Remus did actually try that after Sirius got possessed by an artifact they were hunting, and Remus laughs, his face lighting up. Sirius leans back on his couch, and soon they’re chatting easily about old times up until Remus does have to hurry away to his class.

Sirius closes his eyes, content. He’s pretty sure that Remus will agree to let him see the memories that he has of Harry in class.

And then I can get back to my primary purpose of being a godfather.

*

Neville doesn’t think that things are as bad as they were last year, exactly. For one thing, no one is going around Petrifying people, and for another, his Housemates have stopped hexing Ginny or taunting her in the corridors.

But other people haven’t. And Neville is spending so much time comforting a weeping Ginny that it’s hard to keep up with his Occlumency training and other necessary components of getting ready to face Voldemort.

And there’s his conversations with Professor Dumbledore and his growing, quiet, but unhappy conviction that Harry and Zabini must have something to do with the deaths. They’re the only ones who don’t appear shocked and caught off-guard by them. Neville’s even heard older Slytherins whispering about the deaths, but not Zabini and Harry.

He—

Well, he hates to admit that he watches them that closely, but he does. Some of it is just because he thinks they’re capable of terrible things, and he wants to make sure that other people don’t forget that.

The part that he hates to admit most is that he misses them.

Zabini was cruel and sly and never seemed to truly consider Neville a friend when they, well, associated, but he had a way of making Neville laugh and always consider something that had seemed like a looming crisis in a calmer light. His current friends aren’t good for that. Ron either dismisses things completely or takes them personally, Hermione builds everything up into a crisis, and Ginny is so terrified and upset that Neville can’t really discuss anything but her own situation with her.

And Harry…

He misses Harry.

Maybe that’s a stupid thing for him to admit even to himself, when he has no chance of getting Harry back, but he does.

Neville’s gaze lingers on Harry when he’s laughing with Zabini—and for some reason, Nott—near the Slytherin table. In the classes that the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors share, Neville finds himself turning to look towards Harry when Harry says something, or for approval if he did something right.

Everyone stares at him, even his closest friends (and sometimes they don’t act like friends), and they see a savior, someone who is destined to step between them and Voldemort. They can act like children because Neville can’t.

Harry never treated him that way. He just saw Neville, and he defended Neville to Zabini and sometimes the other people they studied with.

It hurts, to lose him.

But Neville squares his shoulders and turns to comfort Ginny for the fourth time today. He has to take care of the people who depend on him. That’s what the Boy-Who-Lived does. Even if he hates the fame, he can practically hear people saying that the fame means he has to pay certain prices, accept certain burdens.

Harry is beyond his reach forever now. Neville did what drove him away.

And that’s the way things are.

*

Theo turns a corner and nearly trips over someone sobbing on the floor of the dungeon corridor. He backs off a cautious step, his wand already lifted. There’s no good reason that someone would be crying here, and he wonders if it’s a trap, his thoughts flickering to any other seventh-year Slytherins he might have angered.

Or who might suspect him for the deaths of Greengrass and Callahan and the disappearance of Lestrange, for that matter.

But after a moment, he realizes the figure on the floor isn’t standing up and coming after him, and is too small to be a threat, anyway. Someone at least a year below, although she’s lying so Theo can’t see her face—

But he can see her distinctive red hair.

Theo sneers. He can’t help himself.

Weasley leaps to her feet and tries to dart further down the corridor. However, this particular one ends in a locked door (to a classroom Theo has made his own sanctuary and was coming to practice spells in, as a matter of fact). She turns around and stares at him like a cornered mooncalf, all gangly limbs and wide eyes.

“Why?” she whispers.

“Why what?” She can’t think Theo has anything to do with the people taunting her for being the Heir of Slytherin and hexing her in the corridors. Theo stayed well out of that mess other than helping Harry and Blaise look for the Chamber.

“Why are you so mean?”

Theo just shakes his head. He isn’t going to be drawn into the Weasley drama. Having her brother suspect he was the Heir last year is as close as he wants to come. “I’m not hexing you. Just leave.”

“You’re looking at me like you despise me.”

“I despise you. I don’t hate you.”

More tears begin to run down her cheeks, and a string of patience in himself that Theo didn’t even know he had frays.

“Oh, shut the bloody hell up,” he snaps at her. “Stop crying and running and acting like you have the worst life of anyone in this school. You were the one possessed by this artifact last year, of course, but you could have told your parents or the professors at any time. They would have believed you! They would have rescued you! Instead, you kept the secret for months on months and then blurted it out yourself, and now you’re acting like a martyr. Shut the fuck up and stop crying and stand up for yourself!”

There. Maybe nothing will change, but at least Theo got to give his opinion of Gryffindor idiots who have living, loving parents and yet get themselves into stupid situations that are all their own faults.

Weasley stares at him with her mouth slightly open. At least no tears are welling, Theo notes, pleased with himself. Then she straightens her shoulders and says in a small voice, “Y-you don’t know how it feels, to have the taint of him left in my mind and body. No one knows how that feels—”

She’s tearing up again. Theo rolls his eyes and lets her see it. “Then go talk to a Mind-Healer or one of your parents. Someone who will listen to you. Someone who cares. I’ll owl you a list of Mind-Healers myself if you just stop crying like a rag that someone is trying to wring out. Go away.”

“You’re—you’re the first person who’s talked to me like that.”

“Really? A pity.”

Weasley flushes. “You don’t know what it was like!”

“I already explained my opinion of that.”

Weasley stares at him some more, and then, to Theo’s surprise, firms her shoulders. “Maybe I’ll do that,” she says, practically spits. “Maybe I’ll ask about Mind-Healers and tell my parents about it. Maybe it would shut you up.” She takes a step towards him and plasters a weird expression across her face.

It takes longer than it should have for Theo to realize that she’s trying to look menacing. He bursts out laughing.

Weasley flushes like her hair has grown down her face. Theo waves a hand at her and bends over to laugh. “Just get out of here,” he finally manages to choke.

Weasley stomps off. Theo has a bit of hope that maybe this will mean she’s not lying around weeping now.

Or at least, not anywhere he can see her.

He opens the door of the classroom he’s made his own with a tingling sense of anticipation. He might not have the mysterious mentors that Blaise and Harry do, he might not have a talent as impressive as theirs, but he does have a talent to hone, and he’s working on his Defender magic to make himself better with it.

Until no one can stop him, and he’s completely worthy to stand at his friends’ sides.