[This Lordship Business]: I Have Been a Brother to O.W.L.S, 37/?

[lomonaaeren]

“What does this mean for your being Lord Slytherin?”

“Huh?”

Hermione shoots him an intense look of pity. Harry huffs and leans back in his chair near the fire. They’re in the Gryffindor common room, so at least only a quarter of the school can stare at him and whisper speculation about him (that he hears, anyway). Ron is good at glaring away people who want to come up and bother Harry, though.

At least, everyone except Hermione.

“I know that you said you didn’t want to date a follower because of the power imbalance between them and you as Lord Slytherin.”

“Yeah.”

“But you’re open to dating Theo?”

“I told him I was open to seeing where it went. I’m still concerned about the power thing, but you know that Theo barely does what I tell him anyway. It concerns me less than if it were someone else.”

Hermione bites her lip for a moment. Harry waits. He knows that she probably has other ethical concerns to raise, and he’s open to hearing them.

But instead, she says, “And if he gets you involved in some other crazy plan that might use or diminish your power as Lord Slytherin?”

“What kind of plan are you thinking of?”

“A crazy one.”

“Well, if you mean the kind that Susan and Theo used in the past, I have taken some precautions against that,” Harry says dryly. “They’ll have to earn my trust back. I won’t just go along with them without asking questions.”

“But if they answer those questions?”

“I would. Just like I would with you or Ron.”

“We are not comparable to those—those mental—”

“Their plan worked, didn’t it?” Ron asks, draping himself across the chair that stands next to Hermione’s. He’s still watching for whispering Gryffindors, though, as he proves when his glare sends Romilda Vane into retreat.

Hermione whips towards Ron. “Not you, too!”

“Listen, Hermione, I’m not going to try and talk you out of anger at Susan and Theo,” Ron says, in his friendliest voice. “But I won’t say that Harry should never trust them again, either. You saw what Theo did today.”

“Yes, and Sirius treated it like a prank!”

“Sirius treats everything like a prank.” Ron shrugs. “Theo made a move in front of the whole school. No lying, no hiding, no acting like he’s ashamed to be asking Harry on a date. Or like his power as Lord Slytherin needs to be worshipped and bowed to, either. That’s pretty good in my book.”

“Because someone else might be worse?”

Ron blinks at Hermione as if thinking she might follow up on that statement, and then says, “Well. Yeah.”

Hermione dissolves into bickering with Ron. Harry leans back and looks at Ahalam, who is curled up on the rock next to the chair and hasn’t left it since they arrived back in the common room.

“Is it really that great a rock?”

“It is the most perfect and most wonderful rock,” Ahalam says dreamily. “You should mate this boy. He chooses good rocks and appreciates snake beauty. He is an excellent choice for a mate.”

Harry clears his throat, embarrassed by the talk of mating even though no one else can understand what Ahalam is saying.

“What are you going to do about this, Harry?”

Hermione seems to have decided that not paying attention to her is a worse sin than whatever was the last thing Ron said. Harry sighs a little and says, “Give Theo a chance.”

“And Voldemort?” Hermione does lower her voice, even though Harry thinks plenty of people in the Gryffindor common room will be able to make a guess about who sent that other box with the black rose.

“He won’t be happy about this.”

“Not at all.”

Harry nods. “We’ll deal with that as we need to.”

Hermione takes a deep breath, maybe sees from the look on Harry’s face that the last thing he wants to do is talk about it, and nods. “Fine,” she says. “And in the meantime, we should get back to studying for O.W.L.S. If you and Theo need time alone, you could do worse than spend it revising, you know.”

Harry half-smiles. It’s comforting to know that neither Hermione nor Ron has changed despite how different things are now than they were three years ago.

“This rock is better than shiny. You must mate the boy so that he will keep giving me rocks.”

And Ahalam is never going to change, either.

*

“Sirius, why did you send that snippy letter to Voldemort but agree to allow Theo to court me?”

“Because,” Sirius says, staring at Harry in mild confusion, “it was funny.”

Sirius is never going to change, either.

*

“Is this awkward?”

Theo is hesitating in the doorway of the Room of Requirement. Harry invited him to meet there and chose a configuration for the room that would only open for him and Theo. It has a simple wooden door, and inside, it’s a replica of a room somewhere halfway between the Gryffindor commons and the Slytherin one.

Harry grins. “It is, a bit, but that’s part of the reason I invited you here, so it could become less awkward.”

Theo clears his throat and edges into the room, staring around at the large marble hearth and the blazing fire. Then his face softens when he sees the rock with Ahalam asleep on it. “You kept it.”

“Of course I did. I think Ahalam would spontaneously develop venom if I tried to get rid of it.”

“Oh.”

“And of course I kept it because it’s a gift from you. You berk.”

Theo looks at him with shining eyes, and Harry suddenly wonders if he’s the more awkward one after all, even though it seemed like Theo was. Theo is staring at him as if all his most wonderful dreams are rolled together and Harry is the answer to them all.

As if Harry were Theo’s rock.

Harry clears his throat and gestures at the table next to him, where there are biscuits and tea waiting. “Um, I hope you like these.”

“How did you get them? Did a house-elf bring them? I thought the Room wouldn’t produce food.”

Yes, Harry is definitely the more awkward one of the two of them now. “Um. It doesn’t. Um. I made them.”

Theo is staring at him with his lips slightly parted, and Harry looks at his mouth, then away again. Merlin, he doesn’t even know if he’s really gay. Isn’t it weird to date a boy or think about dating a boy when he’s not sure?

Then again, it seems as if Theo doesn’t care that much.

“I’ve never had anyone do that for me,” Theo whispers.

Harry thinks of asking questions about his relatives, and then puts them aside. No, this isn’t the time or the place for it. Theo has barely mentioned his family, and Harry doesn’t want to push him. “Great! I mean, you’re welcome. I mean—”

Theo’s quiet laugh interrupts him. Theo sits down in the chair across from him and picks up a biscuit, smiling at Harry. “No one’s ever done this for me,” he repeats, and takes a bite. “I think it’s wonderful.”

He closes his eyes a second later as he savors the chocolate in the biscuit, or at least Harry hopes that’s what he’s doing. Harry watches Theo’s fingers and his lips and feels something stir in his chest, although he doesn’t know if it’s desire. How would he? Why?

He meant what he said about having no time for these kinds of things with Voldemort around.

“You’re staring at me.”

Theo’s voice is warm and inviting. He leans back in his chair and lets his eyelids droop as he examines Harry.

“Could you stop doing that?”

“You don’t like it?”

“I like it too much.”

Theo lets out another soft laugh and sits up. “It doesn’t matter to me, Harry. I trust that we can work these kinds of things out together.” He takes another bite. “Is Granger driving you mental studying for the exams?”

“I wish you would call her Hermione.”

“Is Hermione being her usual intolerable self?”

And somehow, it does turn out to be exactly that easy. Soon Harry is arguing with Theo about the way that he thinks of Hermione and Ron exactly as if this were a private conversation they were having about Lord Slytherin business.

When their little meeting ends, Harry still isn’t entirely sure how he feels about the courtship. He doesn’t know if this will end up with him dating Theo. He was still sneaking glances at Theo’s eyes and fingers and lips, but it might not go anywhere.

But it isn’t horribly awkward the way Harry feared it might be. This is Theo, his friend.

That’s a lot more important than Theo being his “follower.”

*

“Isn’t that that eagle-owl who delivered the box and the rose to you the other day?”

Vane sounds gleeful. Harry sighs a little. He doesn’t want to think that Vane joined the Defense group just so she could say something like this because she’s upset that Ron has been glaring her away from Harry, but he can’t help the suspicion.

Besides, he probably has bigger things to worry about at the moment.

He turns around and glares at the eagle-owl as it settles on the grass beside him. Maybe it doesn’t want to land on his arm, or maybe it knows that it’s too big to do so.

Or maybe, Harry thinks as he stares into evil yellow eyes, it just thinks that would be too much of a favor.

“What do you have for me?” he asks, resigned.

The eagle-owl promptly raises all its feathers, so that it looks twice as big as it was, and then opens its beak. Voldemort’s voice comes out, in a torrent of Parseltongue that makes people scream and also sounds a lot like Voldemort is gargling with razors.

“Why did you refuse me? You know what you are to me!”

Harry raises his eyebrows. He’s less frightened than he thought he would be. Then again, an owl speaking Parseltongue is so weird that it’s hard to be scared. “Yeah, your mortal enemy. Sorry that I didn’t want my mortal enemy plotting to get me in bed.”

The eagle-owl continues to stare at him with unblinking eyes. Then it gargles Voldemort’s voice again. “You are my Horcrux. You carry a piece of my soul. I would never harm you. And you know that Dumbledore will try to kill you as soon as he realizes.”

He really doesn’t know that the Horcrux died when he cast the Killing Curse at me. Or else he thinks I don’t and he’s planning to use this to lure me close so that he can really kill me.

After a moment, though, Harry discards that second thought. It’s a bit too subtle and sane for Voldemort.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“That’s disgusting. You shouldn’t go around shoving random bits of your soul into people. It’s unsanitary.”

The eagle-owl pauses, apparently unprepared for this. Harry frowns back at it and shakes his head a little. He kind of hopes Voldemort will decide that Harry disbelieves him. That would be the best outcome for getting close enough to the bastard to trap him.

“You are a Horcrux.”

“I said it was unsanitary.”

“Your godfather denied me permission to court you!”

“Well, you didn’t ask for it in a very pureblood way. You should have applied to him, you know.”

“I am asking you.”

“Go talk to him. I can’t do anything without my godfather’s permission.”

The owl fluffs its feathers back and forth, apparently thinking. Or reflecting Voldemort’s thinking, Harry supposes. Then the bird speaks again. “I had thought you were a true Gryffindor, reckless and defying everyone who tried to hold you back.”

Harry lets himself puff up and an offended expression cross his face. “I am a real Gryffindor!”

“You are not acting like it now, with your unconditional submission to authority.”

“I love my godfather. I’m supposed to do what he tells me,” Harry says, but lets himself visibly waver.

The owl leans closer, still puffed up. Voldemort’s voice is soft and sly as it comes out of the bird’s beak. “And you will show that you matter, that your will matters, if you defy him and come to visit me. From what I know of Sirius Black, he will be more impressed by a show of defiance than any obedience.”

That actually might have worked on a younger version of Harry desperate for love and acceptance, he thinks. But after years of being Lord Slytherin and knowing that Sirius loves him, it just feels utterly transparent.

That’s what he wants Voldemort to think he is, though, so he bites his lip. “But—you still want to kill me.”

“I am sure Dumbledore has told you that I am afraid of death. The Horcruxes are a means to my immortality. The last thing I would want to do is kill you.”

Voldemort makes Parseltongue sound gentle and coaxing. Harry looks down at his feet and then glances up and around as if just becoming aware of his audience for the first time. “Um. I have people who would watch me and keep me from sneaking away. And I have O.W.L.S. too, you know.”

Voldemort must sneer, because the owl’s beak’s doing something weird and stupid. Then he says, “I will promise not to interrupt your exams. You will come see me after them, and I will prove to you that I want to court you and that you need not listen to your godfather.”

“O-okay.”

“Wait for further instructions from me.”

The eagle-owl abruptly turns and flies away—just as a curse hits the ground where it was. Harry glances over and blinks when he sees Gwen with her wand raised.

“I wanted to kill it,” she whispers. “You had the strangest expression on your face, my lord.”

Telling her that he was trying not to laugh hysterically probably isn’t the right move now, Harry thinks. He does his best to smile politely at her. “Well, it isn’t the bird’s fault that Voldemort used it like this. But I do need to talk to my godfather right now. So I suppose the rest of the spells I was going to teach you are on hold for today.”

“Our Defense exam is Tuesday.”

Harry blinks at Blaise. “And Hermione can tutor you as well as I can, I promise.”

“Not me!”

Blaise speaks those words ahead of two other people. Hermione glares at them. Harry rolls his eyes at her and then faces Blaise. “I’ll come out for a few hours tomorrow, but right now, I really need to speak with my godfather.”

“Fine.”

Another thing I shouldn’t tell them, Harry thinks as he goes inside to find Sirius, is how much they sound like a pouty Voldemort when they say things like that.