lomonaaeren

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Chapter Thirty-Six—Precious

“You’re writing to Everett now?”

“I think it’s the best thing to do, before he gets wind of this from some other quarter and might blame me for it.”

Harry’s spine was rigid as he scribbled on the parchment, and Theo found himself sitting down on the other side of the table from Harry without meaning to. He got a long, dark look before Harry went back to writing.

“Why in the world would he blame you?” Theo finally asked. “You did what you had to do to preserve your life.” And from what hints he’d picked up of the Dark Lord’s thoughts on the Potters and Sirius Black from Harry, the man would hate anyone who attacked his apprentice.

“I fought someone linked to him.” Harry lowered his voice even though a lot of the common room was watching a duel between two of the sixth-years and it seemed likely no one would look in their direction. “Someone who looked like him. I think he cares about himself more than me.”

Theo had to allow that to be true, with everything he’d ever heard about the Dark Lord. Still… “You don’t know that he cares about this imposter more than you.”

“We don’t know it’s an imposter.” Harry wrote steadily, the letters flowing from his quill so smoothly that Theo had to be a bit envious. They looked nothing like the wobbly handwriting Harry had used in first year. “We don’t know anything. That’s why I have to write this.”

“All right. And use a school owl to send it?”

“I was going to ask if I could borrow yours or Draco’s.”

“Of course,” Theo murmured, and reached out to put a hand on Harry’s, stilling him for a second. Harry looked at him in a way that made Theo regret the gesture. But he said, “I would defend you if he came to take vengeance on you. You know it.”

“You wouldn’t be able to,” Harry said, in a voice that wasn’t upset or threatening. It was just low and matter-of-fact. His hand turned over so that he was gripping Theo’s, and squeezed his fingers, hard, in a way that made Theo swallow a little. “But thank you for saying so.”

“I would do my best.”

“And get killed.”

Theo bowed his head. Yes, that would probably happen. He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he spoke. “I give you the intention if not the reality,” he said, and had the satisfaction of seeing Harry smile before he took his hand back.

“Would you walk with me to the Owlery?”

Theo blinked. Normally, Harry would never ask for his company on an errand like this. But he wasn’t stupid enough to pass up the chance to spend a little time with his courted away from the judgmental gazes of the Slytherin common room. “Of course,” he said, and sat back.

Harry gave him a genuinely sweet smile, and scanned his letter one more time before he stood. He had an odd expression on his face as he looked at Theo for a moment.

“What is it?” Theo asked, as they left and started towards the first of many staircases that led up to the Owlery.

“I realized…”

Theo let silence flow between them when Harry stopped speaking. He didn’t want to hurry him or make him feel pressured, even though he was also intensely curious to know what Harry would have said.

Harry swallowed. A second later, he continued without a noticeable pause. “I realized that I—would be really upset if you got killed. Upset in a way that I didn’t think I could feel for anyone or anything but myself.”

Theo felt a soft, warm glow spread its way down through his chest. He knew, intellectually, that if he had chosen to court someone else, someone who hadn’t been through the amount of things that Harry had, he would have a more “normal” relationship.

But he didn’t want that normal relationship. He wanted Harry.

And this acknowledgment from Harry was worth an offering on bended knee from anyone else.

They made their way to the Owlery, and Harry attached the letter for the Dark Lord to the leg of Theo’s owl. They stood there watching the wings soar into the distance, Harry pressed solidly and warmly against Theo’s side.

Theo knew that his self of a few years ago would have laughed in scorn if anyone had told him about this scene. Or simply shaken his head and looked superior in a way that would irritate Theo now.

But things changed. Theo couldn’t have imagined defying his father and enacting the Nott courtship ritual so young for anyone.

He hadn’t known Harry then.

Nor, he thought now, had he truly known himself.

*

Harry walked beside Theo on the way down to the common room, and he sat with him on the couch when they got back there, and he laughed with Theo and Draco at dinner. But even though his body was with them, his mind was far away, swooping around the moment of realization he’d had earlier that afternoon.

Theo matters to me. Draco matters to me.

Well, he’d known that. That wasn’t the core of his epiphany.

He had assumed that Theo and Draco would matter to him for years, and that they would slowly grow in importance. He had assumed that his own ambitions and safety would always be the most valuable things to him. Well, that and the Dark Lord’s opinion, he supposed.

But now, they were equally important. He would kill for them the way he would kill for himself. He would hide them in the same sanctuaries that he would seek out.

He would die for them.

I would?

Harry sat still when he had that thought, enough for Draco to notice and eye him oddly while asking if anything was wrong. But Harry managed to shake his head and fob them off with a quip about one of the Gryffindors, who seemed to be trying to make up for the continued absence of the Weasley twins.

While Draco was sneering about Weasleys, however, Theo watched Harry gravely in turn. Harry smiled at him and said nothing until Draco turned back to the conversation.

The surprise was still with him when he went to bed that night. And the caution.

I have to make sure that I don’t do something stupid because of how much I care for them. Something that would expose them to my enemies, or the Dark Lord’s vengeance, or that would—

Put me in danger.

That was another thought Harry had to wrestle with. Before today, he wouldn’t have said that he’d put himself in danger for anyone or anything.

Didn’t you? When you stood up to the imposter in Hogsmeade?

I was fighting it so that it wouldn’t come after me, Harry whispered back to himself. It could have chased me all the way to the castle. Theo and Draco just happened to be there. Fighting for them was fighting for myself.

Then they would have been acceptable sacrifices so that you could get away? asked that sly, merciless voice that had more than a hint of the Dark Lord about it.

The sense of rejection that flooded through him when Harry thought about that left him breathless. He flopped back against his pillow and stared up at the canopy. He found himself listening to Theo and Draco’s breathing, as well.

That breathing could stop at any time. If the imposter had been a little luckier, a little faster, it could have killed them.

Harry closed his eyes. He didn’t know when his stance on this had shifted and he’d started thinking about their courtships as real and valuable things. Merlin, he didn’t even know for certain when he’d started thinking about Theo and Draco as real people he feared to lose.

But he knew he did. He might not want to, but he did.

And that meant that he would have to do his best in the future to protect them, along with himself.

Harry lay there and let himself be overwhelmed. At least he was alone in his bed and no one could look at him in scorn and shake their heads in disgust.

Would it be worse to lose the Dark Lord’s regard or to lose Theo and Draco?

Harry couldn’t answer that question right away, either, when he would have been able to answer it unquestioningly in favor of the former only a few months ago.

Somewhere in between worrying about what that meant and thinking it meant something he might kill to keep, Harry drifted off.

*

Lord Voldemort sat very still at the table in the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. It wasn’t a Hogsmeade weekend, but he had made it clear to his apprentice that Harry needed to slip out of the school via whatever means he could use—the Disillusionment Charm that he had probably learned by now, or something else.

Lord Voldemort had to see him.

It felt as though part of him hadn’t stopped reeling from the letter Harry had sent. The cup Horcrux had come to Hogsmeade and deliberately sought out Harry. There could be no doubt that was the main, perhaps the only, target.

And he had done it only because Harry was precious to Lord Voldemort. If the Horcrux had been focused on the people who might be the enemies of both versions of himself, he could have targeted Longbottom.

For him to do that, and for him to be foiled only by a combination of Harry, young Nott, young Malfoy, and Lily Potter, came too close to pointing out that Harry could have died for Lord Voldemort’s taste.

For now, he needed to reassure himself.

“My lord.”

The voice was low enough not to draw attention. The moment that he heard it, Lord Voldemort raised a Privacy Bubble around them. No need to draw attention to the fact that a Hogwarts-age student was here.

“Harry. You’re well?” That question came out rougher and faster than Lord Voldemort would have liked, but Harry didn’t show a sign of glaring at him or being upset because of it.

“Yes, my lord.” Harry flickered into being, from the midst of a Disillusionment Charm that Lord Voldemort would have admired vocally if he hadn’t been focused elsewhere. “The imposter didn’t injure me.”

“The imposter.”

“Yes, sir. I assumed that was what he was. The red eyes looked like yours, and perhaps the face a bit as well. Although he was in such a half-melted state that I’m not sure how great the resemblance was.”

“Allow me to see your memory of him.”

Harry half-blinked, but he nodded and leaned forwards with his eyes wide. Lord Voldemort dipped into his thoughts at once, an arrow aimed straight at the one particular memory, a skill that not everyone could master.

His pride was overshadowed by his rage as he watched the Horcrux fling deadly spells, and then foam up into a dark spirit that could have conquered Harry if Lily Potter hadn’t been there. He did make sure to tuck the rage carefully into the back of his own thoughts as he pulled free from Harry’s mind, so that it wouldn’t harm his apprentice.

“Where do you believe this imposter came from?”

Harry was watching him with calm caution, the attitude that Lord Voldemort had once tried to encourage in all his Death Eaters. How is it that this child is so much better at it than so many adults once were? “I thought it might be someone who tried to conduct a ritual to summon you back, sir, but didn’t realize that you were already embodied. And the ritual twisted their own body instead.”

“Not a bad guess. But not the truth. I will share the truth with you now.”

Harry sat up and stared at him. “My lord?”

Lord Voldemort could feel his own mind boiling with the idea. He had never told anyone the truth about the Horcruxes, even those Death Eaters he had entrusted with one. It had been enough for them to know that the artifacts were precious to him.

And now he would tell a child the truth? A child whose allegiance he had only earned a few years ago?

My apprentice.

The words calmed the storm that might have blown across Lord Voldemort’s mind, calmed his doubts in his own actions. Of course he would tell Harry the truth. He had once thought he would never have an apprentice, but now he did. And he had never thought he would encounter someone under magic as fascinating as the geas that covered Harry, but now he had.

I will tell him the truth.

“When I was younger,” Lord Voldemort said, “I decided that the best play I could make for immortality was to bind my soul to magical artifacts that were themselves infused with magic and history.” And emotion. But Lord Voldemort did not intend to single the diary out from the others. “I discovered that I was able to create more than one of these artifacts, although the books I had read said that only one was advisable. I thought I would be able to resurrect myself if something ever happened to my body.”

“Yes, my lord?”

Harry’s eyes were huge. Lord Voldemort skimmed the surface of his thoughts and discovered that he was genuinely honored by what he was hearing.

Good. That was the way it should be.

I don’t know why I had to wait so long to find someone this loyal to me, but at least I’ve found him now.

“One of the artifacts took on a body. However, he could not sustain himself on his own. I suspect he was trying to find sources of magic that would allow him to do so.” It would explain why “Hugh Fawley” had been working in the Department of Mysteries. “But in the end, his body was collapsing. I have been tracking him, trying to find and contain him. I had no idea that he would go after you, because he sensed that you were precious to me. My word on that.”

“My—lord?”

“Yes, Harry?”

“Precious to you?”

Lord Voldemort leaned back in his chair and considered the boy in front of him for a long moment. Harry’s cheeks had flushed. He had to know that the question had revealed a weakness of his, giving Lord Voldemort what had to be a long look into his soul. He was probably trying to decide how to deal with it.

But he had asked. And Lord Voldemort would answer, because this boy alone was loyal to him for his own sake.

Well. Perhaps Severus was, as well. But Severus’s excellent Occlumency meant that Lord Voldemort would never be sure of that.

“Yes, precious,” Lord Voldemort said softly. “I have never taken another apprentice. I have never felt the urge to teach someone else about something so varied and specific." He’d helped Death Eaters who’d served him well enough to master Occlumency and the like, but even those were mainly to keep them away from the Ministry and keep his secrets from being betrayed, not to keep them safe. “I have never found someone else whose potential I so wanted to honor.”

Harry closed his eyes.

Lord Voldemort sat and let him think about it, while he sipped a mug of the excellent butterbeer. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed the Three Broomsticks. Something to remember, if he ever went on a spree of conquest.

*

I matter to him. He matters to me.

Well, Harry had known the last part. But he’d never thought the Dark Lord would return the loyalty. Why would he? For him, Harry was only one of many followers, and he must be worth less than most of them because he was younger and untried. Harry had simply thought he would commit himself to learning everything he could until he could prove himself to the Dark Lord, or until the Dark Lord tired of their apprenticeship arrangement.

Conditional, temporary, always predicated on how useful he could be to someone else. Harry had thought that would be the case for everyone and everything in his life. He’d been prepared for the Dark Lord to end their arrangement over the destruction of the imposter—the artifact. Everything mattered more to other people than Harry did. He’d got used to that idea long ago.

And now, to learn in the same week that it wasn’t true for Theo and Draco, and it wasn’t true for the Dark Lord, either?

Harry was having a hard time taking it in.

But he didn’t want to linger too long and make the Dark Lord wait, as well. He opened his eyes and smiled at his mentor. “I am more than honored, sir.”

“As you should be.”

Harry nodded fervently. Yes, he could accept that, and he could accept that the Dark Lord was giving Harry something he had never given anyone else. It was a heavy burden to carry, but then, the heights of power Harry had aspired to climb to would give him all sorts of heavy burdens. Best to get used to them now.

“And I hold no anger with you for destroying the artifact,” Lord Voldemort said, and shook his head. “I am only amazed that you could. I had thought that even as decaying as he was, he would have retained powerful enough magic to make the task too difficult.”

“Well, I don’t think I could have done it on my own, my lord. Theo and Draco being there, and Lily Potter dissipating the spirit-smoke, were the only things that made it work.”

“Ah, yes. Lily Potter. You owe her a Life-Debt now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What are you going to do about that?”

Harry sighed. “I was going to discuss that with you, my lord.” If I survived the confession of destroying the imposter in the first place. But it seemed that he really would. “Perhaps give James Potter the antidote to the poison that I brewed?”

“You know that it wouldn’t completely restore him? Or that Lily Potter would ever be able to know that it came from you?”

“No, sir. But I think it would cure his blindness. And I think it would satisfy the magical part of the life-debt.”

Lord Voldemort paused and tapped his finger against his lips for a moment. Harry waited. The fear that had gripped him coming to the pub was gone, and he only awaited Lord Voldemort’s word.

“An interesting experiment, at the very least,” Lord Voldemort murmured. “Yes, I give you the permission to do that, provided that you take all the steps necessary to shield yourself from discovery.”

“Yes, my lord. Thank you.”

Harry could feel the pressure on his magic relax. There had been a tight bond there since the Hogsmeade weekend. He acknowledged the life-debt even if Professor Potter never would. And now he would be able to ease it, and his sincere intention wore away the tightness.

“Now, tell me what you’ve been doing. Have you mastered all the Dark Arts that I’ve shown you yet?”

Harry smiled at him and settled back for a conversation with the Dark Lord who valued him. Who had given Harry what no one else ever had.

The way Theo and Draco had.

I am so much luckier than I ever thought I could be.