[This Lordship Business]: Seeking Whom He May Exasperate, 10/?, Harry/Theo

[lomonaaeren]

“Acid Pops.”

The gargoyle guarding the Headmaster’s stairway shifts and shivers and grinds to the side. Harry shakes his head—he’s been standing there trying random sweets for more than ten minutes—and starts jogging up the stairs.

“He is being very stubborn,” Ahalam remarks from Harry’s shoulder. “He is upset because Fawkes and the prettiest snake have a destined romance.”

Harry’s in a hurry before his Transfiguration class begins, but he still pauses to stare at Ahalam, who is dancing in satisfaction. “Destined romance? Where do you even get this nonsense, Ahalam?”

“It is not nonsense. It is destiny.”

“You and Fawkes are courting. That’s not the same thing as a destined romance.”

“Are you stubborn like the feathery one?”

“You mean Fawkes?”

“I mean the feathery one. With the feathers on his face. He has many more feathers than Fawkes. White fluffy ones that curl at the edge. They are ugly.”

Harry sighs and decides that the last thing he can afford to do is argue with his small snake on the way to an appointment with Dumbledore. He springs up the last few steps and knocks firmly on the door.

There’s a long pause, by means of which Harry decides that Dumbledore must not have been watching his gargoyle, or armed any wards in the stairway that would have told him who was coming. He finally calls, in a low voice that sounds more like a croon from Fawkes than himself, “Come in.”

Harry strolls in and beams aggressively at Dumbledore. “Hello, Headmaster, how are you today?”

Dumbledore folds his hands on top of his desk and regards Harry gravely. Harry ignores the graveness and sits down in the chair across from him, tossing a practice Snitch that he got in the post from Oliver into the air. Olliver hasn’t sent any other Howlers after the first one, but he does send practice Snitches, miniature action figures of other Quidditch players, copies of the Prophet with stories circled about Quidditch teams that need Seekers, and many other Oliver things.

“I didn’t wish to see anybody, Harry. That’s why I haven’t told them the password.”

“Well, I had to see you. Need takes precedence over wants. That’s something Hermione taught me,” Harry adds, when Dumbledore continues to stare at him.

“You don’t understand why I wished to be left alone, Harry.”

“Nope. And I don’t understand why you hired Darius Umbridge. So that’s the only part that you really have to tell me.”

“I also don’t have to explain my hiring decisions to you, Lord Slytherin.”

Harry shakes his head a little. “Not in the sense of me being Lord Slytheirns, but I want to know why you invited a man who wants to court me to be the Defense professor.”

“He applied.”

“And you chose him thinking, what? That he would distract me from other plans you have in motion? Or irritate me enough that I would stop paying attention to what you were doing at all?”

Dumbledore stares at him, eyes hard with dislike. Harry looks back and says nothing, although he continues to toss the Snitch into the air.

“Where did we go wrong, my boy?” Dumbledore asks after a moment, his voice filled with sorrow. Someone might believe it if they couldn’t see his eyes, Harry thinks. “We should have been able to trust each other, should have been able to be on the same side against Voldemort. And now this.”

“We’re not on the same side because you decided that you had to distrust me,” Harry says softly. His heart’s kicking hard in his chest, and he doesn’t know if it’s with anger or sorrow. “Maybe you distrust everyone who doesn’t follow your lead, I don’t know—”

“That isn’t true!”

“Then who else do you distrust, Professor?”

“No one else is as consequential as you are,” Dumbledore says stiffly, staring at Harry as if he’s about to get up and storm out of the office. Despite its being his office, Harry thinks. “No one else needs guidance as badly for the moment when he faces his prophesied enemy. And you’ve not only ignored me, but mocked me, turned on me, lied to me, and told me as good as in open words that you’re my enemy, too.”

Harry shakes his head slowly. He supposes he can see why Dumbledore feels that way, but honestly, it’s kind of a pitiful way to feel, to him.

“Things would have been easier if you’d been able to treat me as your equal, sir,” he says, very quietly. “If we could have made an accord to share knowledge instead of hiding it. And if you hadn’t tried to do things like force me to go back to the Dursleys, or hold the Tri-Wizard Tournament, or force me to interact with Snape.”

Dumbledore closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, as if Harry is frustrating him just by sitting here. Maybe he is. At the moment, Harry doesn’t think that he can understand or trust any decision the professor makes anymore.

“I hired Darius Umbridge because he was the only applicant,” the Headmaster says finally. “And because without that, the Ministry would have appointed someone, exactly as they appointed his cousin.”

“And the fact that he was courting me?”

“Irrelevant.”

“You could have required that he cease his courtship of me, or rather his attempts at courting me, because you hired him.”

“It isn’t relevant.”

“I think it is.”

Dumbledore sits there and avoids his eyes. Harry waits, and watches, and finally rises to his feet with a sigh that he knows comes from his soul.

“If you insist on this,” he says, “then I’ll have to invoke my own means of protecting myself.”

“You cannot threaten me in my own office, Harry.”

“Do you want to step outside, sir?”

Dumbledore sits and glares. It’s getting tiresome. Harry also thinks, though, that he won’t be able to make Dumbledore admit the exact reason he hired Darius. He’ll dodge and hide behind excuses as long as he can.

“Good-bye,” Harry says, and has a feeling that he’s saying goodbye to more than the Headmaster. An ally who could have been, perhaps.

“If you had listened to me—”

“I might have been dead by now,” Harry finishes. ‘And you might have hired someone even worse, although I don’t know who that would be, personally. The original Umbridge would have got away with torturing people last year. The Tournament would have happened, and who knows who would have died? Sirius wouldn’t be free. Who knows what else would have happened?”

Dumbledore appears to have nothing to say. Harry shakes his head and walks away from him.

Ahalam gives a sad little hiss as they ride down the moving staircase. Harry looks at him. “What is it, Ahalam?” At the moment, listening to a lament about the absence of cheese sounds better than trying to listen to excuses from Dumbledore.

“Are Fawkes and I star-crossed lovers?”

“What?”

“Our families hate each other. That is what the girl with all the perfume calls star-crossed lovers.” Ahalam, who must be talking about Lavender, sways his head sadly back and forth. “We will have to meet in hidden holes. He will have to bring me the most select cheeses. He will have to give me his feathers in secret.”

Harry conceals his laughter and reassures Ahalam as best as he can that no one will stand in the way of his romance with Fawkes, but Ahalam still sighs all the way down to Transfiguration.

*

“We will not duel in this class.”

“Then how are we going to survive duel-like situations, sir?”

“I’ll set up a duel-like situation for you, Miss Granger. I promise.”

“Today, sir?”

“Not today, Miss Granger. Today, we are going to explore why certain people are striving to get dangerous spells declassified as dangerous, and what some of our heroic Ministry Aurors are doing to stop them.”

Hermione sits back and shrugs expressively at Harry as Darius starts puttering around. Harry shrugs back.

He wonders if he should be reassured or not by the way that Theo seems content to lounge in his chair on the other side of the classroom, his arms folded across his chest and eyes focused on Darius. On the one hand, Theo hasn’t shown any sign of outright attacking the man, which means that he’s obeying the orders that Harry gave him.

On the other, who knows what he’s doing?

*

“What cool new spells are you going to show us?”

Harry turns around from where he’s been setting up some dummies and targets on the grass near the lake and blinks at Fred and George. “What are you two doing here?”

“Our hearts will always belong to Hogwarts.” Fred sweeps a bow so deep that Harry’s amazed he doesn’t lose his balance and fall over.

“Always,” George agrees, and casts a melting glance at the towers of the castle. Then he turns around and sweeps another bow to Harry. “And, of course, to our wonderful Lord Slytherin, who’s going to be the best Seeker that Britain has ever seen in the future.”

“Have the two of you been talking to Oliver?”

“Hard to have a conversation with him, mate.”

“He’s either traveling with Puddlemere or talking about your glorious future.”

Harry sighs and casts a charm to steady the dummy next to him, which wants to fall over. “All right. He’s got a little extreme with the amount of Snitches and other stuff that he’s sending me.”

“Maybe he wants to court you,” Fred says brightly.

Harry groans. “The last thing I need. The number of people who want to court me, and the number who think they have the right, seems like it’s growing by the week.” He received a letter from the Flints last night, basically demanding to know why he wouldn’t grant Marcus the right to court him, and implying any other suitor must be unworthy.

At least that one came when he was already in the Tower, so Theo didn’t see it.

“Oliver doesn’t want to court him, brother mine.” George slings an arm around Harry’s shoulders. “He just wants to make sure that Harry takes his place on an English team in the glorious future.”

“You sound like you’re quoting him.”

“We absolutely are, Harrikins. He wants you to play on a Quidditch team more than you probably want to.”

Harry nods absently. There was a time when he thought that becoming a professional Quidditch player would be pretty great, but right now, he can’t imagine anything less likely. His friends and the magical people he’s working with and the things he wants to do will all need his presence for a long time.

“There you are, my lord.”

Harry turns around, blinking. He knew Gwen would stay in Hogsmeade this year so she could be closer to him, but she’s marching towards him, sweating and panting, as if he’s led her a chase. “Yes? I thought I told you I would be here.”

“Not that. I came to warn you.” Gwen gestures back over her shoulder. “A delegation from the Ministry is coming. They’re parading through Hogsmeade on purpose, I’m sure.”

“Did you know anyone in it?”

“Fudge. Other than that, no.”

Harry grimaces and shakes his head, turning to the group of twenty or so people who are already forming up on the grass. “The Ministry is probably coming to accuse us of fomenting rebellion again,” he calls. “Please stay calm.”

There are a few laughs and jeers. Ron and Hermione and Susan and Justin immediately form up behind Harry. Gwen turns and takes her place in front of him.

“I can remind them about all the laws they’re probably breaking,” Justin offers.

“Let’s wait until we know for sure that they intend to,” Harry murmurs back.

Justin gives him an incredulous look. Harry sighs and nods. He knows that the chances the Minister isn’t going to break a law in the next few minutes are incredibly low.

The delegation comes through the gates and immediately turns to aim at the group by the lake. Harry stands as calm and relaxed as he can. Ahalam is sleeping in a patch of sunlight nearby, and Harry trusts any number of people, twins included, to keep an eye on him. It might be a better idea not to talk to the Minister with a snake on his shoulder.

Fudge is leading the delegation, like Gwen said, and behind him are several people in Auror robes. There’s also a woman in the heavy plum robes that Harry’s seen Wizengamot members wear, and another one in frilly, lacy white robes that Harry doesn’t know anything about.

Justin leans forwards so that he’s barely peeking over Harry’s shoulder. “Julianna Glass,” he breathes. “The Head of Special Child Protective Services.”

Harry turns around to stare at Justin. “There’s a what?”

“They only set it up two years ago, after a lot of outrage about your case of living under necromantic blood wards and a few others at about the same time.”

Harry shakes his head and turns around to face Fudge as the man crashes to a puffing halt in front of him. “Lord Slytherin!” he bleats.

Harry pushes away the temptation to turn Fudge into a goat or a sheep. “Minister Fudge,” he says, politely enough.

“Your case is under review by Special Child Protective Services.”

“In what sense, Minister?”

“Well, of course you would be affected by living in a house with necromantic blood wards like the ones that Dumbledore manipulated around you.” Fudge smiles, but his smile seems to curve in directions that make Susan catch her breath. Harry is doubly glad that Ahalam isn’t with him, because the little snake would probably say something about it. “And living in a house with mad portraits and Dark magic everywhere? It’s warped your mind further.”

“What are you saying, Minister?”

“That you need to go into the custody of someone who can make sure that your mind is healed and given a chance to rest. And that means someone working with Special Child Protective Services, of course.”

Madam Glass steps forwards, her head tilted as if examining Harry from every direction. “You don’t need to worry, Mr. Potter,” she says, in a tone that resembles her name, slick and hard. “We’ll make sure that you have access to Healers and potions and Mind-Healers, of course. Your godfather can visit when we judge it’s time.”

“Excuse me,” Justin says loudly, before Harry can speak through his growing fury.

“Yes, young man?” Madam Glass looks at Justin.

“Are you aware of the laws when it comes to Lords and Ladies?”

“I know they’re a tangled knot of confusion that needs modernization, young man, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, Madam Glass. I mean the laws that say Lords and Ladies achieve provisional adulthood on their sixteenth birthdays, not their seventeenth.”

There’s a long pause. Some of the Aurors behind Fudge are exchanging glances.

“No,” Madam Glass says at last. “There’s no such law.”

“Yes, Madam, there is.” Justin leans forwards, his face so full of innocence that Harry wants to choke. But he keeps silent and lets his lawyer defend him. “And I know that the Ministry acknowledges them, because Harry received a whole lot of betrothal contracts, ones that could be fulfilled within the year if they needed to be. And that means that they must acknowledge Harry as an adult. If he’s old enough to get married without the permission of his guardians, then he’s old enough not to need one.”

Harry breathes lightly. He never thought he would be grateful for the useless mass of betrothal contracts he got, but it seems he has to be.

(Not that he’s going to tell anyone, especially Theo, that).

“There were no betrothal contracts,” Madam Glass says, but her voice warbles a little.

The woman in the Wizengamot robes clears her throat. “Yes, there were,” she says. “Madam Panikopia was the one who brought them to Mr. Potter. Lord Slytherin, I should say. And I know that there was gossip that many of the contracts were addressed to him as Lord Slytherin, not Harry Potter.”

“That’s true,” Harry says. “I can show you some of them if you like.”

Madam Glass stares at him, then turns to Fudge. Fudge is shaking his head. “Nonsense, nonsense!” he says, making little patting motions at the air with his palms. “Of course Lord Slytherin isn’t really an adult! Nonsense!”

“That’s the way things are,” Justin says, with an inflexible smile. “You can look up the law and see if you can interpret it in a different way, but you can’t take Lord Slytherin into custody as a child with an unfit guardian. He’s only a child in a few ways under the law. He’s a provisional adult in most.”

“What are the ways that I’m a child?” Harry asks.

“The Trace on your wand,” Justin replies promptly. “The fact that you couldn’t be sent to Azkaban for any crime you committed, because children can’t.” He pauses and thinks about it. “That’s it, I think.”

“We’ll challenge this!” Fudge bleats.

“You can do that,” Justin agrees with a smile, and says nothing. Harry feels a pull down the strand of the web that connects him to Justin, and decides he knows what the other boy’s thinking. They’ll probably be arguing about this in court until the day Harry turns seventeen, which will protect him from the other ways Special Child Protection Services might try to manipulate him.

Fudge and Glass and a few of the Aurors glare, but they turn away. Harry turns back to his people, and blinks when he sees Gwen balanced on her toes, her wand in her hand, but down at her side, where no one would probably notice it.

“Gwen?”

“They would have attacked you, my lord. At the very least, they showed disrespect to you. I was just ready to make sure that they didn’t touch you physically.”

Harry shakes his head a little. He glances at Justin. “Do you think that we need to worry about being called in front of the Wizengamot again?”

“Let them.” Justin smiles at him. “It took me forever to find the provisional adulthood of a Lord or Lady when I was looking through the law documents. It’ll take them longer to find any way to counter that, or confirmation of the laws.”

“Why do you think that?” Hermione asks. “They must have trained people who know the Ministry archives pretty well.”

“Because,” Justin says, and lets his satisfied smile widen until it looks cat-like, “I took the relevant documents with me when I left.”

Harry’s laughter wakes up Ahalam, who comes slithering over, climbs up Harry’s leg to his neck, and announces, “I am a star-crosssed lover in a destined romance. I deserve a mouse stuffed with cheese.”

“After we finish Defense practice.”

“Then you must begin it,” Ahalam says wisely, “so that you can finish it.”

Harry laughs again and turns back to the crowd, which is closer to forty people than twenty now. “Come on, let’s begin.”