[This Lordship Business]: Seeking Whom He May Exasperate, 11/?, Harry/Theo

[lomonaaeren]

“Stay after class, please, Mr. Potter.”

Harry has spent a few weeks dreading what would happen when Darius asked him that, but as it turned out, he has an answer ready to hand. “I’m sorry, sir,” he says firmly. “That wouldn’t be appropriate.”

Darius turns to him with a faint, vexed frown. He was gathering up the essays that people turned in—ones that have been hard for Harry and most of his followers to write because of the logical fallicies that made their heads spin—but now he lets them fall from his fingers. “Why not, Mr. Potter?”

“It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“But why not?”

“You want to court me, sir. Or at least you made your intentions to court me clear before you became my professor. We can’t present even the appearance of impropriety, or some people would clamor for my expulsion and your sacking.”

Darius’s face relaxes. “You don’t have to worry about that, Mr. Potter. No one would dare allege such a thing.”

“Why not, sir?”

“Because of my age, and yours. They wouldn’t think of a courtship between us as anything like romantic. What matters is that I am offering my protection to you, and you are inclined to accept it as protection. That is all that matters.”

Harry can hear someone slumping against the wall outside the door of the classroom. Of course he had someone wait to guide him away, once they realized he wasn’t coming out. He stares intently at Darius, though, and decides he’d like to handle this himself.

Among other things, he thinks either Theo or Hermione might really try to kill Darius if they came back into the classroom right now.

“But I’m not inclined to accept it as protection, sir.”

Darius seems puzzled again. “Why not?”

“Because you didn’t propose it as a mentorship, sir, or a guardianship, which would have been traditional forms of protection. You proposed it as a courtship. That means that at least some people would interpret as romantic.”

“But you implied it yourself, Mr. Potter. This isn’t a courtship. This is—”

Don’t say it, don’t say it—

“A courtship-like situation. Therefore, if anyone makes a fuss about it, then we just need to explain the truth, and they will accept it.”

“Plenty of people have made fun of me before, or slandered my name,” Harry says as dryly as he can. “Even when I was just a child, and they thought I was the Heir of Slytherin, before they knew I was Lord Slytherin. They won’t just accept anything when it comes to me. That’s why I can’t be alone with you.”

Darius appears to be thinking deeply. Then he finally nods. “I see what you mean, Lord Slytherin,” he says, and gives Harry a little bobbing bow that makes Harry think of fat pigeons he’s seen courting in the garden of Grimmauld Place. “I will have to come up with some means to address this inequality. In the meantime, please leave, and be assured that I won’t try to keep you alone with me in an improper situation.”

Harry practically dashes out the door of the classroom. Hermione straightens up and looks earnestly at him.

“I need to kill him,” she says. “For offenses against logic. Please, Harry.”

“No, Hermione. And no forming a Committee to Utterly Neutralize Threats, either.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“No?” Harry sets a rapid pace down the corridor, not convinced that Darius won’t come up with some other reason to call him back. Hermione keeps up easily.

“No, of course not. Now I understand what the acronym would come across as.” Hermione flushes, and then clears her throat. “No, I came up with another one that will work much better.”

“What’s that?”

“The Committee to Help Our Lives Eventually Return to Accustomedness.”

Harry spells out C.H.O.L.E.R.A. in his head, and restrains a sigh.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Harry says, and returns determinedly to the topic. “You can’t kill him. You know that a lot of people will be suspicious if he dies. Dumbledore would probably launch an investigation.”

“I don’t know why he hired him in the first place!”

To keep me distracted. To irritate me. Because he wants to punish me for not trusting him and not sharing information.

But Harry has no proof for any of that, so he shrugs, and lets Hermione rant to her heart’s content as they go to Transfiguration.

*

Harry sneaks carefully out of Hogwarts. Even though he has an Invisibility Cloak, and a Portkey, and friends who are happy to create an illusion of him in the Gryffindor common room playing with Ahalam, he knows very well how much Dumbledore and sometimes other people would like to interfere if they knew.

But no one manages to prevent him from getting to the edge of the school and using the Portkey in an area where the wards don’t extend and the Headmaster probably can’t feel it. He comes out of the dizzying whirl of colors and staggers up the steps of Grimmauld Place to knock at the door.

Sirius ducks out and ruffles his hair.

“Lavender’s going to be very upset,” Harry tells him as he follows his godfather into the house. Lavender doesn’t know what’s going on, but she took the request Harry made to try and tame his hair seriously.

“Lavender will get over it,” Sirius says airily. Then he turns around and pierces Harry with a look that makes him unconsciously try to stand taller. “This is going to be a serious test. Are you ready for it?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look ready.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “I know that you’re more nervous about this than I am, Sirius. Scared that it won’t work on someone who’s not part of the Lord Slytherin inner circle already?”

“Yeah. And scared that Regulus will be upset that it’s not working, and he’ll choose to turn around and walk away from me forever.”

“I don’t know if he can walk on those half-paw, half-flippers he has—”

“Harry!”

Harry steps forwards and hugs his godfather. He can feel Sirius trembling under his touch, and he hugs him tighter. It’s up to him to be there for Sirius and seek the right soothing words now, the way Sirius has so often been there for him.

“It’s going to be all right,” Harry whispers. “It’s going to be fine, in fact. Regulus would have required a demonstration before this or—walked away—before this if he didn’t trust that we could do it and bring him and his people within their own sort of bonded web.”

“Then why didn’t he ask for a demonstration before now?”

“Because I think that he’s just as nervous as you are about whether it’ll work and whether it’ll affect your brotherly relationship if it doesn’t.” Harry steps away from Sirius and smiles at him, reaching up to squeeze his shoulder. “So please don’t worry about it. We’ll go down there and we’ll do something fantastic together.”

“Yeah.” Sirius straightens his shoulders and nods. His mouth is still tight with nerves, but at least he’s calmed down. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Harry says loftily, and gets a swat on his shoulder for his trouble, before Sirius turns into Padfoot to lead the way to Grimmauld Place’s cellars.

*

“You realize that we have no reason to trust you.”

I realize that we were working on building trust over the summer and over multiple visits and now you’re going to be melodramatic, you bastard.

Honestly, Harry doesn’t care, except for the way that it makes Sirius tense beside him. He reaches out to lay a hand on his godfather’s shoulder without speaking, and keeps up a mild glare in Regulus’s direction. “I understand.”

“Then let us begin.”

Regulus sits there with his eyes closed and his hands/paws resting on the arms of his throne, which his people brought with them from the depths of the cave where Harry first met them. A number of werewolves are lounging about the throne as they were then, eyes sharp. A conjured pool of water holds the merfolk.

Regulus lifts his hands slowly into the air.

Harry responds with a tweak of his own magic. The visits he and Regulus held were really more about letting Regulus learn to sense Harry’s magic and copy it for this moment than anything else. Harry holds the curl of his power motionless in the air, feeling Regulus flowing around it, inspecting it, copying it down and claiming it for his own.

“Ready,” Regulus whispers.

One of the larger werewolves, whose fur has a reddish tinge to it instead of pure grey, rises to his feet. He slinks forwards and sits down next to Regulus, locking his eyes on Harry. Harry ignores him, caught up in still spreading and sliding his magic up and down in a pattern that Regulus ought to be able to copy.

Regulus’s breath catches sharply.

The werewolf leaps silently off the ground, straight at Harry.

The next second, he goes crashing to the floor of the cellar, tackled by Padfoot before Harry can even start mustering his defenses. He takes a sharp breath and sends calm to some of his bonds as they flood with rage. Several of his people knew he would be coming here, and that means they’re paying more attention to the bonds and his moods than they usually do.

“What the fuck, Reggie!” Sirius snaps, turning back into a human. He can’t hold the werewolf with his strength as a dog alone, and he doesn’t try. Instead, he flips his wand and conjures a series of silver-tinged ropes that must have some pure silver in them from the way they make the wolf howl. “What are you doing?”

Regulus has opened his eyes and is staring at the werewolf with his mouth hanging open, his breaths short. That’s good enough evidence for Harry that Regulus didn’t intend to let the werewolf attack, so he moves forwards and puts a hand on Sirius’s shoulder.

“We should let him speak, maybe,” he says.

Sirius glares at him, then glares at Regulus, and lets out a sharp growl. But he jerks his head.

“I—I didn’t know that would happen,” Regulus says, and shakes himself a little before he stares at the red-tinged werewolf. “Starfire, what in the world?”

The wolf turns back into a human man, a somewhat bedraggled one with blue eyes and red hair that explains the color of his fur. He’s panting hard, but he looks dazed rather than angry as he says, “You—more than hinted you didn’t trust them.”

“I didn’t mean it!”

Harry glares at Regulus in outrage. “You didn’t mean it, you bastard?”

All the wolves around Regulus’s throne snarl in unison, but Harry ignores them. He moves close enough that he could reach out and poke Regulus with his wand, if he wanted to. “Explain what the fuck you meant!”

“I meant that this is a big thing, and my people are reluctant to commit, and I had to show them that I wasn’t putting the opinions of outsiders above theirs!” Regulus nearly snaps into invisibility, then snaps back into his sold form. There’s anguish in his face. “I didn’t mean that I didn’t trust you. I had to put on a show for them.”

Harry stares at him with his mouth slightly open. He can hear Sirius, who’s taken Padfoot’s form again, growl behind him as Starfire stirs in those chains. It makes Starfire crouch and whimper, but it’s hard for Harry to take his eyes from Regulus.

“You really didn’t distrust us.”

“No. I’m—sorry, Harry. But this is the first time that a magical human besides me has acted like he really cares about the werewolves and the merfolk, and they had to see me go through with it despite voicing distrust.”

Harry drags his hand down his face. “Fine,” he sighs, and knows his voice is stretching out so that he’s almost whining. “You know what? Let’s try again, and then you and your people can go off and discuss as many shows and lies as you want. I’ll be done.”

“It wasn’t a lie…”

Harry just freezes him with a look (which is hilarious to think about, later, him doing that to an adult wizard who’s survived what Regulus has), and Regulus wilts in place on the throne. “You want to copy my magic and bind your people to you in a web of trust?” He doesn’t say that it won’t be much of a web if Regulus doesn’t trust them. He doesn’t think he has to.

“Yes.”

“Fine.”

Harry shows him how to do that, flickering his magic again and again until Regulus manages to copy it. Harry watches, a little numb, as Regulus channels his magic into a medallion that Harry bought for him. This one is made of copper, which seems to have some significance to Regulus’s people that Harry doesn’t know, and it begins to glow with vivid, almost incandescent blue the minute he imbues it with his magic.

“There you are,” Harry says, and turns and walks out of the cellars, shaking his head. Sirius hesitates, but in the end, he follows Harry. Harry listens to the click of Padfoot’s claws on the wood behind him and tries to restrain his own disgust.

I sneaked out in the middle of the day for this?

*

“What the fuck was he thinking?”

“I don’t know.” Sirius watches Harry as he paces up and down and around the kitchen table. “Do you know, I don’t think I’ve heard you swear like this before?”

“I’ve never had someone irritate me like this before!”

“What? So not Fudge, or Umbridge—either one—or that cousin of Theo’s you met in Diagon Alley—”

“No! They got me upset. Furious. This is just annoyance.”

“Ah.” Sirius pauses. “Can you tell me why you swear more when you’re annoyed than when you’re furious?”

“Because Fudge and Umbridges and the rest of them are just—that kind of person all the time! I really did think Regulus was saner. He made alliances with the werewolves and the merpeople and found some way to live even though it was unusual. And now I find out that he did all this shit?”

Sirius chokes on a laugh.

Harry waves his arms at him.

Sirius laughs again, and then glances at the clock above the mantelpiece. “I think you need to get back to Hogwarts, kiddo.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Harry sighs. His illusion has probably already faded, and some of his people will be waiting for an explanation of why he felt anger so strongly earlier. He turns to pick up the Cloak.

He pauses when Sirius grabs him in a hug and squeezes him until he’s a little out of breath. Sirius rocks him for a moment.

“I’m proud of you,” he breathes into Harry’s ear. “I might not always show it clearly enough, but it’s not everyone who could forgive a presumed enemy like that and go on showing a stupid ally the benefits of the alliance.”

“You just called your little brother stupid.”

“Sometimes he is,” Sirius says earnestly, and steps back, hands in place on Harry’s shoulders, to smile at him. “Even if he couldn’t get it this time, I think you’ll get him to manage a web of trust between his people eventually. And that’s no small thing.”

“They obviously need it, if Regulus distrusts them and they think he distrusts me.”

“I’ll tell Reggie that the next time I see him.”

*

Harry has barely stepped into the street outside Grimmauld Place under his Invisibility Cloak when he pauses. There’s something tugging at him, something new. Curious, he lets it make contact with his magic.

And then he smiles.

There’s a subtle web spreading out from Grimmauld Place and into the streets, through the air, further and further across magical Britain. Harry imagines it’s racing towards the distant place where most of Regulus’s followers stay most of the time, and probably already embedding itself in the copper medallions they’ll eventually wear.

Someone else has set up a web of trust now, and it’s wonderful.

Sirius is right. This isn’t a small thing.