[This Lordship Business]: Seeking Whom He May Exasperate, 15/?, Harry/Theo

[lomonaaeren]

“It’s good that you didn’t go to speak with Babbling. It shows a modicum of sense.”

Harry gives a low groan. He’s not good for much else at the moment, given that he’s melting into the padded mat that the Room of Requirement conjured for him and Theo when they asked. Theo is massaging his shoulders, using some kind of potion that smells like warm flowers and makes Harry’s back all warm, too.

“Why did you decide not to go speak with her?”

Harry yawns and manages to open his eyes, if only because Theo’s hands have stopped moving. “I’ve—never interacted with her before,” he says, and rolls his head to the side. Theo looks captivated by the expression on Harry’s face. Harry smiles sleepily at him. “It seemed strange that she would approach me like that and insist on speaking in her office and nowhere else. And Ahalam just thought she would make a good chaperone.”

“What?”

“It’s a thing that Ahalam and Fawkes are doing. Courting, you know.”

“But they need a chaperone?”

“Apparently Ahalam is an innocent young snake and Fawkes is overstepping his bounds, old lecher that he is.” Harry stretches suggestively. Theo overcomes his apparent temptation to stare in wonder and starts massaging Harry’s shoulders again, snorting a little.

“Are we still talking about the phoenix and the snake, or are we talking about you and Darius?”

“Eww, Theo. I don’t want to think about him when you’re touching me.”

There’s silence, and Harry wonders if he’s offended Theo somehow. But he meant what he said. He just wants Theo to touch him and keep touching him. He rolls his shoulders and wriggles a little when Theo continues not to continue the massage.

Then Theo’s hands come down, heavy and sliding the potion into all the crannies of Harry’s muscles that he can never find when he’s by himself. He almost purrs, and arches against Theo’s hands for a long moment.

“I’m glad,” Theo whispers directly into Harry’s ear, his voice as heavy and hot as his hands.

“Glad…of what?”

“That you don’t want to think about anyone else when I’m touching you.”

It seems to cost all the effort in the world, but Harry manages to roll over and lift his face, opening his mouth. Theo bends down and kisses him.

And they just concentrate on themselves after that, all talk of Ahalam and Fawkes and Darius and chaperones left for another time.

*

“And we can see that the conventions…yes, what is it, Mr. Nott?”

Harry glances sideways at Theo as his boyfriend raises his hand and holds it there. Darius obviously wanted to babble on about dueling conventions and not call on him, but he can’t ignore a student sitting like that, either.

Well, maybe he could. Harry thinks Snape could have. And Darius’s cousin. But luckily, Darius is weaker than both of them, if no less annoying.

“I found something interesting when I was looking up material about the conventions in the library, sir.”

“I’m allowing students to ask questions at the end of the lecture, Mr. Nott.”

“This isn’t a question, sir.”

Harry watches as Darius’s toad-like face wavers back and forth between curiosity and resentment. Or maybe between the desire to know more about boring traditions and the desire to make Theo shut up. Curiosity and tradition win. Darius looks at Theo and gestures him to go ahead with a wave of his hand.

“I think it’s important to remember that politics and traditions are especially strict when it comes to Lords and Ladies, sir.”

“Of course we should remember that,” Darius says, with a quick glance in Harry’s direction. “But that doesn’t mean we need to bring it up in the middle of class or the middle of a lecture, Mr. Nott.”

“I think we need to do it right this moment, sir.”

“Why is that, Mr. Nott?”

Theo leans forwards with such earnest eyes that Harry would start laughing if he weren’t in on the joke and the need to control his response. “Because you’re trying to court Lord Slytherin, sir. But you don’t qualify under the policies that govern a courtship with an underage Lord.”

Darius blinks so many times that Harry wonders for a second if that’s going to last for the rest of class. But then he turns to Harry instead of continuing the conversation with Harry. “Is that true, Mr. Potter?”

Harry turns his head away.

“Mr. Potter?”

“Harry’s being modest, sir,” Hermione says, and her voice is so earnest as well, and oh Merlin, Harry is going to laugh unless he concentrates hard on something awful. Like being forced to marry Darius, for example. “He’s not supposed to talk to an adult who insists on courting him without a proper chaperone.”

Like Ahalam, Harry thinks, and really does have to duck his head further so that he doesn’t just start laughing hysterically.

“But I have to talk to him, Miss Granger! I’m his professor!”

“Well, sir, that’s why professors shouldn’t be courting students. Or part of the reason why, anyway. And especially underage Lords. The rules around them are very strict. It turns out that Harry’s been violating all kinds of them! He’s trying to make up for it now.”

Or make them up, Harry thinks, and stares frantically at his fingernails. He has dirt under his right thumbnail, probably from Herbology. How did that happen? He rubs them for a second.

“This situation is most untenable, Miss Granger.”

“It isn’t, sir. There are protocols that make it navigable. For instance, you just need to address questions to me or Theo or someone else in the class who’s a follower of Lord Slytherin, and we’ll speak to Harry, and relay his answer back to you. And we can act as chaperones, too. It just needs to be someone who doesn’t have an interest in courting Lord Slytherin themselves—”

“Then Mr. Nott cannot be a chaperone.”

But Professor Babbling could, Harry thinks, and then has to beat back the army of laughter trying to flood up his throat. They really shouldn’t have planned to do this in the middle of class. Granted, it’s the only way to be sure that everyone could be there and not make it seem as if it were all pre-planned.

“But I could, sir. And if I may, the tone of your voice and the way you stare at Harry just makes you sound like you’re so eager to court him that you’re trying to get around the rules.”

“Of course I wouldn’t try to get around them! I respect the rules, including the courting protocols!”

“Then I must ask you to step away from Harry’s desk, sir. And to stop asking him questions. I’ll relay the answers to you for this class period. Then we can talk about who should do it in the future.”

Harry snakes a glance at the people in the room who aren’t part of his followers. They look a mixture of irritated, confused, and entertained. He shrugs at them and faces Darius again as the man glances at him.

“Is this truly what you want, Mr. Potter?”

“Lord Slytherin, sir,” Justin says, with a tone of icy chiding in his voice that Harry immediately thinks makes him an ideal chaperone for Ahalam and Fawkes. “When you’re asking him about something related to the courtship you want to have and not classwork, it needs to be Lord Slytherin.”

Darius stares at Justin, and Justin glares back. He looks as if he might take a rolled-up parchment and rap Darius on the nose with it if he doesn’t behave.

Darius swallows, which seems to leave him shaking with rage, and turns to face Harry. “Lord Slytherin, is this truly what you want?”

Harry glances at Hermione and nods.

“Yes, this is the way he wants it,” Hermione says primly, hands folded on the desk in front of her. Harry is gratified to see that she’s at least biting the inside of her cheek. She must have a hard time holding back the laughter, as well.

Darius closes his eyes and stands there as if martyred. Then he shakes his head. “Very well. I shall keep it in mind. Now, we had reached the point in our discussion of the conventions where we were talking about the depth of bows to magical royalty…”

Which doesn’t exist anywhere that I know of, Harry thinks, but he picks up his quill and pretends to be writing a few notes. In reality, it’s notes of congratulations to Theo, Hermione, and Justin.

He doesn’t know what he would do without them.

*

“Mr. Potter.”

“Lord Slytherin,” Justin says, without even looking over his shoulder from where he’s marching in front of Harry.

“Hold up, Justin, it’s not Professor Umbridge,” Harry says, and turns around to stare curiously at Babbling. At least this time she’s come up when he has a bunch of people around him, which might argue her intentions are legitimate. “Hello, Professor.”

“Mr. Potter, it’s imperative that you accompany me to my office immediately.”

“Why?”

“We can only speak when we’re there.”

“And that’s not suspicious,” Blaise drawls, looking up from where he was bickering with Hermione over their own version of the Marauder’s Map. Harry is not involved in their producing that one, thank you very much.

“It isn’t.” Babbling flushes with something that might be anger, but Harry doesn’t know her well enough to tell. “I promise. Please come with me, Mr. Potter.”

“Lord Slytherin to you,” Justin says, and turns and marches down the corridor and up to Babbling before Harry can tell him not to. “If you’re making an official request for His Lordship’s help in his official capacity, then you can use the title. And if you’re not, why do you want to speak to him?”

“Justin,” Harry hisses.

“No, Harry. She’s not your professor for anything and didn’t explain that she wants to speak on Hogwarts business. That must mean that she’s speaking on Lord Slytherin business, so she can use the title.”

Harry’s ready to argue that, but then Susan, who he only saw a few times today, meanders back around the corner and gives Babbling a bright smile. “Hello, Professor. I enjoyed your lecture on the use of the Sowilo rune in home defense the other day.”

“Oh, um. Thank you.”

Stunners fly from multiple directions, including Susan’s and Blaise’s wands, but it’s probably the one from Theo that picks up Babbling and slams her across the corridor into the wall. Harry stares with his mouth open. He’s never seen defensive magic that violent.

“What?” he asks faintly in the silence that follows, as he watches Susan holster her wand. Theo and Blaise keep theirs out, and Theo steps up to Harry’s side, staring down at Babbling with no expression on his face.

“I’m not in the Ancient Runes class, and Babbling didn’t give a lecture about using Sowilo in home defense,” Susan explains, batting a lock of hair behind her ear. She eyes Babbling with savage satisfaction. “I think this is someone using either an illusion or Polyjuice. Shall we find out?”

*

“Well, the hour’s gone by, and nothing changed, so we know it isn’t Polyjuice.”

“It has to be an illusion,” Hermione says, walking in a slow circle around the unconscious person on the floor. Harry is leaning against the wall of the Room of Requirement, with Ahalam on his shoulder nattering about courting procedures, and no one else letting him get any closer to the imposter. “But it’s so deep-rooted that I can’t sense or break it.”

“I could try—” Harry begins.

“No,” say five people.

Harry rolls his eyes and watches Babbling’s face. Or whoever she really is. “Would breaking the illusion hurt her? Them?”

“No,” Hermione says. She’s standing beside Babbling and frowning down at her now. “The problem is that an illusion is usually rooted to the surface of the skin. It’s possible to sense if you know what you’re looking for. This one, I can’t sense. So what is it rooted in? And what will happen when we break it?”

“So it might hurt them.”

“Maybe.”

Harry sighs. He knows that he can’t be soft-hearted about a possible enemy, not when he has so many of them anywhere, but the thought of hurting someone via breaking an illusion isn’t one that he knew he’d have to deal with today. “Has someone checked on the real Babbling? To see if she has some idea who this is, and if she cooperated with them?”

A few people exchange embarrassed looks. Then Blaise shakes his head and slips out of the Room of Requirement.

Harry leans against the wall to wait then, and to lend more of an ear to Ahalam’s self-regard. It at least makes more sense than this.

“And because I am the prettiest snake, Fawkes cannot help himself. We need a chaperone. But the chaperone must make sure not to court me in turn. Fawkes wouldn’t like that. If Babbling will not do, then we should choose your cold boy.”

“Theo isn’t cold,” Harry murmurs back, shooting his boyfriend a look. Theo smiles at him without taking his eyes off their unconscious prisoner.

“He sent me the hot rock. He must be cold without it.”

Harry and Ahalam have a small argument that ends when Blaise marches back into the room with the real Professor Babbling. Or at least so Harry assumes. He’s never paid much attention to her or interacted with her much.

Babbling has a resigned look on her face that becomes disappointment when she sees her false self lying on the floor. She closes her eyes.

“Well, Professor?” Hermione asks. Harry looks at her when he hears the tone in her voice and sees her lower lip trembling. Poor Hermione. She must have respected Babbling in the way that she no longer respects Dumbledore.

“I have—I need a specialized potion that costs a great deal of money,” Babbling whispers. “And she offered me so much money to let her use my likeness a few times. Cast a deep-rooted illusion that’s maintained with runes. I didn’t see the harm in it.”

“Where is she from?” Hermione snaps, crossing Theo’s, “Who is she?” in midflight.

Babbling only answers the first question. “The Ministry.”

Harry feels a harsh sickness crawl up his throat. Of course he knows that Fudge doesn’t like him and was trying various things to get Harry under his control, but he didn’t think it would extend to impersonating a Hogwarts professor.

“Who is she?” Theo asks again, and his eyes flash like sunlight off a blade.

Babbling sighs. “Her name is Denise Dotson.”

Harry glances at his followers, but everyone he can see shakes their heads. No one’s heard of her, then. Perhaps Muggleborn, or at least not involved in anything grand enough for someone to notice. He takes a deep breath. “What does the potion you use do, Professor?”

“I don’t have to tell you that!”

Harry stares at her, and Babbling lowers her gaze, flushing. “Maybe not,” Harry says at last, softly. “I can’t force you to. But you made some mistakes. Maybe it would be best if you try to fix one of them, since I don’t think the Ministry’s going to rescue you.”

“Fine,” Babbling whispers. “I need it to make sure that my eyes don’t go as bad as they might. I need to see the precise angles of runes to use them safely.”

“And the potions they usually brew at St. Mungo’s can’t help with that? They would be free.”

“The potion I use is considered experimental, so St. Mungo’s refuses to stock it on safety grounds.” Babbling’s throat bobs. “I would lose the confidence of my students and—other people—if I wore glasses, even if I could find some that were enchanted to give me the clarity I need. I can’t—I have to have that potion.”

Harry leans back and glances at his people. Susan still looks upset, and Justin. Hermione meets his gaze and shrugs, telling him without words that it’s his show. Theo is blank, Blaise amused, and Ron frowning.

“What if I could supply you with enough Galleons to ensure that you got the potion on a regular basis?”

Susan makes a little protesting noise, while Justin rolls his eyes. But Harry turns away from them to watch Babbling, who’s staring at him as if Harry promised to pluck the moon from the sky and hand it to her.

“What?” she rasps. “Why would you do that for me?”

“Because you did something that could have been disastrous for me, but you admitted the truth when cornered, which isn’t something everyone would have done,” Harry murmurs, thinking of Dumbledore. “And you could be a powerful ally. If I told you that I wanted a protection sequence based on runes, for example…”

“I could do that!”

“Or the key for the illusion that you developed for Dotson,” Theo breaks in, with a faint frown for Harry. Harry shrugs. He did intend to ask for the illusion; he just wasn’t going to do it right away.

“Yes, I could do that as well.” Babbling bows her head. “Do this and I promise that I’ll be loyal to you, my lord.”

Harry feels an uncomfortable pinch of something along his spine. He’s helped other people before with their own things, like Gwen wanting an excuse to stay in Hogsmeade and swearing to Harry as a bodyguard partially for that, but no one’s ever made an oath to him or called him lord before because of a purely transactional reason.

“You don’t have to call me that,” he says hastily. “I mean, someday, if you want to, then you can. But you don’t have to.”

Babbling frowns at him and shakes her head. “If you can provide me with the potion, then I’ll gladly swear to you.”

Harry sighs, and tries to ignore the way that Theo’s smiling at him. Theo would. “For now, let’s try you in a different role. Chaperone.”

“For you and your boyfriend?” Babbling glances at Theo and then away, as though trying to hide her discomfort. She can’t, since it’s spread out all over her face. “I have Mr. Nott in class. I’m not sure that I could play two different roles with regards to him.”

“No,” Harry says. Merlin, this is going to sound strange. “For my snake and Dumbledore’s phoenix.”

Babbling stares at him.

“We have to decide what we’re going to do about the Ministry’s imposter,” Hermione says, a little loudly, as if she thinks that Harry’s forgotten all about Dotson.

“Yeah, I know,” Harry says with a sigh.

“I told you that she would make a good chaperone,” Ahalam says cheerfully. “And the one who wears her face can go away, and everything will be well again.”

“You have…an interesting life,” Babbling says finally.

“You have no idea.”