lomonaaeren

“His name shall never be Harry Potter again.”

Lord Voldemort wasn’t aware before he spoke the words that he intended to. But they came out of his mouth, and he was sure that he meant them.

Remus Lupin exhaled slowly. He was kneeling in front of Lord Voldemort’s most throne-like chair at the end of his ebony dining room table, and he leaned back on his heels, his palms shaking slightly where he had them braced on his knees. “Thank you, my lord.”

“No pleas to make on behalf of your former friends?”

Lupin’s eyes glowed with something more than the werewolf fire as he shook his head. “No, my lord. They had the chance to raise Harry on their own, or at least find someone who could have taken him. They could have placed him in a magical house out of the country, for Merlin’s sake, or fled with them himself. They don’t deserve to interact with him now.”

Lord Voldemort smiled. “Good. Now, stand. The carpet must be rough on a werewolf’s knees.”

Lupin glanced at him a little sideways as he stood, but didn’t ask how Lord Voldemort knew of a werewolf’s heightened skin sensitivity. “Thank you, my lord. Do you want me to send Sirius to talk with Lily again?”

“It’s for the best. If she does have a plan, we need to keep track of it. And if she doesn’t, then we still need to monitor them and figure out what the best response would be to what they do.”

Lupin bowed his head again, and held the bow for a long moment. Then he turned and strode out of the dining room in the direction of the Apparition point.

Lord Voldemort leaned back and shook his head a little. Since he’d passed through the geas and been able to learn who Harry really was, he had spent a lot of time thinking about that moment fourteen years ago when he’d confronted Neville Longbottom. What would have happened if it had been Harry instead?

But in the end, as intriguing as such speculations were, he never allowed them to take up much room in his mind. In the end, what mattered was that he had an apprentice, and Lord Voldemort would defend him with every molecule of his being.

At the moment, that meant writing to Severus and asking that the man teach Harry very specific potions. Harry should learn and grow and do what he wanted, but he could also be useful.

*

“Why do you pour some ingredients with your left hand only?”

“Habit, sir.” Harry straightened and stepped carefully back from the cauldron, something he’d actually learned in Slughorn’s class. There were so many methods of contaminating potions, and sometimes that meant dust or the fumes of another ingredient drifting off the brewer’s skin. “Sometimes it was the one closest to the cauldron.”

Snape considered him carefully, for a long moment, with dark eyes. “I want you to try doing it with your left hand deliberately, and to vary the ingredients you use with it. You must be able to switch on a moment’s notice when the potion reacts badly.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And there is something else I wish to ask you,” Snape went on, with the abruptness that Harry was getting used to. Snape was very different from the Dark Lord, in everything from the tone of his voice to the way he gave instructions. “Why are you so obedient?”

“Sir?” Harry asked slowly, wondering if this was sarcasm and Snape thought him disobedient instead.

“I would have expected a Gryffindor to be more disobedient, simply to test my patience.”

Harry paused again. Then he said, “Sir, I’m a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor.”

“What? But the Dark Lord said…”

“Yes, sir?”

Snape trailed off and spent a long moment staring at Harry with fathomless darkness in his eyes. Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all to the good in that you won’t disobey me merely to see the effects of your additions to the potions, then.” He jerked his head at the cauldron Harry had been working with. “Add the onyx dust, now. Use your right hand.”

Harry did that, while he angled his body away from the cauldron. Snape gave him a thin smile and nodded.

“You at least have the instincts of a promising brewer, Mr. Grayson.”

Harry smiled.

*

“Draco, come here. I want to speak with you.”

Draco hesitated for a long moment before he opened the door of his father’s study. In the last year, Father had become quieter and quieter, not often speaking to Draco even when he was home from Hogwarts. Mother had taken over the role of social leader and philanthropist that Father had once held.

The sight of Father didn’t reassure him much. Lucius Malfoy was sitting in a chair near the fireplace, turning a gleaming glass around and around in his hand.

Firewhisky, Draco thought, and swallowed.

“Yes, sir?” he asked, when a few moments had passed and he thought Father might have got lost staring into the drink.

Father started and looked up. “Did you know that the boy you’re courting cost me everything?”

“I’m not sure I understand, sir.” They hadn’t discussed Harry in detail in the last year, either. Or maybe even longer than that, since whatever Father had required Harry to do that had made the Dark Lord intervene.

“I asked if you knew that he cost me everything.”

“No, Father. I don’t know what you mean.”

Father gave a harsh, croaking laugh, and swallowed enough of the Firewhisky at once to make Draco hide a wince. Then he almost crashed the glass into the surface of the table. Draco stared at it and found himself thinking that neither the house-elves nor Mother would like it if the expensive crystal had cracked.

“Look at me, not the bloody cup.”

“Yes, sir,” Draco said softly, returning his eyes to Father’s face.

Father leaned forwards. “I gave the boy you’re courting a Potions commission. It was something simple, or should have been. And I never explicitly presented it as a request from the Dark Lord. Our Lord chose to take it that way, but I never said that Grayson would be in trouble if he didn’t do it. I might have implied that, but I didn’t say that.”

Draco held his doubts about that to himself, and only nodded obediently.

“And then the brat complained to the Dark Lord, and he made me into this.” Father gestured as if some sort of scar crossed his chest or face, although Draco couldn’t see that it did. “Forbidden from doing so much that I should have been able to do, including being the public face of the family. Narcissa never once asked me whether that meant I should leave the service of the Dark Lord. She just went about doing things as she saw fit.”

“I thought service to the Dark Lord was for life, sir.”

“It is. But she didn’t ask me.”

“What would the discussion have been like if she did?” Draco had to admit he was fascinated by this glimpse into his parents’ marriage. He’d always felt locked out when they had low-voiced conversations before.

Of course, part of that had been that he was a child. Mother had started trusting him with more in the last year.

“I would have told her the reasons I had to stay, and she would have brought up the reasons I should leave.”

Draco blinked several times. That sounded backwards to him.

But the more he studied Father, the more he thought he understood. Father wanted to blame everyone but himself for what had happened when he’d told Harry to brew that potion, and he was making himself the default reasonable person in every imagined interaction.

Draco held back a sneer. It wouldn’t do him any good now.

“Thank you for telling me, Father,” he said, his voice as soothing as he could make it without crossing over into the kind of soothing that would cause Father to yell at him. “Do you want me to tell Mother?”

“No. I want you to listen to me.”

Father all but slammed his glass down on the table again. This time, Draco was sure that he saw a small crack make its way through the crystal and a tiny stream of Firewhisky begin rolling to the floor.

He kept his eyes away from it, on his father’s face. “What would you like me to do? Give up the courtship?”

He would never do anything like that, but he knew that Mother would make sure the right information reached Father’s ears if Father ordered him to.

“Of course not.” Father leaned forwards and smirked a little. “I want you to find a way to separate Harry Grayson from the Dark Lord.”

He’s ordering me to do something that could be all but suicidal. And he obviously doesn’t care about that.

Draco tamed his own feelings and inclined his head in a shallow bow. “Yes, sir. Destroy the apprenticeship he has with the Dark Lord?”

“That wouldn’t be enough. Not for what he did to me.” Father’s hand flexed and flicked up on the table, reminding Draco for a moment of some illustrations he’d seen of people under the Cruciatus Curse. “No, you have to make sure that the Dark Lord no longer values him.”

“And that will take some time, sir. I assume I’ll have the time?”

“You have until the end of this school year, Draco. I want you to come back from Hogwarts ready for your sixth year free of this courtship, and setting me free of the knowledge of that brat’s continued existence in the world.”

“You want me to kill him?”

Father gave him a withering look that made Draco lower his gaze to the floor with the force of long habit, even as he scoffed at himself inside his head. “What did I say, Draco? No. You’re to ensure that the Dark Lord no longer values him, and I can return to a favored position at our lord’s side. That means you must make the Dark Lord kill him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Draco was luckily able to retreat from the study after that. He took a deep breath and then walked to his room, keeping a thoughtful expression, in case any of the house-elves were spying for Father and reported to him.

His mind raced with different ideas of what to do. His first thought was of course to tell Harry and the Dark Lord—

But then the Dark Lord would probably kill his father. And Draco thought that he didn’t want to be without him.

Really, Draco? What has he contributed to your life in the past few years?

Draco shook his head sharply. He didn’t want to be without Father because he was Father, and Draco loved him. Even when he did stupid things or asked things of Draco he wasn’t willing to give.

And then there was Mother. She would probably loathe the thought of losing Father. If she’d wanted to be free of him, Draco was certain something would have happened in the last few years to take Father away.

Or she could have asked the Dark Lord. He probably would have been happy to kill Father untraceably.

So telling Harry and the Dark Lord was out. But of course so was destroying Harry or making sure the Dark Lord killed him. That was ridiculous. Draco knew exactly what made him happy, and it was being with Harry and Theo. And being the Dark Lord’s apprentice made Harry happy.

Not to mention the level of protection that it gave all of them, to have the Dark Lord invested in Harry’s happiness and protection.

So. It would be Mother. She would help him decide what he should tell Father in the future, and what should happen with Harry and the Dark Lord. She’d been the one to give him good advice on also courting Theo, for that matter.

Draco let his shoulders go back and his strides lengthen. The house-elves or portraits who might be watching him would probably report back to Father that he seemed content with his task and thinking about ways to achieve it.

And in the meantime, Draco would be doing exactly the opposite, with the help of the parent who actually cared about him.

*

“I must apologize for thinking that you were in Gryffindor, Mr. Grayson.”

Harry blinked at Snape. He’d been measuring out a full vial of lacewings, and so for a moment his mind was so much on that he didn’t comprehend what Snape had said to him. Then he did.

He asked slowly, “That’s fine, sir, but why did you think I was?”

“Someone who would become the Dark Lord’s apprentice at such a young age and risk everything in brewing experimental potions seemed like a Gryffindor to me.”

“I see, sir.” Truth be told, Harry only wanted to return to measuring his lacewings. He was learning a lot with Snape, far more than he ever had in Slughorn’s class, but he didn’t want to talk about philosophy or personality or whatever the subject of this conversation was with either of them. He just wanted to study potions.

“You do not hold that assumption against me?”

“Of course not, sir.”

“I would have thought that you would let it influence your perception of me as a teacher.”

“Anyone can make a mistake, sir. I’m here to learn not to make them with potions, that’s all. It doesn’t really matter what kind of things you think about me personally.”

Snape leaned forwards and studied him with intense black eyes. Sometimes Harry thought even the Dark Lord had never looked at him so intently. He looked back and tried to convey openness to continue the conversation if Snape wanted, but also a more than mild willingness to go back to measuring.

“No one else has ever said that to me,” Snape finally whispered.

“All right, sir.”

Harry thought a neutral response was best, since he didn’t really know which one Snape was looking for, but it did result in Snape staring at him so much that Harry had to fight not let his eyes cross. Then the man nodded abruptly and glanced away.

“Continue sorting the lacewings. I want to see how you deal with the diamond dust their wings are scattered with.”

Harry perked up. He’d heard that diamond dust could preserve lacewings, but he’d never seen it in practice. Lacewings were a common enough ingredient and diamond dust rare enough that most of his books had discussed it as a fool’s choice.

But there must be something special about these lacewings to merit that kind of preservation.

He turned back to his vial, and ignored the weight of Snape’s eyes on him.

*

The boy was frustratingly familiar.

Severus could feel that familiarity nagging at him every time he peered in Grayson’s direction. Visually, it didn’t match with anything on the boy’s face. He had ordinary dark hair, ordinary hazel eyes that sometimes gleamed blue or green depending on the light, and quick, clever hands. But Severus had known all sorts of people with those traits. And the letters he’d received before he agreed to offer the boy an apprenticeship had all described him as Muggleborn.

Perhaps he had a pureblood parent. Severus’s lip curled as he considered the damage growing up as a half-blood in a Muggle town could inflict.

But the boy didn’t act like it. He didn’t act like an obsequiously humble Muggleborn, either. He listened to Severus’s questions and demands, and offered him respect, and was calm and honest when he answered. And otherwise, he simply worked.

And worked.

Severus had never known someone with the same amount of dedication to Potions. He could say his own passion was greater. Grayson didn’t stare at the shimmering cauldron with infatuated eyes, or step back and dream of what this experimental brew could be when the experiment was done.

But he added the ingredients in the right order, and he kept meticulous notes, and he watched and nodded and scribbled more down when one thing didn’t work. He would watch, and he would wait, and he would end up with more successes than some passionate brewers who couldn’t be troubled to write down their notes in the midst of the brewing itself.

Like Severus, for example.

Severus gave a low laugh. Grayson twisted a little towards him, indicating he’d heard Severus, but he didn’t look up from the bubbling surface of the potion.

Severus didn’t believe Grayson would replace him any time soon. That lack of passion was one reason, his youth another. And he still spent a lot of time studying Dark Arts, if what Severus’s Lord said could be believed.

But it didn’t matter. Grayson would achieve his own kind of success, and keep climbing the slope until he reached the summit.

All the while reminding Severus, infuriatingly, of someone.

But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he finally had a worthy student. The Dark Lord had known what that would mean to Severus when he dangled the bait before him.

“Add the lacewings now, Mr. Grayson.”

The boy still hesitated a long moment before he did so, waiting until a particularly large bubble cleared the surface and popped. It was a precaution that Severus wouldn’t have felt he had to take, since he knew exactly how lacewings exploded and didn’t.

But the boy’s lack of experience was attached to a powerful will for survival.

Very well. For now, Severus would enjoy teaching the best student he would probably ever have.

And he would enjoy seeing what Grayson made of himself.

*

Lily took a slow step back from the pattern of light stretched in front of her. She was panting, sweating, dizzy. Weak from both the magic and the loss of the blood necessary to create the circle on the floor beneath the pattern.

But it was done now. A visual representation of the geas that bound her and Harry and James and Sirius and Remus and Dumbledore. The light made all the nuances of it obvious, and also how flexible it was, how binding.

They couldn’t just break through it, the way Lily had hoped they might when Sirius had reminded her about her studies in alchemy and enchanting. But there were other possibilities offered by it.

Lily moved around to the side, where one part of the geas was a thick knot of radiance. Tendrils stretched from it to touch the names she’d scratched into the stone. It was the only way she had to differentiate the different parts of the pattern that touched the various people involved.

The line stretching to Harry was the thinnest, because of course he was disguised but not bound by the geas himself. If he had known the truth, he could have said it to anyone he liked. But many thin lines stretched away from the one that touched his name to the others, wrapping them all in a thick spiderweb.

Lily couldn’t break it, the way she had once hoped.

But she could change it.

The fundamental premise of alchemy was to change one thing into another.

Lily smiled.