lomonaaeren

Chapter Fifty-Seven.

Title: Other People’s Choices (58/60)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: None; this is a gen story
Content Notes: AU of CoS, angst, present tense, violence
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. The Sorting Hat doesn’t just let the Sword go when it falls on Harry’s head in the Chamber, but also Sorts him again, this time into Slytherin. Harry is furious and terrified, and the adults aren’t helping much.
Author’s Notes: This began life as another of my Advent fics in response to an anonymous request for Harry being re-Sorted into Slytherin when the Sorting Hat hits his head in CoS. The title is based on Dumbledore’s quote: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Fifty-Eight—Snake-Handling

“And then what did the Speaker say?” Severus is keeping his voice as casual as he can, but his hands are fists under the table. At least Harry no longer feels the need to keep an eye on him at all times when they’re alone in a room together.

“That I was making a mistake not trying to learn from them, because they’re the only ones who can teach me to how to be a serpent mage.” Harry’s voice is distracted as he rummages through the Potions ingredients, discarding slightly wilted leaves. His skill is improving in private lessons, although in public he still makes childish errors. “I had the feeling he’s going to come back.”

“He probably is. Harry, the Speakers are…”

“Powerful? It’s unwise to piss them off?” Harry tilts his head back, and light flashes for a second from his glasses. “I know, sir. But I’m not giving up my summer with you and Sirius to spend time with them.”

Severus hears how stern his voice is, and sighs. He isn’t going to be able to convince Harry, then. Not that he truly wanted to. He wants to spend the summer with Harry as well, and the Speakers have chosen an odd, unwieldy way to approach Harry in the first place.

We must wait until we hear from them again, he decides, and gets up to show Harry one of the leaves that he cast aside. “You can actually still use this in a potion without mucking it up. See the way the leaf still has red on the underside? You need not discard it unless it is black.”

Harry nods, and rubs his forehead. Severus immediately moves back so he can see his scar better.

“Oh, stop,” Harry says with irritation. “I’m having those nightmares, but they’re formless. I can’t tell anything from them. If there’s a connection to Voldemort, I don’t know what it is.”

“I wanted to make sure your scar is not painful,” Severus says, and stares at him until Harry looks away a little in embarrassment. “That has little to do with worrying about whether you are a seer, or whether I can control you.”

“Sorry,” Harry mutters.

Severus settles back into his chair and reaches for the leaves again. This is probably the only lesson that Harry will want to focus on right now. “When the redness has advanced to the point where it turns maroon, then you will want to choose other leaves that are brighter in color…”

Harry nods next to him and starts taking notes so fast that his quill sometimes blurs. Severus watches his bowed head, and wonders. He broaches the subject of the Speakers only once more before Harry leaves.

“What will you do should they approach you again?”

“Tell them no more forcefully.”

Severus shakes his head as Harry departs. The boy is in that bone-deep stubborn state that he had when he was talking about wanting to live with Black and Severus at the same time or not wanting to play on the Slytherin Quidditch team. Telling him the wizarding stories about the Speakers or reminding him of what he might learn from them won’t work now.

Severus only hopes that he will manage to come between the boy and the Speakers again should they show up at Hogwarts once more.

*

Harry carefully reads the letter all the way through. It’s from the Speakers, which he suspected when it showed up under his pillow by itself and was sealed with a bright snake made of what looks like spun golden thread. It makes the same offer that Rizzen did: they want him to become a serpent mage, and live with them.

Harry waits until he’s sure that he has the memory firmly in mind and can call it up in a Pensieve. He already tried to copy it, and its magic wouldn’t let him. Then he leans forwards and feeds the letter into the common room fire.

There’s a soft shrieking noise, and what looks like a serpent made of fire flies up the chimney. Harry watches it go. Then he turns and goes back to bed. It’s three in the morning, and he’s already had enough of this shit from the Speakers for the day.

*

“I wondered if you would consent to come on a walk with me, Harry.”

That’s Dumbledore. Theo leans a little back in his seat so he can catch Blaise’s eye. Blaise nods. They both have their wands close to hand and can strike at Dumbledore if that needs to be done.

On the other side of Harry, Draco is vibrating in his seat. Theo wants to roll his eyes. Draco just has no subtlety. At least Daphne can hold her face motionless and pretend to be more interested in her food when she wants to.

“When I’ve finished the meal, Headmaster,” Harry says, and smiles at him. Then he reaches into his robe pocket and pulls out the clockwork snake that Theo’s father made for him. He deposits it gently around his shoulders, then takes a last bite of his sandwich and finishes his pumpkin juice. “I’m ready, now.” He starts around the table towards the Headmaster.

“Do you need someone to come with you, Harry?” Theo asks.

Harry halts and turns to look back at him. “Oh, I don’t think so. We have class right after lunch, you know, so the Headmaster and I won’t take long. And I still have to go back to my rooms to get my books like a proper Slytherin.”

Theo relaxes a little, since he can read that code. Harry is alerting him to react if he doesn’t come back soon or if he comes back not acting “like a proper Slytherin”—like himself. He sits back down and says, “All right,” thoughtfully munching an apple as he watches the Headmaster lead Harry out of the room.

“Aren’t we going to do something?” Draco hisses under his breath, through a polite, fixed smile.

“There’s not much we can do right now,” Theo says. “Only if he hurts Harry or delays him coming back or casts a spell on him.” His own hand itches for his wand, but unlike a Malfoy, he isn’t used to causing public scenes to get his way. He returns determinedly to lunch, and after a second, Draco copies him.

Blaise is gone when Theo glances up from the table, but he already suspected that. Blaise is the best with Disillusionment Charms and moving silently, something else the study group have taken up practicing to protect themselves.

Theo smiles and gives the apple a particularly hard bite.

*

“What did you want to talk to me about, sir?”

Dumbledore gives him a vague smile and is otherwise silent. Harry just walks with him along the shore of the lake, not far from the place that he met Rizzen the other day. He hides that thought with vicious speed, hating the idea that Dumbledore might read it out of his head if his Occlumency isn’t strong enough right at the moment.

And it feels like it’s never strong enough, like it’s always on the verge of splintering because Harry has so much to worry about. His fellow students, and keeping Dumbledore from suspecting too much, and becoming better at all kinds of magic so that he can face Voldemort, and whether Sirius is doing well with his new Mind-Healer, and now the Speakers…

“Are you happy, Harry?”

Harry jerks a little and remembers just in time not to look Dumbledore in the eye. He turns around and picks up stones to throw into the lake instead, so that his distraction will seem more natural. “I don’t know what you mean, sir. It’s hard to be happy when there’s a Dark Lord out for my blood,” he mumbles.

“I meant more whether you are happy with your current situation, Harry,” Dumbledore says, and gives him a slight, chiding smile that Harry can only see out of the corner of his eye. “Happy with having two guardians and being the focus of so much attention in the papers right now?”

“I don’t like to be the focus of so much attention,” Harry says politely, and truthfully. He’s still letting Madam Macmillan handle a lot of that for him. Sometimes she sends him a letter that she thinks deserves a personal response, and then Harry tries to be polite and honest, too.

“But having two guardians? You can see that it would be simpler with only one.”

“No.”

“You don’t think it would be legally simpler, Harry? Or easier for the public to comprehend?” Dumbledore laughs as gently as Daphne when she’s getting ready to cast a hex. “I don’t think you can know that much about the legal system, if you’re sure of that.”

“No, sir, I meant it wouldn’t be simpler for me. Someone would feel left out and hurt, and I don’t want them to be. And I don’t want to sacrifice someone I like and want to spend time with just because it might be simpler for other people.”

Dumbledore turns to face the lake. He sighs. Then he says, “You must know that this arrangement cannot last forever.”

“Oh, of course not, sir. I’ll be of age in just three years.”

Dumbledore pauses. Then he says, “You do not know the full extent of what Professor Snape has done in the past, Harry, or the extent of his rivalry with your parents.”

“Oh, Sirius told me all about the rivalry,” Harry says easily, and smiles even though part of him is still upset about the way Sirius could have been if he didn’t go to Azkaban. For one thing, maybe he would think before telling Harry that all Slytherins are slimy and untrustworthy. But Harry knows that happens mostly because, in Sirius’s head, it’s really still 1976. “And he told me some of what Professor Snape did during the war. So did he.”

“Who?”

“Professor Snape, Headmaster. I mean, he’s going to be my guardian. It’s good for us to talk, right?”

Dumbledore pauses long enough that Harry wonders what he really wants. It can’t be a surprise that he’s spoken with Sirius and Professor Snape. Did Dumbledore think they were keeping secrets like he does and he could tell them to Harry? Is there something else going on that he thinks he could hold over Harry’s head?

Then Dumbledore sighs and speaks in a quieter voice. “I don’t think your father would have been happy about you staying with Professor Snape, Harry.”

“And I think neither of my parents would have been happy about me staying with the Dursleys. Professor.”

Harry makes the last word its own sentence, a tactic that Zacharias taught him. Dumbledore pauses again. Then he bends down and does his best to look Harry in the eye. Harry continues looking stubbornly at his pebbles. After a few seconds, he tosses one into the water.

“I made the best decision I could with the limited options available at the time, Harry.”

“I believe you, Professor.”

Dumbledore is a Legilimens; he’ll be able to tell that’s a lie. At the moment, Harry hardly cares.

Dumbledore sighs and nods. “Is there anything that would persuade you to trust me again?”

“Maybe if you left me and Sirius alone for a few years, and stopped trying to hint around when you think something is wrong. Why don’t you just tell me right out? You know that I know about the horrible things that happened to my parents now and the horrible things Professor Snape did in the war. If you think I’m old enough to know those, Professor, why can’t I know other things?”

Dumbledore only nods, not speaking, and then says, “As you reminded your friends, there is little time between the end of lunch and the beginning of classes. Do follow me back to Hogwarts, Harry.”

And he walks back in the direction of the school, now talking lightly about how much he always enjoyed summer holidays as a child. Harry adjusts the clockwork snake around his shoulders and follows slowly. He has no idea what Dumbledore was looking for, and that bothers him.

He does think that he hears a foot crush a leaf when they’re leaving the lake, and he looks around sharply, but he doesn’t see anyone. Shaking his head, Harry speeds up so that it won’t feel as if Dumbledore is leaving him behind.

*

Blaise whistles softly to himself as he drops the Disillusionment Charm and heads at a rapid pace back to the Slytherin common room. It doesn’t sound as though Harry and Dumbledore are going to talk about anything interesting on the way there, and he will look highly suspicious if he’s not already present when Harry comes in.

He isn’t certain what Dumbledore wanted to talk to Harry about, but he can make an educated guess. Dumbledore was probing on whether Harry can ever trust him completely again, testing to see how far Harry is in his control. Or maybe testing for certain attitudes, such as mistrust of Professor Snape or comfort in being with Sirius Black.

Either way, Blaise was watching the professor’s face just before he asked Harry to return to the school with him. He made a decision of some kind.

Blaise is afraid that he’s made a decision that Harry can’t be controlled, and what he’s going to do about that.

He manages to slide into the Slytherin common room a few corridors ahead of Harry and Dumbledore, whose voices he can hear. He catches Theo’s eye as he pounds up the stairs to retrieve his Transfiguration book, and nods. Theo nods back, grimly. He knows that Blaise will tell him everything later, but they don’t have time to discuss it now.

Blaise tosses his trunk open and draws out his Transfiguration book. Then he turns to leave, and finds his way blocked by Crabbe.

“What are you doing, Blaise?”

“Going to Transfiguration,” Blaise answers dryly. “You know? The class that we’re supposed to be attending now?”

Crabbe frowns so mightily that Blaise thinks he might really have forgotten about the schedule and what day it is. But then he shakes his head and reaches out his thick hand to stop Blaise as he goes by. “What are you doing? Following Potter?”

Blaise glances at him and keeps his face bland. His mother is a master of these sudden questions, and Blaise doesn’t show guilt to her, either. “Well, I do think that he has some good ideas, and being part of his study group—”

Crabbe leans close to him, and Blaise ends up holding his breath. Does Crabbe never brush his teeth? “But what are you going to do,” Crabbe rumbles at him, “when the Dark Lord returns?”

That settles things for Blaise. Crabbe must have heard something from his father. That’s the only thing that could make him pick up a different line from Draco, who’s been at Harry’s side as enthusiastically as he and Theo have.

“I have to think about it,” Blaise says, staring back at Crabbe.

Crabbe makes a sort of belching noise and releases Blaise’s arm. It takes Blaise a second to realize he’s laughing. He’s never heard Crabbe utter any sort of laughter before except the obligatory chuckles at Draco’s stupid jokes. “Don’t think too long,” Crabbe advises, and his eyes flash triumphantly before he turns away to his own trunk.

Harry has to know about this, Blaise thinks as he trots down the stairs, and then catches himself at the bottom. Since when has he been a spy for Harry?

But the more Blaise thinks about it—while on the way to Transfiguration, catching up with Theo as he goes—the more he accepts that, really, he’s chosen his side. He wouldn’t have experimented as hard as he has with his Gift if he didn’t already dream about fighting free of his mother and helping Harry with his magic.

“What was it?” Theo asks out of the corner of his mouth.

Blaise gestures at a portrait on the wall. It seems to be dozing, but Theo nods and waits until they’re past it before he raises his eyebrows expectantly. “I think Dumbledore knows that Harry’s escaped his control completely,” Blaise whispers. “He made a few gestures to try and encourage Harry to trust him, and Harry didn’t reciprocate. So Dumbledore has moved on to whatever plan he has after that.”

“You don’t have any idea what?”

“His conversation was bloody vague, Theo. I feel lucky to know as much as I have.”

Theo only nods. He’s deep in thought, and Blaise follows him again, scowling to himself as he realizes that little report was less like sharing information and more like, well, reporting to someone. Has Theo become Harry’s second-in-command and Blaise become subordinate to him?

That won’t do.

They slip in on either side of Harry in the Transfiguration classroom. Harry still has the clockwork snake draped over his shoulder. “I thought you didn’t want to wear that in public,” Blaise points out.

“I changed my mind.”

Blaise nods, and then takes out a piece of parchment as they wait for McGonagall to arrive. He writes swiftly. Crabbe told me today that he knows I’m following you and he wants me to consider what I’ll do when the Dark Lord returns. He turns the parchment so Harry can read it.

Harry closes his eyes for a second and looks as if he’ll rub his hand across his face. Then he sighs. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it,” he mutters.

“Remember that you can lean on us,” Theo says from Harry’s other side.

Harry nods, but his eyes aren’t truly seeing them. It’s left to Theo and Blaise to exchange a glance as McGonagall arrives and class begins.

They are going to make sure Harry is safe.