Chapter Six of 'Wolf's Choice'- Walls

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Five.

Title: Wolf’s Choice (6/60)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Main story is gen, a few GoF canon pairings mentioned
Content Notes: AU of GoF, angst, gore, violence, torture, present tense, minor character death
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU of GoF. Harry begins his summer with horrific visions that come true much faster than he was expecting. He’ll have to rely on his circle of friends, both his guardians, and all his allies to cope with the results.
Author’s Notes: This is a long fic that is a sequel to my fic Other People’s Choices. Make sure you read that first before you start this one.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Six—Walls

“He’s going to have those scars for the rest of his life, isn’t he?” The tone in Zabini’s voice makes Severus wince as he lowers Harry to rest, carefully, on a small bed Severus has conjured in his own room. He respects Harry’s wishes most of the time, but he isn’t going to leave him to suffer alone unless Harry wakes and demands it.

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” Severus steps back and considers the wounds. They wind from the top of Harry’s forehead down along the side of his mouth, and then swerve suddenly off to the side. That is when Lupin struck Greyback from the side, from what Severus understands.

It is still incredible to him that bloody Remus Lupin, a coward if there ever was one, was so involved in defeating Greyback, but Severus will welcome more strength bent to Harry’s defense.

“What can lessen the scars from a werewolf’s attack?”

“Some of my potions, Mr. Zabini. They already eased his suffering when the Healers gave him the mildest painkillers and backed away.” Severus shakes his head. Potions experiments are often not conducted because they are expensive or dangerous. But there are simple methods to lessen the cost and the danger. While it has to been to Severus’s profit that there are so few experimental Potions brewers in Britain, it has also infuriated him. “Perhaps I can invent a salve that will remove the scars as well as the pain.”

“I’ll help.”

Severus frowns at Zabini. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll cut the ingredients. I’ll dice everything you need. I’ll—I’ll do everything I can to keep Harry from becoming a pariah in wizarding society.”

“To some extent, he already was one,” Severus murmurs, thinking of the rumors that flew in Harry’s second year about him being the Heir of Slytherin. “But I can brew potions faster than you can aid me. I can use you in another capacity while I am brewing,” he adds hastily, when Zabini’s shoulders slump. He is more invested in protecting this particular young man’s happiness than he would like when he already has a ward. “Keep Harry’s spirits up. Reassure him that not all his friends would abandon him.”

“None of us are going to do that!”

“Really, Mr. Zabini? You think that Mr. Smith or Miss Greengrass, those who see Harry as a ticket to political power, will remain close to him?”

“I can’t speak for Smith, I don’t know him well enough. But I do think that Daphne thinks of him as a friend, sir. Not a rung on the ladder.”

Severus shrugs. In truth, he has more to worry about than the turning of young students that he always thought whirling weathercocks in any case. “Stay close to him, Mr. Zabini. You may read as you like, but fetch me when he wakes.” Then Severus turns to face his own lab.

He has plans. Plans that will involve making a dent in the supposed permanence of werewolf scars harder than anything ever has.

*

Blaise tenses as he sees Harry stir in the bed. He’s about to get up and run to the lab, but Harry turns around and frowns at him. “Blaise. Why does—my face hurts—oh.”

Blaise nods a little, his eyes fixed on Harry. His mouth pulls to the side when he speaks, because of the scars. Or the wounds, Blaise supposes he should say. That’s what they are now, even though Blaise knows as well as Harry and Professor Snape that they’re going to be scars in a week at most.

Harry sighs and closes his eyes for a second. Then he says something Blaise didn’t expect at all. “The Healers are going to spread the news, aren’t they? It won’t be long until everyone in the wizarding world knows I was attacked by a werewolf.”

“I don’t know for sure,” Blaise hedges. “Professor Snape didn’t say anything about that.”

Harry’s face softens when Blaise mentions Professor Snape. “Well. I suppose it was going to happen anyway. And if it wasn’t the scars, then someone would start a story someday about how I must be the Heir of Slytherin since I was Sorted there.” He sighs and raises a hand as if he’s going to swipe at the wounds. Blaise grabs his wrist to stop him.

“Professor Snape put some sort of salve there,” Blaise explains when Harry catches his eye. “It’s drying and flaking, a little, but he probably still doesn’t want you to rub it off.”

“And he told you to go get him the minute I woke up, right?”

“Right.”

“Then I suppose you should do that. But, Blaise? Thanks for being willing to stick by me through this.”

“I didn’t actually say that, you know,” Blaise mutters cautiously as he takes a step towards the lab, still looking to make sure that Harry doesn’t fall off the conjured bed that Snape made for him. It’s smaller than the bed that Harry has in his own room.

“I know, but you haven’t flinched once.” Harry smiles at him, which doesn’t seem to pull at his mouth the way speaking does. “Thank you.”

Blaise nods and finally walks away, seeing Harry lie down with his hands behind his head and stare at the ceiling. He hopes that between them, he and Professor Snape can give Harry something else to think about than the wounds.

*

“Drink this potion.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry murmurs as he accepts the steaming flask from Professor Snape’s hand. The smell is almost like a Pepper-Up Potion, but Harry doubts it’s that mild. He swallows to make Snape happy. It tastes like moldy socks washed in dirt, as usual.

“I will work on doing something about the taste when we have seen whether it will keep your wounds from scarring.”

Harry smiles vaguely and hands the flask back. “Thanks. So. How bad do you think the political fallout is going to be?”

Snape stares at him in surprise, before he narrows his eyes and his nostrils both at once. “You are not to start worrying about that, Harry.”

“I just asked you a simple question!”

“And one that you don’t have to worry about yet,” Snape says, his voice as smooth as silk. When Harry used to hear that voice, it meant he was going to get a hell of a detention. He thinks he hasn’t actually heard it for months, but Snape folds his arms now and adopts a scowl. “You will concentrate on getting better, and telling me which of the potions ease your pain the most.”

“But the Healers know, right? That the marks are from a werewolf’s claws, I mean. So they’ll tell people. I just want to be prepared.”

“You are not to worry.”

“You’re worrying me more by not telling me!” Harry shouts, and then winces. He doesn’t want to yell at Snape like that, especially after he chose his house over Grimmauld Place for right now.

Snape closes his eyes and sounds for a second as if he’s counting under his breath, which tells Harry that he doesn’t want to be an irritated guardian, either. Then he looks at Harry and murmurs, “Will you trust me to handle it? Yes, there will be fallout. Newspaper articles, among other things, and I’m sure someone will decide that you’re a werewolf despite the impossibility of it happening on anything other than a full moon. But I am the adult.”

Harry gapes at him for a second. Apparently it goes on too long, because Snape’s voice becomes thin with exasperation. “What have I said wrong now?”

“I—that’s not something that’s ever worked out for us,” Harry replies, shocked enough that he tells the truth. “I have to act like the adult most of the time, at least when Sirius gets involved.”

Snape doesn’t look away, though Harry sees his face twitch as if he’d like to. “You are not the only one who spoke with Healer Lyndell and learned something about the way you tend to behave,” he says, through gritted teeth.

Harry considers him. He’s aware of the crushing weariness at the back of his mind. God, he wants to lay this burden down. But he’s also aware that Sirius and Remus might want to come over and Snape might hold them back, because—because of so many things.

“Do you trust me?” Snape repeats. “Either you do or you do not. I will back off and let you read the newspapers if you insist. I will let you weigh yourself down. I will let you lead the arguments and listen to the insults. I do not wish to block you from doing what you need to do. But I ask you that let me handle some of it.”

Harry swallows. “What—what if Sirius and Remus want to see me and you’re angry at them?”

“I would not forbid visits. I would ask, if you let me handle the political fallout, that they refrain from discussing that fallout with you. So I would ban newspapers from the house for further notice and ask them to leave if they began to discuss it.”

Harry doesn’t say anything. It sounds so good that it makes his eyes smart. He wants this. He wants to just lay the burden down for a while and not worry about what the public would say or what Voldemort is planning.

But—

How can he? What happens if Snape snaps at Sirius, or Sirius gets angry enough to curse him, or Snape gets upset because Sirius didn’t protect him well enough at Grimmauld Place? What if they have an argument that means Harry has to go back to the exhausting balancing act?

On the other hand.

He chose to come to Snape’s house because he didn’t want to worry about that kind of thing. Because he still thought that it was possible Sirius’s wards might fail. Because he thought he would have to see Dumbledore at their house, and talk about the scars, and he doesn’t want to. He wants to lie in a warm bed and recover for a while.

He can’t have that if he insists on shouldering the whole thing that he came here to escape.

“All right,” he whispers.

Snape is studying him with such a furrowed brow that Harry finally realizes he hasn’t heard the words. He clears his throat and repeats them. “All right. I’ll—trust you. Just don’t do anything to antagonize Sirius or Remus unless they do something really hurtful, all right? Remus might be the reason that I’m still alive. Please don’t start calling him a horrible werewolf or something, all right?”

Snape’s face clears slowly. Then he says, “Of course not. I would come up with much more creative insults.”

Harry smiles, but it’s weakly. Honestly, the heat is rising in his face again, the fever that he thought he heard Remus or one of the Healers talking about. The fever that comes to everyone scarred by a werewolf’s claws. He lies back down in the bed, and Snape moves at once to cover him up, his eyes lingering on Harry’s expression as if drinking it in.

“I will prove worthy of your trust in me,” is the last thing that Harry hears him say before the darkness closes in with soft, lapping waves again.

*

“Harry was attacked by a what?”

Ron winces as he hears his mother’s cry cut through the kitchen. Usually he gets to the Prophet first just because Mum is busy with breakfast and the twins are off somewhere, and Ginny sleeps in later than he does. But the one morning he didn’t…

“You know that the Prophet was printing all sorts of rubbish about Harry last year,” he says, weakly. He can’t be stronger when he doesn’t know what happened yet. “I’m sure it isn’t as bad as it looks, Mum.”

“Not as bad as him being attacked by a werewolf?” Mum turns and slams the paper and a bowl of porridge down on the table together. “Don’t you see what you’re saying, Ron?”

Ron stares at the front page. There’s a picture there, but it doesn’t actually show anything, just a small figure who might be Harry getting carried into St. Mungo’s by someone in a dark robe. That person could be Snape or Sirius or anybody. Ron swallows and goes back to reading the article. They do say that Harry got attacked by a werewolf.

But then the article veers off and starts talking about how that must mean Harry is going to be a werewolf. Ron rolls his eyes, glad for once that he’s been keeping track of moon phases for his Astronomy summer assignment. “He can’t be a werewolf, Mum. The full moon is too far away for that.”

“But that’s not what I’m worried about, Ron! That poor boy! And he’s stuck in a house with Slytherins and—and the professor who despised him until last year, and—”

Ron feels a horrible crawling on the back of his neck as he realizes that Mum is dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I’m sure he’ll be all right,” Ron says, babbling before he realizes it. “I mean, Professor Snape was going to take really good care of him. And he gets to spend part of the week with Sirius and Mr. Lupin, too. I mean, I’m sure that he’ll be okay.”

“Okay? He got clawed by a werewolf!” Mum takes a deep breath and stands so tall that it really looks as if she’s looming against the sky. Then she says, “I’m going to do some baking,” and turns away with a heavy step that means there’ll be long rows of biscuits and maybe even a cake on the counter steaming before nightfall.

Ron looks at the article again. He hopes that Mum is going to send Harry a cake. His birthday is next week. They were planning a party…

They can still plan a party. Ron stands up with his jaw clenched. He’s going to write Harry a letter and make sure that he knows not all of his friends are going to abandon him over a stupid article.

*

“Your gamble has not worked out, Daphne.”

Daphne keeps cutting up her roast beef, unconcerned. Her mother narrows her eyes and taps the article with her fingers, the article Daphne read this morning but which her mother didn’t read until this evening because she was at the Ministry handling a crisis all day. “The boy is a werewolf victim now. I know well enough that he will not turn, but the general public does not. What political use will Harry Potter be with half the wizarding population fearing to come near him? Other parents may even demand his expulsion from Hogwarts.”

“But you won’t, Mother,” Daphne says, and smiles at her. But the smile is really more for her younger sister. Astoria sits wide-eyed across the table. She ducks her head and pretends she hasn’t been listening when Daphne smiles at her.

“Why should I not?”

“Because he is more than my ally,” Daphne says, and sips at her pumpkin juice. She used to not like it, but then she started drinking it every meal at Hogwarts. It would seem strange to go a summer without it, now.

“What is he?” Mother’s face hasn’t relaxed, and her fingers haven’t stopped tapping next to the article.

Daphne looks up. It takes more courage than she thought it would to speak the truth, even though she’s been planning it since this morning. “My friend.”

Her mother’s fingers stop moving. Astoria squeaks and then puts her hands over her mother. Mother speaks without taking her gaze from Daphne for an instant. “Astoria, if you are incapable of acting like a proper young witch, then I will exile you to your room.”

Astoria’s eyes fill with tears, and she runs away. Daphne sighs internally. She thinks their parents are too hard on Astoria, who’s naturally more expressive and was Sorted into Ravenclaw for a reason. But at the same time, it’s a little relieving to know that she won’t have those expressive eyes on her when she’s trying to explain this.

“Tell me.”

Daphne nods. “I gave him that pendant that he wears now. He accepted it, after learning what it did. He empowered the pendant to protect him against malicious potions, which made some of his behavior strange in the first days after he was Sorted into Slytherin and affected his reputation. He includes me in his study group and doesn’t even realize that I have acted as his bodyguard. Mother, he trusts me so much that he doesn’t look up when I stand right beside him.”

That’s part of who Harry is, in truth, but Daphne knows it will have a much bigger impact on her parents. Such a thing would be unthinkable for a Greengrass with anyone except close family. Her mother catches her breath. Then she clears her throat and says, “But he has many people in his study group, I have heard.”

“He does,” Daphne agrees, not letting it ruffle her. “I was merely giving you one example. I am accepted in close groups and small ones, and literally close to him. He’s written to me this summer despite having all sorts of training to go through, and shuffling back and forth between houses every week. I have no doubt that he’ll write to me as soon as Professor Snape permits him to after this attack.” She waits, and then adds, when she trusts a dollop of sweetness will do most good, “You won’t throw all my hard work away, Mother? I am not to be condemned to something so wearying and wrong?”

Mother’s head jerks a little. Then she shakes her head, once. “No—no, of course not. I need to discuss this with your father.” And she rises and wanders out of the dining room, as dazed as Daphne has ever seen her.

Daphne relaxes back against the chair. She never had any intention of giving up her friendship with Harry in the first place, but it will be less wearying not to have to write her letters to him and coordinate her visits in secret.

And she will achieve her goals. Greater prominence for the Greengrass family, and an entry on the winning side of the war, is one thing.

But not all.

Daphne will achieve her own prominence. She will bring her sister with her, if she can. At the moment, it’s hard to tell how intelligent Astoria really is under the love for academia and the way she cries herself to sleep on the slightest provocation.

And Daphne will have a friend.

In the meantime…

Daphne stands up, and goes to comfort her sister. She really should ask Harry to welcome her into the study group when they get back to Hogwarts. Astoria will be a second-year, no younger than some of the ones he chose last year.

All of this will go a long way towards helping Daphne keep her private vow.

No matter what, I will shine.