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Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
::Mindspeech::
-Parseltongue-
Chapter Twenty-Eight:
"Ah, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said as Harry entered his office, "Please sit down."
Harry sat down quickly in the large, plush chair, mentally reviewing the potion's effects. Harry was going for the effects of a weaker Devotion Potion rather than the full-power one he had found in his pumpkin juice. After all, if none of the other potions had worked, Dumbledore shouldn't be surprised that this one didn't completely work either.
A weakened Devotion Potion would set him back to a 'first-year' mindset, where he had respected and been in awe of the Headmaster. It would not, however, force him to be completely obedient to whatever the Headmaster wanted, nor would Harry be forced to become another sycophantic devotee of the man. Also, he could have periods of rebellion in which the 'real Harry' fought against the potion. Harry had always been particularly good at fighting against the Imperius curse, after all.
Harry had made sure that the only potion that he would 'allow' to work was one that the man had to brew himself. After all, the potion would have to be renewed every week and Harry couldn't afford Dumbledore to decide that a Snape-brewed potion might be fully effective against him. Any other potion that Dumbledore tried on him, Harry would either be able to nullify or pretend to drink without actually drinking any.
Right now, a victim of a weakened Devotion Potion would be confused. Their rational mind would be almost completely silenced but they wouldn't know which to trust more: these new feelings or the almost-silly older feelings towards the brewer. Also, the larger difference between the old feelings and the new feelings, the easier it was for a person to identify the new feelings as 'wrong'. Therefore, Dumbledore would have to be careful not to push Harry to hard.
"Now, Mr. Potter, do you know what you came here for?"
"…You can call me Harry, Professor," Harry said, rubbing his scar.
Dumbledore beamed at him,
"And, do you know what you came here for?"
Someone feeling the full effects of the potion would look up at him with adoration and say 'you wanted to see me' or with confusion 'I…I've said some really hurtful things recently that I didn't mean'. Harry just looked at Dumbledore uncertainly,
"You sent me a letter, right? About the Order?"
There was a flash of disappointment in Dumbledore's eyes but it was quickly covered up,
"Ah, yes. Voldemort has been making very bold moves recently and I was wondering if it wouldn't be best if you joined the Order of the Phoenix. You are already an honorary member, as far as Fawkes is concerned. Just look at how he has taken to you."
Harry hid his snigger behind a cough and said,
"Are Ron and Hermione going to join, too?"
"Of course."
"Then I won't join," Harry said stubbornly, "They…Well, I don't want to complain and I don't know if you'll believe me but…They betrayed me. I can't just go back to being their friend."
"Is this the reason that you've distanced yourself from them," Dumbledore asked shrewdly. Dumbledore must have realized that pushing for a friendship between Harry and his old friends would be going too far for the Devotion Potion to handle.
Harry looked down and nodded.
"My dear boy," Dumbledore said, "Why didn't you come to me earlier. Is there anything else that I should know about?"
Harry bit his lip,
"I…Everything else is fine, Headmaster."
"Then if I don't allow Ron and Hermione to join the Order, you will join?"
It really was a tempting offer and Harry hesitated for a second. If Dumbledore actually let him into Order meetings, it would be even better than Claire's crystal ball because being physically there meant being able to influence events. On the other hand, it would mean publicly being under Dumbledore's thumb and even less free time.
"Yes," Harry said finally, "I would."
"I'm afraid, however," Dumbledore said, "That I can't extend the offer to all of your other friends. Young Mr. Malfoy isn't trusted by the Order members and I'm afraid Molly would have my head if I allowed Ginevra to join. Miss Lovegood, however…"
"I'm not sure if it'd be good if Luna joined the Order," Harry said, "She's sweet but rather silly; always going on about Blibbering Humdingers or Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. And I think she's really busy right now trying to find out about some 'undiscovered' creature or another."
"A sensible decision," Dumbledore said, "But it is getting late and you have classes tomorrow. Why don't you go to bed; I'll owl you with the time and date of the next Order meeting.
"And Harry," Dumbledore said as the student was leaving, "I am very sorry for all I've done. If you are uncomfortable with Severus teaching you Occlumency…"
Harry looked at Dumbledore for a long time; then turned to leave,
"Snape's fine, Headmaster. I'm sure your schedule is busy enough without having to accommodate me."
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The next day, Dumbledore came to talk with Harry during dinner. He openly flaunted his use of Harry's first name and Harry's politeness towards him. After proving his point, he went back to his dinner.
Exactly eighty-three people were enraged by this show.
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Occlumency again. Ugh. And Harry didn't even know how to act around Snape what with the Devotion Potion and Snape's sudden change in attitude around Harry. Probably the same as usual, unless the Headmaster came up in the (usually nonexistent) conversation.
It was just Harry's luck that the Headmaster was the very first topic that came up…
"Potter, what do you think of the Headmaster?" Snape asked, as soon as Harry walked in through the door.
"Well, he's a rather nice guy…" Harry said vaguely. Was Snape testing him? Trying to humiliate him? What did the other man expect?
"I find it curious that, though you showed all the symptoms of having ingested a potion that is aimed to change your mental state, as a potions master, I could see no such mar on you," Snape said casually.
"…Well it was worth the try."
"And just why are you pretending to have a sudden, potion-induced respect for the Headmaster when in reality you have no such thing?"
"Well it was getting pretty tiring finding compulsion potions in all of my food," Harry said with a shrug.
"Compulsion potions…You do know that that's illegal and that it could get the Headmaster kicked out of Hogwarts?"
"Well, yes, but only with sufficient proof. And then someone even more incompetent will take over. It'll be easier if…" Harry paused; forcing himself to realize that it was Snape he was talking to, "Anyways, don't we have an Occlumency lesson to start?"
"You know as well as I that the lessons are perfectly useless."
"Huh," Snape had always avoided admitting anything of the sort earlier. What had changed? "Whatever you may think, it's always useful to go back to the basics."
"You've changed the subject, Potter," Snape said. Then he sneered, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, obeying Dumbledore's every command?"
…Was it just Harry's imagination or was Snape saying 'Potter' to remind him himself, not Harry, of whom he was talking to?
"Slytherin, remember?" Harry smirked, "We can be truly shameless…or ruthless…when we want to assure our own survival. Now, if we're not going to start the lesson, I'm leaving."
Snape let him leave, completely silent.
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The first half of December passed quietly. Harry was still busy but any things seemed to have calmed down. One thing that had contributed to this was that many renegade Death Eaters had moved back into their houses, which had been heavily-warded, and only fifteen or so stayed in the Chamber of Secrets, mostly those who had no family.
There had been some turmoil and indignation in the HTC over his sudden 'conversion' to Dumbledore's side but that had calmed down after a week or two. Those who didn't like it left but there had been a surprising amount of loyalty towards Harry in the dozens that had stayed. Despite (or maybe because of) Harry's sudden compliance towards the Headmaster, his sway over the school had nearly tripled in magnitude. There was always the whisper of 'he's faking it' from the Hogwarts rumor mill. Dumbledore seemed confident, however, that Harry was not faking it; he had too much confidence in his potion.
Pranks during this time period too had slowed almost to a stop. There had been that one incident where someone had filled the transfiguration classroom with catnip (probably Draco, Harry thought) and a couple other little things but nothing big. Things with Snape seemed to be at a standstill, though the Potions professor was being unusually polite towards Harry. Harry still wasn't sure what to think about it.
Harry was still anxiously awaiting any findings from Luna, even though he knew that she might not find anything until the end of the school year…Or she might never find anything. He had seen her only a handful of times in the whole month and she seemed to have recruited Claire to help her when she wasn't using the spirit to keep an eye on various things.
Still, no matter how calm things were, it was always frustrating not to be able to talk back to Dumbledore. He wasn't in any way ashamed of his acting but acting all the time was tiring. A little voice in the back of his mind was always muttering 'well, why shouldn't I just act how I want to act'. Evan saved his sanity.
Draco and Ginny were both very sympathetic but, really, neither of them understood why he was pretending to be under Dumbledore's thumb. Evan, being almost the same person, knew exactly why he was doing what he was and was fully supportive of it. It was, basically, for Hogwarts. If Harry got rid of Dumbledore now, then a stronger person from the Ministry would probably take over and they'd have Ministry backing; it would be hard to get rid of them. No, it was simpler to wait until Harry had enough control to take over the school himself.
But Evan didn't save Harry's sanity just because he was there to talk to. It was Evan's identity that Harry needed. To be able to become someone else, someone unknown to others…that was what Harry really needed. To talk to someone without the name 'Harry Potter' getting in the way. Nonetheless, Harry was trying not to take Evan's identity too often. He was pretty sure that the spirit resented him for it, even if Evan understood why Harry was taking it.
In the end, Harry was just being selfish.
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Christmas spirit had come with the excited buzz of chatter that usually came with the holidays. The castle had been set up with Christmas trees, snowflakes, and a hundred other decorations as the teachers had started getting into the spirit. Finally, most of the students went home for Christmas and the castle was filled with an almost haunting stillness and quiet.
Nineteen students stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas, opposed to the usual six or seven. Thirteen of them were orphans or had their parents at Azkaban. Many other orphans had elected to go home to take care of family affairs or had been invited to live with friends. Harry had never been the only orphan attending Hogwarts but the attacks on Halloween had made the number of orphans at Hogwarts about ten more than had been normal over the past few years. These orphans were also mostly shunned by their houses, since the only corpses from the battle had been Death Eaters. Harry pitied them.
Of the four founders, only Ginny had gone home for the holidays and very much against her will. Mrs. Weasley, however, had always been formidable and when she said that all of her family must be home for Christmas, she made sure that it happened. Harry and Draco, of course, had no family to return to. Luna, however, had decided that the Holidays were a good time to tackle the Hogwarts library, even though Harry offered to lend her as many books as she could carry if she wanted to go home for the holidays.
Harry and Draco were walking around in the dungeons, chatting, each with their familiars nearby (Serphenia was wrapped inside of Harry's robes, avoiding the cold air from the dungeons and Fawkes was flying behind them). There was eventually a pause in conversation and Harry took the opportunity to bring up a topic that he had meant to discuss for some time,
"You do know that we have…" Your mother didn't seem quite tactful enough, especially since Draco had been disinherited months ago (even if he still used Malfoy as his surname), "Mrs. Malfoy down in the Chamber of Secrets?"
Draco was silent for a minute,
"…Yeah, I know."
"Do you want to go see her?"
Draco sighed,
"I don't know."
"Well, I wouldn't know but…It'd be nice to have parents that are alive."
"…Is it? Sometimes I wonder. Ow!" Fawkes had perched on his shoulder and delivered a sharp nip to the Gryffindor founder's ear.
"It's your choice," Harry said, ignoring Fawkes' interruption, "She's been asking for you."
"Huh?"
"I mean a lot of the deserter Death Eaters (I really need to find something else to call them) that have children going to Hogwarts but no other family opted to stay here for the time being, like your mom. They ask for their children from time to time and sometimes I deliver letters for them."
"But I haven't gotten any letters."
"She's written them. She just hasn't had the courage to send them to you. It's one of those noble things, I suppose. Thinking that she's abandoned you and that you'd be better off without her," he made an annoyed noise, "Gryffindors."
"Hey, my mom's a Slytherin!"
Harry smirked,
"So it's a bad thing to be a Gryffindor?"
Draco scowled petulantly,
"No! But when you say Gryffindor like that…" There was a pause. "Can you…Take me to see her sometime?"
"Well, it'd probably be pretty easy for you to get down there yourself, or I can ask Evan to take you, but I'm taking a group down to the Chamber on Christmas. I've unfinished business down there."
They reached the entrance to the Slytherin common room and pausing only to give the password, the walked inside.
"It's warm!" Draco said happily and then frowned, "I still say that the Gryffindor common room would be warmer."
Harry rolled his eyes,
"It's all the same with a couple of warming charms." He ignored the looks of suspicion from the Slytherins scattered about the room. He counted five, which meant there were three more somewhere about the castle or in their dormitories.
"You're not a Slytherin," one of the girls said accusingly to Harry.
"Oh no, I've been caught!" Harry exclaimed dramatically and hid behind Draco, "Don't let them kill me!"
"You're not allowed in here," The girl said hotly, "Get out!"
"I got here first," Harry said haughtily.
The girl spluttered,
"No you didn't! I've been here for hours!"
"Fine," Harry said undeterred, "Then Draco got here first. Right, Draco?"
"Uh…What?"
"At the beginning of the school year. You came to Hogwarts before all of us in the Hogwarts express, right?"
"Um, yeah, but I didn't actually go to the dormitories; a house elf came and took away all my luggage."
"Well, fine but…"
"Salazar, you're annoying," Blaise Zabini exclaimed and Harry was confused for a minute before realizing that Blaise had used his name in the way that wizards used Merlin or Muggles God. That was…Slightly disturbing. "Anyways, Rosier, they're all right. Potter…" He paused, looking at Draco warily, "Um, is Malfoy all right?"
Draco had succumbed to a fit of stifled giggles,
"I'd forgotten that…Slytherins…Nowadays said things…like that!" He exclaimed between giggles.
"It's okay; he's usually like this. I think."
Draco started laughing harder,
"Imagine…Snape saying…"
Finally the giggles quieted and the protests from the Rosier girl died down and Harry and Draco started a game of Gobstones. Gobstones, it turned out (Harry had never played before and Salazar had never heard of it), was a strange game that could only be described as a wizarding form of checkers. It was wizarding because it made absolutely no sense until Harry had been playing for at least half an hour. The rules were numerous and seemingly ridiculous and the ways the pieces moved were completely bizarre.
Needless to say, Harry lost the first game and many times had been force to dodge just in time to avoid a face full of some foul-smelling goop.
"I'm pretty sure that's cheating," a first-year who had protested Harry's presence piped up from across the common room, "You're supposed to get hit with the liquid. A penalty, you know, for loosing points."
"Sadist," Harry muttered without heart. After their initial arguments, he and the rest of the Slytherins were getting along remarkably well, considering that he was a Gryffindor that had recently pledged his alliance to Dumbledore.
"So, anyways," Draco said, setting out the board for their second game, "What was that 'unfinished business' you were mentioning earlier? Or would you rather not talk about it?" An unspoken 'here' ended the sentence. Of course the middle of the Slytherin common room wasn't the best place to discuss plots.
"Well, I was planning to try and salvage potions ingredients from the basilisk's corpse in the Chamber of Secrets," Harry said bluntly.
Draco looked at him in horror,
"But she…You…She was Salazar Slytherin's familiar!"
"Yeah, well, she's dead, isn't she?" Serphenia hissed and Harry petted her head, "I've talked to Serphenia about this. All the snakes would agree; they're not so attached to bodies as humans are. She was a thousand-year-old basilisk; any ingredients from her would be priceless. And you really can't let the body rot down there, not with the way I've been trying to clean the place up."
He'd been so absorbed in his little speech that he didn't dodge the Gobstone goop in time; it got in his hair.
"Yuck," Harry said, using a quick Scourgify to clean up the mess, "You think this is Stinksap? From a Mimbulus mimbletonia? 'Cause Neville had one of those last year the goo it spewed was a lot like this. Wonder if I can get Neville to give me any Stinksap…"
Draco shrugged,
"How would I know? But this is a pretty cheap set, to just let you vanish the stuff like that. Most Gobstone sets have charms against cleaning the stuff up; makes the game more 'fun'."
"Oh, this one does too," Harry assured him, "The goop is some sort of potion or another. I think it reacts violently to being cleaned up. I was just wondering if the main ingredient was Stinksap."
"Then why didn't it work?" the first-year asked curiously.
"Oh, lots of potions won't work on me. I mean, magic in general is sometimes pretty strange around me. I've heard it has something to do with willpower; I mean…I can resist an Imperius so I've got a decent amount of it.
"Anyhow," Harry continued, standing up, "Gobstones is stupid. Let's go outside; there should be enough snow for a snowman…Or a snowball fight."
"Okay," Draco said, also standing up. At the entrance to the common room, they nearly walked right into Snape, who was coming in.
Snape raised an eyebrow,
"What are you doing in the Slytherin common room, Potter?"
"Playing Gobstones," Harry said airily and walked right past the man. Draco hurriedly greeted Snape and then ran out after Harry.
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I'm running out of prank ideas again. So, any suggestions:D
Also, phoeinxlove pointed out that in my list of spells, each founder had an element more or less assigned to them (Godric fire, Rowena water, Helga earth, Salazar air) and asked whether it was intentional. Yes, it was mostly intentional in that I aimed for each Founder's spells to have mostly a certain personality. I'm very flattered that you pointed it out. For example, Helga's spells were definitely focused on earth and I specifically made fire spells for Godric; even Rowena got a few water-based spells. For specifically Rowena and Salazar, however, I tried to make more of a broad base with an added emphasis on 'useful' spells; mostly binding for Salazar and psychological spells for Rowena. Also, as I've pointed out, Godric gets such 'righteous' spells as 'white slaughterhouse' or 'divine massacre'; Helga get one too, 'terrible justice'.
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