Thank you again for all the reviews! This piece will have at least one more chapter.
"Mr. Potter. If you would come with me, please?"
The Headmaster is smiling and pleasant, but Harry remembers what Professor Moody said. He nods and smiles and stands up from the breakfast table, unable to help it when his eyes flick over to Professor Moody.
The professor raises his hip flask in a toast, the same way he did when he congratulated Harry on surviving the First Task. It's also his sign that he thinks Harry is all right to go with Dumbledore. If he tipped it sideways, that would be the signal for Harry to run, and deal with the consequences of running from a man who can read his mind later.
Who can read his mind.
Harry broods on that as they go up the stairs, first the regular ones and then the moving staircase, to the Headmaster's office. Why would Professor Dumbledore think that's a fine thing to do?
Well, strictly speaking, Harry doesn't know that he's ever done it. But he thinks of the way that Professor Dumbledore always seems to know everything, and his own feeling in the past that Snape can read minds. Snape at least would probably have no scruples about it. And he would use whatever he found there against Harry.
So Snape should know that I didn't put my name in the Goblet of Fire. And so should Professor Dumbledore, even if he didn't read my mind. Professor Moody said something about how a Legilimens can detect lies.
He should have done something to keep me out of the Tournament, but he didn't. Professor Moody helping me survive is more than he's done.
So, by the time they reach the Headmaster's office and Harry sits down in the chair across from Professor Dumbledore, he's feeling pretty hostile. Fawkes gives what sounds like a worried croon from his perch. But Harry has to ignore that. Just because Fawkes helped him survive in the Chamber of Secrets doesn't mean he has Harry's good in mind all the time. He's Dumbledore's bird.
And Professor Moody hinted darkly that having phoenix tears in his bloodstream could make Harry somehow beholden to the phoenix, so he has to do what Fawkes wants. What Dumbledore wants.
No. People don't get to control him like that.
"Mr. Potter," Professor Dumbledore begins, and then hesitates, maybe because Harry isn't smiling at him the way he wants. Never again. "Harry. Your friends have come to me expressing concern about the spell that you used during the First Task."
"What friends are those, sir? Because right now, I don't really think I have any."
"They remain worried about you, nonetheless, Harry. Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger."
"So have they decided that I'm not making things up yet? Did Ron decide that I really didn't put my name in the Goblet?"
"I cannot speak to that," Professor Dumbledore says, and he seems weary and sad. Harry wouldn't know, because he's looking a little off to the side and not directly into the man's eyes. Hopefully the Headmaster will just take that as Harry being angry rather than knowing the truth about his Legilimency. Professor Moody promised they could start on Occlumency soon, but not yet. "What I do know is that they are highly worried about you. And so am I. Where did you find that spell, Harry?"
"In a book."
"Harry, please."
"It was a book," Harry says stubbornly, which is true. You lie to a Legilimens with truth. Professor Moody's taught him that, one of the most useful lessons Harry's learned. He's already planning on how to apply it with Snape in the future. "During some of the research I was doing to survive the Tournament."
"I think you shouldn't do research like that, Harry."
"Really?" Harry asks bitterly. "So I shouldn't try to make up for the disadvantage as someone three years younger than the rest of the Champions and the only one who's not getting help?"
"Come now, Harry, there is a distinction between survival and winning. I am sure that, if you concentrate and focus your research on the best areas, you will manage to finish the other Tasks and keep yourself safe without Dark magic. You don't need to win the Tasks."
"And the help, sir? Will you tell me what kinds of magic I need to research?"
Professor Dumbledore is silent.
"Right. I told you." Harry has to work hard not to just clench his fingers into the arms of the chair and try to rip them off. "Krum is getting help from Karkaroff. Delacour is getting help from Madame Maxime. I know she is. And Professor Sprout was dropping all these hints in class the other day that she's helping Diggory." Harry didn't know how to interpret those hints himself, but he talked to Professor Moody about them. He's the one who explained to Harry what Professor Sprout's seemingly random comments about dragon-seeded plants meant.
"Now, then, Harry. I'm sure Professor Sprout wouldn't do that."
"But the other two would? Sir?"
"That is not something you have to worry about." Professor Dumbledore sounds deeply sad. "I told you. The other might be trying to win. Your goal should be survival."
"It is, sir."
"Then you don't need Dark spells," Professor Dumbledore says with ringing finality. "You just need effective ones."
And Professor Moody said the Headmaster would say that, too, didn't he? He practically predicted what Professor Dumbledore would say down to the words.
"Of course, sir." Harry tries not to show his rage. "Can I go now?"
"I want your promise that you won't use other Dark Arts spells, Harry."
"How are we defining that, sir? Because that spell isn't really illegal. Professor McGonagall said so," Harry adds, before Dumbledore can ask who told him that.
"I trust that you can use your best judgment, Harry."
Which is more of a non-answer than Professor Moody predicted. But that's okay with Harry. He'll just say that he used his best judgment, no matter what spell he finds. He nods. "Can I go now, sir?"
"Do you promise that you won't use other Dark Arts spells? Ones that you can tell are Dark due to your own judgment."
"I promise I won't use spells that I can tell are Dark according to my own judgment," Harry parrots.
And Professor Dumbledore smiles—like an idiot—and lets him go.
(All that matters, of course, is that Harry is going to make sure that he doesn't use Dark Arts openly in the next Tasks. Professor Moody said something once about spells that can disguise the effects of other spells, like one that makes the Killing Curse look less green. Harry ought to look into that).
I could lead Harry to my Lord today, and he would come of his own free will.
Barty knows that's premature even as he thinks it, though. Harry still sometimes mentions the Dark Lord as someone who wants to kill him as dead as any lichen. He might distrust Dumbledore, might be well on the way to alienation from his friends, but he would still balk at the idea of serving Barty's Lord.
(How perfectly his friends are acting, though, as if they were in accord with Barty's plan rather than Dumbledore's! How much they bleat at Harry about not looking up Dark Arts spells, and trusting Dumbledore, and not trying to be powerful! And, of course, every time they do that, they drive Harry further into the arms of the Dark. It's enough to make Barty laugh like a jaguar).
So, for now, Barty holds discussions of magical theory and history with Harry. He doesn't stray far from the truth, not the kind the boy could look up.
On such subjects as phoenix tears and their unproven controlling effect, of course, Barty feels free to stray as far as he wants.
Harry comes into Barty's office one afternoon near the beginning of the winter holiday with a hot, tearless face. Harry floats a cup of prepared tea over to him and asks him, "Are your friends causing trouble again?"
"No," Harry says, and takes the teacup and gives Barty a smile of thanks that slides off his face like a seal off ice. "It's this stupid Yule Ball. Professor McGonagall told me today that I have to take a date to it and dance the opening dance. I don't have anyone I want to date. I can't dance. It's a stupid idea."
"Ah." Barty is momentarily startled. Of course he heard something near the beginning of the year about the Yule Ball and how the Champions would have to attend, but it wasn't something he paid much heed to, since by itself it doesn't have relevance to getting Harry's name to come out of the Goblet of Fire.
"Are you laughing at me?"
"No," Barty says at once, resisting the temptation to pinch his cheek and make sure he hasn't lost control of his face. "But, come, Harry, compared to dragons, what's the Ball?"
"Yeah, I suppose," Harry mutters, and stares into his teacup. "I just don't like the thought of everyone laughing at me while I stagger around. Or laughing while I try to ask someone on a date."
For some reason, Barty doesn't like it either. He frowns and puts it aside. Some of his memories before Azkaban are tattered and torn. Perhaps he didn't like the thought of dancing or dating, either.
"Haven't we talked about how laughter doesn't matter?"
"Yeah, but I don't have to fight to survive the Yule Ball, Alastor," Harry says, and the name pricks unpleasantly at Barty's senses. "I have to fight to get past the laughter."
"True." Barty considers it, his tongue firmly in his mouth, his eyes staring for a moment at the ceiling.
(Why does it matter to him if Harry is at the Yule Ball? But he did not consider it, and it is as unexpected now as the sun at midnight).
"You don't need to go," Barty says at last. "There's no indication that failing to participate in the Yule Ball will affect your magic or the contract to compete in the Tournament the same way the Tasks do. Just stay in your dormitory for the night. Tell anyone who asks that you're going, but then don't go."
Harry grins. Then the grin fades. "Couldn't I come here instead?"
Barty stops his response to that. The grin would look out of place on Alastor Moody's facial features. "Well, perhaps you could," he says slowly. "But later. They'll probably expect me to attend the feast and patrol the gardens for snogging couples for a while."
"All right. About nine?"
Barty wonders if that will be too early to leave, but against the radiant shine in Harry's eyes, he's helpless. He inclines his head like a lion (with rusted mane). "Yes, all right, that will work, Harry."
"Thank you!" Harry sets down his teacup and darts forwards and hugs Barty and runs out the door, all before Barty can even draw his wand.
He sits there, in the silence that comes for him then, and stares at the wall, and holds revels inside.
"But you must have asked someone on a date, Harry." Neville is adjusting the cuffs of his dress robe, shooting glances at Harry where he sits on his bed. Harry put on his dress robes so people would think he was going to the Ball, but he doesn't intend to show up, of course.
Harry shrugs. "Professor McGonagall told me I had to have one, yeah."
Neville straightens up and stares at him abruptly. "You didn't ask anyone to the Ball, did you?"
Harry lets something small and dangerous creep across his mouth. But Neville doesn't cringe the way Ron and Hermione had been cringing more and more often when Harry smiles at them. "No, I didn't."
"Merlin. Okay." Neville runs a hand through his hair. "Well, I suppose no one can really blame you. You didn't ask to participate in the damn Tournament, and especially not the bloody Yule Ball."
Harry blinks and looks at Neville a little more closely. "Didn't you want to go? I thought you asked Ginny first."
"We're going as friends. And because she's a third-year and she wouldn't be able to go unless somebody older than her took her along." Neville shakes his head. "But if I had to actually ask someone on a date and dance with them, in front of everybody, going first? I'd be as nervous as I am in Snape's class."
Harry smiles. "You're a good friend, Neville."
"So are you, Harry."
(Harry wonders what Neville would say if Harry told him that he only thinks of Alastor as a friend now. Alastor is the only one actually doing something to make sure Harry can survive the Tournament. Alastor is the one who gives the best advice.
But there's no point in hurting Neville like that, and he probably wouldn't understand anyway), so Harry just shrugs good-naturedly and waves him on. Ron and Seamus and Dean left the room long ago. Neville waves back, promises to cover for him as long as he can if someone asks where Harry is, and leaves.
Harry checks the time with a wave of his wand, and grimaces. Still at least an hour before he can go see Alastor. He flops back on the bed, waves his wand to shut his curtains, and wonders if he should go ahead and take off his dress robes.
Then he pauses.
No, actually, he wants to show off the dress robes to someone. And if the only audience that can see them is Alastor…
That's more than all right.
Barty chuckles like a tiger in a dream when he hears the knock on the door, precisely on time. Harry didn't wait long. "Come in!" Barty calls, while he takes another sip from his flask. It's forty minutes past the hour, and he probably doesn't need one, but it would be disastrous to revert to his real form when Harry is here, too.
(Even though part of him wants to shrug off Moody's skin infesting him like weevils, and stand forth in front of Harry's shocked, terrified eyes, and speak the words that will turn that shock and terror to wonder).
"Hi, Alastor."
Barty looks up, and blinks. Harry is clad in dark green dress robes, not the best he could have bought, but finer than his uniform robes the way an Abraxan is finer than a Granian. "I thought you didn't go to the Ball," Barty says, and his voice is deeper than usual.
"I didn't. But I got dressed up so that people would think I was going and…" Harry flushes like coal. "And I thought it was kind of a shame if my roommates were the only ones who got to see me like this," he whispers.
"Yes, it would have been," Barty says. He can't take his eyes from Harry. It's not because Harry is especially handsome or because the robes are especially flattering, but because of what they remind him of.
(Green robes, whirling on a dance floor, and the world breaking apart into Dark Arts and crackling magic and madness, of the kind that rode him before he'd set a single foot in Azkaban).
Harry is the finest Dark Arts student either Barty or Moody has ever taught, but there was one who came close. Who wore green robes on a night like this. Barty blinks hard and shakes the impression away as he realizes that Harry is watching him in what looks like concern.
"Are you all right, Alastor?"
The false name stings more than usual. Barty allows the sting, manages to smile and lift his flask. "Yes, I'm fine, Harry. Just thinking about some of the things I've seen in the past. People I'll never see again."
(People he will see again, sliding down the edge of an ice blade, laughing in agony as their intestines coil out of them).
"Oh, okay." Harry takes a seat on the edge of the chair and takes a long breath. "You told me that the voice in the golden egg is speaking Mermish. Does that mean you think the Second Task is going to be in the lake?"
Barty smiles, and manages to make the smile Moody's and not his own. He holds a crooked finger up before his crooked lips, his missing nose. "Yes, but shhh, don't tell anybody."
Harry grins, glad for the chance to share secrets.
(Barty is appalled, sometimes, by how easy this turning is. He thought it would be hard because surely Dumbledore and McGonagall and Gryffindor would have forged the boy's morals to a hard, inflexible casing, more likely to break than bend.
He never thought that they tried to protect the boy by leaving him in utter ignorance, sure that only pure water would pour into that carapace).
"Harry, wait up! Please."
It's the "please" that makes Harry turn around, but it doesn't make him less impatient. He only has an hour or so to practice the spells that will work well underwater and let him breathe and see and defeat his enemies. Then he needs to go back to sitting in Defense Against the Dark Arts class and struggling not to laugh aloud when other people comment on how creepy Professor Moody is.
(Professor Moody, the Alastor of Harry's dark and secret dreams).
But he can turn around and give Hermione, who's panting up behind him, a slightly condescending smile and ask, "What is it? It's just that I have some spellcasting practice to do, and—"
"Harry," Hermione says. She pants for a second more, since they're at the top of a staircase and she ran all the way up. Harry waits, feeling cool and patient and flexible, made of bendable steel the way Alastor said he must be.
(But bend it too far, and it whips back).
"I just," Hermione says, and straightens up, and steps forwards with her arms out. Harry realizes what she means to do too late, and then he has to stand there and endure as she hugs him. "I'm worried about you!" she blurts into his shoulder. "You barely spend any time in the common room anymore and you disappear all the time—"
"Well, I can't study for the Tasks there," Harry says, and steps back. "Someone is just too ready to accuse me of cheating all the time, after all."
Hermione flushes red, but doesn't look away from him. "Ron is worried about you, too."
"Funny how he never says that."
"He tried! He sat right down next to you at breakfast the other morning and said it! And you said—"
"Oh, that," Harry says, struggling to remember. Ron did say something about worry, didn't he? But he didn't say he was worried. He said "everyone" was worried, and then he started out a list of people with Dumbledore's name at the top. And Harry froze and burned at the thought of Dumbledore watching him, worrying about him, but doing nothing.
Not that Harry supposes he should be surprised when Dumbledore is about as helpful as a moth.
"Why are you still treating us like this, Harry?" Tears gleam on Hermione's cheeks, and she reaches out an appealing hand. "Like we're your enemies? You know we're not. We worry about you, we don't want you having to endure this by yourself—"
"Yeah, it sure sounded like that after the First Task," Harry snaps.
"Everyone was behaving badly then," Hermione says, and Harry can see how hard she bites her lips to avoid accusing him. It pieces him mad, drives him cold, to think about how carefully she's trying to approach him. To herd him back into some pen. "It doesn't mean we still think the same way. We do worry about you. Why do you keep creeping off by yourself?"
"Why can't I do that? Did anyone worry about Ginny doing that in her first year? No, they didn't, not even her brothers. Why can't I have some bloody privacy for once, Hermione?"
Hermione's face has turned grey, and she grabs one of the banisters of the stairs behind her. "Are you saying that you—Harry, did you find something like the diary?" she whispers.
Harry rolls his eyes. Of course she'll take his words in the most literal way possible. She doesn't listen. "No, I didn't," he says, chopping the words jagged. "I just meant that no one ever got this upset when Ginny had some time to herself, and now here you are. Or, hey," he says, suddenly struck with a thought, and feeling the smile widening across his face, "you didn't care that much when I was spending all that time alone before the First Task, right? Even though you supposedly believed that I didn't put my name in the Goblet?"
"Harry."
Hermione has her hands over her face again, weeping, but at least that means she's not going to stop him. Harry turns smartly on his heel and walks away, shaking his head. He could feel sorry for her, but she never did for him until it was too late, so why should he?
(Besides, if she catches wind of the spells that he intends to use during the Second Task, she'll probably go right back to scolding him again. This road they walk goes only one way).
"And I don't have any choice about who they take for the Task?"
Harry's face is twisted in the most appealing way, the way it is when he practices the curses that Barty is drilling him in. Barty laughs. "No, but think of it this way. What would happen if you tried to choose someone other than Weasley?"
Harry sighs and kicks back in his chair. He's come in casual weekend clothes this time, nearly Muggle, but Barty's prodded him into buying some finer things to lounge around in. Barty refuses to share space with someone clad like a beast. "Dumbledore would probably get suspicious and try harder to read my mind."
Barty nods. He's still surprised that Dumbledore hasn't tried to interfere more, but then again, he did have Harry make that promise that he wouldn't try too many Dark Arts spells.
Promises bind people, in Dumbledore's view. More than oaths and loyalty.
(And vows. Oh, the vows).
"And Snape," Barty has to add, because he's not blind to the scowls and glares that Snape has been casting Harry. Mixed in with them are odd assessing looks that Barty doesn't remember from before, though, and that makes him as wary as fire. "He thinks that you're a strange one, Harry. Getting stranger."
"A freak."
Barty barely remembers to lift his flask. He lowers it when he hears the familiar way Harry's mouth cups the word. "What?"
"It's what my Muggle relatives called me." Harry looks up at Barty, his eyes flaring with useful hatred. "Because they knew about magic the whole time, at least Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, but they were so afraid of magic that they just called me a freak. And my magic freakishness."
Barty thinks again of fire. Of torture. Of pain that twists bones without breaking them, making them flow liquid inside their casings. He smiles.
He realizes a second later that it's his smile, not a Moody smile, but Harry seems to be looking at him with appreciation, so Barty nods and doesn't conceal his tone as much as usual when he reaches for the right words. "I won't pretend that I like your relatives, either, Harry. But I do almost wish I could meet them."
Harry laughs softly. "They would get so upset."
"They would be so afraid."
Harry focuses on him, and some obscure light moves in the back of his eyes. "You would—you would torture them? But they're not Death Eaters." He pauses a moment to look at Barty again. "And it wouldn't do anything about survival. Yours or mine."
"It would punish them for what they did to you in the past," Barty says, and decides to take a risk that dances like a whirlwind. "Do you think they should go unpunished? Haven't I taught you better than that, Harry?"
Harry's eyes widen like gibbous moons. "I didn't think of that," he whispers. "I just—you know, I thought that the people who were far away and whose crimes were in the past weren't going to be punished."
Wouldn't be, not shouldn't be, Barty thinks, and smiles again. "I would punish them for you, Harry," he whispers. "I'm on your side, no matter what happens. You can trust me. Maybe not anyone else, but me."
Harry nods, eyes drinking Barty in. And Barty feels a ripple run over him.
For a moment, cold panic cuts through inside, and then warm delight shrugs it aside. He knew this might happen, right? When he lifted the flask to his lips but didn't actually take a drink, when he ceased to keep track of time while he was talking with Harry the way he usually does?
"I am on your side no matter what happens," Barty repeats, hearing his voice twist halfway through. "And that means I have to show you something. I can't keep it secret from you anymore, Harry. I haven't liked keeping it secret for months."
And he lets the flask drop, lets the magical eye roll from his face into his grasping hand, lets his sprouting leg blast aside the wooden one. He looks up with his own features, gloriously in his own skin again, and locks eyes with Harry.
Harry's eyes are wide, and staring.
But he doesn't run for the door, and Barty smiles. Harry's eyes catch on the smile.
"Talk," he whispers, and Barty laughs like a leopard.