On the bright side, it's one of the longest chapters yet, review responses to the last chapter will be up in my LJ in a little while, and I have thought of a new plot twist for Chapter 18 that will mess with people's heads even more. So it's all good.
Chapter Twelve: Three Uncomfortable ConversationsHarry put a hand to his head and sagged against the wall. He'd thought it was ridiculous for Madam Pomfrey to insist that he stay in the hospital wing for a full week because of spell exhaustion (which she thought was an unusual and persistent case of smoke inhalation), but now he wondered if he really should have left so early. His head pounded in regular time with his heartbeat, and a dizzy, eddying light clouded his eyes.
He blinked when he realized that at least some of that light came from spells shining along the corridors, spells to calm tempers and damp fires and make the torchlight just the right color. Had he been able to see them before the Quidditch match? He didn't think so, but of course, he hadn't been down the corridor to the hospital wing that often.
"Harry! If you'd waited, I would have walked you back to the dungeons."
Harry glanced up. Connor was striding towards him, with no one accompanying him for once. Harry smiled, then wondered how his brother had managed to get away from all those people who would surely want to exclaim over him and shake his hand for saving the day and grabbing the game for Gryffindor while he was at it.
Then he took in his brother's narrowed eyes and slightly tilted head, and felt a queasiness that had nothing to do with performing too many wandless charms.
Connor stopped in front of him, and squinted at him. Harry chose to say nothing, hoping that looking pathetic would be enough to make his twin forget whatever was on his mind.
It didn't work, of course. Connor rarely got his teeth into anything long enough to distract himself from Quidditch, but when he did, he didn't let go, either. Sometimes Harry thought that Sirius should have been his godfather, instead of Remus Lupin. Sirius was the exact same way with a problem, worrying and picking away at it until he'd worried either himself or the problem to death.
"Look, Harry," Connor began at last. He chewed his lip then, as if his courage failed him when it came to the big moment. Harry, his stomach definitely churning now, cast a glance down the corridor, longing for Draco to appear and call Connor a blood traitor, or Ron to appear and call him a Slytherin.
Neither happened, and his glance seemed to make up Connor's mind for him. Connor drew a deep breath and leaned in closer.
"I'm not stupid, Harry," he said. "I know that you won that game and defeated the Lestranges. I don't remember anything past the point when they came onto the field, and then I woke up and people were congratulating me for two victories I hadn't earned. And I'm starting to wonder about the troll, too. Awfully convenient, wasn't it, that I just happened to collapse unconscious before the spell blast that supposedly felled the troll?"
Shit. Shit shit shit.
Harry sighed slowly. Their mother would be so disappointed in him. The first two times he'd really had to protect Connor, without the help of the ready and willing adults who were always around at home, and he'd done it in such a way as to make Connor suspect it was him.
I can't go back and change his mind, he thought, as he stared into his twin's determined face. The best I can do is plunge ahead and hope to get away with half-truths. He was glad that no one else was there now. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to witness his humiliation or Connor's aggressive truth-grabbing.
"Yes," he admitted. "I dropped the troll, and I gathered in the Lestranges and the Snitch."
"Why?" Connor leaned nearer and nearer. "Did you think that I couldn't do it myself? I am the Boy-Who-Lived." His hand went to the scar that he normally never paid that much attention to.
Harry sighed. "No, Connor, I didn't think you could do it yourself," he said, being completely honest for this part. "The troll knocked you unconscious. And do you think you could have beaten the Lestranges on your own?"
"Well, no," said Connor, shifting from one foot to the other. "But that's what the professors are there for. They would have dealt with them. You didn't have to, Harry. Why did you try?"
"Because you were hurt, with the troll, and you would have been hurt, on the pitch," Harry said. "I got so angry, Connor. I didn't want anything more than to hurt the people who'd caused you pain. I know the Lestranges were there to kill you. Why else would they dare come to Hogwarts but to attack the Boy-Who-Lived, the richest target they could aim for? If they killed you in front of all of Hogwarts, it would spread despair across the wizarding world."
Connor's eyes were wide. He hadn't thought about the political realities, Harry knew, and a wash of affection swamped him. He was there to make sure that nothing forced those realities onto Connor too soon. He should have at least one year of normal schooling, one year where he was a child and a boy and could play like a child, without having to weigh his every move. Their mother had already told Harry, when she visited him in the hospital wing before they left, that she planned to start guiding him into some politics and history this summer. Let me hold on until this summer, Harry thought. Just this summer. That's all I ask.
"And you attacked them because you were angry?" Connor asked.
Harry nodded.
Connor exhaled. "Harry," he said, "I don't think that you should be that angry."
Harry frowned at him. "I don't know what you mean."
Connor spent a long moment musing over whatever it was he was thinking about, then shook his head. "Harry, rage like that…rage like that is Slytherin," he said, earnest as summer morning. "Just getting upset because of little things. I could have taken the troll. It was just a little bump. I would have got up in a minute. And the professors would have taken the Lestranges. You know how fast I am on a broom. I could have flown away from their hexes.
"And, Harry," he said, now picking his words with obvious care, "it makes it sound as though you want to do things with magic all the time. That's the way that You-Know-Who works. I've heard stories. Sirius told them to me. You-Know-Who used his magic when he didn't have to, to terrorize and impress people and do things that someone else could have done." He recited that line as if he'd memorized it verbatim from a story. "I don't want you becoming like that." He reached out and squeezed Harry's shoulder. "Please? I love you, Harry. I don't want a brother who's like—" He paused a long moment, then forced out, "Voldemort."
Harry felt a moment of shock hammer into him, and then he tucked that moment away in the secret box of his thoughts and made himself understand. Connor didn't know about any of the secret spells Harry had learned, or just how dangerous Hogwarts might be for him, among adults who had dark pasts and possible reasons to wish him ill. He didn't know that Harry had trained himself for the Lestrange attack and hadn't been in any real danger. And of course he would think he could have handled the attacks himself. He was a Gryffindor.
Harry had not the least ability to make Connor understand his point-of-view, not without revealing everything that Lily had promised to guide Connor into more gently, and breaking his sacred trust. But, luckily, he didn't have to come up with a story. Connor had done it for him. All he had to do was accept it.
"You're right," Harry whispered. "Sometimes I feel this enormous anger rearing up, Connor, and I don't know what to do to control it. I lie in my bed in the dungeons and stare at the ceiling and want to do something, anything, to release my magic."
Connor gripped both his shoulders. "Then come up to the Gryffindor Tower when you feel that way, Harry," he said. "I don't care what time of the night it is. The password this week is lionheart, and I'll tell you what the new one is every time it changes. Please? I want to surround you with Gryffindor goodness and warmth of heart. I want my brother back."
Harry smiled at him. "I'll try."
Connor smiled, too, and then bounced ahead of him all the way to the dungeons, talking about the aftermath of the Quidditch game and where Gryffindor stood in the contest of House points. He did give Harry a few searing glances, promising in silence that he wouldn't tell Harry's dark secret.
Harry smiled, and smiled, and came up with plans to conceal his actions better the next time he had to save Connor. His deceptions so far truly had been weak. He would have to practice more.
"I know that you threw that game."
"Yes, Draco, of course I did," said Harry, lowering his Transfiguration textbook and frowning at the boy who was looming over his bed. Trying to catch up on all the homework he'd missed sleeping off his exhaustion wasn't easy, not when Draco insisted on saying one inane thing after another. "I arranged for the Lestranges to show up and threaten my brother just so I could get the Snitch into Connor's hand."
Draco rolled his eyes, snorted, and plopped on his bed in a graceless sprawl. He couldn't have been further from the stiffly poised boy who sat straight up at every meal and followed every rule of pureblood etiquette. Normally, the contrast amused Harry, but normally Draco wasn't cutting at his nerves like a Diffindo charm. He wanted Draco to shut up and go away.
"I wasn't talking about that," the amazing annoying Malfoy sing-songed. "I was talking about the fact that you really stopped the Lestranges and put the Snitch in Connor's hand."
Harry turned his attention back to his book. "Yes, I did."
Utter silence. Harry raised his eyebrows and started counting to ten, while trying to devour as much of the big paragraph in front of him as he could. When Transfiguration approaches the normal curve of normal shape…
Draco clawed the book down from in front of him and demanded, "What did you say?"
"I said that I did do what you said I did," said Harry, and then paused to think about the structure of that sentence.
Deciding it was fine, he went on, "I know that I ended the battle and the game, and then let everyone think Connor did it." He shrugged. "And yes, you could threaten to tell Connor, but it wouldn't make much difference. Connor already knows."
"You—" said Draco, and then apparently couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Yes?" Harry lifted the Transfiguration book again.
Draco was silent for a long time. Harry could feel his mind racing, exploring possibilities. He could threaten to tell the whole school, but then people would pay attention to Harry, and Draco didn't want that; he would want to be in the spotlight, too, or he would want to keep Harry, whom he seemed to regard as some kind of fascinating magical beast, to himself. He could threaten to tell Professor Snape, but Professor Snape almost assuredly knew, and Harry didn't think he cared, or he would have stormed up to the hospital wing to yell at him about it. He could threaten to tell the other Slytherins, but that would just make them dislike Harry, and Draco wanted Harry to fit in to Slytherin House.
Draco uttered a frustrated sigh and flopped back on the bedcovers.
Harry hid his smile, then froze. That was a smile, right? Not a smirk? Just because I'm good at predicting Slytherins doesn't mean I want to turn into one.
He blamed his preoccupation for not being able to predict that the next words out of Draco's mouth were, "Do you want to come to Malfoy Manor for Christmas?"
It was Harry's turn to put down the book and stare incredulously at Draco. He ducked his head meekly, and let Malfoy good breeding and pureblood manners try to speak for him. They didn't do a very good job of it.
"No," said Harry. "Are you out of your mind?"
"It'll be fun," Draco said.
"No," Harry said.
"My father is teaching me wandless magic," Draco tried.
"I already know it."
"He really wants to meet you."
"Draco, your father was a Death Eater, and I'm the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived."
"He was under the Imperius Curse."
"No, he bloody wasn't, and my parents and my godfather would scream the roof down if I tried to go to the Manor."
"But my mother is your godfather's cousin."
"That does not help," Harry pointed out, and then went back to reading, ignoring any and all attempts that Draco made to sway him.
That evening, at least. It soon became obvious that Draco was not going to give up, even when hit with a wand. Harry tried a reinforced Silencio, and Draco continued in increasingly obscene sign language that Harry was slightly shocked the son of a pureblood wizarding family knew.
No help for it, Harry thought, as he finally rolled over and went to bed for the night. Just ignore him.
"Detention, Mister Potter," Snape said almost absently, gliding past the cauldron where Harry was laboring to skin shrivelfigs.
Harry almost opened his mouth to protest, but remembered himself in time. Snape needed no especial reason to give detention, as he had shown with the Gryffindors, and he had no reason to be pleased with Harry right now. Perhaps he's going to yell at me about the Quidditch game after all, Harry thought, and ground and stirred and mixed and chopped and tried to forget.
He still kept an eye on Connor, but luckily, his brother got along without too many obvious mishaps. Hermione Granger had worked out a system wherein she would lean over and whisper the proper instructions to Ron and Connor just when Snape had reached the point in his circuit where he was least likely to hear her. Snape delighted in humiliating Hermione and had no reason to look kindly on students talking in his class, which made Harry sure that he hadn't found out yet.
As if reading Harry's mind, Draco whispered, "We could tell him about the Mudblood—" He cringed at the look Harry shot him, and amended, "The Muggleborn, and her little cheating techniques."
"It's not cheating if she gives correct information," Harry whispered back, emptying the shrivelfig skins into the cauldron. "Besides, if you do that, I won't go to the Manor for Christmas with you."
Draco cheered up in an instant. "You're thinking about it, then?"
"Maybe," said Harry, and gave him a smile he hoped was mysterious. It was sufficiently mysterious that Draco hummed happily throughout the rest of Potions and seemed to have forgotten that Hermione existed.
Class ended, and Harry was cleaning out his cauldron when Snape advanced on him and said, "I have decided that your detention shall be served immediately."
Harry swallowed the protest he wanted to make. He wanted to go eat dinner, but saying so would only incense the professor further, and he would make some remark about thankless brats thinking their bellies were more important than Potions. Besides, it kept attention off Connor. "Yes, sir," he said instead, and waited in the room while the others filed out.
Draco looked as if he would stay with him, but Snape stood there and gave him a pointed look until Draco figured out that the rules of Snape's classroom applied even to Malfoys. He stalked away, back straight in that posture that made it seem as if he weren't sulking.
Snape shut the classroom door and gestured once with his wand. The written instructions for a potion Harry had never heard of—and it didn't have a name above it, either—appeared on the board. "There, Mister Potter," he said, hissing that part of the name rather than Harry's surname, which struck Harry as counterproductive. "Get to work. Your detention is to make this potion, correctly."
Harry squinted at the potion's steps. They looked easy enough, to his vast relief. He had taken care not to display any signs of unusual talent or ability in Snape's class, keeping his marks exactly even with Connor's, or even a little under. He actually wasn't that unusually talented, the way that he was with spells, but he knew far more than he let on.
This seems like a remarkably easy detention, Harry thought, as he went to fetch the unicorn horn, rose petals, demiguise hair, and fairy wings he would need for the potion. Unusual list of ingredients, and they don't make any potion I recognize, but maybe Snape figures I'll get frustrated with making something useless and ask, and then he can taunt me about my lack of knowledge.
Because of that, he determined to say nothing at all, and set up his cauldron, boiled the water, and made the potion—the most difficult part of which was slowly scattering in the rose petals, one at a time, while he stirred—in utter silence. Snape stalked back and forth, and watched him. Harry didn't let that unnerve him, either. He finally measured in the last pinch of demiguise hair, and his potion sparkled once and then turned into a clear liquid with a sweet, enchanting smell. Harry stood away from the table and put his hands behind his back, waiting for Snape to come and check on it.
Snape did, sniffing the potion and studying it from all sides. Harry braced himself for Snape to knock over the cauldron or Vanish the potion and demand he start over again. At least Harry had used all the ingredients, so he couldn't ruin it with a sudden addition from the table.
Unless he added something from his robes… Harry fixed his eyes on Snape's hands, and kept them there with such strict attention that he almost didn't notice it when Snape spoke. His voice was not mocking, not sneering. He simply asked a question.
"What do you believe the effect of this potion would be, Mister Potter?"
Harry blinked, but shrugged and answered. He was probably wrong, since he had not the slightest idea what it would do, but then, that was the kind of challenge Snape would assign a student he was exasperated with. "I believe it would work to purify, sir, given that the unicorn horn and the rose petals are symbols of purity and love. The demiguise hair could have something to do with invisibility, but demiguises are also gentle, so it probably adds to the potion's overall calming effect. And fairy wings are also from gentle creatures."
Snape bent down. Harry looked up at him as calmly as he could; he couldn't help but tense up a little when someone got this close, since a Death Eater or other enemy might try to hold him at his mercy like this.
"I knew it," said Snape.
Harry wrinkled his brow. "Sir?" Snape knew what? Harry expected a tirade against his intelligence to start any moment, since he had probably got all the effects of the ingredients completely wrong. But then, they were just guesses.
Snape stood back, and smirked. He looked extraordinarily ugly, doing that, Harry thought.
"I knew that you were more talented at Potions than you appeared," Snape said, his voice soft but gathering in power. "One can, of course, have theoretical knowledge without practical skill, but I have watched you, Potter. I noticed, for example, that in some essays you knew material that you claimed not to know in other essays. And you sometimes committed common Potions mistakes, but they did not fit a pattern. If you could not remember to stir counterclockwise on a memory potion, you should certainly not have been able to remember it on this potion." He nodded at the sparkling clear liquid in Harry's cauldron.
Harry couldn't swallow. He settled for clenching his hands into fists at his sides and glaring at Snape. He hadn't been careful enough, he thought, just as with the troll and the Lestranges. He had thought only of keeping abreast of Connor, or just a bit behind, and hadn't checked to make sure that his mistakes were consistent. Of course, he didn't think he could have done that even if he'd thought of it. He just didn't know enough about Potions to know what mistakes he should make.
"Now," said Snape, his voice soft and sweetly poisonous, "I did tell you once that I did not thank any of my Slytherins to work at less than their full potential. You have been doing so, and I have the proof now." He tapped the cauldron with his wand, and the potion swirled, flew out of the cauldron, and flowed over to a bottle waiting on Snape's desk, in which it sealed itself. "This is one of the preliminary steps in brewing the Wolfsbane Potion, which I am laboring to perfect, so that your beloved werewolf can be around normal wizards who do not become flesh-eating monsters once every month." He turned his sneer on Harry again. "This part of the potion calms the werewolf's mind, gentles its murderous impulses. It is not impossible to make. It is one that a fourth-year student could have made without hesitation." He halted, holding Harry's eyes.
"But it wasn't that hard!" Harry protested, and then cursed himself to death and back again as Snape laughed at him.
"Precisely," Snape said. "So. You have some talent at Potions, neglect it though you will. And I will not see you neglect it. You will work to your full skill level in every Potions class from now on."
"No, sir," Harry said, and set himself. He saw Snape wince, and wondered for the first time if the older wizard could feel his magic when he got angry. He grimaced. He would have to study specialized Shield Charms, too.
"Why not?" Snape taunted him. "You fear everyone knowing that you are not hopeless in my class after all?"
"I won't show up Connor, sir," Harry said, feeling he might as well admit it. Hiding was no good with Snape anyway, no more than it was with Draco. In a way, Harry had to admit, it was freeing to be able to speak like this in front of someone else.
"I thought so," said Snape. "And that is easily solved."
"You can give me detention for the rest of the year, sir," Harry told him flatly. "I am not going to budge on this."
"I don't need to do that," said Snape. "I only need to give your brother detention for the rest of the year. Particularly at, say, the times of Gryffindor Quidditch practices." He put his head on one side and watched Harry.
Harry shut his eyes. He could imagine Connor's cry of anguish from here. His brother would die if he couldn't play Quidditch. And the thought of the rest of the school not getting to see Connor play, not coming to admire him for something he honestly did quite well…
Harry opened his eyes and told Snape, "I'll do as you say, Professor. But I hate you for it."
"I rather thought you might," Snape said.
Snape rubbed his head as Harry left the classroom. He had a freshly-brewed headache potion waiting in his office, since he had rather expected that this detention would make Harry stare at him like a basilisk.
But it didn't matter. Pure triumph roared through his veins as he stepped into his office, toasted an invisible companion, and drank the potion.
This is one over on Harry Potter, one over on the Brat-Who-Lived, one over on James Potter, and one over on Gryffindor, he thought, as his pain eased and then left him. That only made the triumph all the keener. The boy is more talented than I ever dared to hope, and he shall have no choice but to admit it in at least one place.
And perhaps his brother will notice the difference…wonder about it…speak to him…
The sooner I can separate him from his brother, the better.
Snape strode over to the hearth, that he might firecall the kitchens and order a private, complicated dinner from the house elves. He was in a mood to celebrate in the privacy of his quarters.
And if part of that mood came from the desire to avoid Dumbledore's piercing gaze and the proximity of a powerful, angry boy wizard….
Well, that was no one's business but his own.