Well. I like this chapter, since it advances three subplots as well as the main one.
Chapter Fifteen: No One Ever Notices a Hufflepuff…never knew that there would be such a problem with one of my sons acting Gryffindor…just can't understand why you would do it, Harry…Connor told me that you used magic against him, against him, when you've never done that before…
Harry closed his eyes. He'd read his father's letter, which had come in early on that morning, a Wednesday, several times. Each time, one more emotion broke free and joined the mess of emotions swimming around his head.
Disappointment (it had had to turn out like this, hadn't it?), worry (he didn't want to anger his father at him, he really didn't), regret (he would have chosen a different way of dealing with Connor if he'd thought about it), sorrow (he was sorry that James was angry at him), despair (if Connor was angry at him, Harry wanted to find him at once and apologize, never mind that he wouldn't accept the apology), satisfaction (he probably would cast Silencio on Connor again, given the opportunity), anger (why had Connor had to tattle to their parents about something so minor, rather than about suspecting Harry of Luna's and Neville's Petrifications?)….
He could not master them, not yet. They swam and swarmed around him, and sometimes slipped from his grasp completely for a moment, the way that his goals to protect and defend Connor did. He could be thinking quite firmly of how he would never use magic on his brother again except in Connor's defense, and then that definition would suddenly expand to self-defense and stopping Connor from doing something stupid, and then it would narrow again.
"I don't understand that part," he muttered aloud.
I do.
Harry started and looked up. Draco stood in front of him, one eyebrow cocked expressively. He tossed Harry's tie at him. "Breakfast is over in ten minutes, Harry," Draco pointed out. "And you've just been sitting here and staring at that letter. I don't think you're going to get anything new out of it."
Harry stood up and knotted his tie, looking to be sure that Sylarana was still wrapped about his arm. Of course she was. She had not moved away from him since she had coiled herself in a kind of Gordian knot about the box. What makes you say that you know what's happening? he asked Draco as they fell into step on the way down to the Hall. He had not exactly reveled in speaking in his head over the past few days, but he had grown used to it. It had to be done. It was silly to whine about it, even mentally, given that it wasn't just Sylarana who could overhear him and scold him about it now.
Because of the holes in the webs, said Draco. Snape told you about the webs?
Harry nodded. He had been disturbed that he saw his mind that way, or that other people saw his mind that way, or whichever it was; he had had two lessons with Snape since Sunday, and still he did not understand everything there was to know about Occlumency. The crowding emotions and thoughts might have had something to do with that, of course.
Worry (was he ever going to master Occlumency?), pride (he had done well so far), grim determination (he would have to be ready when Riddle broke free, because he would set the timetable and not Harry or Snape or anyone outside the box), dread (he feared what would come forth from the box)…
The emotions abruptly danced madly and then flew away from him. Harry blinked and looked up at Draco, who had a hand on his shoulder.
"Harry," said Draco soothingly. "Look at me. Breathe. I can help you clear your mind some of the time, but not all."
Harry glanced around nervously, but there wasn't anyone there to hear them. He glanced back at Draco, nodded, and managed to make himself breathe and think, for at least a few moments, the way a normal person would have.
Draco went back to the mental speech the moment he seemed to think that Harry was stable enough to hear the truth. Riddle tore some holes in your webs the first time he possessed you, and then again the other times. So now your patterns of thought aren't exactly the way they used to be. You can have thoughts that you wouldn't be able to have the rest of the time. You can think about hurting your brother, if you want, even turning against him.
Harry recoiled from Draco—
For a moment. Then a rebellious voice in his head muttered that that wasn't such a bad idea, especially after the rumors that had spread around the school in the wake of Harry's Silencio.
Do you see? Draco asked him. His voice was calm, but Harry thought it was only with an effort. Your mind is different from what it was, Harry. Snape is working to fill the breaches with mist, but he can't heal all the wounds. Your mind has to do that, has to fill the spaces in the webs with new weaving.
Harry nodded. So the more I think about protecting and defending Connor, the likelier I am to think like that?
You could say that, said Draco, and glanced ahead. They were almost at the doors of the Great Hall. Better prepare your spells now.
Harry nodded again and called on the Protego, which he wrapped around himself just a few inches above his skin. It caused all the malicious hexes that the other students cast at him when the teachers weren't around to bounce right back at them. Next, he cast a spell that Snape had shown them, Muffliato, one which made the voices of the other students sound like a distant buzzing in Harry's ears. Snape had looked vaguely ill-at-ease when Harry had managed to change it so that it obscured the conversations of not just one person but all of them, except Draco, the other Slytherins, and the professors. Harry did not know why. It was a useful spell, and the variation was easy to make, just involving a bit more emphasis on the first two syllables than normal.
It was necessary, he reassured himself as he and Draco dashed into the Great Hall, snatched a few hasty bites of breakfast before it disappeared, and then hurried on their way to classes. He had been able to hear the students' taunts on Monday, and his reaction to them had been—unpredictable. Some he could shrug off or ignore as if he still had access to the box, some made him flinch and turn away, and a few had caused him to pull out his wand and hex the students teasing him. Snape had hauled him into his office on Monday night and taught him Muffliato, not letting him go until he mastered it. To prevent accidents, he'd said, one of the few times he'd ever actually spoken in Harry's mind, his voice sharp. Most of the time, he seemed as uneasy in Harry's thoughts as Harry was to have him there, and restricted himself to maintaining the shields.
Things were better now, Harry told himself firmly. They were. The other professors merely thought that Harry had learned to ignore the other students after an intense scolding by his Head of House, and none of them knew about the Protego, since the students picked times that the professors were safely distant to try and cast magic on Harry. So what if the students had started a rumor that Harry really must be a Dark Lord in training, to reflect spells back so effortlessly?
One of the suits of armor they were passing at that moment shook and rattled and detached itself piece by piece, clanging into the wall, falling precisely in time with the angry beat of Harry's heart.
Are you all right? Draco asked.
Yes, Harry said, and pushed the rage through one of the holes in his mind, so that it would slither around in the darkness and not bother him for a while.
By Friday, Harry felt as though he had gained some semblance of control over his swimming emotions. It wasn't perfect, of course, and it still disconcerted him when he uncovered something he had never suspected he was capable of feeling. But he could sit down and write a letter to his parents, or concentrate on the simple, well-known spells they were learning in Charms or Transfiguration, without having to deal with half a dozen exaggerated reactions. Then he would relax the control and live in a world of mad colors for a time before he needed to summon his concentration and buckle down to a certain task.
Draco was grinning at him as they came into the Great Hall for breakfast Friday morning. Pretty impressive, Harry, he said. Most of the holes are filled with mist already. I think you'll be ready by the time Riddle breaks free.
Tell him to stop talking about Riddle, Sylarana instructed Harry primly. He rattles the box when he's talked about. He can hear us or sense us doing it, though imperfectly. And I want some treacle tart.
Harry shook his head. There was no treacle tart at breakfast, but he soothed Sylarana with promises of a sausage. "Sylarana says to stop talking about him," he murmured aloud. He had to keep reminding himself that the link between the four of them was temporary. Draco seemed quite at home in Harry's head, speaking mentally even when he didn't need to. Harry would move it back to audible conversation whenever possible.
Draco tended to resist the subtle suggestion, or just pretend he was immune to it, and he did so now. He only shrugged and danced backward in front of Harry. Don't look now, but I think you have someone else who wants to talk to you.
"Harry!" called a voice from behind him just then.
Harry turned slowly. It was Sirius. Apparently, he had left a gap in the Muffliato spell that he hadn't noticed; he still thought of Sirius as a professor, so his godfather's voice could get through.
Harry braced himself for a scolding or a berating about how no Potter had ever turned to the Dark Lord. But Sirius staggered up the aisle between the tables and collapsed to the ground in front of Harry instead. He was breathing loudly, as though he had run all the way from his office. His eyes were wild and staring. He started to speak and then stopped, choking.
As he studied Sirius, Harry was struck by just how bad he really looked. The dark circles around his eyes had increased until they looked sunken. His hair had grown longer than Harry remembered seeing it in years, almost to his shoulders, and was tangled and clotted with sweat, as though he hadn't bothered to brush it when he got out of bed. He was gaunt, and Harry had no idea why. It wasn't as though the overabundance of food in the Great Hall would let anyone starve, and Sirius certainly knew where the kitchens were if he needed to eat.
But the oddest change was the way that Sirius reached out and clutched at Harry's hands as if Harry could save him from drowning.
"Harry," he whispered. "Harry, forgive me."
Harry blinked. "What?" he said after a moment. Most of his emotions had melted away in the sheer shock of confronting Sirius, and the only one left was surprise.
"Forgive me," Sirius whispered, nodding earnestly. "I should never have said the things I said. I should never have let the problems between us go unreconciled for so long. I'm your godfather. What kind of godfather have I been, always believing other people before my godson?" He shook his head. The gesture just alarmed Harry more. It didn't look like ordinary negation, but as if Sirius had palsy. "I've been wrong, so wrong, and I want the chance to make it up to you. You have every right to refuse me, of course." He tightened his grip on Harry's hands and waited.
Harry's thoughts were swimming in disjointed circles once again. Forgive him, tell him there was nothing to forgive, argue, turn his back and walk away?
But his love for Sirius, which was older than the wounds in his mind, prompted him to ask at last, "Sirius, what's wrong with you? You don't look good."
Sirius uttered a hollow laugh. "No, I don't, do I?" he muttered. "But it's no more than I deserve, Harry. Moony sent me a—a very stern letter. You wouldn't believe what it said. And I think he talked to Lily and James, too, because their next letters to me were more subdued. You know how Moony can be, all those soft words that turn hard just when you're least expecting them?"
"I suppose," said Harry doubtfully. When their father told tales of his time in school, he usually said that Remus was the most reluctant rule-breaker, but still a rule-breaker, one his friends could coax into going along with them even when he knew it wasn't right. Nothing like Peter, of course, who had wound up a traitor, but still with not such a strict sense of right and wrong that Harry would imagine him writing Sirius a stern letter.
"He is," said Sirius. "He is like that." He was almost babbling. "And then—then, Harry, I realized that I hadn't thought at all about what Lily told us, that you were trained to protect your brother." Harry glanced around nervously, but Sirius's voice had calmed somewhat from his initial shout, and Draco was holding his wand casually. No one tried to inch nearer and listen to Sirius's confession. "And that was wrong," Sirius rambled on. "Imagine, my godson prepared to defend his brother, and I never saw it. And you trained yourself all those years, and you never wanted recognition for it. I would have. I would have. I would have given myself away, I think, if I did something like that for Regulus."
"Who's Regulus?" Harry asked in mild confusion. He could not remember hearing the name before.
Sirius shook his head so fast that his hair whipped around him. "Nothing," he said. "That is, no one. Someone I knew once, who needed protecting, and I thought about giving him protection, but in the end I didn't. In the end, nothing I did was enough." He abruptly burst into noisy tears. Harry could feel Draco's lip curling without even looking at the other boy.
Shut up, he's tired, Harry snarled in his head, taking Draco by surprise, and then he tucked an arm around his godfather's shoulders. "I think you need to go to sleep, Sirius," he said. "You haven't been sleeping well, have you?"
Sirius let out a little breath. "No," he whispered. "Nightmares. About protecting you, mostly, and failing."
Harry felt a small spark of compassion ignite in him. It was a welcome respite from the mad emotions. "I would feel the same way about Connor, if I failed to protect him," he said. "I do think that you were wrong, Sirius, but I accept your apology. Why don't you go and get some sleep? You don't have to referee a Quidditch practice today, do you?"
Sirius shook his head. "No." He sounded dazed.
"Then go back to sleep." Harry urged him to stand and turned him gently towards the door. "I think you should. I forgive you. That should ease some of the nightmares about failing to protect me, shouldn't it?"
"Not all of them," muttered Sirius, but he looked appeased. "You really mean that, Harry? You forgive me?"
Harry hesitated for a long moment, and then gave in to his curiosity. It wouldn't be fair to go back and ask the question later, when Sirius had managed to smooth over these emotions in his mind. "Yes. But I want to know why this happened so suddenly. Why could you not forgive me for a week, and it only happened now?"
"Because it took that long for the full impact of what Lily said to hit me," Sirius whispered in a brooding tone, eyes fixed on Harry. "You trained to sacrifice your childhood, Harry. You gave up everything for Connor. I know that I couldn't have done that."
"You never had a brother," said Harry gently. "It's different for only children, Sirius."
Sirius's lip trembled, and he looked as if he were about to say something for a moment. Then he shook his head, and his lip firmed again. "And I'm sorry about that stupid bet," he said. "I should never have made it. Not only was I going to lose, you wouldn't let Snape win, either. You would do whatever you had to do, Slytherin or Gryffindor, to protect your brother, wouldn't you? And you're so devoted to him, and of course he's the Boy-Who-Lived."
Harry nodded. "Of course he is," he said.
Draco snorted in his head.
Shut up, said Harry, and did something he hadn't known he could do, shutting Draco out of his immediate thoughts. Draco's presence flailed, closed into a small corner of Harry's mind concerned with him. Harry ignored him for the moment. He had more important things to do.
"I'm sorry about the bet, Harry," Sirius said, and looked as if he would start crying again. "Forgive me for that, too?"
Harry nodded, hesitated, and then hugged his godfather. That soothed some of his less attractive emotions, especially when Sirius hugged him back, his arms catching Harry's shoulders in an almost desperate clutch.
"Of course," Harry whispered. "You were only doing what you thought best, Sirius, and sometimes that isn't the best." He was thinking of the way that their father had told him the story of Sirius's prank on Snape in their school days, when Sirius had acted as if Snape wouldn't have died confronting Remus in his werewolf form. "Just come and talk to me in the future before you blame me, all right?" His resentment wouldn't let Sirius leave without twisting that particular knife.
Sirius winced. "You got it," he said, and then he messed up Harry's hair and turned away.
At least he is entertaining when he is wrong, Snape's voice remarked from his distant corner of Harry's mind.
Shut up to you, too, Harry thought, and released Draco from the corner of his mind. Draco flailed and complained about that, until Harry shut him in the corner again and then adjusted his Muffliato spell to exclude Draco's voice from his ears. That lasted only until lunch, but in the three hours in between, Draco had to make his apologies in complicated sign language, which entertained Harry.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Harry turned around carefully, his hands full of the pot containing the Mandrake. He assumed that someone wanted to use the raw dirt, which he was standing in front of. By now, two weeks after Neville's Petrification, most students seemed to have resigned themselves to the fact that Harry was ignoring them, and simply maneuvered around him with gestures as needed.
To Harry's surprise, the student—Justin Finch-Fletchley, one of the Muggleborn Hufflepuffs who shared Herbology class with them—didn't move around him. Instead, he caught Harry's eyes and slowly, carefully mouthed a few words, letting Harry read his lips.
Drop the spell. I want to talk to you.
Harry blinked and thought about it. It was true that he hadn't heard any taunts out of Justin in the past few weeks, but then, he hadn't heard any taunts out of anyone thanks to the Muffliato. He missed hearing Connor's voice more than he could say, and he was tiring of Draco's and Snape's and even Sylarana's presences in his head, but dropping the spell was just too great a risk.
On the other hand, he had grown more and more used to the Muffliato, and he could adjust it easily. He decided he could let Justin in for a moment. If the curly-haired wizard said something stupid, Harry would just exile him from being heard before he could lose his temper and throw a hex.
At least, Harry hoped so. He had not realized how quick his temper would be once he stopped putting all his anger in the box.
Cautiously, he turned the buzzing around and let Justin in. "I can hear you," he said. "Talk. And if you say anything insulting, you should know that I'm quicker with my wand than you are."
"I know that," said Justin. There was something odd in his eyes, something that Harry finally identified as a mixture of respect and curiosity. That increased his worry. Ron, Hermione, and Connor hadn't come to him, instead sticking with their whispering and plotting and planning, and Harry had thought—or hoped, at least, he admitted to himself—that they would be the first ones. To see a Hufflepuff looking at him without hostility was odd.
"The rest of my House sent me," said Justin. "I said I was willing to talk to you, and they figured I wouldn't be in much danger, since I'm Muggleborn and the attacks have only been on purebloods so far." He shrugged. "So, tell me. Is it true that you're evil and you go around Petrifying people?"
Harry glared at him. Justin shivered a bit, but stood his ground. "It's only what everyone is wondering," he added defensively.
"If you think I would do that to my friends," Harry snarled, moving past him to set the Mandrake carefully in its new place in the greenhouse, "what makes you think I wouldn't do it to you?"
"Well, I don't know, really," said Justin amiably, following him down the rows. "But, see, that's one of the nice things about being a Hufflepuff. The Ravenclaws think that you have some deviously intelligent plan that your every motion is part of. The Slytherins think—or would, I assume, if any of them were aligned against you—that you're just lying about everything. The Gryffindors are sure that you're Dark, and they're in an agony trying to make everyone else see it. But Hufflepuffs rely more on common sense. So I thought I'd ask. Are you evil and Petrifying people?"
"Everyone thinks I am," said Harry, and carefully packed the soil around the Mandrake. This far along towards winter, the plants were nearly docile, and they didn't have to take the special precautions that they did earlier in the year to keep from hearing their cries. Harry watched his breath puff out in front of him as he tamped the soil down, and focused on both the sight before his eyes and the sensation between his fingers to keep from getting angry at Justin. "So that should be enough for you. After all, everyone knows that what everyone says is true."
"That's the problem," said Justin. "Everyone says that you're the next Dark Lord in training, and that you must be near the end of your plans to take over the world, or you wouldn't be running around Petrifying people in the open. On the other hand, I think Headmaster Dumbledore would be fighting against you if you were the next Dark Lord in training. He doesn't like Dark Lords. And why would you Petrify a few random people in the halls when you could Petrify the whole school at once, or kill them? It doesn't seem like a very efficient plan. At the very least, you could sneak out here and sabotage the Mandrakes some night, so that we can't wake up the people you Petrified and hear whatever it is that you don't want them telling us."
Harry shot a sidelong glance at Justin. "You're really not afraid of me, are you?" he asked, finally. No one else in his head was commenting on the conversation. Harry suspected that they didn't know what to make of Justin, either.
The Hufflepuff grinned at him. "I'm terrified. Utterly shaking in my boots. That's fear, of course, and not cold."
"Why?" Harry asked.
Justin cocked his head to one side and assumed a pensive expression. "You're the evil House, you know," he said. "Everyone always tenses up when there are Slytherins around. And they relax with Gryffindors, or the Gryffindors think they do, and the Ravenclaws get asked for help on homework. But we just get ignored. It's weird. But I like it, sometimes, because it means that I can get close enough to conversations to overhear them without anyone paying attention to me.
"And I heard your brother talking in the library yesterday to Weasley and the know-it-all. I sat at the table right next to them. They gave me these looks that said, 'Oh, it's just a Hufflepuff,' and I was able to listen to them. And do you know what they said?"
"No," Harry admitted. "That spell keeps everyone out, even my brother." He yearned to know what they had said.
It'll be something hurtful, because Connor's a prat, Draco said darkly in his head. You know that.
Hush, said Sylarana. I want to know what the prat said. It's been too long since I was able to be sarcastic about his stupidity.
Harry ignored them both, and fixed his eyes on Justin's face.
"They said you must be Dark," said Justin. "It sounded as though they were trying to prepare some speech to convince the school, and they listed all the justifications they could think of. There were the Petrifications, of course, and the fact that you can talk to snakes." Justin did give a slight shudder there, and Harry decided he must be at least a little afraid.
Well he should be, Sylarana said. I am a Locusta.
"And then there were—other things," said Justin, his lips quirking in a smile that Harry didn't quite understand. "That you beat him at Quidditch, and that you cast Silencio on him, and that you were ignoring him instead of coming to him and apologizing." Justin shook his head. "That's just stupid. I have a younger brother, and I do the same things to him. Well, okay, he's a Muggle, so I beat him at football instead, but you know what I mean. That's just sibling stuff. I think Connor's jealous of you, and that's all. That other 'Dark' stuff is just him being stupid."
"Then how do you explain the Petrifications?" Harry challenged him.
"Lots of people being stupid," said Justin without hesitation. "Including whoever's doing it. Neville and Luna are going to get better, eventually. And I know that you go and see them in the hospital wing every few days, and Madam Pomfrey trusts you to come in and sit with them."
"How do you know that?" Harry asked before he could stop himself.
"No one tends to notice Hufflepuffs, I told you," said Justin. "You Slytherins lose something swaggering around and proclaiming that you're above the other Houses with every breath. We Hufflepuffs just know we are." He assumed a densely superior expression cracked by a smile in less than three seconds.
Harry laughed before he could stop himself. Then he touched a hand to his mouth, and blinked. Justin gave him a different kind of smile and nodded.
"I don't really know what to think about you, Potter," he said. "But I know that I don't want to think what your brother thinks about you, because he's being a brother, and not the Boy-Who-Lived, when he goes around proclaiming that you're this and that and the other thing just because you beat him at Quidditch. Well, the whole school's not his parents."
Harry nodded once. He had wanted to hear those words, or something like them, he thought. Connor's perceptions about good and evil were quite often correct, but this time he had the facts wrong. And anyone could be factually wrong. It was a way he could think about his brother being mistaken without wanting to panic that Connor being mistaken meant that he, Harry, wasn't really good.
"I'll go back and tell the rest of my House that you're all right, really," said Justin, and glanced over his shoulder. Harry followed his gaze, and blinked. Professor Sprout stood over Hannah Abbott and Ernie Macmillan, who were asking her countless innocent questions about repotting the Mandrakes, and about the consistency of the soil, and about many other things. The Herbology Professor was answering them, her face alight with pleasure at having two such eager students. Harry had to admit it was quite an effective way to keep her from interfering with his and Justin's conversation.
"Did they do that on purpose?" he asked Justin.
"Of course," said Justin. "But they really needed help in Herbology, too. They've spent too much time in the last few weeks collecting Chocolate Frog cards instead of studying. They're worried about exams." He gave Harry a gentle push on the shoulder. "Be seeing you, Potter."
He sauntered back to his Housemates. Hannah and Ernie finished asking their questions, and Professor Sprout swept on around the greenhouse, carefully adjusting her hat on her head.
"What was that?" Draco asked then, pouncing on him, upset enough to speak aloud—at least in a whisper, though, since Professor Sprout's glance briefly flicked towards them.
"I was making a new friend," Harry answered blandly, checking his Mandrake one more time. He found that he rather enjoyed the expression of frustration on Draco's face. Draco got his own way with Harry much too often, especially now that he was in his head.
"But I'm your best friend," said Draco.
"Of course," said Harry. "But Justin's a new friend." He looked over his shoulder and smiled at the Hufflepuff, who was watching him. Justin nodded back and then leaned over to whisper to Hannah. Hannah glanced back at Harry, her eyes speculative, wary but not angry.
"He's a Hufflepuff," said Draco. "And a Mu—"
Harry's hand was near Draco's arm. It was a simple thing to reach over and pinch Draco on the shoulder, hard enough that his arm went dead.
Ow! Draco wailed in his head. Harry could hear Sylarana snicker-hissing.
"You were saying?" Harry asked, without glancing up.
"A Muggleborn," said Draco. "That was what I was going to say. Really."
Liar, Sylarana accused him. Harry nodded in agreement.
Draco rubbed his elbow and glared sulkily at Harry for a moment. "I don't always like you when you're like this," he muttered.
Harry shrugged and stripped off his gloves. Herbology class was almost over.
Abruptly, his vision warped sideways and bled colors. Sylarana gave a hiss of anger and bore down with her body. Tom Riddle stopped bucking in the box after a moment, and Harry's vision returned to normal, but he knew it was the first test.
Riddle might have sensed the conversation with Justin, he thought, as he nodded to a worried Draco that he was all right. He might have decided that Justin was his next logical target.
And, abruptly, Harry realized that he had a plan for dealing with Riddle.
He found himself smiling, and ignored the bubbling curiosity from Draco and Sylarana for right now. Sometimes, it was nice to have a secret.