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Chapter Twenty: Lockhart's Very Special Idea"Connor, if you would just listen to me—" Harry began soothingly, hoping it would stop the spiraling, out-of-control mania that his brother seemed to have developed.
"No!" shouted Connor, and stamped out of Sirius's office. For good measure, he slammed the door behind him, making one of the banners hung on the wall sway and collapse across the chair beneath it.
Harry sat down in a free chair and breathed to calm himself, while Sirius hung the banner back up. Neither one of them said anything. Harry didn't think he could, and Sirius was probably blaming himself for suggesting the meeting in the first place. His office, with him looking on, had seemed a safe enough room to Harry. He had very firmly disinvited Draco and the Hufflepuffs from the meeting. They had been present during the three confrontations he and Connor had had throughout January, and their presence always made things degenerate.
But it had gotten out of control yet again, the moment Harry mentioned the Quidditch match. Connor's face had turned the color of spoiled meat as he yelled. In retrospect, Harry thought he might have been worried about the upcoming Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match, but that was hardly an excuse.
No, of course it is, insisted his mind the moment he thought that. You've never felt nervous before a match, but you have more talent than Connor.
Harry paused. The thought was on the right track, in the right tenor, and yet—something was wrong.
He had had these thoughts more and more often since December and Riddle's possession of his mind. He would be thinking, believing, behaving as normal, and then some suspect thought about Connor, some backhanded compliment where he should have admired his brother unconditionally or a resentment that had no place being there, would come slithering through. Harry was sure that that would stop once he managed to fill the gaps in his mind-webs with Occlumency fog, but for the moment, it was disconcerting.
And in the meantime, it makes the failures of these meetings my fault as much as Connor's.
Of course it is. Because I should have anticipated his every move and known that he would snap like a child when I mentioned Quidditch.
Harry jumped to his feet and began to pace around the room in agitation. Sirius looked at him solemnly over a shoulder. Harry imagined that his godfather was still too shocked to really give him comfort. It didn't mater. Since Christmas he'd had a warmer relationship with Sirius, and if he still mocked Snape and Slytherin and Malfoys without thought, at least these days he noticed immediately afterwards and apologized.
Harry would have been quite content with life, in fact, if it weren't for the holes in his mind and Connor not coming around.
Someone knocked on the door of Sirius's office. Harry, assuming it was Madam Hooch come to discuss Quidditch business or one of the team Captains wanting to ask Sirius for hints, moved to go.
Ron Weasley stood beyond the door, his face as red as his ears. He stepped past Harry without even appearing to notice he was there, walked up to Sirius, and stood there staring at him.
"What is it, Ron?" Sirius asked, but he was trying to conceal a smile.
"You got my dad his job back," said Ron, in a voice flat as his face with shock. "You got my dad his job back." He reached out abruptly and hugged Sirius, mashing his face into his chest. Sirius chuckled and stroked his hair. Harry smiled inwardly for the way this happiness lit up his godfather's eyes. Sirius hadn't been sleeping well again, though he insisted he was and that the few nightmares were about Daphne Marchbanks. Harry, not feeling it his place to interfere, merely watched him, and made him go to bed when he could.
"I thought hearing that Sirius Black favored Arthur Weasley would put a wind up the Ministry's collective arse," he said now, his smile flashing with good humor as he pulled Ron away from him and pounded him on the back.
"But how did you do it?" Ron asked, his face beaming with something much like hero-worship. Harry nodded. Good. Sirius needs it, with the way that Connor and I both are behaving.
No, Sylarana said in his head, sounding as though she had just awakened from a nap. Only him.
Harry shushed her and watched Sirius smile in that mysterious, knowing way that said he knew about a really good prank the victim would never see coming.
"I was an Auror, you know, before the misunderstanding that caused the Ministry and I to part ways," he told Ron casually. "But a lot of people underestimated me, since they assumed I drank all the time. And there might, possibly, just with the smallest tiny smidgeon of a chance, have been secrets that one drunken Auror could overhear and remember in the aftermath of Ministry parties. And there might, also just possibly, have been Ministry officials who would cover up their oily reputations by making sure that said drunken Auror's friend got what he wanted."
Harry blinked. That smacked more of Slytherin manipulation than Gryffindor courage to him. But Ron's eyes had lit up.
"Were the Ministry officials Slytherins?" he asked.
"Almost to a one," said Sirius with a wink, and then flashed an apologetic look at Harry over his head. Harry flapped a hand in dismissal. It was true that Slytherin produced more than its share of slimy Ministry officials, as it had produced more than its share of Dark wizards.
"That's not strictly true," Draco had told Harry once, his chin tilted at a haughty angle. "The stupid Slytherins are the only ones who get caught. The rest of us are pure quality. No one can ever prove we did anything wrong."
Harry had pointed out that that did not mean they never did anything wrong, and Draco had pouted at him for the rest of the evening.
"Brilliant," said Ron, an almost deliriously happy smile on his face. "Wait until I tell Connor!"
He ran out, still not seeming to notice Harry. Harry shrugged. It was Ron's privilege not to. Since he was nearly Connor's only friend by now, Harry would prefer that the Weasley boy's eyes keep on shining for his brother.
Once Justin had called his attention to it, Harry could see how much the rest of the school despised Connor. He would never know the deepest reason—whether it was Justin's story or because Connor had been acting like a prat in their eyes, too—but that was the way it was. Most of the Slytherins taunted him now, most of the Hufflepuffs went out of their way to avoid being in his company, and even Ravenclaw had drawn away and contented themselves with idle glares in Harry's direction. Gryffindors would still react to insults against their House, but would uncomfortably look the other way when Zacharias Smith or Draco made a comment solely about Connor.
It frustrated Harry to no end, watching the damage his brother was doing his future leadership ability among the other Houses and even in his own, but there was nothing he'd been able to do about it yet. His every argument with Connor ended somewhere on the petty accusations, such as Harry winning the Quidditch match. Harry couldn't explain the important things to him.
He'd written to their mother, suggesting that she start sending books to improve Connor's political education again—especially talking about those times in history when wizards other than Gryffindors had been in power—but she had never replied to him. If she sent the books, Harry thought, sunk in gloom, then Connor didn't read them.
"Harry."
Harry blinked and looked up. Sirius had knelt down in front of him, and his eyes were solemn. He held out his arms. Harry leaned forward and let himself be hugged, noting the way that Sirius's hands barely paused on the bulge of Sylarana under his jumper any more.
"I know it's hard," Sirius whispered. "But you'll win him over, I have no doubt of it. There's such loyalty in you, Harry. I never knew it until Lily explained everything to me, those days that I was home for Christmas in Godric's Hollow. Then I understood the full extent of your sacrifice. And I want to say thank you, and to assure you that your brother will come around someday. He has to. He's a Gryffindor. It's not in our nature to stay away from our friends forever."
Harry closed his eyes, let himself soak in the warmth from his godfather's body, and tried to believe it.
"Thank you, Sirius," he murmured.
Now if Connor would only stop being a prat, Sylarana remarked wistfully, then maybe you could think about something else.
Harry didn't respond. What she said was true enough, but so obvious that he didn't think it interesting.
"Excuse me! I have a special announcement to make!"
Harry blinked and turned his eyes up to the staff table, where Professor Lockhart had just risen to his feet and was beaming down at the crowd of students. His skin no longer looked orange, somewhat to Harry's disappointment; he'd quit using the paste that Harry had enchanted to glow in Defense Against the Dark Arts. His hair and teeth were still suffering from the Obscurus charm, though. Lockhart had tried to brighten them, but since he was a less powerful wizard than Harry, the best he could do was make his teeth and hair flicker like Christmas lights. He preened under all the attention he drew. Harry managed a smile now, thinking that Lockhart would probably never understand the source of that attention, even if someone explained it to him.
"Today," said Lockhart, gesturing at the red and pink hearts hung along the walls of the Great Hall, and the small floating hearts jogging in circles near the ceiling, and the stones crawling with pink and red spells for the occasion, "is Valentine's Day."
Draco rolled his eyes and mouthed, "No shit," with just the right intonation. Harry put a piece of sausage in his mouth to keep from laughing.
"Because I've been Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile award-winner five times in a row," said Lockhart, beaming at them while his mouth winked on and off and on, "I've decided to do something today at Hogwarts that will put a smile on everyone's face!" He turned to the doors of the Great Hall and clapped, once.
The doors opened, and a swarm of fairies flew in, all of them beating delicate wings to which someone had fastened lace. Harry stared. He knew what fairies looked like in their natural state, and they were quite pretty and girly enough. Why Lockhart had wanted to add this touch bewildered him.
"The fairies will be granting wishes all day today!" Lockhart finished triumphantly. "So long as your wish relates to your true love, of course. Let's all get started, and smile, smile, smile!"
Harry closed his eyes and put his head in his hands. He could feel Draco patting his shoulder.
"Come on, Harry," he whispered. "Maybe it won't be so bad—ouch!"
The tiny fairy who'd flown up and blown a cloud of glittering dust on him flew on, giggling. Draco felt his face and then stared as nothing came off. He looked back up, and Harry choked again. His eyes were big puddles of gray in the middle of a face gone absolutely silver.
"Harry!" he shouted. "Did you wish for this to happen to me?" He was trying to scowl as threateningly as he could, which admittedly wasn't very much, given the fairy dust.
"I'm not your true love," said Harry, and then put his head down on the table and gave in to the urge to simply laugh.
He did manage to stifle it to snorts when someone came up behind him and said, in a timid voice, "I wished that for you, Draco. I just thought—I just thought you'd be so pretty, with your golden hair and your silver eyes—"
"My eyes aren't silver," said Draco, as though horrified by the mere thought. Harry glanced up to see him glaring at a stunned Pansy Parkinson. "And you aren't my true love. Sod off."
Pansy's lower lip quivered for a moment, and then she fled the Great Hall with a sob. Millicent got up to go after her, giving Draco an irritated look.
"That was rude of you, Draco," said Harry, mildly, more interested in watching Millicent leave than in examining what Draco's face looked like. She'd been dropping rumors again lately, this time hints that she knew why he and Connor still weren't getting along. Harry was fairly certain that that was shit. She would have spoken outright by now if she really knew something incriminating.
"How do you get fairy dust off?" Draco whimpered. Harry looked up to see him rubbing frantically at his face with two fingers. The silver dust stayed. It looked to be caking as Harry watched.
Harry tried a Removal Charm—wandless, just to be showy. Then he regretted the impulse, because since when did he want to be showy? But Draco's shriek of shock kept him from worrying about it too much.
In fascination, Harry watched as the silver dust rearranged itself, gathering thickly above Draco's eyebrows and around his mouth. He looked like a clown when it was done.
Fighting to hold back his laughter, Harry shook his head. "Sorry, Draco. It's Lockhart's wonky magic again. I don't know what else I can do but leave it. I don't want to remove your skin next time."
"Harry, what do I look like?" Draco asked, his eyes narrowing dangerously as Harry bit his lip and then choked.
"Funny," Harry admitted, and then put his head down on the table again and howled.
Draco slapped him several times on the back of the head, and then Blaise asked Draco if he had any fake wands for the first-years. While Draco was attempting to hit a grinning Blaise, Harry slipped away and out of the Great Hall, shaking his head.
I didn't know Pansy had a crush on Draco, he thought absently as he peered about for Connor, wondering if he could catch his brother and try to have a private talk while everyone was still screaming and running from the fairies. I should start paying better attention to my Housemates. Those are the kinds of details that could mean life or death for Connor someday.
He got somewhat distracted as a fairy flew towards him and hovered in front of him, staring intently into his face. Harry folded his arms and glared flatly back. A spark of magic should send the fairy scurrying if it tried anything, but he would rather stare it down. He had worked over the last few weeks on not always reaching for his magic first of all.
A subtle movement in his sleeve warned him, but he wasn't quite quick enough. Sylarana lunged, grabbed the fairy in her mouth, and vanished back under his jumper.
"Sylarana!" Harry said. Hardly anyone looked around at the sight of him speaking Parseltongue now. Harry would have been more grateful for the change if he wasn't currently bloody furious with his Locusta. "Put her back!"
"Yum," said Sylarana.
"She's a fairy!" Harry tried. "An intelligent creature!"
"About as intelligent as one of those fat little dogs that Muggles keep for company," Sylarana disagreed as she slithered up to his shoulder. "The stupid ones die, and the smart ones survive. And I am much smarter than she is. Yummy." Harry heard a series of small popping sounds that he assumed were the distinct cracks of fairy wings bending as Sylarana swallowed the poor thing headfirst.
He hissed and reached into his jumper, trying to pry his snake out, but someone loomed over him and boomed cheerfully, "Ah, there you are, young Mr. Potter. I wanted to talk to you. Come with me, please!"
Harry glanced up, and froze. Lockhart stood over him, and Harry was pretty sure that he had just seen Sylarana eat his fairy. He didn't think there was any polite way to refuse, especially with Draco not here to rescue him. He sighed and followed the great git to his office.
Lockhart's office, unsurprisingly, was filled with pictures of himself, winking and waving and grooming their hair in front of hundreds of different wild and lonely places—caves, forests, cliffs. Harry knew they were the places that Lockhart had supposedly been on his adventures, but he found it difficult to believe. For one thing, he doubted that Lockhart could survive away from a regular source of running water and hand lotion.
Lockhart waved Harry to a chair in front of his desk and sat down in the chair on the other side of it, making a soft pleased noise through his teeth. "Now," he said. "Enjoying Defense against the Dark Arts, are you?"
Harry stared at him. Had the man really brought him here just to talk to him about his performance in the class?
"Overwhelmed, you're overwhelmed, I know," Lockhart chuckled, bending down and fumbling for something in a drawer of the desk. "Imagine, talking privately with a celebrity like me!"
Harry gritted his teeth. "The class is going well, sir." He cast around for something else to say, something that would sound adoring of Lockhart without actually being adoring. He couldn't think of anything. That Lockhart was a git was shouting too loudly in his head.
Lockhart straightened back up and pointed his wand at Harry. Harry was abruptly focused, his frustration and irritation running away like rainwater on a glass window. He met Lockhart's eyes, and decided that the man didn't know about his wandless magic, though Harry had assumed it was common knowledge among the professors now. Otherwise, he would have made sure that Harry was gagged before he showed him the wand. Of course, that wouldn't have done much good, since Harry could also cast some non-verbal spells, but it would have shown more sense than Lockhart was showing right now.
What kind of idiot leaves his wand in his desk? Sylarana asked, slithering to the edge of his sleeve. Especially when he's just loosed a lot of fairies in the school that he knows most wizards won't approve of? Not that I know why they wouldn't approve of them; they are delicious.
I don't want you to bite him, Harry told her flatly. Not yet, at least. Let's see what he wants.
That seemed to satisfy his Locusta, who calmed down. Harry met Lockhart's eyes and asked, "What's all this about?"
"I traced your magical signature on the Obscurus charm," said Lockhart. His voice sounded different, Harry realized, lacking the round, full tones that made it melodramatic. It reminded him of Quirrell, and Harry had the brief urge to close his eyes and groan. Could Dumbledore hire no Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers who weren't hiding some kind of secret? "I know that you've been the one dimming my beauty for the past several months. You're probably jealous of my monumental good looks. Remove the charm."
Harry blinked at innocently at him. "But, professor, you're a great wizard, and I'm just a schoolboy. I'm certain that you could remove the charm yourself if you really wanted."
Lockhart's wand wavered for a moment, and then his face recovered its mask of arrogance. "Of course I could. But I don't want to. I want you to remove it, since you were the one who insulted me by putting it on me in the first place." His wand kept on pointing at Harry.
Harry studied Lockhart for a moment. He supposed he could remove the Obscurus, and it really wouldn't make much difference. The man wasn't doing anything to make Connor's life miserable any more. He was too busy doing that himself to notice even if Lockhart had been, Harry thought, his mind recalled to its preoccupation with his brother.
He shrugged. "All right. Finite Incantatem."
Lockhart's eyes and teeth began sparkling again, and the Christmas lights effect vanished. Harry was sorry to lose it, but it would have grown boring in a short time anyway.
Now you are learning to think like a Locusta, Sylarana remarked to him.
Harry stroked her back and watched as Lockhart patted at his hair and teeth with a trembling hand, flashed an exploratory smile at the mirror that occupied one full wall of the office, and then nodded. "That will do," he said. "And I know that you surely didn't mean it for to last so long, Mr. Potter. After all, you probably intended it for your brother Connor, since he says you're so jealous of him."
Harry shuddered. He hoped that the desperate desire for company who could tolerate him hadn't driven Connor to talk to Lockhart. "Can I go now, Professor?" he asked, thinking that he needed to dream up a new hex for the git—one that wasn't so immediately noticeable.
"Of course," said Lockhart. Harry hopped out of his chair and made for the door. He did turn around as Lockhart called out, "One more thing."
He saw the determination on the other wizard's face, and suspected something even before the wand was pointed at him and the word "Obliviate!" was muttered.
Harry felt the spell coming at him and reacted instinctively—not by moving away, but with Occlumency. The moment the spell struck the outer surface of his mind and tried to eat those memories concerned with Lockhart and his asking Harry to remove the Obscurus, Harry's webs flipped it off, bounced it off the solid defenses that he had locked still in other places, no matter what Snape said, and then shattered it to dust and silence. Harry shook his head and looked back up at Lockhart.
The blond wizard had opened his mouth, probably to give Harry a command or tell him what false memories would replace the real ones, but now he closed it and reeled backwards, sitting down hard in the chair behind the desk. Harry took a step forward. Lockhart's face turned the color of old cheese.
"You resisted it," he said.
"Yes," said Harry. "And you had no need to Obliviate me at all, except that you tried." He could hear Sylarana's angry hissing and her pleas to be let at the man who had threatened Harry, but his own mind was racing, trying to come up with ways to use this situation to his advantage. "Were you that worried that I would tell someone about that silly charm?"
But he knew the answer even as he asked. No, Lockhart wasn't that worried about being embarrassed, certainly not enough to produce the spell out of nowhere. That had been a long-practiced reaction, coming from someone who had used the spell so often that it was his first defense.
Harry's eyes flicked to the photos on the wall, and he remembered his earlier thought about it being unlikely that Lockhart had gone to so many places, fought so many battles, and yet posed for pictures looking like that. You'd think, Harry's mind murmured with the sarcasm that seemed to have become natural to him lately, that he'd want at least one photo where he posed with blood all over himself and the corpse of whatever monster he killed at his feet.
Unless he didn't really kill them, of course.
Harry looked back narrowly at Lockhart. "You let other people kill those Dark creatures," he said. "And then you Obliviated anyone who could have told differently, didn't you? Those were other wizards and witches, actual brave heroes, who did the dirty work. You just showed up and claimed the credit."
Lockhart became even paler. He tried to say something, but the only thing that would come out of his throat was a strangled noise.
Harry prowled closer to the desk, abruptly feeling better than he had in a month, the last time he'd really had hope that a confrontation with Connor would go as planned.
"You know that a secret like that would get you sacked from the school," he said. "And more than that, no one would ever trust you again. You'd get laughed at and smeared by the Prophet. And Witch Weekly would never choose you for their Most Charming Smile award again."
Lockhart gave a little gurgling cry and put his hands over his face. He was shaking badly.
Harry cocked his head to the side. He knew he was going to blackmail Lockhart, and he also knew he was doing it for his own reasons. This was a Slytherin tactic, and he had a Slytherin motivation. He couldn't really claim he was doing this for the side of the Light, except insomuch as every action to heal his wounds with Connor was an action taken for the side of the Light.
And he didn't care.
"I think that I know what you should do," he said calmly.
"What?" Lockhart lowered his hands and stared at him without much hope.
"I think that you should stop worrying," said Harry softly, and folded his arms over his chest. Sylarana slithered out of his sleeve, muttering petulantly that he could have told her if he didn't need her. Harry ignored that, too. "I'm not going to expose you—unless you try to Memory Charm me again, or unless you don't do what I want you to do."
Lockhart's face actually relaxed. Harry blinked, then supposed that this kind of wizard was more at home with underhanded tactics than fair ones. Briefly, he wondered if Lockhart had been a Slytherin when he was in school. Draco would say that he wasn't a proper one, of course, since he got caught.
"Anything you like," said Lockhart, leaning forward. "Would you like a photograph, autographed, that would usually go for a hundred Galleons? An advance copy of Run-ins with Runespoors? A cream that—"
"None of those," said Harry. "I want you to assign me a detention with my brother, some time next weekend." He thought that was the best time, since Connor would have played Hufflepuff and won by then, and he couldn't take the excuse of hurrying away for classes or homework that was due the next morning. "And then make absolutely sure that we aren't disturbed by anyone, not even Filch or one of the other professors."
Lockhart gave a slow blink, as though he could not imagine why Harry wanted such a thing, but then he nodded. "I can do that."
"Do it," said Harry, "and I'll forget about this." He paused, wondering if the man needed another reminder, and then decided that it wouldn't hurt as Lockhart's eyes slid sideways to his wand again. He was entirely too dependent on Memory Charms. "As long as you don't try another Obliviate. Then I'm afraid I would have no alternative but to go to Dumbledore."
Lockhart nodded. "Of course." He studied Harry for a long moment, then said, "Why?"
Harry raised his eyebrows at him.
"You're a powerful wizard," said Lockhart. "I knew it when I couldn't remove the Obscurus myself." Like this, his face was almost pleasant. Harry wondered if the git persona was part of the act, too. "Why would you want to make up with your brother instead of just blasting him into oblivion?"
"You don't understand anything," said Harry, shifting the balance of power back, and felt unexpectedly satisfied when Lockhart paled and looked away from him. "And you're in no position to be asking questions of me."
Lockhart nodded, then stood up. "I'll see you in detention next week, then, Mr. Potter."
"Actually, you won't," said Harry, and made his tone cool and conversational. "If you interrupt me while I'm finishing things with my brother, I'll hex your balls off."
Lockhart swallowed, looking as though he didn't doubt Harry would do it, and stayed stock-still as Harry slipped out of the office. Sylarana hissed cheerfully at him as they made their way back towards the Great Hall. Now you are acting like a snake. Attacking what you want, acknowledging reality.
Harry barely paid attention to her. He was thinking, the edge of his resolve slicing through his uneasy thoughts about Connor.
That was the problem with all their other meetings, he decided: Connor had felt compelled to play up to their audience, even one as small as Sirius was, and he could leave the room. Stuck in a place he couldn't leave, and without anyone else to feel he had to impress, he was going to listen to Harry.
He had better.
Harry shivered and shook his head. That last thought had sounded like the cold voice of his magic, like Tom Riddle.
But he was not like Tom Riddle. He was not. He was not going to turn on his brother. He was going to make up with him.
By force, if necessary.
But that didn't mean he was evil. It just meant he was…forceful.
Not forceful enough to keep from dissolving into laughter when he saw Draco, of course. The other boy's latest attempt to remove the fairy dust had ended up smearing the silver stuff into a single large splotch on his cheek, a splotch that just happened to look like the Gryffindor lion.
Harry took great delight in pointing this out, and even greater delight in running down the dungeon corridors while Draco chased him yelling threats.