Glad that so many people liked the twist in the last chapter! Review responses up in my LJ in a little while.
This chapter was unexpected at first, but it fits in nicely. However, I sincerely hope the third story doesn't grow as much as the second, because this makes me worry for how long the sixth and seventh years are going to be.
Chapter Three: Hawthorn and RueSirius's hand clenched hard on Harry's arm as they came out of the Apparition and into Diagon Alley. Harry stepped away from him and took a few deep breaths. He never had liked Side-Along Apparition. It made him feel as though his stomach were being squeezed out through his ears.
Sirius glanced over at him anxiously. "All right there, Harry?"
Harry conjured a smile and nodded. Sirius had been solicitous this morning, as though to make up for ignoring Harry during the rest of the summer. Harry's skin was crawling with all the unexpected attention. He needed to get away from Sirius. He knew that he meant well, and he knew that he would have to face even more people at Hogwarts, but those people generally weren't in the habit of trying to check him for injuries and ask him if he wanted sweets at the same time.
"Connor," Lily was saying as she unfolded the list that had come with his Hogwarts letter. Connor took the chance to pass his own Hogwarts letter to Harry. It had arrived to utterly blank looks from their parents, until Connor told them that the school had probably sent two copies to him by mistake. Then they'd smiled and nodded, seeming to see Connor's name on it. "I think we should go to Flourish and Blotts first. It looks like you need more books this year."
Harry let out a little breath of relief. He could head in the opposite direction, then, and no one would think it strange. Connor gave him a sympathetic look, and then beamed up at their mother.
"That would be fine, Mum."
Lily and James herded Connor away. Harry started to turn away, only to be halted by Sirius's hand clamping on his shoulder. His magic gave a little wet snarl in his ears, and Harry felt the power battering under his skin. It was just looking for a chance to escape and hurt someone. Harry told himself firmly that it wasn't getting the chance this time, and shut it up again before he attended to what Sirius was saying.
"Where do you think you're going, Harry?" his godfather asked. "I think you should have someone with you, just in case Wormtail attacks you again."
"He probably wouldn't want to attack me," said Harry, summoning up a calm mask to cover his face, which really wanted to stretch in surprised panic. He needed to get away from Sirius. He needed some time among strangers. Even the people who were detouring around them now, staring hard at him as if they thought he was his brother, made him feel a little better than he had when trapped at home. "He came for Connor. He'd just want to spout more nonsense at me."
"And you wouldn't listen, right?" Sirius's fingers flexed and drove down hard enough that Harry thought he would probably have bruises tomorrow.
"Of course not," said Harry. "Like you said, it's just nonsense, and I know better than to listen to Death Eaters. They're all liars, just like Voldemort was when he talked to me at the end of first year."
Sirius let out a little breath and pried his fingers off Harry's shoulder. "If you're sure…"
"I'm sure, Sirius." Harry flashed him a brave little smile that he'd perfected a few days ago. "I'll meet you back here in a couple of hours, all right?"
Sirius nodded. Then he opened his mouth, and a shadow fell across his face. Harry braced himself. Sirius hadn't asked about the spell on Lily and James yet. Every moment he looked like this, Harry thought he might.
But, once again, he shut his mouth and turned away. Harry watched him blend with the crowds in the Alley, heading towards Quality Quidditch Supplies, and shook his head. He didn't know whether Sirius was hesitating because he thought it was ridiculous for there to be a spell or for it to be Harry's fault, or because he didn't want to confront the reason why Harry had cast the spell.
Harry wanted to think it was the first, but he suspected it was the second. That made him bitter at Sirius, and that made him uneasy. Yes, Sirius had been a Gryffindor, and that meant that he should have some courage. But there were all different kinds of courage. Was it really fair to demand that he should have this kind?
Harry shrugged and turned away to consult the shopping list on his letter. He was no more eager to confront the question than Sirius was.
Harry stepped out of Eeylops Owl Emporium and paused to tuck the bags of owl treats he'd bought for Hedwig in his pocket. Someone nearly knocked into him as he did so, and Harry had to stagger back and catch himself against the wall of the shop. The person turned around to apologize. Harry blinked.
"Pansy?" he asked. He had thought that all his Slytherin Housemates would have finished their shopping earlier than this late in the summer.
Pansy Parkinson gave him a distracted nod and glanced around, her eyes constantly moving through the crowd. "Hi, Harry. Have you seen a little girl holding an ice cream sundae and shrieking something about elk?"
Harry blinked again. "Um. No."
Pansy gave a withering sigh. "I thought so. That's my little cousin, Aurora," she explained, to Harry's blank glance. "I was supposed to watch her, and I met Millicent, and I only turned aside for a second, and then when I turned back, she was gone." She ground her teeth, and then abruptly stomped her foot. "Why do they always make the older children watch the younger ones? It's not as though I'm good at it just because I'm a girl."
Harry just shrugged. He was afraid he couldn't sympathize very much. His duty had been watching and protecting Connor ever since he could remember, even though his brother was only fifteen minutes younger than he was. To him, it was sacred, and it always slightly startled him to remember that there were people who disliked or resented doing it.
"There she is," Pansy said abruptly, and sprinted away. Harry turned, but could see only a glimpse of a small robe waving before Pansy blocked it. The childish howl that came a moment later, though, was probably a sign that she had caught her charge.
Harry shook his head and turned away. But he'd only got a few paces when another of his Housemates fell into step beside him.
"Potter."
It was Millicent Bulstrode. Harry found himself having to look further up at her than he had expected. Millicent had always been one of the tallest girls in their year, and she'd already grown a bit over the summer, it seemed. Millicent raised her brows in silent, mocking acknowledgement of his gaze, and then tilted her head, her eyes narrowed.
"Why are you by yourself?"
"Because I wanted to be, Bulstrode," said Harry. He kept his voice inoffensive, polite, even boring. Millicent sometimes seemed interested in what he was doing, and sometimes did not. She usually gave up and went away if he didn't seem to be doing anything that would inspire interest.
Not this time, it seemed. Millicent only smiled more widely and said, "What could cause the great Harry Potter to want to be by himself?"
Harry stared openly at her, unable to help it. "What?"
Millicent sighed dramatically and examined a hand, as though she were looking at her nails. Pansy would have pulled the gesture off better, Harry thought. She actually looked as if she cared about her appearance. Millicent's nails were as broken and ragged from biting as any boy's. "Sorry, Potter. When I get chattered at all summer about you, it becomes automatic to call you that."
"Who's been chattering at you about me?" Harry slipped one hand towards his robe pocket and found his wand there, safe and secure. If he had to fend off a sudden attack of Death Eaters—and Millicent's father, at least, had been one of those accused of Death Eater activities and had pleaded that he was under the Imperius Curse—then he wanted to be ready. He was trying to force his magic to get used to his wand again, instead of simply lashing out from his body like wings and beating whoever it liked.
"Various people," said Millicent, with a vague gesture that seemed to encompass the whole Alley. "Relatives. Not-relatives. Friends. House elves. You know how it is."
Harry jerked a little at the mention of house elves. Dim as twilight, a memory came to him from the end of last year, when Dobby had been muttering to him about being a vates of some kind. But Harry had pushed it away and refused to consider it, since none of the house elves at Malfoy Manor—even Dobby—had tried to speak to him about it again, and his own family had no elves.
"Tell me what you mean, Millicent," he said, deliberately switching to use of her first name. He drew his wand out so that she could see it. "Are you threatening me? Is this an offering of alliance? Do you just mean to tease me? What?"
"It's mainly an attempt to make you see that I'm not stupid," said Millicent, stopping and turning to face him. She sounded as if she were speaking with disarming honesty, but Harry was sure that was only another mask. "I can see what things are, you know. I can see what's what. And no one could have missed last year that you were the one blazing with power in the hospital wing. It wasn't your brother, and that story that he told about defeating the basilisk in the Chamber was just a bit too constructed. Why would Fawkes have flown the Sword of Gryffindor to him? Why wouldn't Dumbledore have come himself to battle the Dark Lord?"
Harry shook his head. "It's not like that," he said, and could feel his head aching and his sight blurring from the strain. He didn't think it was the phoenix web, but more the thought that someone else might not support and believe Connor. "You have no idea what it was really like."
"But I know who can tell us," said Millicent, and her gaze was direct. "I know who wants to believe a new story, and I can arrange for you to tell them that story. Who knows? The truth might even soothe their fear, and they might fall into line behind your precious Boy-Who-Lived the way you want them to."
Harry blinked. "You would really be able to arrange a meeting between us?"
Millicent nodded. "We've had someone watching Diagon Alley each day, hoping it would be the day you came to get your supplies," she said, and then turned and let out a soft little whistle in the direction of the shadows between the Emporium and the magical instruments shop.
Harry stiffened as several cloaked and masked figures emerged into the light. Their hoods were sufficiently lowered that they didn't need the masks, but Harry could see them anyway, and they were white. Though the cloaks were dark green instead of black, they looked enough like Death Eaters that he drew his wand.
"None of that," said Millicent, clamping onto his arm and forcing it down with unusual strength. "Play nice, Potter. They just want to know what really happened in the Chamber. That's all."
Harry breathed deeply for a few moments, considering the Death Eaters, or former Death Eaters, or whoever they were. They remained motionless and watched him. Harry could not even hear them breathing. He wondered what they wanted, if they really would go away after they heard his story, and why it seemed to matter to them so much.
After a moment, he decided he might as well tell them. At worst, it would make them see that, powerful as Harry might be, he was loyal to his brother, and get rid of any thoughts about them using him as a pawn in their games. At best, it would focus their attention on him and make them attack him instead of Connor. Harry would almost welcome that. He didn't want to kill anyone, but his magic could use the exercise.
"All right," said Harry.
He told the story as simply as he could, because he was afraid that any attempt to add emotion or humanity to his chill tone would involve tears. He froze the tears deep, and spoke of Sylarana's death, and how that had suddenly freed his magic. He did not tell them about the damage to his mind, but represented Sylarana as the kind of familiar who had been a large part of taming his magic, so that it went wild without her presence and sought some new container. He told about the ice and how he had destroyed the diary and sucked out the fragment of Tom Riddle, absorbing his power. At that, one of the cloaked figures on the far end gave a sharp sound and made a movement that might have involved the drawing of a wand, if another cloaked figure hadn't checked him.
Harry finished up with the storm, and how Professor Snape had come out and chided him into putting his magic away and coming back into the school. He certainly was not about to reveal how fragile his sanity was, even now.
"Why did Connor believe the way he did?" Millicent demanded.
Harry shook his head. "Because he wanted to," he said. "It was the best explanation he could come up with for what had happened." He wasn't gong to reveal that he had Obliviated his brother, either.
"And Draco?" Millicent asked, the one question he had really not wanted her to ask.
Harry held his wand high enough that they could see it. "Ask about him again, and I'll hex you," he said. He thought he knew who the cloaked figures were now—former Death Eaters, Slytherins, the kind of people who might associate with Lucius Malfoy more than casually. Harry was not about to tell them that Draco had chosen to stand with him against Tom Riddle and had been vital in trying to burn the diary, either. Draco's allegiance was their secret until he was ready to announce it to the world. It was no secret where Connor stood, or Harry, either.
Millicent put her hands up. "Calm down, Potter," she murmured, but her voice had the sound of deep satisfaction, not mockery. She stepped up to the cloaked figure at the farthest end of the line, the one who had stopped the first from drawing his wand, and leaned against him. The others turned and melted away into the shadows once more. Harry closed his eyes, trying to control his magic, and listening for the sounds of an attack in the moments he needed to recover himself.
When he opened his eyes, no one had attacked him, and the figure Millicent had leaned against had stripped his mask off. He was a dark-haired man with a large, blunt face, and Millicent's piercing eyes.
Harry inclined his head slowly, never looking away from the wizard's face. The man nodded, a faint smile gleaming between his hooked nose and thick lips.
"My name is Adalrico Bulstrode," he said. "Former Death Eater, as you doubtless have guessed by now. Under the Imperius Curse," he added.
"Of course," said Harry, letting politeness and nothing else season his voice.
Adalrico chuckled. "My daughter did not mention how careful you were," he said, and squeezed Millicent's shoulder with rough affection. "She should have." He leaned closer, staring into Harry's eyes. "You have given a confession, and the old ways say that a secret for a secret is the way of things, yes? So. There is a force abroad in the land, a force that is trying to bring back Voldemort."
Harry stood a little straighter, noting how Adalrico had used the Dark Lord's name instead of his title. "I already knew that, Mr. Bulstrode," he said softly. "I have expected someone to try and bring back Voldemort since my brother and I came to Hogwarts."
Adalrico cocked his head slyly to one side. "Ah. But did you know that that force is gaining new momentum now? There are those who have been hurt in trying to resist it, in trying to move slowly, in trying to make sure that we are ready before anything happens. And we do not like that." The hand not holding his daughter made a convulsive gesture.
Harry narrowed his eyes. He could not ask outright, of course, if this really meant that some of the Death Eaters—former Death Eaters, he corrected himself firmly—would be interested in an alliance. That would be losing an important step in this dance. But he could hint at it. "That is unfortunate," he said. "I am sorry for those who have been hurt, Mr. Bulstrode. I would like to ask you that carry my condolences to them. And any skill at healing that I might offer, of course. I have been training in medical magic, you know."
Adalrico's eyes shone with the same fierce enjoyment that Harry had seen in Narcissa Malfoy's face when he danced with her. "That is kind of you, Mr. Potter," he said, trying to keep his voice perfectly grave and failing. "Do your skills extend to healing bruises and contusions only? Or might they go further than that?"
"Further than that, I believe, sir," said Harry, and inclined his head modestly. "Of course, to know how to heal a certain affliction, then I have to see what that infliction is first, and how much damage it has done."
Adalrico nodded to him. "Perfectly reasonable," he said, and glanced over his shoulder. "Don't you think so?"
There was a long pause, and then the shadows stirred again, and one of the figures moved back out into the sunlight. With heavy, reluctant movements, he removed his mask—no, Harry corrected as he caught sight of the face, she removed her mask.
"Pansy?" Harry asked in wonder, before realizing that this had to be her mother. He squinted at her, and recalled her name a moment later. Hawthorn Parkinson. "Mrs. Parkinson," he said, and bowed to her. "I am sorry to hear that you have been hurt."
"So was everyone else." Hawthorn Parkinson was as pale-haired as her daughter, as pale of skin, but her eyes were unlike Pansy's blue, being shadowed hazel. Her face carried the deep-carved lines of some great strain, and her body was coiled as though she might explode in any direction at any moment. Despite that, Harry thought, she was managing to force some dry humor into her voice. "Of course, none of them truly promised to do anything about it. Sorrow was the only balm they felt able to offer me."
Harry studied her again, looking for some sign of an injury or curse, and then realized what else, beyond her face, seemed so familiar about her. He hesitated, then took a risk. He might be revealing too much, but on the other hand, he was revealing his intelligence—which they would need to be convinced of if they entered into an alliance with him.
"How long have you been a werewolf, Mrs. Parkinson?" he asked gently.
Hawthorn jerked, one hand flying up in front of her as if to defend herself from a curse with bare skin, while the other fumbled for her wand. Harry merely waited. Two wands were aimed at him, now, he saw, rolling his eyes to the side to check that Adalrico was armed. That was somewhat of a relief. He would have been disappointed if they weren't.
"How did you—" Hawthorn asked, and the low snarl in her voice only confirmed it further for Harry.
"I've known werewolves," said Harry. "How long?"
Hawthorn lowered her head and said, "Since last month, when Fenrir Greyback attacked me for refusing to cooperate in his futile attempts to raise the Dark Lord. This next full moon is my first transformation." Her eyes reflected rage and horror and utter fear. Harry could understand. For a pureblood witch, raised with the idea that werewolves were always halfbreeds and monsters and that only stupid or worthless people became them, this was a living nightmare.
"I could help, you know," said Harry. "Have you heard of the Wolfsbane Potion?"
The brief flicker of hope in Hawthorn's eyes showed that either she had, or she had not but suspected what it would do. She clasped one hand around her wand. "A cure?" she whispered.
"Not as such," said Harry. "There is no cure for lycanthropy yet, Mrs. Parkinson. This is a potion that allows a werewolf to retain his or her senses in animal form. You'll still transform, but you won't be a ravening beast."
Hawthorn closed her eyes and nodded. "That is the best I can hope for," she whispered. "I would never forgive myself if I attacked my daughter."
"How can you get it to her?" Adalrico asked. "How can you brew it?"
"Some is going to be brewed at Hogwarts this year," said Harry. He was being blunt, but so were they. He only had to insure that he didn't betray other people's secrets, which weren't his to betray. "Professor Severus Snape finally perfected the formula. I helped him on some of the preliminary stages. I can learn to brew it, and I can give it to Pansy, if you're able to meet her somewhere on school grounds."
They were silent for a long moment. Harry thought they were wondering whether to trust him, and painted his most open and guileless expression on his face.
Then Hawthorn Parkinson said, fighting to keep her voice steady and almost succeeding, "If you do that, Mr. Potter, I will owe you a debt so profound that it cannot—" She cut herself off and shook her head. "What will you want?" she asked. "What is in my hands to give, I will provide with open palms."
Harry hissed before he could stop himself. That was an ancient saying, one that even pureblood families didn't use all that often, probably because deep and trusting alliances between them were uncommon. One trusted family first, and outsiders only if one had to.
"Is it true that you're a Parselmouth?" Adalrico asked abruptly.
Harry nodded at him. "It is." He ignored Millicent's outraged mutter to her father about his not trusting her, and glanced back at Pansy's mother. "I'll ask for a truce as long as I provide you with the potion, Mrs. Parkinson. You said that Fenrir Greyback bit you for refusing to cooperate with him?"
Hawthorn nodded, her eyes distant. "What he is doing is stupid," she growled softly. The tense, wild aura around her grew stronger. "It would never work, and for him to demand my help when—" She shook her head. "It does not matter."
Harry nodded. "I'll ask that you continue to refuse him for as long as I provide you with the potion," he refined his original request. "I don't know exactly what he wants, and I will not ask unless you want to tell me. But if you continue to refuse, that's one less enemy whom my brother must face on the battlefield."
Hawthorn smiled, slowly, and Harry saw a shadow of the lovely, commanding woman she must be when in full possession of herself. "That is well enough. And gladly, even easily, given." She cocked her head to the side. "You are sure that you do not want something else in addition to that?"
"No, Mrs. Parkinson," said Harry. Let them think me generous. Let me have a little extra space, if I need it, to maneuver and win concessions for Connor. "Let's not weight the bough of our union with snow it cannot carry."
Hawthorn laughed, a soft, delighted sound, and put out a hand. Harry clasped it, and then added, "I'm afraid that I won't be able to provide the potion for this first transformation, since I won't be at Hogwarts until the first day of September."
"That does not matter," said Hawthorn, her voice gone warm. "I know how to handle this first transformation, what to do and where I must go. But to know that the others will make me safer—that I need not abandon my daughter or lose control of myself to the beast within me—" She shook her head, and apparently was unable to say anything more.
Harry nodded to her, and then glanced at Adalrico and Millicent. "With all due respect, sir, did you really seek me out because you thought I could cure Mrs. Parkinson's disease? You couldn't have known that I would know anything about it."
Adalrico smiled, a deep, predatory expression that Harry had to admire for the sheer weight of glee behind it. "No, we did not," he said. "But needs must when the devil drives. We wanted to see what a powerful young wizard might have to offer us, and we have seen it now."
Harry inclined his head. "Of course," he murmured, "family is still most important, especially blood family." He could not make a clearer statement of his loyalty to Connor without being insulting, he thought.
Adalrico held up a hand as if toasting him with an imaginary wineglass. "I could not agree more, Mr. Potter. And when blood family and similar principles come together, then there is the happiest union of all. But bonds on principle alone may form between people of varying families, as they did in the case of Calypso McGonagall and Thomas Mackenzie."
Harry narrowed his eyes. He knew that story, too, and he was not sure what Adalrico meant by referring to it. The McGonagall and Mackenzie families had been at war for generations over the kidnapping and rape of a pair of children that could have belonged to either family depending on whom one listened to, until Calypso McGonagall strode out to the middle of one of their battlefields and sent a binding spell into the air. It tugged Thomas Mackenzie over to her, made him her lawfully wedded husband on the spot, and led to an immediate consummation in the sight of everyone, just so that no one could say later that they weren't really married.
Perhaps he means that they'll be watching to see if I ever choose principle over blood. Long may they watch. It's not going to happen.
"That is true, Mr. Bulstrode," he said, opting for the diplomatic reaction. He nodded to Millicent. "It was nice to meet your father and Pansy's mother, Bulstrode," he said. "I'll see you at school."
"Oh, call me Millicent, Harry," said Millicent, and smiled at him. "I think we should do that now. It's what friends do."
"Are we friends?" Harry raised his brows.
Millicent just smirked at him.
Harry turned around, shaking his head, and nearly slammed into Pansy again. This time, she hastened over to her mother and wrapped her arms around her, giving Harry a suspicious glance.
"It's all right, darling," Hawthorn murmured, stroking her daughter's hair. "Mr. Potter has come up with a way to help me."
Pansy stared at her, and then switched her stare back to Harry. Her face relaxed and warmed considerably in the next moment, and Harry thought that a genuine smile looked better on her than a smirk ever had. "Thank you, Harry," she whispered. "I swear that I'll repay you for this."
Harry just nodded cordially. He wouldn't count anything but the alliance with Mrs. Parkinson as secure, and that only when he delivered the first vial of Wolfsbane Potion. "See you at school, Pansy," he said, and strode away.
It was as he went to meet Sirius that he realized his magic was the quietest it had been since he left the Malfoys'. He blinked and touched his head, but it didn't ache. His thoughts were tame. His emotions were calm.
Is it pureblood traditions that did that? he wondered. Or just the effort of having to think rather than react?
"Harry!"
Sirius grabbed him and swung him around in a hug, and Harry gave up the thoughts for now. He was about to go back to Godric's Hollow and endure a few more days there, which only Connor's presence would make tolerable. With parents who ignored him and a godfather who watched him too closely…
Harry shoved those thoughts aside, and concentrated instead on the new allies he was winning for Connor. That soothed him immeasurably.