Here's the chapter proper for today. Another quiet chapter—kind of. It hints at a lot of things that are upcoming, and hey, we have a Draco POV section!
The chapter title is from Shelley's poem "The Masque of Anarchy."
Chapter Seven: Rise, Like Lions After SlumberHarry paused when both Draco and Blaise followed him out of the common room on Saturday morning. "Why are you coming to the library?" he asked.
Blaise put his nose up. He was doing that lately. He seemed even more nervous around Harry than he had been last year. Harry supposed the rumors about him spending some time with a Dark Lord in his head had something to do with that. "I'm meeting Patil in the library to discuss our project for Professor McGonagall's class, of course."
Harry blinked. "But I'm meeting Connor to discuss it."
"And I'm meeting Granger," said Draco, and they all looked at each other.
Harry shook his head. "They must have arranged to meet us all at once, then." He shrugged. He could understand the sentiment. Connor would probably have been willing to meet Harry on his own, but Hermione had no reason to like Draco, and he would be extremely surprised if Blaise and Parvati knew each other.
"Are they scared?" Blaise muttered as they walked towards the library. "Scared of the big bad House of Slytherin?"
Harry and Draco exchanged glances. It had only been a week back at school, and already they had noticed what had changed. Blaise had to be blind.
Except for the few members of other Houses who'd already had friendships with Slytherins, like the small group of Hufflepuffs who'd befriended Harry last year after he'd saved Justin Finch-Fletchley from the basilisk, most of them were avoiding Slytherins. Whispers trailed them. From somewhere had come the rumor that Snape had once been a Death Eater, which, while not exactly a secret, wasn't very common knowledge either. Harry had heard a few people hissing in the corridor at him yesterday. By itself, that would have struck him only as students intent on resurrecting the Parseltongue scandal from last year, but as part of the larger pattern of abuse and isolation towards Slytherins, it was worrisome.
Draco shrugged now. "They probably are," he said lightly. "Merlin knows we outmatch them in magic, in brains, in beauty, in blood purity, in everything that matters."
"Because, of course," said Harry, taking care not to look at Draco this time, "you weren't moaning to me the other evening about how you hoped Hermione would do more than half the work on your project, because you know next to nothing about Animagi."
"There may be gaps in my knowledge," said Draco, his chin lifting until Harry thought his neck must hurt. "That doesn't actually mean that Granger is smarter than I am."
Blaise snickered. Harry resisted the temptation only by a great effort. The back of Draco's neck flushed.
"You could agree with me once in a while, you know," he whined at Harry.
Harry raised his eyebrows as they turned into the library corridor. It was true they'd been fighting all week, and over the silliest things—who had snickered at Harry when he got a gob of food stuck to his hair in the Great Hall, how much time Harry spent studying as opposed to talking to Draco, who had said what in a half-remembered argument from the night before. But how could Draco expect Harry to agree with him all the time? Harry was under the impression that that would have bored Draco, anyway.
"I do agree with you," he said. "I think the Gryffindors are nervous and wanted to meet us in a group. But that doesn't mean that I think you're smarter than Hermione."
Draco pouted at him. That was at least better than shouting, and Harry felt in a relatively good, even hopeful, mood as he stepped into the library and looked around for the Gryffindors.
He spotted Hermione and Parvati almost immediately, sitting at a large table already covered with books. He couldn't see Connor anywhere. He frowned and approached them, then halted as Ron came out from between the shelves and sat down next to Hermione. He'd thought Ron was working with Vince and Greg, who had been firmly snoring in their beds when the other boys left their room.
Ron without Connor to restrain him was trouble. Quite apart from the grudge the Weasley family had always had against the Malfoys, Lucius had tried to get his father sacked permanently last year, and only Sirius's intervention had saved him. And Ron didn't like or trust Harry that much.
Yet he just sat there and watched as the Slytherins approached, and never said a word, though Harry saw him rub his shoulder as though he were wondering if his arm was strong enough to throw a punch that would bring down all of them. His eyes were cool and assessing, though, a look that Harry had never seen in them.
He remembered, abruptly, that Connor had said Ron was an excellent chess player, one who always pounded him into the ground when they played. Harry had the feeling he was seeing the chess master now.
Trying to ignore his own uneasiness, he nodded to Hermione and Parvati. "Hello. Do you know where my brother is?"
"He said something about training," said Parvati, pushing her thick dark hair behind her ears. She was pretty, but the way she was frowning at Blaise somewhat marred it. "He said to tell you he was sorry, but he didn't think he'd be able to get together with you and work on the project today."
Harry blinked, even though he knew where Connor had to be—with Sirius. "Oh." He hesitated as Draco and Blaise took their places at the table, opposite their assigned partners. He was acutely aware that, other than a brief contemptuous flick in Draco's direction, Ron's eyes had never wavered from his face. "I guess I'll go back to the dorm, then, and talk to him later, so we can arrange a different time to meet." He started to turn away.
"Wait, Harry."
Harry glanced over his shoulder. Now he knew something was off. Ron didn't call him Harry, at least not without a lot of prompting. "Yes?" he asked, leaving off the name altogether, since he wasn't sure which to use.
"Stay and work with me," Ron proposed. "You can get your work done, and I'll get mine." He snorted abruptly. "Not that Crabbe and Goyle could help me that much anyway."
"You take that back," said Draco. "Vince and Greg are good friends."
"Shut it, Malfoy," said Ron. "I was talking to Harry." He turned entirely away from Draco, who was left gaping. "What do you say, Harry?" he went on, as if they did this all the time. "It'll give you a head start, anyway."
"I think that's a good idea," Hermione piped in. "I've already written most of the essay—" Draco's relieved expression didn't escape Harry's notice "—but there's so much fascinating information here. Did you realize that the Animagus form always reflects the wizard's or witch's internal nature? Without exception? And that it's the nature they really have, not the image they present to the world?" She began to flip through the book she held. "It says here that Hilda Hufflemark was completely disappointed when her Animagus form turned out to be an earthworm, but—"
"We know, Hermione," said Ron, in a long-suffering fashion. "Come on, Harry." He tapped the table. "We should get started on this, you know."
Harry slowly took the chair. Perhaps he would understand what was going on if he simply spent more time with the Gryffindors, then. He eyed Ron as he opened the first book, but Ron just went on staring at him. It was starting to feel familiar.
It did feel familiar, Harry realized suddenly. It was the way Lucius had stared at him the first time he met Harry, when he went to the Malfoy Manor for Christmas that first year. He hadn't cared about how rude he was being, because the dance he was dancing required bluntness, even rudeness, to get its point across. He was letting Harry know that he considered him a threat and would size him up accordingly.
But I didn't think any of the Weasleys would teach their children the dances, Harry thought in confusion.
Very well, then. Harry hadn't felt inclined to question Lucius's staring. He would question this. Lucius had already known that Harry didn't trust him. Ron might not know that.
"Stop that," he said, sharply but quietly enough that it just stayed between them, leaning forward. "What do you want?"
"To figure out why my shoulder's hurting," said Ron, and touched his right shoulder blade.
Harry blinked, lost.
Ron raised an eyebrow for a moment, and his face melted back into the expression that Harry was more familiar with, impatience mixed with contempt. "You really don't get it, do you?" he asked.
Harry settled himself again. This was familiar. He could deal with this. He wanted familiar things that he could deal with. Enough had changed in the past year. "Of course not," he said. "I have no idea what your shoulder blade hurting has to do with our Transfiguration project." He turned back to the book in front of him. The Ministry has long required that dangerous wizards and witches register with them, but in the present time, only the Animagus Registration is specifically required, for a number of reasons…
Ron tapped the page in front of him. "Come with me," he said, and he had the chess player look in his eyes again. He walked away between the shelves.
Harry hesitated, but Blaise and Parvati were arguing, almost nose-to-nose, and Hermione was rattling off a long series of facts to Draco, who was playing the captive audience well enough to half-fool Harry. No one seemed to notice as he stood and slipped after Ron.
I have to keep having mysterious meetings with people in shadowed corners, don't I? he wondered as he came to a halt in front of Ron near the back end of one aisle. "What—" he began.
"Shhh," said Ron.
Harry rolled his eyes, but was quiet. Someone on the other side of the shelf finally moved away, and Ron relaxed and glanced at him. "My shoulder blades have been itching all week," he said. "It felt like I was going to sprout wings. And Percy's been feeling the same thing, and the twins. The twins just claim it's one of their products, of course." He eyed Harry.
"How do you know it's not?" Harry had to ask. He had seen last year that the Weasley twins would prank anyone. Ron shouldn't be excepted just because he was family.
"Because," said Ron patiently, "I know what it is. I think Percy does, too, but he just gets a scared expression on his face whenever I ask him about it. He's always going to talk to Headmaster Dumbledore. I think he's involved in something he doesn't want the rest of us to know about. And Fred and George refuse to take it seriously, of course." He shrugged. "It's the way the Weasley family feels a powerful wizard's magic. You know, like the way that the McGonagall family feels it as wind across their skin."
"How do you know about that?" Harry asked.
"I was taught it." Ron looked more confused. "I thought you were being obtuse to act all cool and Slytherin about it, but you aren't, are you? You really didn't know."
Harry shook his head. "I—Draco can feel my magic, he's told me so, but I thought it was just something he was trained to do, some special ability he had. I didn't know that other pureblood families could do it, too." He tried to push aside any worry and give in to his curiosity instead. "Can all pureblood families do it?"
"I suppose so." Ron shrugged again. "I don't know all the signs. But it's an obvious survival skill, isn't it? After all, purebloods were the only part of wizarding society that was really accepted for a long time, and—well, don't tell Hermione, but even if there were powerful Muggleborns then, it wasn't like anyone was going to admit it. They got killed instead. But we had to know how to spot a powerful wizard or witch right away, just in case he or she started wanting to conquer us or gather followers." He sounded as if he were quoting someone, and grinned abruptly, lapsing back into his normal voice. "Don't tell Mum, but I always hated that part of the lecture. She sounded as though she was about to faint."
Harry snickered in spite of himself, but he had gone back to confused again. "All right, you can feel my magic. Sorry. I'll try to tone it down. But why did you stare at me the way you did?"
"Because I want to know what you're going to do," said Ron. "So do the rest of us, really." He scowled. "Except Fred and George. They just assume that you'll play the best practical jokes, because that's what they'd do, and they're waiting to see what happens, so they can take notes."
Harry shook his head. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm going to protect Connor."
Ron peered at him skeptically. "You're going to use all that magic just to do that?"
Harry shrugged. "Sure. Why not? It's pretty complicated, anyway, since my brother's got You-Know-Who after him." There were other things he might do, but whenever he thought of them, he tumbled into the deep pit of rage that Snape had made him explore every night Harry visited him so far. He wanted to do something to strike back against his parents, but he knew he would regret it the moment he did. He regretted thinking about it.
"It's more than that, though," said Ron. "The powerful witches and wizards in the past always did something. Maybe you can turn Malfoy into a toad." He looked hopeful.
Harry rolled his eyes. "He's my friend. I'm not going to do that."
"A ferret, then?" Ron suggested. "He looks like a ferret."
Harry shook his head and turned back towards the table, deciding their conversation was over. Ron clutched his arm and held him back. Harry glared at him.
Ron promptly dropped his hand and backed away, his palms spread in a gesture of surrender.
Harry swallowed. "Why are you doing that?"
Ron cocked an eyebrow at him. "Because your magic surges when you're angry, mate. And right now I feel like I'm going to sprout feathers." With a grimace, he scratched roughly at his shoulders. "I don't want you to get angry at me and do something to me," he added.
"Is everyone going to think that?" Harry felt a deep curdle of fear in his stomach. It had been bad enough when Draco seemed to be afraid of him, but Draco had seen the full extent of his magic and knew what he was capable of, so Harry could understand even though he didn't like it. But if everyone started fearing him just based on his anger…Harry would have no option but to bind and hide the rage again. Snape would just have to understand.
"Every pureblood wizard, anyway," Ron corrected him. "I think some of the Muggleborns might feel you, too, like Hermione. She's strong," he added, as if Harry wouldn't have known that already. "But that's why you tell us what you're going to do. If you're not going to go crazy and enslave the world like—like You-Know-Who—" Ron glanced around as if Voldemort might be hiding behind the History of Magic books "—then we shouldn't have a reason to be afraid of you."
Harry shook his head. "I'm going to protect my brother."
"Not enough, mate." Ron's eyes were kind, but appraising once again. "No one's going to believe it. Do you think anyone would believe Headmaster Dumbledore—I mean, really believe him—if he said that he was going to live in a little cottage and grow roses for the rest of his life?"
"Maybe," Harry muttered, his rage flaring again at the thought of the Headmaster Ron winced and touched his left shoulder. Harry tried to calm down. "What's the phrase? Famously eccentric?"
Ron laughed. "Yeah. But he's earned the right to be left in peace, really. We know that he killed Grindelwald and everything. We trust that he'll use his magic for good, and we know that You-Know-Who will use his magic for evil. We don't know what you're going to do, yet." He tilted his head. "I wonder if that's what's got Percy so nervous. I know that he had to follow you last year. Maybe I can ask him what he saw that the rest of us didn't."
"Or you could ask me," Harry had to point out, "since you have me right in front of you."
Ron rubbed the back of his neck as his face flushed. "Yeah. Sorry. What did you do last year? Why couldn't we feel you then?"
Harry shrugged. "I have no idea." He was lying, of course. The phoenix web would have bound his magic much more strongly then, and kept a good part of its full strength beneath the surface of his mind. "If it helps, Draco's been able to sense my magic since first year," he added, to get Ron's mind off the potentially dangerous track of what might have happened last year. He didn't mind if Death Eaters knew what he had done in the Chamber, not when it might intimidate them or make them think of him as a better target than his brother. He didn't want Ron, who was a Gryffindor through and through, to find out that Connor hadn't really been a hero.
"Yes, but you were a git first year," said Ron. "Maybe it was just a case of gits drawing together."
Harry glared at him. "Sometimes I don't know if you're really serious or not about wanting to know what I'm going to do," he said.
"Of course I am," said Ron, his smile melting. "I was trying to make you more comfortable, Harry. I really don't want you angry. No pureblood wizard in the school wants you angry anymore. The sooner you get this settled, the better."
"And how can I possibly tell everyone what I intend to do for the rest of my life?" Harry demanded.
Ron shrugged, unconcerned. "You could file an announcement with the Ministry, to be read in every part of Britain, if you really wanted to. Maybe not," he amended, when Harry gave him a horrified glance. "Or you could just tack a sign up somewhere to reassure everyone who's been feeling the magic and doesn't know where it's coming from what happened, and that you don't intend to harm anybody."
"It's none of their business," said Harry.
Ron raised his eyebrows. "When you're this strong, it becomes everybody's business, Harry," he said. "Just like the Minister has to know everything about Dumbledore's movements, and everyone gets nervous of You-Know-Who. That's just the way it is. You're realigning power structures just by walking around."
"But—" Harry swallowed back his panic. He couldn't say why he got so nervous about having attention paid to him without drawing more attention, and talking about the way Lily had trained him. And that really was not everybody's business. Harry would sacrifice privacy about his magic before he would talk about his training. "I'm just thirteen years old. No one's going to listen to a kid, anyway."
Ron shook his head slowly. "That's just going to make them more nervous."
"What is?"
"That you have this kind of power, and you're so young." Ron cocked his head and eyed him thoughtfully. "This time you have right now is really a gift, you know. No one's sure what's going on. They think you might still be good. Or they don't know that you're the source of the magic. I was only sure when you walked into the library this morning, and Fred and George think they know, but they're more enchanted with the idea than anything. But people are going to write to their parents soon, Harry. People outside Hogwarts are going to pay attention. You haven't got long before someone tries to assume custody of you, for your own good."
"My parents—"
"Don't seem to have trained you to take care of your magic," said Ron. "That'll probably be the first argument they try. Watch out, Harry."
"Why are you telling me about this?" Harry whispered, closing his eyes. He could feel his heart pounding as walls seemed to close in around him. He didn't want this to happen. He wanted to be as normal as he could, to go back to the shadows he'd been guarding Connor from. Just because he knew the truth, and a few other people did, didn't mean everything had to change. And now this was happening.
"Because," said Ron, "you're my best mate's brother, and that makes you kind of like my brother, too." Harry opened his eyes to see him grimacing, probably at having to call a Slytherin brother. "And you're something really special to Connor. Did you know that? The way his face lights up when he talks about you…" Ron sighed. "I'd give a lot if someone's face lit up like that for me. Ginny, maybe."
"But you still don't like me much," Harry summarized.
"You're a Slytherin," Ron answered bluntly. "And that makes me nervous." Gryffindor honesty, Harry thought, meeting his eyes. They're not supposed to be nervous, but if they are, they usually admit it, even to people they really shouldn't be admitting it to. "And now you're dithering on what to do. That's just stupid, Harry. I'll grant that you don't know much about this, and I thought you did, and I'm sorry for that. But you know now. You've got to move."
Harry closed his eyes. "And what do you think the rest of the school would do, if I announced that I was some powerful wizard?" he whispered.
Ron's hand clasped his shoulder. Harry let his eyes blink open under the unexpected touch. "Some Ravenclaws will probably want to study you," said Ron casually, "and the rest will panic. Slytherin'll probably think you're just great. Another powerful wizard who talks to snakes? Wonderful!"
Harry tried to pull away, but Ron kept him there.
"The Hufflepuffs might stand by you, at least your friends, while the rest of them panic," he said. "And we'll fight you if we have to. I know that you think Gryffindors are unfairly favored—"
"I never said that."
"All Slytherins think that." Ron waved a hand. "You can't help it, I suppose. The thing is, one reason Gryffindors are favored—my parents told me all about this—is because of the First War. Everyone else dithered around trying to decide what to do, or slunk away to join You-Know-Who. Gryffindors were the ones who went down there and fought."
"And died," Harry whispered, remembering a list of casualties he'd once seen divided by House affiliation. Gryffindor had outnumbered all the rest combined. Harry had thought it was because Voldemort hated them the most and sought them out at first, or because they were overrepresented in the Aurors. Now he wondered if it really was the kind of rash courage Ron was praising.
"Yes, that too." Ron sounded surprisingly unruffled. "But that means that you'll have a whole bunch of people who fight you if you turn out to be an evil wizard. But look at it like this: we'll fight for you if you turn out to be a Light wizard. Our house is strongest in the Light."
Harry thought of arguing that, but could only scrub at his eyes instead. "Why are you doing this?" he asked. "Why talk about fighting and dying for someone you barely knew?"
"Connor wrote to me a lot over the summer," said Ron, and his face clouded for a moment. "He told me about the Chamber, and the battle with Voldemort first year in detail, and—and other things, things he's dreamed about." He stared hard at Harry. "I know why he isn't here today."
Caught speechless, Harry could only nod.
"So he said he understood if I wanted to stop being his friend and go befriend someone else less dangerous." Ron shrugged. "I thought about it a lot. But I finally wrote back and said I still wanted to be friends with him. And if that means thinking about fighting and dying, then I will."
Harry eyed him. Ron appeared utterly sincere. Harry thought he might be less than sincere if he was on the other end of a Death Eater's wand.
But…
There was courage here, too. And no one in Slytherin had told Harry about what consequences his magic might have. He nodded at Ron.
"Thanks," he said, his voice hoarse with something that sounded embarrassingly like gratitude.
"No problem," said Ron. "At least now I know why you weren't doing anything. But do something soon, all right?" He abruptly turned his head to look at the end of the row of shelves. "What do you want, Malfoy?"
"I want to know what you're doing with my friend, Weasley." Draco sneered at him and stared hard at Harry. "And what you were doing with him."
There was no mistaking the jealousy in his voice. Harry shook his head. It wasn't worth arguing about. "Talking about chess," he said, and Ron caught his eye and gave him an odd half-smile.
"Yeah," he said, and walked past Harry and around Draco, giving him a sneer of his own for good measure. It wasn't as practiced as Snape's, Harry thought, but not many people's were. "See you later, Harry."
"What was that all about?" Draco demanded.
Harry glared at him. "Strange as it might seem, Draco, I don't have to explain every one of my movements to you."
Draco clenched one hand. He couldn't explain why this was so important without making Harry misunderstand him. And anyway, he'd tried all week, and Harry just kept being stubborn at him.
Why do you need to know where I go, Draco?
Why do you care what time I come back to the dorms, Draco?
Why does it matter to you that I wasn't on the Hogwarts Express, Draco?
And Draco wanted to say that he felt as though he gave everything he had to the friendship with Harry and Harry gave him back nothing in return except what he gave everyone, unconsciously, and the least he could do was reserve that unconscious giving for Draco himself.
But Harry wouldn't understand. Draco had seen that already. He didn't grasp that he was important enough for Draco to feel jealous over, that he was important enough to want to have private conversations with, that Draco was in agony every day over the mental and magical damage he was still suffering.
Oh, he could understand those things when they were applied to other people. He felt jealous over the time his brother spent with other people, that much was plain, and he respected the private conversations that Draco had with Vince and Greg over people they'd known from childhood, and he worried about Draco in every aspect except the ones that had to do with him. But the most he could do with the emotions people felt for him was accept that they existed. He couldn't understand why.
It was killing Draco, slowly—that this was happening, that he couldn't do anything to take revenge on the people who'd done it to him without hurting Harry further, that Harry wouldn't understand even if Draco did take revenge, that it was costing him so much of himself and he got so little in return.
He turned abruptly and ran out of the library, ignoring Harry's startled cry behind him and the shrill voice of Granger as she tried to command him to return to their table. He hurried upwards, heading steadily for the Owlery. No one should be up there at this time of the day on a Saturday. Sensible people were asleep or outside.
No one was there, and Draco stood in silence amid the shifting rustles of feathers and legs and the deep smell of owl pellets. He'd taken several deep breaths, filled his lungs with the musk, and started to think about offering a treat to Imperius, his own owl, when a tawny owl spiraled in through the window and aimed straight for him.
Startled, Draco let the bird land on his shoulder. It had a letter bound around its leg, and he unbound it and scooped up a handful of treats from another owl's bowl to put in the bird's pouch. It hooted disapprovingly at him, but flew over to another perch and settled down to eat.
Draco read the letter.
It was from his mother, and while he did make the horrible face she talked about in it, he was more intrigued by the last three lines.
I will move mountains for you, Draco. You have only to speak the word, or have a certain look on your face. I have interpreted several such expressions already. Do not fear, my darling. You shall have what you need.
Draco closed his eyes. He wondered for a moment if it was entirely fair to ask his mother for what he needed next.
Then he decided, To Azkaban with fair. I need this. I need her to help me heal Harry, to make him stop hurting.
He turned hastily to fetch parchment and quill, to write back. The possibility of an end to the pain was as glorious as it would have been to have Harry come to him, all apologetic and humble, to ask Draco to explain what was going on.
He felt considerably lighter of heart as he watched Imperius wing his way into the sky, bearing his letter.
Mum will make it better again.