Thank you for the reviews yesterday!
Just a reminder: I may not be able to update for a few days after this chapter, as I'm moving and may have no Internet connection when I arrive in my apartment. If that's the case, then I'll still keep writing the chapters, and update with multiple ones when I finally get the damn connection.
In the meantime, um, enjoy. This chapter is full-out, flat-out nasty in at least one scene.
Chapter Thirteen: Scorpions of Ice
"—And stay out!"
Harry flinched and backed away from the door to the fourth-year boys' bedroom, shaking his head. Draco glared at him one more time, still from beneath a shock of red-and-gold hair—no one had managed to reverse the twins' enchantment, and Snape had given Draco a detention for bursting out shouting about it in Double Potions—and then slammed the door. That made Harry's ears ring again.
"Surprised, Potter?"
Harry glanced over his shoulder. Blaise Zabini was sitting half-sunk in one of the large, comfortable green couches in front of the hearth, his Charms book propped on his lap.
"Somewhat, yes," said Harry flatly, dropping into the chair across from Blaise. "By a number of things."
Blaise grinned and stuck a finger in the page of his book. "Come on, then, Potter. Tell me about them." He cupped a hand around his ear and waggled his fingers back and forth. "No one ever said I wasn't good at listening."
But you never really cared to listen before, Harry thought, and glanced again at the shut door. Probably it was only Draco's spectacular outburst that had earned the attention of the most standoffish member of Slytherin House's younger years.
Harry shrugged. Draco, now probably sprawled on the outermost of the room's four beds and scowling at the ceiling with his hands folded behind his head, was not going to give him any answers. If Blaise would, then Harry could put up with his generally irritating and condescending presence.
"All right. First question." Harry brought his gaze back to Blaise's face. "Why is Draco so angry at me? I tried to reverse the enchantment, and I told him what Cho's bracelet meant when he asked."
Blaise clucked his tongue. "But you didn't do it quickly enough, Potter. And you didn't do what would really have pleased him. And Malfoys are accustomed to being pleased, you know."
"Then I'm asking about that, too." Harry ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "I must have made some big mistake with him, but I don't remember what it was. He was fine just a few days ago, when—" He realized just in time that revealing the meeting with his allies to Blaise would be a tactical error. He had met Blaise's mother only once, on Walpurgis Night in the spring, and there was no reason to think, yet, that she was interested in an alliance. He continued the sentence as smoothly as possible. "When he saw me after the Minister's attack. And since then, we've been together every moment, except when he ran off after breakfast and I went to see Professor Snape yesterday evening. I don't know what could be bothering him."
"You're not paying as much attention to him as you used to, of course," said Blaise, sitting back in the couch and looking at Harry as if he were an idiot. "Would you have gone and sat with your brother at breakfast last year?"
"My brother was an idiot most of last year," said Harry. He wasn't sure what felt better, being able to admit that or knowing that Connor's idiocy was mostly in the past.
"So, you wouldn't have," Blaise poked.
"No."
Blaise nodded. "So Draco might think that he's losing you to other friends, or that he could." He extended a hand in front of him and flipped it over. "And then you didn't come after him when he fled the Great Hall."
"He'd done an idiotic thing," said Harry flatly. "And I wanted to stay and talk to Connor and the other Gryffindors."
"I'm sure you did," said Blaise. "And it would have been…undiplomatic to appear to run from Chang just when she was approaching to offer you a formal thanks. So I agree about that."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "In case it escaped you here, I'm asking for help, Blaise. What else should I have done?"
"I suppose that depends on whether you're thinking like a Malfoy or not." Blaise dropped his Charms textbook altogether and linked his hands behind his head. He's enjoying this, Harry realized. Of course, Blaise had long said he got off on other people's pain; he even took Care of Magical Creatures mainly to enjoy the moments when one of Hagrid's pets got out of control and bit someone else. "According to Draco, you should have come after him immediately. Malfoys are used to getting what they want. Someone interested in allying with the Light families would say that you should have stayed and negotiated with Chang the way you did. Your brother would probably say that you should have spent time with him." Blaise shrugged. "What do you think, Harry?"
Harry cocked his head. Remember, he's the son of a Dark but unaligned witch. And he's testing you now.
Harry had been aware of the glances the other Slytherins gave him ever since he got back into the House common room yesterday. Most of them were sidelong or sneaked, and some were accompanied by smiles and some by frowns, but the one thing all of them did was weigh and measure. Harry knew that some of their families were Dark and unaligned, some Light and unaligned, some undeclared. Some were the children of Death Eaters. Harry would have to remember the affiliations of each and every member of Slytherin House he talked with, especially someone like Blaise, whom he didn't know well.
Luckily, his mother's training had honed him for that.
"I think that I should have done exactly what I did," said Harry, "seeing as it was what I did, and I have to live with the effects whether I like them or not."
Blaise's face relaxed into a small smile. "I can at least appreciate the cleverness of that," he said.
Harry shook his head, and resisted the impulse to say that it wasn't cleverness, just truth. Let your enemies think they know more of you than they do, and fill in the gaps with their own inventions. That particular thought came along with his mother's voice, her intonation, and he put the pain aside, too. "All right. So Draco has to remain a volatile ingredient for now. Second question, then, or set of them. Where's Greg?"
Blaise's face tightened, and then drained of all expression. "What do you mean?" he asked.
Harry snorted. "It's true that I don't spend all that much time with Greg or Vince, but I do notice when one of them is missing, Blaise. I know that he's not attending Hogwarts this year. Why?"
Blaise fidgeted with his hands in his lap a moment. "What makes you think I know anything?" he asked.
"Because you tensed up when I asked."
Blaise said something under his breath that was probably a curse. Then he said, "Look, Harry." Harry blinked at the sudden switch to his first name, and then realized that it had probably been meant to throw him off-guard. "I do know. That much is true. But there's also a reason that no one has mentioned it around you yet." He looked up. "Political reasons."
Harry made himself relax, even smile. "I hope I've shown I'm very much open to allying with Dark wizards and witches."
"Yes," said Blaise. "And that helps. But you're also the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived, and blood speaks louder than actions or oaths for a lot of the older families." He leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes slightly, lowering his voice until it was barely more than a whisper. "Harry, we know that you're your own side, in a lot of ways, but we also know which side you're never, ever going to stand for. We're not stupid."
It didn't take Harry long to make the connection, after that.
Voldemort. The Death Eaters. Greg's father was a Death Eater, and only cleared on the word of Lucius Malfoy.
His father has removed him from school because he doesn't want him sleeping in the same room, in the same House, with the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived. Or maybe he just wants to get him out of the way of the war. But either way, it's the only reason no one would mention him around me.
Harry opened his eyes fully and looked at Blaise. The boy was giving him a cool look, but beneath the surface, it had an awful lot in common with the gaze of a trapped hare. Either way he leaped, he had a lot to fear from the two sides.
Harry gave him a grim smile. "Don't worry," he said. "I know what you mean. And I won't tell anyone that you told."
Blaise let go his tension, bit by bit. "Thanks, Potter," he muttered. "From anyone else, I'd wonder what they wanted, but you…I just believe you when you say that, you know?" He sounded faintly disgusted with himself.
"I wish other people would," muttered Harry, with a glance at the door to their room, and then stood. At least his schoolbag was still in the common room, where he'd dropped it after Charms that afternoon. He might as well get started, both on the more mundane homework that he could easily pretend to be average at and on the complicated Potions research that Snape had set him—and on his own efforts to improve the Calming Potion. There had to be a way, even if twenty years of research hadn't found it.
Draco lay on his bed and stewed.
No, he lay on his bed and seethed. The other word sounded too common, too plebian, for his grand and overpowering rage.
It had not been a good day. After the debacle of breakfast, he had found that he couldn't reverse the twins' enchantment; in fact, trying only made his hair and his robes begin to radiate scarlet and gold auras. Then he had encountered Harry as they went in for Potions, and Harry had refused to apologize for sitting at the Gryffindor table, and had shown off the life debt bracelet from that bitch Chang, and totally failed to understand why Draco was so upset with him. Draco had yelled at him, as was within his rights, and Snape had given him a detention.
Then the enchantments wouldn't come off for the rest of the day. When Draco made his way back to the Slytherin common room, Harry had followed him. At first, he had been gratifyingly apologetic, but then he had asked what he had done to make Draco so upset. Draco had shoved him out of the room and locked the door so that he could be alone.
And to top it all off, he thought as he shot a glance at the clock, he would now be late for his detention with Snape if he didn't hurry.
Forcing himself to his feet with a groan, Draco unlocked the door and stormed through it, giving deadly glares to anyone who dared to look at him. He'd tried changing robes, but found that the twins' enchantment was somehow anchored to his skin, not his clothing; the new robes just acquired the red and gold hues, too, and a new tie acquired the lion. And nothing at all could be done to restore his hair.
And Harry was gone, too, instead of being there for Draco to glare at.
It just was not fair.
Draco stomped to Snape's offices in a huff, and knocked firmly on the door, and stood there with arms folded, waiting.
Snape opened the door. He looked at Draco with the same deeply uninterested gaze he'd used during Potions, as though nothing Draco did or said or wore could possibly matter, and said, "You are late by two minutes. Come in."
Draco stamped inside and then whirled around as his professor shut the door. Snape at least knew certain inalienable truths about, among other things, Draco's feelings for Harry. He might deny them, but he knew them, and that made him safe to yell at in a way that Harry wasn't. He also didn't make Draco hurt quite so much when he snapped back. "Why didn't you do something to the Weasleys?" he yelled, waving his arms. "Two of them hexed one of your Slytherins right in the Great Hall, and you didn't so much as take off five points!"
Snape merely watched him, head on one side, body still. It crept in on Draco, distantly, that he had never seen his professor so devoid of movement. It reminded him of the way he had seen his father once or twice, when—
When he had been sitting in his study, contemplating the Dark Mark on his arm.
Draco swallowed and took a step backward. The indignant bubble he had lived in all day popped, and he realized that he stood in a room with someone infinitely more dangerous than Snape had ever been. Snape's rage had always been low, he had almost never raised his voice, but now it was cold, too.
"I will not take off points," Snape began at last, after five more moments of silence in which Draco could clearly hear his heartbeat, "when the Weasleys have done a service to the school in chiding the idiocy of one of my Slytherins." The emphasis he gave that one word was icy; there was no other term for it. Draco felt his cheeks pale in fear, rather than flush. "No, Draco, you must learn better. You will learn better. I will undertake your instruction myself."
"What do you mean?" Draco whispered.
Snape took a single gliding step forward, though it wasn't really a glide, not the way Draco had always thought of his professor's movement in the past. Instead, he simply disappeared from one place and appeared in another, it seemed, suddenly, and much closer to Draco. Draco fought the nervous urge to shuffle back, but he could not combat the urge to swallow. Snape studied him with black, flat, dead eyes, the way that Draco thought a spider might contemplate a fly in its web.
"Your behavior embarrasses our House," said Snape. "Your obsession weakens you. Your carelessness could endanger Harry. For these reasons, and others, I am going to make sure that you change, Draco."
He abruptly turned and strode out of the room, through a seldom-used door that Draco knew led to his library of books he did not want students come on detentions to see. Draco stood there, dazed, blinking, for a moment, and then followed.
Snape had already selected a book from the shelf, and he tossed it underhanded to Draco. Draco caught it, and stared at it.
Medicamenta Meatus Verus, it read. Draco's mind translated the title without really thinking about it. Potions of the True Path.
"What is this?" he asked, blinking at Snape. He'd thought of some forbidden Potions or Dark Arts book when Snape had first mentioned that he was going to change Draco's behavior, but he didn't recognize this title, and he knew all the famous ones.
"A test," said Snape. "And a binding. And a project for you, to lead you out of the shadows you insist on putting yourself in, into light." His mouth twitched with something too chill and faint to be called a smile. "Or into true darkness, if you wish to think of it that way."
As though it had taken Snape's words to let him become aware of it, Draco felt the magic of the book then. It sang beneath his fingertips, purring power that was watching him and aware of him, but not going to do anything to him until he opened it.
He opened it.
Draco watched in terrified amazement as his fingers skimmed past several pages, riffling them, until they settled onto one in particular. It felt—right as his fingers came down on that page, and the magic was purring loud enough to make the book vibrate now. Draco looked at the title of the potion.
He felt his face flush, but he shook his head. "That isn't—this potion doesn't exist," he whispered. "It can't possibly."
"And why not?" Snape had moved forward so that he loomed over Draco.
"Because my father would have found it, if so." Draco stared at the page, and felt the scars tear off an old, old wound. "He was furious when I turned ten and I still hadn't shown any signs of being sympathetic enough to his own magic to become his magical heir." Draco could still hear his father's words, yelling, the one time he had ever seen Lucius lose control. There has been a magical heir in the Malfoy line for the last thirteen generations, and that will not stop now! But nothing could be done about it; either Draco's magic was enough like his father's to receive Lucius's abilities and knowledge on his deathbed and showed signs of being so early in life, or it was not and did not, and Draco's was the latter. Lucius had grown resigned to a late manifestation in the years that followed, but never quite given up hope, though Draco knew his hopes dipped lower and lower every year. "I—this isn't—he would have learned of this potion if it were real. This is a hoax, a trick." He turned to look up at Snape, his eyes narrowed, his brain feeling free of fog for the first time since he had realized he was in love with Harry. "Why are you playing a trick on me?"
Snape stood looking into his eyes for a long moment. Draco watched his face tighten. Then he nodded firmly at the book.
"It is real, I promise you," said Snape. "As for why it is not more widely-known? The author of this particular book was a brilliant Potions Master, but not regarded as such by her colleagues, because she did not achieve her results in any traditional way. In bitterness and revenge, she recorded her finest discoveries here and hid them away from the world. My—inheritance was lucky to include the book."
Draco regarded the potion for a long moment. Then he said, "Sir? Have you used it?"
"I was unable to." Snape sounded entirely unemotional. "The potion relies on purity of blood as well as sympathy of magic. My mother was pureblood. My father was a Muggle."
Draco felt his mouth drop open. He had not guessed it, although he had known, in the back of his mind, that Snape did not come of an established pureblood line. After all, there was no family named Snape. But he had not thought that—well, that Snape's blood was tainted quite that recently.
He stared at Snape. Snape stared back.
Draco was reminded, abruptly, that Snape, tainted or not, was a powerful wizard, the third most powerful in the school after Dumbledore and Harry, and also a Legilimens. Draco wasn't sure what Snape had learned from looking him in the eye, but he found that he didn't want to match stares with him any more.
His hands clamped on the book, and the potions recipe. That wrinkled the page, so he smoothed it out again, frantically. Already, he could feel a new, burning ambition stirring within him.
This potion…if this potion really could let me bring back one of my ancestors' ghosts whose magic was sympathetic to mine, then I could become a Malfoy magical heir. Not Father's, but still an heir of our family.
And that would open horizons that Draco had known would close to him when he reached the age of seventeen without manifesting his sympathy to his father's magic and Lucius could deny the obvious no longer. He would be shut out of most formal alliance meetings. He would not be considered as a potential business partner by some of the pickier purebloods, in Europe and elsewhere. He would be unable to achieve some magical training that he might want.
He might be considered an unworthy partner for a powerful witch or wizard.
He looked up at Snape, though he didn't meet his eyes. "It will take a lot of research," he whispered.
Snape inclined his head. "Research into your family background, into your own magic, into your ancestors' magic, to learn who might be most sympathetic to you," he said. "Research into birth and marriage records, to make sure that the ancestor you choose is pureblooded. Research into the beginning stages of necromancy, that you might summon the ghost to you. I know. The potion took me two years to achieve when I tried it out of simple curiosity as to what would happen."
Draco blew out his breath. "I'll achieve it by the end of the school year," he said. "I promise, Professor Snape."
"Good," said Snape, still sounding unmoved. "I should like my book back."
Draco turned and hurried out of the room, the book clasped to his heart. His brain seemed sharp, clear, whirling up all sorts of ideas about what subjects he would like to look up in the library. His imagination painted clear, new pictures of the future. It was all he could do to keep from laughing aloud.
He had something to do.
Snape watched Draco go, his head on one side. He felt as calm as the mask he had presented to the boy. So was his mind, for that matter. Harry or Dumbledore might look at the surface of his thoughts and see nothing but order, focused on potions research or ways to best train Harry to survive the Death Eaters.
Of course they would. The real agitation in his thoughts lay far below the surface, at a level he had never reached but once. During the year when he was spying for the Order of the Phoenix under Voldemort, he had lived on this level, where driving determination and absolute clear knowledge of what it would mean to fail had made him unstoppable.
There, he had gone entirely cold.
He could remember his mother's first lessons if he but closed his eyes. In many ways, his mother had been like Lily Potter, though she had taught him lessons that turned out not to do warping damage to his brain, but to be utter, bitter truth.
Darkness came before light. The Dark wizards all say that, Severus. But they forget the whole truth. There is one thing older than darkness. The cold came before even the dark did.
When you must survive, go cold, not hot. It will keep you alive.
And he had, and it kept him alive. And now he had again, since he had realized what Harry's abduction meant and what kind of firestorm Harry was calling, and what Draco's obsession was and what it meant.
This coldness would save all three of them, and anyone else it was necessary to save, because the proper people were not doing what they should have been doing.
Snape stalked into his office. His thoughts went on turning in the darkness, glittering cold wheels, born of snowflakes and bred of icicles, shining and dancing, dancing.
Medicamenta Meatus Verus was indeed a very valuable book, one his mother had acquired in one of her untraceable ways, and Snape had told Draco the truth about its author. Scorned by other Potions Masters, proud, embittered, Melissa Prince had written all her knowledge down and then never attempted to see her book get the kind of attention it deserved.
But she had also worked an enchantment into the book itself, one that she let cost her life, and one that traveled into any new copy of the book that was made, by hand or magically. The book chose the right potion for the person who held it, the right path. And once that person began the necessary research, a binding compulsion would link to their mind and their will, not letting them abandon the project until it was finished. It was Melissa Prince's one way of insuring that her legacy would live on.
The potion it had chosen for Snape when he first opened it had let him see his soul. Since then, he had lived with no illusions about himself. It had been rather shattering at first, but it was necessary, and it was another thing that had let him survive.
Draco would follow the path of this potion, the one Snape had thought the book would choose for the boy, until he finished it. And he would grow both new powers and his own life. The boy had mentioned an interest in history. Snape thought what he would discover in the history of his own family would be quite, quite interesting.
The fact that he had laid a compulsion on the boy was not something Harry would have done, nor Dumbledore, and possibly not something Draco would have wanted if Snape had asked him about it.
Snape, gone cold, did not care. No one else was seeing what harm Draco's obsession could do. So Snape would do something about it. No one else would. Besides, the boy was already struggling under the remnants of a compulsion, as Snape had seen when he looked into his mind—one that Harry's brother had put on him last year. It was sunken deeply into Draco's mind now, almost part of the fabric of his thoughts, unable to be plucked out without doing considerable damage to his sanity. That compulsion had made him think about his feelings for Harry, constantly, and was probably part of the reason that he was going so mad now. Answering a compulsion with a compulsion, when the second one would ultimately lead to freedom, was something that Snape had no objection to doing.
As for Harry…
Snape's eyes narrowed. He had watched, from the shadows, as Harry threw Sectumsempra at Bellatrix Lestrange. He had not interfered. He did not wish to. His new, cold temper insisted that he keep a watch on the boy to see how he would handle the situation, and he had seen. Then he had spoken with him afterward.
He had panicked before. He had attempted to protect the boy from every danger possible. That was not possible.
So he would not panic, not anymore. He would do what was necessary instead: train Harry….
And go on the offensive.
Snape turned. In the corner of his office, three potions simmered, all of them new, and original to him. One was clear in color, one the thick off-white of parchment, one yellow and red and lit by a candle floating on a mimicry of a lily pad on the surface.
Snape narrowed his eyes at them, and felt nothing but quiet satisfaction on the surface, while underneath it—far underneath it—the cold lashed like a scorpion made of ice.
I am done playing games.
Harry tried to crane his neck to see what Draco was reading. Without looking up, Draco leaned away from him.
Harry sighed and fidgeted with his toast, not feeling hungry. He hadn't really felt hungry ever since the beginning of breakfast. Today was their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and Harry was still nervous around Moody, his reputation for hating Dark magic, and his silver collar.
Of course, the real source of his tension was Draco.
Draco had spoken little to him in the past week. Oh, sometimes he gave Harry an accusing glare (as he had when Harry finally found the spell combination that rid him of the twins' ridiculous coloring), and sometimes he entered an animated discussion of class or the mysterious, hush-hush secret that had the professors all talking in odd clumps in the corridors. But mostly, he kept to himself, and read, and just shrugged when Harry attempted to talk to him.
It was putting Harry a bit off his food.
He looked boredly up at the ceiling as the post owls swooped in, and then blinked. An owl was actually making for his table, carrying something for him. He caught it on his outstretched arm, and felt a faint shimmer of a web, gone too swiftly for him to make anything out. He frowned. He would have to investigate the bindings on the owls someday.
He drew out the letter from the twine, and recognized the Headmaster's writing at once.
Harry,
I would like you to come see me at eight'o'clock this evening. It is past time that we discussed what your being vates might mean. My password is "Treacle Tart."
Albus Dumbledore.
Harry shot a glance at the high table, not sure the Headmaster was serious, but received a look in return that didn't twinkle or make false promises. Harry inclined his head, and fed the owl a bit of his toast. It wasn't doing him any good right now anyway.
Again, his glance went back to Draco. Silly as it was, he felt as though he were missing a limb with Draco so far away, even if it was only in mind.
Now that's silly, Harry thought to himself in derision, and stood to get ready for Defense Against the Dark Arts
Harry raised his eyebrows when he entered the Defense classroom. Every other professor he'd had had already been there, trying to settle in without making it look as though he were settling in, giving the room and the desk dubious glances. Lockhart had already arranged his photographs on the walls that first day, to wink and gleam and grin at the students. Remus had been ready with his illusions. Even Quirrell had at least tried to look mysterious, even though his trembling hands, his stutter, and the ridiculous turban that concealed Voldemort on the back of his head had severely undercut that image.
Moody was nowhere in sight.
"Think he ran away when he heard he had to teach you?" Draco whispered behind him.
Harry, grateful that Draco was speaking to him again even if it was to tease, turned around and raised an eyebrow at him. "Or you, maybe."
"But you're more powerful, and you got the Hounds arrested," Draco pointed out, as he took his seat and got his book out. Harry tried again to catch a glimpse of the cover of the book he was reading, but Draco slid it deftly out of sight. He met Harry's eyes, and his voice grew sharp. "I think that teaching you would be enough to wear anyone out. Sometimes you're blind to what's right in front of your face."
Harry narrowed his eyes, but didn't respond. They were hovering on the verge of moving from teasing to true argument, and the best reply he could give—which would involve Moody's capture of Lucius at one of the scenes of his crimes—would hurt Draco too much. Harry sat down and faced forward.
This time, he noticed the faint shimmer in front of the desk, the mark of a Disillusionment Charm. Harry tensed and called his magic, but waited. It might be a threat, but it might also be a trick.
Just as the first of the students began to relax and complain about their professor's absence, Moody burst into existence, shedding the Disillusionment Charm and leaning in front of the desk. The girl who'd complained, Susan Bones from Hufflepuff, promptly fainted, sliding down under the chair with a thump. Harry winced and kept one eye on Moody as he checked on her. She seemed to be fine.
"Do you see that?" Moody snarled at them, pacing back and forth in front of the desk with harsh clumps of his wooden leg. "I was in the room all the time, and no one noticed." For a moment, his magical eye alit on Harry, but it didn't stay there. It came back to Susan, who was just starting to sit up. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Moody roared, causing the girl to shriek and half-faint again. This time, two of her friends caught her and helped her back into her seat.
Moody turned around fast in front of the desk. Harry could see the gleam of the silver collar around his neck, and the flask at his hip which contained what he said was his "preferred drink." He came to rest with his wand pointing at Harry.
I don't trust him, Regulus snarled in his head.
Why not? Harry asked, though with the fierce, scarred face staring directly at him and the wand pointing at his face, he could see why not.
He uses too much of his reputation, said Regulus. He's acting too much like Moody.
Overacting?
No, he's too good for that. He acts too much like Moody, Regulus repeated.
Regulus, you can't act too much like yourself.
Yes, you can. You did it when you were still mooning after that impossible brother of yours.
"Mr. Potter," Moody growled, catching his attention. "Do you think that are proficient in the Dark Arts?"
Harry could feel the attention of the class becoming pinned to him like a butterfly to a corkboard. Zacharias Smith in particular had a scorching stare. Harry remembered, suddenly, that his family was Light. That particular fact had never mattered much before. Now it did.
I'll have to pay attention to the allegiances of families besides the ones in Slytherin, he thought, and answered Moody.
"Which definition of Dark Arts are you using, sir?"
Moody tapped his wand on his wooden leg. "Stop dodging and answer the question, Potter," he barked.
"I can't until I know which definition you're using," said Harry. He felt his skin flinching and crawling under the stares. Yes, he'd got a lot of stares the day after Skeeter's article, too, but those he had expected and could handle. These were unexpected, and decidedly unwelcome.
"You're dodging like a Death Eater," said Moody, limping a step closer. "Are you a Death Eater, Potter?"
Harry lifted his left arm, never taking his eyes from Moody, and tilted it so that his robe sleeve slid back, exposing his blank left forearm.
Moody snorted. "All well and good to have no Dark Mark, but how do you prove that you aren't a Death Eater?"
"You don't," said Harry. He was forcibly reminded of his interrogation by Fudge, when the man had refused to recognize basic logic. "You can't prove a negative. If someone accuses me of being a Death Eater, the proof is up to them." He leaned forward. "How would you prove that I am, Professor Moody?"
"The use of Dark Arts would answer for itself, I should think." Moody still stared at him intently, no trace of a smile on his face.
"But lots of people use Dark Arts," said Harry, and kept his eyes wide and innocent, his voice breathless. He didn't want to expose this, but, on the other hand, he didn't want a term of constant harassment by Moody, either—or a whole school year of it. Better to slap him down, now and hard. And look, Snape, I'm not even using any Dark Arts spells to do it! "I know that you used Dark Arts when you wanted to capture Death Eaters, Auror Moody. There are rumors that you used Imperio on a few of them who absolutely refused to cooperate, and the Ministry granted you a special exemption to use it. Yet it's still Dark Arts, isn't it?" He blinked at Moody with the guileless expression of a child. "Or does a Ministry exemption change the nature of magic?"
Zacharias Smith chuckled. Moody's eyes moved briefly to him, then came back to Harry, resting on him with feral intensity.
He hates you, said Regulus.
Can you reach into his mind, then?
No. But I'm reading his expression. He hates you, Harry.
Or he hates the Dark Arts, and hates that a student can walk freely around Hogwarts after practicing them. Harry studied Moody's face, and his collar. You were the one who told me that Rosier was mad for telling me to distrust Moody, that he would never yield to Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
There was a long, deep pause. Then, even as Regulus sighed, Moody said, "Well done, Potter. Five points to Slytherin."
Harry blinked. "What, sir?"
Moody nodded at him, then spun around to address the class again. "Constant vigilance!" he shouted. "You have to be prepared for an attack at any time—magical, physical, or verbal. Potter was ready for this attack. The rest of you should be, too." He took a long step forward. "Smith, if I told you to tell me what was so funny about Mr. Potter's statement, could you do it?"
Harry let out a long, shaky breath.
I don't trust him, Regulus growled in his head.
Yes, we've established that, Harry thought in exasperation, and sat back to watch Moody rip into the other students. His method of teaching, if that was all it was, was really no more brutal than Snape's, though Snape's voice was usually lower when he did it.
If that was all it was.
It was true that a few Hufflepuffs darted nervous glances at Harry when Moody wasn't looking, but Harry was fairly sure of them. Justin, Ernie, and Hannah were good sorts. Susan knew him less well, but her friends could calm her from thinking the worst of him. Zacharias was—well, not a friend, not really, but logical and skeptical and prone to attacking all things, which would include Moody's teaching methods, with ferocious energy. Any plan that Moody might have to make them afraid of Harry was not going to work.
And not with anyone else either, hopefully.
I just wonder if he could have something to do with finding Voldemort, said Regulus, abruptly.
Harry blinked. What?
Finding Voldemort, said Regulus, as if Harry were stupid. They're searching the Black Forest for him right now. They don't have much time. He knows they're close, but they haven't found him yet.
Harry sat up slowly, though, when Moody glanced at him, he pretended the motion was a grab for his book. Regulus, what are you talking about?
Regulus abruptly stopped talking. Um.
Harry dipped his quill into his inkwell, and waited.
I, um. I, um, have a connection with the older form of Voldemort, still, since he tortured me for so long, said Regulus. I, um. Have been following it occasionally and trying to find out what he's doing?
Harry bit down on his lip, and mastered the temptation to curse out loud. Connor had taught him to master it, last year. Is that where you've been the times that I couldn't reach you?
Um. Some of them?
Harry hissed.
You don't understand! Regulus abruptly wailed. I feel so useless, so helpless, without a body, and you heard Dumbledore last year, the Dark Lord has a lot of trouble recognizing passive links to his mind, so I thought I would follow mine, and exploit it, and so far I haven't learned much, but—
If you would just let me tell Narcissa about the wards and lower them for her, then you could have your body back!
I don't want her to come in here, said Regulus, and sulked at him.
Harry kept himself from hurling the inkwell across the room, but it was a near thing. Promise me that you won't go hunting down your connection to the older Voldemort any more.
Regulus left.
Harry mostly resisted the temptation to bury his head in his hands and groan aloud because Moody had rounded on him again.
"Treacle Tart," Harry told the gargoyle outside the Headmaster's office, and it jumped out of the way. Harry shook his head as he stepped onto the moving staircase. Only a few months ago, he would have felt deeply intimidated and nervous, and would have wanted Snape with him.
That was then, and this was now, when he was mostly impatient and wondered what in the world Dumbledore could possibly want.
The staircase left him outside the Headmaster's door. Harry composed himself enough to knock, and in the moments it took Dumbledore to answer, reached after Regulus. It was no use. He'd never really been able to sense the actual connection that Regulus used to reach his mind, only whether he was there or not, and he had no way of calling Sirius's stupid brother back.
"Come in."
Harry pushed the door open and stopped, blinking. Dumbledore's office had changed in the months since Harry had seen it last. Fawkes's perch was still in its place, and the Sword of Gryffindor hung on the wall in a glass case, but the shelves were now mostly filled with books instead of odd silver devices. Dumbledore had several locked cabinets along the walls now, but one of them, full of Pensieves, was open. Dumbledore's desk was loaded with a single huge Pensieve, the silver liquid shimmering near the brim and almost running out of the bowl.
Dumbledore turned around from examining the Pensieve cabinet, his face a mask of calm. "Ah, my dear boy. Come in."
"We were going to discuss what being vates means," said Harry, feeling that he should establish at once what he was there for. He had told Snape where he was going, and received one long, inscrutable look from dark eyes, before Snape had nodded his permission. Then he had turned to tend one of the three potions bubbling in cauldrons at the back of the room, none of which Harry recognized. Snape's strangeness, like Draco's, was putting him a bit off his food. "Sir," he added, when he found that Dumbledore's gaze was resting on him a bit too heavily.
Dumbledore nodded. "Yes. Have you heard of Falco Parkinson, Harry?"
Harry, caught by surprise, blinked for a moment, then said, "Yes. He was Headmaster of Hogwarts at one time, and tried to negotiate with the magical creatures, but was harmed by them for it. He also supposedly tried to be vates."
"He did," said Dumbledore simply. He covered the Pensieve with one hand, turning it so that Harry could see part of the long title carved on it. With Falco Parkinson, it said. "And he was my mentor."
Harry blinked at Dumbledore. "I thought he lived before your time, sir."
Dumbledore shook his head. "He lived much longer than is generally supposed. Sit down, please, Harry."
Harry took a chair in front of the desk, staring with wary fascination at the Pensieve. He wanted to see what was in it, but, on the other hand, Dumbledore had used Pensieves to trick him before.
"He became interested in being vates while still a young man, when he felt his power growing in him," said Dumbledore, tapping the edge of the Pensieve with one finger. It made a ringing sound. "You understand that a vates must be a powerful wizard, Harry? And why?"
"Because otherwise he wouldn't have the power necessary to break the webs," Harry supplied.
Dumbledore winced. "Ah. Yes. That is something I thought you might have got wrong."
Harry narrowed his eyes. "It's not something I made up, sir. It's something that Dobby and Fawkes told me."
Dumbledore smiled sadly. "I cannot speak for Fawkes. I believe him to be a creature of the highest good, Harry, and I wish that I still had him with me. But as for the house elves…they have been bound for a long, long time, Harry. Do you believe that one of them would be above lying, if he managed to have enough strength of mind to think about it, in order to gain his freedom?"
Harry hated the tiny seed of doubt that sprang up in him. He tried to crush it before it could come to full blossom. "If you think that a powerful wizard has to be vates for another reason, sir, then show me what it is."
Dumbledore nodded and removed his hand from the top of the Pensieve. "We will enter this together, Harry, so that you need fear no tricks from me."
Harry leaned forward and put his head beneath the surface of the Pensieve, all the time watching as Dumbledore's beard descended beside him. And then the silver liquid closed over him, and flipped him around twice, and rolled him over, and he found himself standing in a small meadow.
The meadow was at the bottom of a hollow, a spot in the land shaped like two cupped hands. Harry found himself breathing more deeply, as though to take in the scent of the air, though he knew it was only a memory. The air around him sparkled faintly, with a sheen Harry had before seen only in water, and the flowers were a kind he was sure he had never studied, so brilliantly scarlet that the sunlight flinched back from them. More, a faint, subtle song seemed to be coming from the side.
Harry turned, and found a man who must be a younger Albus Dumbledore, from the ridiculous robes he was wearing, standing next to a far older wizard. He radiated such power that Harry understood at once where the sheen and the scent and the song in the air came from. This was a Light Lord of considerable strength.
Falco Parkinson's face was mapped with intricate lines, some of them wrinkles that didn't look natural to Harry. He leaned on a staff of white oak wood, and his robes were twined with glittering silver sigils that Harry thought were letters, though not ones he knew. His eyes were a piercing green, his hair the silver of the sigils, and flowing down to nearly meet the middle of his back. He was speaking, in a melodious voice that added to the song in the air. Harry crept forward to listen to him.
"…that is why being vates is so hard, Albus, why so many of us cannot do it. We keep trying to find ways around the ultimate solution to ease relations between wizards and the magical creatures, but there is no other path."
"And what is the solution, sir?" Dumbledore's voice was soft and respectful. Harry blinked. He had known, of course, that Dumbledore had been different when he was younger, but somehow, seeing and hearing it brought it home to him with more force than he had thought existed.
"The sacrifice of magic." Falco moved an arm, and one of the flowers rose from the ground into the air, turning. Its roots extended to link around the Light Lord's arm, and it began to sing. Falco gazed at it sadly. "Such power as I use right now, to make this little flower sing and grow elsewhere than the soil, could be used to content the unicorns, to give them a gift that would make the loss of their freedom seem as nothing. But in giving that up, I would sacrifice some of my magic, like cutting off one of my own limbs. That power would never return to me."
Harry blinked, and felt light-headed. He saw from the younger Dumbledore's face that he likely felt the same way.
"And that is why so many wizards trying to be vates have failed?" he breathed.
"It is." Falco Parkinson turned his head and fixed Dumbledore with keen eyes. "They tried to break the webs, and of course, nothing but destruction and chaos results from that. They tried to use compulsion on wizards to make them free the magical creatures, and became Dark Lords. They tried to do anything but give up their own magic. And who can blame them? What wizard would want to do that?" His gaze went back to the flower, his expression sad. "And even then, one wizard's power is not enough to content every magical creature in the world. How would he choose which ones to content and set in a trance of magic before his ability to go on sacrificing himself ran out?"
Dumbledore bowed his head. "I understand, sir. I would still—like to try. But I will no longer make it my life's ambition."
Falco smiled at him. "Good boy."
The scene abruptly dissolved around Harry, and he pulled his head back from the Pensieve, blinking. He sat hard in his chair, and thought about that. Before him, Dumbledore sat back in his own chair and watched him intently.
Harry looked up. "I'll still have to talk with the magical creatures about this, sir, and see why their story was so different. But thank you for telling me." Even though I don't think it's the whole truth. "That's another definition of vates."
It was. And Harry could already feel the unease that Falco Parkinson had talked about. How would he make decisions like that? Could he choose to free the house elves and unicorns and centaurs, but leave the bindings on creatures like the Runespoors in the Forbidden Forest?
Then, abruptly, he tensed, and felt like slapping a hand against his forehead.
I'm an idiot. I freed the Dementors simply by shredding their web, without sacrificing my magic.
He brought his eyes back to Dumbledore's face. I don't think that he's telling me the whole truth. I'll have to see.
"Thank you, sir," he said. "Was there anything else that you wanted to tell me?"
"Not for right now, Harry." Dumbledore nodded towards the door. "I would like you to meet with me throughout the term, so that you might hear more about what it means to be vates. I have other memories to show you."
I'm sure you do. Harry nodded once, said, "Thank you, sir," and then turned and departed with a swish of his robes.
Albus sat back and gave a little sigh as the door closed behind Harry. They had got through a meeting without threats. That was already a vast improvement over their relationship from last year.
And now he had his distraction in place, the hook baited and set, and Harry had taken it.
Either way, whatever he discovered, he should be distracted enough to stop pursuing wizarding world politics for a time. He would have to speak with magical creatures and discover what being vates truly meant. Or he would have to ponder sacrificing his own magic. Knowing Harry, knowing the way Harry had been raised, Albus was sure that he would ultimately make the decision to give up his own power if it meant freedom for someone else.
And that gave them another valuable advantage. If Harry became magically weaker, fewer wizards would pay any attention to him, and he could do fewer things against the way that things should be done.
Magical power had been the ultimate trump card in wizarding politics for the last several hundred years, at least. Albus knew his appointment as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot had at least as much to do with his strength as with his status as a follower of the Light or the defeater of Grindelwald. Many people had followed Tom not because of his ideals or his Dark magic, but because he was a Dark Lord and they could feel his power.
Harry was a wild card right now, far too dangerous. Reducing his power could only be a good thing.
And if he is the Boy-Who-Lived—not just the one who deflected Tom's Killing Curse, but the savior we need?
Albus shook his head. The prophecy had been quite clear on that point (if on nothing else). The savior would defeat Tom with a "power the Dark Lord knows not." Harry had no powers, at the moment, that Tom did not know, and several that he knew rather intimately. Reducing his magical power would do nothing disastrous to the war effort, and probably rather a lot of good, as it would start forcing Harry to think before he acted, and develop his capacity for love instead of power. And the other families, both Dark and Light, would not be so eager to follow him.
Albus knew the answer to Voldemort was love of the wizarding world, not magic. It had to be. It was the way he had defeated Grindelwald.
He turned, once again, to study the latest letters from France and Bulgaria.
He planned to keep Harry distracted with a series of "discoveries" about being vates. But if that did not work…
Well, another distraction should.