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Chapter Eight—Faint Heart Never Won Fair Minion
"What is your name?"
Every single eye at the Slytherin table was staring at him. Harry immediately noticed Tom Riddle, and hoped that he was hiding the surge of hatred traveling through him, because he was in trouble if he wasn't.
"Harry Evans," he said. "I was just Sorted into Slytherin."
"A little old for it, aren't you?" asked a blond boy who was probably Draco's grandfather, at the same time as someone muttered, "A Mudblood?"
Harry just smiled politely as if he didn't understand the insult. The more he could ignore them and portray himself as powerless and weak, the better off he was, he reminded himself. He needed them to ignore him so he could put in research on time travel and make it home. Staying here and making them respect him wasn't the point.
His hand clenched the edge of the bench anyway as he shrugged. "The people I was living with are gone now. I was going to try and make a living on my own, but Professor Dumbledore persuaded me to come to Hogwarts after I took my OWLS."
To his private glee, Harry could see the curled lips and irritation-glazed eyes already taking over. Harry didn't like the way Professor Dumbledore seemed to have immediately become more wary of him the second he was made a Slytherin, but seeming close to him would be a great excuse to distance himself from the others.
"What's your blood status?" Riddle asked abruptly, leaning forwards.
The others fell silent immediately, even the one who had whispered "Mudblood," and stared at Harry. Harry widened his eyes a little and tried to ignore the girl who must be Walburga, she looked so much like the portrait, and the boy who was probably Orion, Sirius's father.
"My last name is Evans," he said. "What do you think?"
Riddle gave a sharp bark of laughter and turned away to say something softly to a boy who looked enough like Bellatrix Lestrange to make Harry feel ill. He stared at the doors and kept staring until they swung open and the first-years marched in for the regular Sorting.
Some people kept darting glances at him for the rest of the evening, but no one else tried to talk to him. Someone did try a Tripping Jinx on the way down to the Slytherin common room, but Harry stepped past as if he hadn't noticed it and kept walking.
Let them despise him. Let them ignore him. It was for the best. "Harry Evans" would sink like a stone, and no one else would really notice when he disappeared someday because he had found the way back home.
"How did you get into the dueling room, Potter?"
Riddle's face is flushed a harsh, unattractive shade of red. Orion looks at him and barely refrains from sneering. This is the monster that he feared and thought he had no choice but to follow? This is the boy that so many people in their year whisper is the most attractive in the school?
Then again, Riddle is gripping his pale wand and staring at Harry, and Orion remembers well how much pain that wand can cause. It's probably Orion's perspective that's shifted, not anyone else's.
There are other Slytherins crowding in behind Riddle, of course. Even if Riddle might have tried to keep the duel secret and Harry wouldn't have cared about having spectators, Orion spread the word around. It was practically his duty. Harry casts him a mild glare from where he stands on the other side of the room and Orion beams back at him, heart beating harder as he remembers how Harry's pulse felt under his fingertips earlier when Harry let him touch.
Harry smiles at him and spins his wand between his fingers for a second before he walks over to take the spot opposite Riddle. The dueling room is essentially one giant, circular and hollow stone box, with a ring of copper set into the floor that Professor Merrythought uses when she wants to really test them. The room itself isn't special, so much as the ring and the walls and floor. The walls and floor will reflect back any spells that are hurled at them specifically, but will absorb magic that's simply ricocheted or dodged.
The ring, meanwhile, keeps those who step into it for a duel inside until one of them yields, fall unconscious, or dies.
Orion can't deny what conclusion he's hoping for to the evening, although he doesn't think Harry will let it get that far.
"I had help. Something fairly foreign to you, Riddle, from what I understand."
"A poor little half-blood orphan gets used to asking for it, I'd imagine."
A few of the Slytherins behind them gasp at the dig at Harry's blood status, but Harry simply raises his eyebrows, beyond calm. "I'd imagine so, yes," he says, and smiles at Riddle in a pointed way.
Riddle falls back a step, and his hand closes on his wand until Orion hopes wistfully that it'll snap. Instead, Riddle says jerkily, "The terms of the duel."
"I've named one already," Harry says, eyes flashing hard. "If I win, I take leadership of the Knights of Walpurgis from you."
"And if I win, then you'll bow down to me in the common room and lick my boots."
There's an outraged gasp from behind Orion. Orion glances over his shoulder and meets Abraxas's grim eyes. He knows that there's no way his proud friend will follow Harry after a defeat like that, no matter how much he wants to be safe from Riddle's influence and power.
Which is why Harry has to win.
"Done," Harry says without a blink. "To unconsciousness? Yielding?"
"Yielding," Riddle says with a sharp smile. Orion thinks he understands the tactic. Riddle can't imagine anything that would make him yield, while he probably still thinks of Harry as soft enough to do so. Because Harry cares about other people, and accepted Orion's courting offer, instead of just disdaining everyone like Riddle does.
"Very well," Harry says, and steps inside the copper circle. It immediately lights up with a soft, radiant glow. Orion releases a shaky breath. It normally only does that when Professor Merrythought commands it to. That it's responding to Harry's magic and the promises implicit in the duel is…
Good. But worrying. Because it means that both Riddle and Harry are going to do their ultimate to win.
The only good thing about the circle, beyond the legitimacy it lends the duel, is that no one outside it can interfere. Orion doesn't have to worry about someone who's on Riddle's side cursing Harry in the back.
"You can't help him," Abraxas whispers from behind Orion, voicing the bad thing about it.
But Orion is confident enough to say, "Harry doesn't need any help."
He can feel the startled glance Abraxas shoots him, but he doesn't look back to meet it. He can't turn away from the ring, where Harry and Riddle have already engaged in their duel. They didn't bow to each other; Riddle probably thinks Harry isn't worth it, and Harry isn't stupid enough to comply with the formalities when he has to know Riddle would take the opportunity to strike at him.
The first clash of spells is so fierce and dazzling that Orion entirely misses what they are. There's a whirl of golden light, of white light, and Riddle is snarling as he bleeds from a cut on his cheek, while Harry has a bigger cut on his arm.
"First blood to me," Riddle says smugly, staring down at the drops of blood on the floor between them.
"You can't even tell where it came from, Riddle, stop being a liar."
Riddle jerks his head up with a snarl, and sends a curse hurtling towards Harry that makes Orion tense all over. He doesn't know what it's called, but he knows that Riddle used it on Walburga a year ago, and it made her skin crack and tear all over her body, blood running from her very pores.
Harry bounces it with a shield that glimmers into being and disappears in an instant, and the walls absorb it. Then he whirls out of the way of a more ordinary Blasting Curse and blows up the floor at Riddle's feet.
Flying pieces of rock hit the edge of the ring and rebound. Riddle swears as he ducks. His face is bleeding again, closer to the eye, although Orion is disappointed to see that it didn't actually cut into his eye.
"It's nice to see you observing the formalities of bowing to me in a duel, even if it is a little late."
Riddle makes an inhuman sound as he aims his wand at Harry again. Harry sprints forwards, dodging another curse by dint of simply not being there when it lands, and then he casts a rope that coils around Riddle's feet. It appears to be coming from the end of his wand. Harry clenches his hand around the rope and yanks.
Riddle falls. His head hits the stone hard enough that people gasp behind Orion, although up until this point, they've been mostly watching the duel in hungry silence. Harry takes a step back and studies Riddle for a second, who's sitting up, rubbing his head and looking dazed.
And Harry laughs.
"Idiot," Orion hears Abraxas hiss as Riddle once again raises his wand. "What is he doing? Doesn't he know that enraging Riddle is one of the most idiotic things he can do?"
Orion doesn't respond, because he's watching Harry spin out of the way of another spell and accept a cut down his back that makes some people gasp again as the blood flows, but if he could, he would say that he thinks Harry's doing it on purpose.
Even though, at the moment, Orion can't see the point of that strategy. Because Riddle is more dangerous when he's angry.
Harry ends up against the far side of the ring, where he started, while Riddle stands in front of him, snarling and almost touching Harry's throat with his wand. Harry is still smiling, his eyes locked on Riddle's.
Riddle says something in Parseltongue that Orion can barely hear and certainly not understand, and then he snaps, "Do you yield?"
Harry stares directly into Riddle's eyes. The people behind Orion go silent, although he can hear shifting and feel glances being exchanged that makes him think most people assume Harry has been defeated.
Watch, Orion wants to say, but he ends up biting his lip and taking his own advice.
Harry takes a deep breath that might be to speak the words of surrender, but Orion doesn't think so. And it isn't. Instead, he spits directly into Riddle's eyes, and drives forwards while Riddle is still stumbling and roaring in outrage.
Harry's first spell transforms the stones within the ring to sheer ice. Then he pocks the ice with quicksand, and casts a spell that Orion doesn't recognize. It conjures a pair of what seem to be iron pincers in his hand. Orion squints at them uncertainly before turning quickly back to the main show as Riddle slips on the ice and crashes into the quicksand with one arm.
Of course, it's not enough to incapacitate him. Harry kicking him directly in the groin a second later is, though.
People are still voicing their feelings about that when Harry seizes Riddle's wand, which has rolled away from him as his fingers spasm open in pain, and holds it up in his left hand, his right hand gripping those conjured pincers awkwardly alongside his own wand. By the time Riddle blinks away the spit and manages to stare at Harry again, Harry is holding Riddle's yew wand between the pincers.
"Are you going to yield?" Harry asks in a soft voice which Orion can only hear because the people behind him have fallen abruptly silent again. "Or do I have to snap your wand?"
Riddle hisses something vicious-sounding in Parseltongue. It doesn't make Harry flinch. He only keeps on staring, and then tightens the pincers around Riddle's wand a second later.
The sound of creaking wood is as audible as Harry's voice was a second ago.
Harry smiles, and Orion hasn't seen this expression before, as cool and smooth as the ice underneath Riddle. He immediately wants to see it again. He wants to see it in private, where Harry will trust him enough to give it if they're talking about some enemy that needs defeating or someone Harry is protecting his people against, and—
A crack appears, running down the length of Riddle's wand. Riddle screams like a dying child and lunges for Harry's ankles.
This time, Harry kicks him in the wrist, while hopping backwards and managing not to lose his grip on either the pincers or the wands. His eyes are as cold as his smile, and he kicks Riddle again, hard enough to make his fingers fly backwards. Orion hopes that he's broken some of them, although it doesn't look to be the case.
"I don't think so," Harry says softly. "You couldn't win the duel with magic, and you won't win it with dirty tactics, either, Riddle. I have a lot more experience of them than you." He hisses something else, and this makes Riddle shudder and stare at him with wide eyes, whatever it is.
Orion has never wished so badly that he understood Parseltongue. And for the first time, he's not wishing he did because of the power that it would give him in Slytherin House.
The room remains quiet as Harry grips the iron claws onto Riddle's wand again. Riddle clenches his fingers and looks as if he's contemplating the humiliation he'll suffer if he yields versus the humiliation that he'll suffer if he's wandless.
Orion leans forwards. He's hoping that Riddle will be proud enough to let Harry snap it. The thought of the revenge he could take if Riddle is left without it…
"I yield," Riddle gasps. "The Knights of Walpurgis are yours."
His voice is thick with hatred, but Harry doesn't appear to care. He laughs and tosses Riddle's wand into the air, making Riddle scramble for it and bang his elbows on the ice and into the quicksand again. Then Harry takes a smart step backwards and half-bows—not to Riddle, Orion realizes, but to the rest of them, the staring audience beyond the ring.
"The duel is finished," he says. "I accept Tom Riddle's surrender."
The glow around the copper ring vanishes, along with all blood and other traces of the duel left in the ring, and a tension that Orion hasn't been aware of until now goes with it. He supposes that it's always there when they duel in class, but then, most of the time, Professor Merrythought is in charge of judging that the duel has ended, and fairly. He's never heard a student dismiss the circle before.
Harry stays where he is, studying Riddle thoughtfully, and seeming unaware of the blood dripping from his arm and back. He waits until Riddle has stood up, spat on the floor, and stormed away. A path parts for Riddle amid the Slytherins, but for the first time, it doesn't strike Orion as a gesture of respect. They don't want to touch a Riddle contaminated with the weakness of loss.
Harry looks up and at his audience, snorting a little. "Not all of you are Knights of Walpurgis," he points out, and stretches. It makes the flow of blood from his back, which was slowing down, increase again. Harry ignores it. "You can leave now unless you are."
Reluctantly, the spectators back out, leaving Orion, Abraxas, Lestrange, Avery, Walburga, and several others who are Knights of Walpurgis or were told they had been chosen as future Knights, in the case of the fifth-years. Harry moves a step forwards and stares at them intently from a meter away.
Orion can hear shuffling behind him. He isn't surprised. For all that Abraxas and others were growing weary of Riddle, they understood him. They knew what to expect. Harry is an unknown to everyone except Orion and maybe Abraxas.
"For your first order," Harry says, tilting his head. The tension returns to almost what it was when the dueling ring was sealed, at least until Harry smiles. "Be free."
"What?" Lestrange blurts. He's been staring at Harry with loathing—because of his blood status more than anything else, Orion thinks—but now his face just twists with confusion.
"I have no desire to rule you," Harry says slowly. "I have no desire to be a lord." He rolls his eyes. "Go be free."
"You don't want us to serve you?" Avery, this time, blinking and shuffling his feet.
"Not at all," Harry says easily. "I want you to be free. Think for yourselves. Make your own way in the world." He shrugs, and grimaces for the first time. Orion wishes the others would leave already and Harry would let him near enough to examine the wound along his spine. "If you want to join up with Riddle again, I suppose you could do that, although I wouldn't advise it. He's already used the Cruciatus Curse on his followers twice that I know of. This is probably the kind of evening that he'd use it on you for having witnessed."
Avery and Lestrange stare at him and mutter, but end up turning around and leaving, on the heels of the clot of fifth-years, who look all too happy to be going. Walburga gives Harry a sneer and drifts out after them. Orion imagines that she'll come back at some point, but right now, she's too used to equating easiness with weakness.
When Orion and Abraxas are the only ones left, Harry closes his eyes and draws a deep breath. "Could one of you heal my back?" he asks, and turns around, thrilling Orion with his trust in them.
At least, until he sees the wound that cuts through muscle and skin on Harry's back, and exposes bone.
"How the hell are you on your feet?" Abraxas yelps, fumbling for his wand. Orion is quicker, and he's better with healing spells. He touches his wand to the cut and stills the bleeding first of all. Harry is going to have to sleep off the blood loss and drink a Blood-Replenishing Potion, he notes, retreating into the facts to keep himself from reacting the way he wants to at the sight of Harry's spine.
"You should still go to Madam Eldiss," Orion says softly when he steps back.
"And what story, exactly, would we tell her?" Harry shakes his head and sheds his robe with a rueful grimace. Orion is sure that he's thinking about the loss of one of his few garments to bloodstains. In a short while, of course, he won't have to worry about that at all. "A friendly duel, gone awry? Someone sneaked a manticore into the school and I had a go at it?"
Abraxas sighs, but nods reluctantly. Orion steps forwards and catches Harry's eye. "We'll allow you to sleep tonight, on your stomach," he said. "Tomorrow, when it doesn't look so bad and the healing spell has had a chance to work, we go to Madam Eldiss."
Harry considers him, opens his mouth, then shuts it and nods. "All right," he murmurs.
Orion escorts him out with his arm around Harry's shoulders, his pulse pounding so hard that it feels as if he's about to be sick. Only when he glances back at the dueling ring, just before they close the door and begin replacing the elaborate locking spells Professor Merrythought had on it, does the realization really strike him.
Riddle has been defeated, and he is free.