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Chapter Twenty-Two—Competing Claims

Harry found Orion near the Transfiguration classroom, and herded him into an alcove with a tapestry hanging in front of it. It probably said something about how much Orion trusted him that he willingly went into such a small space with Harry.

At the moment, though, Harry couldn't really think about that. He folded his arms and pinned a glare on his face that he hoped would impress Orion. He would have to enact the punishment he'd thought of if Orion didn't do this, and he'd prefer not to. It was a little creepy, how much that punishment depended on the way that Harry knew Orion.

And how much weight Orion appeared to put on Harry's opinion. That was a little creepy, too.

"I apologized to Charlus. Now I want you to do it, too."

Orion was sighing as he turned around. Harry frankly didn't care. He kept his eyes on Orion's face, waiting for an objection, and got one a minute later.

"I only spoke the truth!"

"They didn't neglect me. They didn't abuse me. I keep telling you that I'm not related to the Potter family here, but you won't believe me." All of those are true. It wasn't them who neglected me. "And now you've gone and fucked things up with them when I was content to have them ignore me." Harry scraped his foot back and forth on the floor and thought about Charlus's saying that the Potters could claim Harry in a few years. Even that might go up in smoke if Orion didn't apologize. "You're going to apologize."

"Fine," Orion muttered, and Harry had time for one breath of relief before Orion was bulling along again. "But I don't understand. You look so much like them—and if they didn't abuse you, who did?"

All of these questions I can't answer.

Harry sighed and took off his glasses for a second to rub his scar, where a headache was already forming. It seemed Riddle didn't have to be around for those to manifest in this time. "It really doesn't matter, Orion."

"Of course it does!"

"Why? I promise that I'm able to stand up to Riddle. A childhood being abused by Muggles didn't weaken me!" Harry snapped. His mind was occupied with the things that Orion might try to say or think of him if he decided Harry was weak, and he didn't realize what he had said until it was too late to take it back.

"What?" Orion said in a croaky voice.

Harry grimaced. Ugh. But it was too late to take it back, so he put his glasses back on, planted his feet, and folded his arms. "Muggles," he said, keeping his voice calm and rational. "I grew up with Muggles. Yes, they hurt me. No, they don't matter now. You don't need to worry about them. I can still stand up to Riddle and protect you."

Unless you're a blood purist. But that wasn't something Harry could say without offending Orion if it was true, so he just added, "Unless you don't want a half-blood with a Muggleborn mother defending you."

Orion gaped at him some more. Harry sighed under his breath. It seemed that he'd mistaken Orion's willingness to accept any protection from Riddle for willingness to accept that even if the person offering it wasn't a pureblood.

"If you want to end our alliance because I'm not a pureblood—"

"No, that's not it at all!" Orion said, his voice scrambling. "I just never—raised by Muggles? Really?" He did just sound surprised, from what Harry could tell, not like he was reconsidering Harry's worth as a human being because of his ancestry.

"Okay," Harry said slowly, watching him. Orion might change his mind at any moment. Or at least so Harry's experience of irrational blood purists suggested. "And yes, I was. My mother's Muggle sister and her husband." Harry shrugged and hoped that he was showing how it didn't matter to him even if Orion judged him, although of course it did. "They didn't like magic much, and they didn't really want to raise me after my parents died."

"So your father might have been a Potter?"

Harry let himself smile. This kind of technical truth-telling appealed to him. "Maybe. A strong chance, let's say."

"So it could still be the fault of the Potters that—"

Harry's mood soured again. Of course Orion would still try to find a way to blame the Potters for this. "No, Orion. It isn't my parents' fault that they died. And I never knew any of my father's relatives. Until I discovered I was a wizard when I was eleven, I had no idea about this world at all, or that there might be more magical people named Potter out there." Harry folded his arms and glared again, trying not to think about how much he would have given to have found some Potter relatives. "I want you to leave this alone. And apologize to Charlus."

There was a long moment when Harry thought ordering Orion around like that might not work. Who was Harry to demand this, after all? Just a random Slytherin. Even if he had helped Orion against Riddle, he hadn't done that in hopes of an equal trade, or in hopes of obedience.

But Orion was standing with his head half-lowered, as if he was seriously thinking it through. Harry hoped he kept his relief to himself when Orion nodded.

"I'll apologize to Charlus in the morning. Do you want to come with me to make sure that I've done it?"

"Merlin, no!" Harry couldn't help blurting out. That struck him as the kind of thing Riddle would demand, following people around to make sure they'd done as he ordered them to. "I trust you."

And he had to. An apology he had to coerce out of Orion would be no good at all.

But more than that, he did just trust Orion. It was confusing, but there it was.

He glanced at Orion and surprised an expression on his face of such—devotion, there wasn't a different word for it—that Harry felt faint with the heat thar rushed to his cheeks. He began talking loudly about Defense spells, and led Orion back to the common room. He hoped he sounded normal, but he was aware that he probably didn't, and Orion probably thought him an idiot. A high-handed idiot, at that.

Orion just gave him another of those looks before they went into the common room, though, and Harry was glad that he was able to escape up to their bedroom and no one else was there. Harry flopped back on his bed, swished the curtains shut and cast the spells that would secure them in place and keep any sounds from escaping, and stared up at the canopy.

What the hell? Why does he look at me like he worships me? Is he just damaged from his time with Riddle and afraid that he'll lose my support if he shows what he's really thinking? Or is it that he's so damaged even a bit of better treatment makes him half-prepared to worship the person giving it to him?

Harry sighed and closed his eyes. He didn't want either thing to be true, but the first one would be less concerning. At least that would show that Orion retained some vestiges of independence and didn't think he owed Harry any kind of loyalty when Harry was halfway decent.

If it was the other thing…

Harry didn't know how he was going to guide Orion back to independence if that was true.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

Harry's been staring cross-eyed at the letter that arrived halfway through breakfast, and now it's almost ten minutes since Mother and Father excused themselves from the table. Harry ate with one hand at first while he held the letter with the other and read it. Then he flattened the letter on the table and stared at it. Now he's reading it for what must be the fifth or sixth time.

He blushes when he looks up at Orion. Orion enjoys the way Harry looks at him, his face going soft and his eyes going distant, as if he's always on the verge of remembering what they did on the Quidditch pitch and wanting to reenact it. Then Harry blushes and hurries past to the next thought.

It's adorable. But then again, Orion has accepted that he's going to find almost everything Harry does adorable.

"Yeah, it's—" Harry shakes his head, considers the letter in his hand one more time, and then thrusts it out towards Orion. "Here. I can't really understand why they would send it now of all times. It seems like it would have been a better idea to send it earlier in the year."

That's a bit nonsensical, but when Orion accepts the letter and turns it over, he's not that surprised to see the Potter seal clinging to the parchment.

Dear Harry,

Please excuse our ignorance of you. We have taken some time to evaluate your claim to the name Potter, since we have sometimes had unrelated people in the past saying they're related to us and that we owe them money or attention. Since you went by "Evans" at first, then accepted the name "Potter" without much demur, we thought that you might be another of those.

But our son Charlus has told us that you have been good to him, and that you have been at pains to tell other students at Hogwarts that we did not neglect you or turn you out. We haven't been successful in tracing your lineage yet. Perhaps we will find you in some obscure branch of the family.

Either way, we would like to meet you. Please attend the gathering that we are holding to celebrate our daughter Helena's first birthday, the night before the Hogwarts Express will return to the school.

Yours,
Aelfric and Dorcas Potter.

Orion holds back his fury. The Potters probably don't know that Harry has been claimed as family by at least some of the Blacks. They didn't send this on purpose as an insult or way to try and claim Harry only because another pureblood family has.

But that's the effect it has on Orion, anyway.

He struggles to get his breathing under control, and then nods. "It makes perfect sense to me that they didn't send it until now. Like it says here, they had to evaluate your claim to being a Potter and decide what they thought of it." He lays the letter flat on the table instead of crumpling it and throwing it into the fire the way he'd like to. Orion is rather proud of his self-control.

"But they waited until they knew that the Blacks had—well, sort of given me a place and decided to be my family." Harry's face floods with red, but he holds his head up and holds Orion's eyes, too. "I don't understand why they would send it now."

"The news probably hasn't spread far yet, given that it's only been two days," Orion says, and reaches across the table to clasp Harry's hand. "And there is no sort of about it."

Harry blushes harder. He squeezes Orion's hand hard enough to wring his fingers—which Orion doesn't mind at all—and then pulls back and looks doubtfully at the letter. "Then I suppose I decline?"

"Why would you?"

"It's not like they have to give me a place, Orion. And you know they're not related directly to me at all. I told you the truth."

"Do you plan to tell them that?"

"What? Of course not!"

Something in Orion relaxes at the tone in Harry's voice, like he can't imagine sharing the secret with anyone who's not Orion. Even though Orion would like to shout it from the rooftops and tell the Potters, and Dumbledore, and everyone else who looked skeptically at Harry, that they missed such a treasure.

Orion forces himself to shrug, and his mind away from such pleasant imaginings. "Then I think you'll have to answer it. You can't exactly explain to them that this is a cosmic error and you don't want a place in their family. Just by using the name Potter, you've made a claim they're expected to answer."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Harry mutters, staring at the letter. Orion gasps into his hand, glad that Mother wasn't around to hear that. Harry gives him a rueful smile. "I suppose it's too late to go back to Evans?"

"Much too late."

"But we won't have to do anything much, right? Just show up at the party and nod and smile at some people and walk out again after we've stayed a certain amount of time?"

Orion smiles. Harry is adorable at some times, and naïve at others. "Yes. That's all we really have to do."

Of course, it isn't all Orion is about to do.

"Mr. Black. Be welcome."

The speaker is Dorcas Potter, the matriarch of the Potter line and the one who brewed the potion that enabled her and her husband Aelfric to create children of their mingled blood. Her hair is a dusty ginger and piled up on her head, except for a few curls that are allowed to escape and hang down beside her face. Orion gives her a smile and ignores her arched eyebrows, reaching out to wring her hand.

"Hello, Mrs. Potter. Thank you for inviting us."

"I invited Harry Potter, I thought," Dorcas murmurs with another slight uptick of her eyebrows, but she shakes his hand and turns around as Harry comes through the fireplace. "Welcome, Mr.…." She lets her voice trail off, and blinks. "Charlus was not exaggerating."

"About how little grace I have coming through the Floo?" Harry snorts and brushes off soot. "Sorry about that." He holds out his hand, and Dorcas takes it in what looks like an absent dream.

"No, about how much you look like a Potter. No wonder people started to call you by that name at school."

Harry ducks his head and shrugs. "Sorry?"

"No, it's fine." Dorcas shakes her head and turns around as Charlus gallops into the room, with a heavyset man who must be Aelfric Potter behind him. "Come and greet your cousin, dears."

"By Merlin, look at the boy!" Aelfric Potter squints blue eyes behind glasses in Harry's direction. Orion has to smile. It seems the bad eyes bred true through the generations. "He looks exactly like a Potter!"

"Yes, just what I was saying, dear," Dorcas murmurs, with a touch of acid to her voice. But it seems hard for her to turn her eyes away from Harry. "If you'll come this way, we have a few other guests as well. The Shafiqs, the Longbottoms, the Hollises. You might know some of them."

Orion smiles and glides along in her wake, making sure to get between her and Harry. Harry raises his own eyebrows in Orion's direction with a clear question on his face. Orion shakes his head. He doesn't think Harry is in danger, precisely, but the Shafiqs are the sort of haughty purebloods who would take Harry's Muggleborn heritage badly. And of course, there are people who will treat Harry badly if they believe that he's a Potter bastard.

Harry is opening his eyes wider at the sight of the room that Dorcas is guiding them into. The ceiling arches overhead in curving cascades, and gold glows along every one of them. The walls are white, with gold veins in them, too. Orion looks sideways at them and smiles a little when he sees one of them flicker. These are illusion magic. It pleases him, at one level, that the Potters can't afford actual gold decorations like this.

They don't deserve the wealth themselves, if they rejected Harry.

(Part of Orion knows that's irrational. After all, they didn't know Harry existed for a good reason. But it's not something that he feels inclined to forgive).

Overhead in the center of the room blazes what seems to be a real chandelier, and underneath it in a puddle of focused white light is a baby, swaddled in white cloth, in a white cot. Orion raises his eyebrows. "The white theme is a little overwhelming," he mutters out of the side of his mouth to Harry.

Harry snorts in agreement and then glares at him. "Her parents are probably happy to have her, what with the age gap between her and Charlus," he mutters.

Orion blinks. That's not something that occurred to him, because—"It's not anything to do with having tried to have other children and failing," he says. "It's because the potion they used can't be used more than once a decade."

"Potion?"

Orion nods and steps up to Harry's side as an older witch wearing a pointed hat with a long veil, probably a Hollis, scowls at them. "Dorcas and Aelfric both work in Potions," he murmurs, keeping his voice down out of deference to where they are. "Sterility is a common side-effect. But Dorcas is also skilled enough to brew the potion that lets someone create a child."

Harry stares at him. "Create."

"Without carrying the child in a womb. Yes."

"How—how does it work?"

"I don't know all the subtleties," Orion admits. He enjoys Potions, but not to the level required to understand something like this, which even great brewers can't always create. "But it's spread on a patch of land that matters a lot to both parents, some important and beloved objects are sacrificed to it, and there's a lot of meditation on what a future child should be like. The child comes out of that."

"So, um, that's why you weren't worried?"

Orion blinks. "Worried about what?"

"Worried about having children if we get married?"

Orion smiles at him, and enjoys the way that Harry's cheeks flush and he steps in place as though he doesn't know if he wants to move closer to Orion or not. "Thinking about it?" Orion asks in a low voice. "And as far as I'm concerned, we are getting married, Harry."

"I just, I want an answer to my question."

"It's one of several reasons I wasn't worried," Orion says, and reaches out for Harry, to draw him close. It would probably be too much to kiss in the middle of the Potters' party, where most of the people are older than they are and considerably more staid, but the way he curls his arm around Harry's waist should be a decent substitute.

Harry smiles at him, eyes bright and dazzled.

And that, of course, is the moment that the chandelier above them chooses to fall.