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Chapter Two—Secrets, Secrets Everywhere
"Well, yes, unusual, very unusual, I don't think I've seen one like this case before…"
Harry sat staring at his fists, which were clenched in his lap. That the lap was covered with a proper robe—the real name of those non-dress dresses—didn't matter. He heard everything the wandmaker, apparently named Garrick Ollivander according to James and Lily, wasn't saying.
Even in the magical world, Harry was still a freak.
Lily knelt in front of him, her eyes bright and desperately sad in the light of a Lumos Charm on her wand. "Harry, sweetheart, it's all right," she whispered, stroking his right arm. "I promise. We'll find you a wand that works for you."
Harry managed a small smile, but no more than that. His family had told him that morning about the distinction between wand magic and accidental magic. The things Harry had done like shrinking Dudley's jumper or turning a teacher's hair blue—or making the fire flare up last night—were all accidental magic. He hadn't specifically wanted that result, and he couldn't channel the power that did it with any sense of control or direction. It was all emotion-based and immature, something to be got past.
Real magic was performed with a wand, which Lily and James and Dumbledore all had, and which he and Felix had gone out that morning to get.
Except that none of the wands in Ollivander's shop—not even the holly-and-phoenix-feather one that had chosen Felix right away—responded to Harry at all.
Harry had picked them up and waved them, and then tried with Lily's and James's wands. Nothing. The wood sat like, well, wood in his hand, and there was no sense of connection with the cores, no sensation of warmth shooting up his arm like Felix had described, no sparks the way James and Lily had both said they'd had when their wands chose them.
Ollivander had looked delighted, and said that the only thing for it was to craft a custom wand for Harry. He'd brought out blocks of wood, then boxes of phoenix feathers and unicorn tail hairs and dragon heartstrings, arranged them on the counter in front of Harry, and told him to indicate when he had a warmth or other response.
Nothing.
Ollivander cleared his throat now. "I can only surmise that Mr. Potter may have a rare disease I've seen once or twice, and that my grandfather saw more than I did, because children get their wands younger now than they did in his day," he murmured. "The child's magic gets so used to running in channels formed of will and emotion alone that it's extremely difficult for it to adapt to a physical, external channel like a wand. The condition is curable," he added, probably because Lily was looking alarmed. Harry just felt a deep, cold sickness in the middle of his stomach. He hadn't even done magic all that much… "But it takes practice, yes, lots of practice with the wand."
"You mean—like Remedial Charms at school?" James asked. He was standing behind Harry with a hand on his shoulder, and had been for nearly half an hour while Harry tried the woods and cores. Harry supposed he would have appreciated it if he could feel more than his own throbbing nausea.
"Yes, that will help," Ollivander said. Harry had the feeling that he was trying to be kind as he stared at Harry, but also that he didn't have a lot of practice. "Also Remedial Transfiguration and Defense. I'm sorry, but it will be basically every class that involves a wand."
Harry took a deep breath. That left four classes that didn't: Potions, History of Magic, Astronomy, and Herbology. Well, Felix had told him that Potions and Herbology sometimes had magic involved in them, but it was the kind that no one would get to practice until at least third or fourth year.
He could do this. He wasn't as powerful as everyone had thought he was. He wouldn't be able to be the kind of leader that he'd thought he would have to be to maintain his parents' approval. He wouldn't make friends because people would pity him.
But—
He could survive this. It was still better than the Dursleys', and would be unless he ended up in a cupboard again.
"It's all right, Harry," Felix offered, hovering anxiously next to his chair. "Mr. Ollivander, I know you said that you didn't see a reaction, but I was watching pretty closely. Harry had a slight tug of warmth towards the ebony block on the end of the third row from the top in that box, and that phoenix feather that's in the second row from the top." He pointed.
Harry blinked at him. "How did you remember that?"
Felix coughed, his cheeks turning pink. "Sorry, it's something that I forgot you wouldn't know…I have an eidetic memory. Not for everything," he added hastily. "But for patterns and words. I couldn't tell you everything about the clothes that people wore past us in the street today, but I can remember what order people touched objects in, and I have books memorized after reading them once."
Harry just nodded. He supposed he could feel a sort of weak, spluttering jealousy. He was less powerful than Felix, and Felix had a special gift.
Technically Harry did, too. But Lily and James had told him more about Voldemort that morning, and one of the things they'd mentioned was that Voldemort was a Parselmouth, able to speak to snakes, and that was one of the things that both proved he came from Slytherin's bloodline and that he was a Dark wizard.
Harry had promptly and carefully buried his idea that he could tell his parents about speaking to the snake at the zoo on Dudley's birthday in the back of his head. It was something he couldn't tell them.
And it wasn't much use, anyway, was it? How often was there actually a snake around? And what would you do if there was? Just use it to impress people, the way it sounded like Voldemort had used it?
Harry shook his head and paid attention to Felix as Ollivander set about crafting the ebony wand. "You really saw my hand sort of steer towards them?"
"Yes." Felix stood taller and gave Harry a smile. "I promise, you'll eventually be able to get past this and use your wand."
"That's right," James added, sounding more relaxed. "I remember a girl in our year who had trouble using her wand. Remember her, Lily? Lacey Macdougal. But after a year and a half of practice or so, she got it, and she was able to use her wand for everything that mattered."
A year and a half.
Harry told himself that a year and a half didn't matter, not really, when he had lived ten years with the Dursleys. He had to be careful, so careful, not to annoy anyone, but a disease wasn't really his fault. His parents and Felix didn't sound like they blamed him.
Felix seemed to see that he was still upset, because he grinned at Harry. "Don't worry. We'll go get owls next. There's bound to be one there that likes you."
The minute Harry stepped through the doors of the pet shop they'd chosen, an owl flew at his face.
Harry ducked frantically, feeling the talons scrape through his hair. At the same time, the dodge brought him near a cage with a small brown owl in it, and the bird screamed and attacked the bars like a mad thing, stabbing its feet and beak frantically towards Harry.
Harry stepped away from that, and got stabbed in the back by an owl sitting on a perch. He was going to run out the door, but Lily grabbed him and curved an arm around his shoulders, swishing her wand over his head. Harry sighed as he felt the small wounds he'd sustained heal at once.
He looked around the shop. They had animals other than owls, but all of them were reacting negatively to him. The toads huddled down in their tanks. The cats were pressed against the backs of their cages, hissing at him. Even the puppies with forked tails that he had learned were called Crups barked frantically, some of them lunging forwards against the front of the cages.
"Mrs. Potter, Mr. Potter, I must insist the boy leave at once if he's causing this level of chaos!" bellowed a man who looked like he was the owner of the shop, waving his hands.
"I'm sure someone cast a charm on him to make the animals react that way," Lily said in an unsteady voice, and passed her wand over Harry's head again. "Finite Incantatem!"
Nothing happened. The owls and toads and cats and dogs still made frantic noises, and the owner pointed towards the door. Harry went out with his head hanging, trying not to show it. Lily accompanied him, while James and Felix stayed in the shop to buy Felix an owl. Harry was sure they would have no trouble finding one.
"I'm sorry, baby," Lily murmured, touching Harry's hair again. "Someone must have cursed you and we never noticed. We'll take you to the Dark Arts experts at St. Mungo's."
Harry nodded and tried to look grateful, but he had a private theory. The animals had reacted to him the way a lot of them probably would have reacted to a snake. Birds and toads were prey. Cats might hunt them, for all Harry knew, but all those cats were kittens and small enough to be prey, too. The Crups had acted as if they wanted to fight him. Maybe non-magical dogs didn't react that way to snakes, but they sure did.
If he was right, that meant there was nothing the Dark Arts experts could do. Harry didn't have a real wand, and he couldn't have a pet.
It is better than the Dursleys. It just might not be always that way.
"And we have a special announcement for you on the day of the Boy-Who-Lived's birthday. His twin brother, Harry, survived that night as well, and was reared by Muggles!"
The people staring at him and Felix as they stood in the front of Flourish and Blotts made Harry uncomfortable. But he did his best to hide that as he waved at them. There were lots of little kids, and their parents, and some people with arms full of what looked like textbooks who were probably Hogwarts students, and a man in a pinstriped suit who Harry had learned was the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge.
Fudge was the one who bustled to the front of the line now, eyes wide. He winked at Dumbledore in what was such a tell that Harry thought he only got away with it because his back was to the crowd. "But why did you tell us that Harry Potter died if he lived, Albus?" he asked, with slow and exaggerated caution. "That seems rather unfair of you!"
Dumbledore smiled back at the Minister. Harry wanted to turn his head and check if he was right that Dumbledore's face showed that he didn't like the Minister much even though he was smiling at him, but he had to stand there and smile at them all, or at least give the half-smile that was as much as he could feel right now. Felix was waving madly next to him, grinning, which he had told Harry was his "public mask." Their parents stood behind them, Lily with her hand on Felix's shoulder and James with his hand on Harry's.
"Of course we didn't want to separate the twin brothers," Dumbledore said smoothly. "But the original choice to say that Harry had died actually wasn't mine, or James and Lily's, either. And I'm sure that you don't blame Felix, who was only fifteen months old at the time!"
A lot of people laughed. Harry concealed a sigh. Well, Dumbledore had warned him about how stupid these people were who would follow almost any leader.
"It was people who had followed Voldemort who decided to spread the word that at least one of the twin boys was dead," Dumbledore continued, ignoring the way that half the crowd flinched at the name. "I suppose they wanted to declare that he had claimed some victory, since he obviously hadn't destroyed Felix. And then, well, we thought about what a security nightmare it would be, to have two boys who were famous overnight to protect. The Aurors and the Potters have done their best, of course, but Mr. Felix Potter has been in hospital before, as you know, Cornelius. We decided that we would keep Mr. Harry Potter safe as a matter of security, and incidentally keep Mrs. Potter's Muggle relatives, who could have been targets of Death Eater vengeance as well, safe at the same time."
Some of the crowd nodded wisely. Harry thought about how the Dursleys had evidently been safe from Dark wizards or Death Eaters, and he hadn't been safe from them, and—
A flicker of movement out of the corner of Harry's eye made him realize that a corner of Dumbledore's robe was on fire. He hastily pulled back his anger, and the fire burned out, dying in a rush of smoke.
No one else appeared to notice. Harry stared at his clenched fists and thought about how he had magic, he just couldn't force it through a wand, and despair neatly took the place of rage.
"But did it have to be in the Muggle world?" asked someone's voice Harry hadn't heard before. He looked up and saw a tall man standing close to the stage, wearing dark, soft blue robes that Harry knew were probably more expensive than anything his family owned. He had long blond hair and a cane he was slowly twirling between his fingers. "That is what I wonder, Dumbledore. Surely, ah, we could have kept such a talented and important boy closer to home?"
The man's gaze fell on Harry. Harry stared back, numbly, and the man tilted his head as though thinking about Harry as possible prey. His cane even had a snake as the topper, Harry saw.
"What I wonder, Lucius," said Dumbledore with a faint smile, "is why you think the Muggle world would have been an inappropriate destination for him."
"It's an inappropriate destination for any wizard of any birth or talent," Lucius, apparently, said, and his mouth curved in a small smile. "And since the Potters have succeeded so admirably in keeping one son alive…"
"I was in hospital five times so far!" Felix yelled, face flushing. He started to say something else, but Lily bent down and hastily whispered to him, and he subsided.
This Lucius was a Dark wizard, then, or a Death Eater, Harry thought. Mostly, he felt a little surprise that the man was walking around in public instead of in prison somewhere, but maybe the magical world thought prison was something that happened to other people.
"Ah, but in hospital is not dead, Mr. Potter," Lucius responded at once, and his eyes gleamed. Harry had the sense that he had hoped to bait Felix into saying something like that. Which means I'm just a distraction for him. "And who knows what consequences might have come to your twin from being in the Muggle world? Perhaps worse ones than hospital, who knows?"
"Who knows?" Dumbledore echoed, his voice subtly mocking. "Why not ask Harry?" And he turned and motioned Harry forwards.
Harry walked slowly over to stand next to Dumbledore, looking out over the crowd and remembering the way that he'd smiled when someone asked him if things were going well at home. The smile might be a little fake, but most of the crowd was at a distance from him, anyway. They probably wouldn't notice.
And Harry wasn't Felix, who had to play up to the public. The people he had to convince were his parents and Dumbledore, so he could stay in the magical world.
"Muggles are pretty amazing," Harry said in a soft, eager voice. He had already decided that when someone tried to ask him about specifics of the Muggle world, he would reference things they'd made and did instead of the people he'd lived with. Why wouldn't it work? Most wizards and witches knew nothing about Muggles, that was becoming clearer and clearer. "Did you know that they've invented instant communication that doesn't depend on owls or fireplaces?"
"They have not," Lucius of no apparent last name said with a slight sneer.
Harry turned to him with wide eyes. Helpless, just a little boy. I'm not the Boy-Who-Lived. Don't look at me except as a reflection of him. "Oh, but they have, sir. It's called a telephone. As long as both people have one, one of them can just pick up a portion of the telephone, enter a series of numbers, and immediately contact the house of the other person who has a telephone."
Lucius stared at him as if he thought Harry was making it all up. Harry widened his eyes even further and nodded. Then he turned back to the crowd. Some people were whispering furiously to each other and others were already staring at him, but it was fairly easy to make them shut up and look at him just by coughing a little.
"They don't have moving portraits the way we do, but they have films that are sets of moving pictures with stories that can be repeated over and over again," Harry told his audience. "And they can fly with machines called planes—"
"Do you despise brooms, then, Mr. Potter?" Lucius interrupted him.
Harry managed to grab onto his hysterical giggle before he could escape. Felix had tried to describe Quidditch to Harry that morning, but hadn't got much further than describing the balls and that it was played in the air before they had to Floo to Diagon Alley. Holy shit, it's really played on brooms?
"No, sir," Harry said, peering up at him. "But I think a broom can only take a few people at a time, right? A plane can take hundreds of people. Thousands, if it's big enough." He didn't know that last part for sure, but it sounded brilliant.
And Dumbledore was smiling and nodding behind him, and steering him backwards with one hand on his shoulder. Harry gladly retreated to stand near James. It seemed that his part was over.
Dumbledore and Lucius went back to sniping at each other, and Harry wasn't sure which one would win that particular confrontation. He didn't think it mattered. He had survived his first time talking to people about the Muggle world, and that had to be enough.
"Happy birthday, Harry and Felix!"
Felix watched the way Harry's eyes widened as he stared at the pile of presents on the table, wrapped in bright red paper with golden brooms and Snitches all over them. He acted like he'd never got presents before.
Then Felix thought of what he knew about the Dursleys Harry had lived with, and sighed. Yes, probably, he hadn't.
As they moved through their gifts, and Harry unwrapped extra history books, Quidditch gloves, a Gryffindor scarf, a wand holster, and new glasses, Felix felt as though his heart was stopping. His brother just looked so happy. Whether he'd ever got gifts before or not, magical presents had to be better.
Felix tore open his own broom care kit and resolved that he was going to make things even funner for Harry. The minute they were done eating cake, they were going to fly. That was the way it was. Harry might not have known enough about brooms to answer the Death Eater's question today, but he was going to know all about them by the time he and Felix were done.
"And we really fly on brooms?" Harry was trying to get better about saying "we."
Felix nodded and shoved the broom at him. Harry took it cautiously. It was something called a Cleansweep, from the name along the handle in golden letters. But other than that, it was, well, a broom. Maybe prettier and cleaner than the ones that Aunt Petunia had made him use to do the sweeping, but still a broom.
"Yeah!" Felix stepped back from him. They were in the large garden behind the house that Harry had glimpsed through the windows, only now he realized that there were poles with hoops on top of them on both sides. The small shed to the side had turned out to contain brooms. "Come on, give it a go!"
Gingerly, Harry slung his leg over the broom. Inwardly, he was wondering if this was going to be like the wand and he'd never be able to use it. But there was something trembling in the broom underneath him, a kind of lightness that he'd never felt with the wand.
"Rise a little!"
Felix was bouncing up and down. Harry gave a deep breath and kicked off from the ground.
The broom soared.
Harry heard someone whooping and realized it was him. He steered the broom in a huge circle, and it answered him like it was a bike, only better. Harry aimed it upwards, and it zipped up, and then zipped back down when he asked. Harry leaned to the right and left, and it leaned with him.
This he could do, at least. This was wonderful.
"Hey, Harry!"
Harry looked down with a grin. Felix was hovering on the second Cleansweep he'd got out of the shed about a meter below him, grinning too. He held up something small and golden. Harry narrowed his eyes. The sun flashed from it, but all he could make out was the color and a pair of furiously fluttering wings that stuck out on either side of Felix's fist.
"This is the Snitch I was telling you about," Felix explained. "The Seeker has to catch it to end the game. But it's the smallest and fastest of all the balls, so it's hard to spot. Want to try and catch it?"
"Yes," Harry said, and everything inside him had merged into mindless happiness, as airy as the broom's magic.
Felix threw the Snitch into the air with a whoop of his own, and it streaked out of sight. Harry promptly rocketed after it, and heard Felix coming right behind him. Eventually he caught up with Harry, and smiled at him sideways as the wind whipped his hair around him.
Harry smiled, too, and then concentrated forwards again and kicked the broom harder. He had a brother to beat.
"I'm glad they're getting along so well."
Lily nodded against James's shoulder as they stood next to the window that overlooked the pitch, watching both their sons chasing the Golden Snitch around. Lily could feel a lump in her throat. It was a sight that she'd once believed she would never see. There had been so much uncertainty right after that night when they'd placed Harry with Petunia. Lily'd been unsure it was the best idea, despite the fact that she did think Harry might reconcile her sister to magic. There was so much that could have gone wrong—
But besides the fact that, yes, Death Eaters might have gone after Petunia and her family and the strongest protection that Albus could place on a non-magical home was tied to blood and had to have at least one magical person living there, things had been touch-and-go with Felix for nearly a year. Harry had come through that night healthy and strong, with only a bit of a curse scar and apparently this disease that meant he would have to work harder to use a wand, but Felix…
Lily swallowed. Her younger son had been in hospital five times that he remembered. Luckily, despite his eidetic memory, he didn't have any recollection of the eleven months he had spent in and out of St. Mungo's as a toddler, his magic rebelling and his little body on the verge of shutting down.
His name had never seemed so well-chosen to Lily until then. Felix, fortunate, lucky, happy in Latin. Yes, they'd been so happy when they held him for the first time, she and James, without the fear that he'd simply shriek and go limp in their arms.
And after that year had passed, when her mind had turned back to Harry, it had seemed—not good, but easier to accept, that he wasn't there. Would she have had the time for him? She honestly didn't know.
Would Harry have grown up resenting his brother if he'd stayed, Felix's fame and the amount of time that their parents had to spend with him until a few months after he was two? Lily shuddered at the thought. Maybe it would have made her feud with Petunia look mild.
And of course, there were so many other reasons, good and bad and intertwined, that she and James had agreed to the plan that had placed Harry with Petunia.
It wasn't fair to him, Lily thought, as she shut her eyes. James's arms tightened around her. I wish there's some way that we could make up for it, and for what will probably happen to him in the future, in Felix's shadow.
But war wasn't fair, and even the great sacrifice Harry had made couldn't delay it forever. The most they could do was ensure that their sons survived, both of them.
At least he's home now, and happy.
"Er, hi, Harry. I'm your godfather, Sirius Black."
Harry shook Sirius's hand and tried to smile politely. Lily and James had told him about Black a few days after his—their—birthday, and explained that he'd be by when he'd given the Potter family a chance to get used to each other.
From the way James had described Sirius, he was another prankster, but also the one who'd first come to the house after the destruction of Voldemort and killed the traitor who had been babysitting them. Harry had asked for the traitor's name, and only got "Wormtail" before everyone looked very uncomfortable and changed the subject.
In person, Sirius had grey eyes and black hair and a smile that was probably charming most of the time. It was pretty strained when he looked at Harry.
Violent prankster who wants to make it up to me wasn't much of a godfather, in Harry's opinion. But on the other hand, Lily and James were worse, since they were actually his parents and had abandoned him in the Muggle world.
And anyway, this was, basically, a sort of delayed birthday celebration-slash-celebration of Harry returning to the wizarding world that was happening a week after his birthday and Felix's, and Sirius was far from the only person invited. Even the Death Eater named Lucius—whose last name was Malfoy—was there with his family, because, Lily and James had explained with distaste, he was one of the people who had claimed that he was forced to act against his will because of Voldemort's powerful magic. They couldn't disprove it, and socially snubbing him would look worse than inviting him.
Sirius was already shifting from foot to foot, looking in James's direction, and Harry just nodded. "Thanks for introducing yourself. Maybe we can talk later?"
Sirius gave him a relieved smile and nodded. "Of course! And don't worry, I'll make sure that you have a broom you can sneak into Hogwarts if you want."
"Er. Thanks, Sirius."
Sirius waved to him and bounded away. Harry stood back in a corner of the big, blue drawing room on the ground floor that the Potters apparently kept for entertaining, and looked around.
There were people standing in clumps everywhere, some of them wearing fine robes like Malfoy, and some wearing the kind of shapeless children's robes that Felix said he had worn until two years ago, and some of them in shirts and trousers that looked almost like Muggle clothes. James and Sirius, who were slapping hands with each other in a corner, both wore those.
Harry had on a pair of the most ordinary black robes from his bedroom cupboard. He didn't want to stand out. And it seemed to be working. All kinds of people gave him curious looks—he was the "rescued" Potter twin, after all—but few people approached him.
"Harry!"
Harry turned with a small smile as Felix came running over, a red-haired boy who looked about their age on his heels. Harry had seen a whole family with red hair come in earlier and had heard Lily say they were the Weasleys, but he hadn't heard any of the children's names.
"This is my best friend, Ron Weasley," Felix said, and clapped Ron on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. "He's going to be in Gryffindor with us!"
Harry grinned. The expression felt more natural on his face the more he practiced it. "Hey." He held out his hand, and Ron shook it enthusiastically.
"It's going to be weird having two Potter twins around when it was always just Felix," Ron said, with a grin that took any sting out of the words. Harry thought it was pretty weird himself. "What was it like living with Muggles?"
Harry started talking about films and telephones again, but it seemed that Ron was really interested in rubber ducks for some reason. "Dad's mental about them," he confessed, when Harry asked why. "About all kinds of Muggle things, really. He thinks they're used in some kind of religious ritual?"
"Um, no," Harry said, wondering whether he wanted to meet Ron's dad or not. "They're just little toys that kids can play with in the bath."
"Wow! Weird."
"What's weird, Ronnikins—"
"Is the fact that you haven't yet devoured half the food on that table in the corner."
"Geroff," Ron mumbled, turning bright red.
Harry looked warily at the two older boys who had popped up behind Ron and Felix. They looked probably thirteen, had lots of freckles and almost demented grins, and they were obviously twins, to the point that it made it a lot more obvious how much Harry and Felix didn't look like each other.
Harry wondered if he would like them or not. They sounded like bullies, and he was pretty determined not to like anyone who sounded that way.
"Hi, I'm Gred and this is Forge!" said the twin on the left.
"No, I'm Forge," said the twin on the right. "He's George. Tragic, isn't it, when someone forgets their name?"
"Tragic, Gred," said the twin on the left tragically.
Harry smiled, a little bewildered. Felix seemed to notice. Harry had seen that his brother was pretty good about things like that.
"Their names are Fred and George, although even their mum has trouble telling which is which," Felix said, rolling his eyes. "Come on, Harry, let's have some cake." He started dragging Harry in the direction of the table that held a huge chocolate cake that never seemed to run out no matter how many pieces were cut.
Behind Harry, something that sounded like a firework went off. He leaped into the air and turned, one hand poised to hurl magic—he could feel it sparking at his fingertips—before he remembered, and dropped it and fumbled for his wand. He kept forgetting that he had to channel it through the wand or it wouldn't do what he wanted.
The Weasley twins were looking at him sheepishly. They had purple dust on their faces, and so did a circle of younger children around them, but at least they weren't laughing like hell at Harry's reaction.
"Sorry to startle you, mate," said possibly-Fred, his eyes trained on Harry. "Don't like loud noises, huh?"
Harry gritted his teeth and said nothing. The twins were both watching him now, and their eyes were sharper than Harry liked to see. Sure, maybe they weren't laughing now, but what if they decided to do it later? Especially since he thought he remembered Felix talking about them now. They were the ones who liked pranks and spent a lot of time with James and Sirius.
Bloody great.
"Don't like them much," Harry said, when he realized the silence had gone on too long and even Ron was watching him curiously. "My cousin used to yell day and night about wanting more food and presents and anything else that caught his fancy."
"Cousin?"
"Muggle cousin, he was a little spoiled," Harry said quickly. The last thing he needed was for them to get curious about the Dursleys.
"Well, we'll be a bit quieter—"
"Even though we might die an early death if we are—"
"Sacrifice for the cause!" both twins chorused at once. "We must all sacrifice for the cause!"
Harry choked on some laughter despite himself. It sounded like exactly something Dumbledore, or maybe the Weasley parents, would say.
"Very funny," Felix said, rolling his eyes, and led Harry towards the table to get some cake again. Harry went with his brother, ignoring the way that Fred and George were watching his back, or it felt like they were.
He'd have to get used to people staring at him like that. If nothing else, once it came out that he couldn't use a wand the right way and people's pets didn't react well to him either, then he'd get the pity and the stares and the whispering.
Still better than the kind of worship and death threats Felix gets, Harry told himself sternly, and accepted a piece of cake from Felix with a smile that got easier every time.
"Can I sit down, Potter?"
Harry raised his head sharply. He'd retreated into the library after another hour of endless partying, and he had assumed that someone would come and get him if they really needed to "present" him to the partygoers-slash-potential audience for something. But this sounded like another kid.
Yes, it was a tall, pale, lanky boy, who still looked about Harry's age, with dark hair and grey eyes that bulged a little. He was wearing plain black robes a little like Harry's. And he was watching him with a calm, blank expression on his face.
"Sure," Harry said, with a shrug, and went back to reading about the history of the war with Voldemort. Despite the fact that he would have to have remedial lessons with so many different kinds of magic, Lily and James had said this was the most important thing for him to know.
The boy sat down on the other small chair in this alcove of books, and took a book out of his robe pocket. Harry didn't say anything, but it made him frown a little into his own book's pages. He'd assumed the boy wanted to read something from the Potter library. Why would he need to sit with Harry to read something he'd brought with him?
Well. It was probably none of his business. Harry flipped a page and continued reading about the Black family and how many members of it had devoted themselves to Voldemort. Maybe there was a reason that Sirius was so loud and a prankster, after all. Harry had a hard time imagining Death Eaters being fond of pranks.
"You didn't ask my name."
Harry blinked and glanced over from the history book. They'd read in silence for at least thirty minutes, and he'd assumed it would go on like that until he either had to leave or the boy did. Instead, the stranger was now leaning forwards over the top of his book—
Which he was holding very carefully so that Harry couldn't see the title. Huh. Interesting.
"I assumed you would have told me if you wanted me to know it," Harry replied.
The boy stared at him a little harder. "You don't know who I am?"
"I've been back in the magical world for just over a week, after never knowing magic existed for ten years before that," Harry snapped. "Sorry, no, I don't know who you are."
He winced a second later. He probably shouldn't have said that. This could be a kid from a family Lily and James liked and wanted him to impress, or someone they didn't like, like Malfoy, but needed him to get along with.
However, he got a narrow smile instead of an angry reaction. The boy held out his hand. "Theodore Nott."
Harry recognized the name "Nott" from the list of suspected Death Eaters in one of the history books Lily and James had assigned him. He knew his smile was strained as he shook Nott's hand, but he assumed Nott would know the reasons for the strain and not mind them. Or he wouldn't have come back here to start a conversation with Harry, would he?
Nott leaned back in his chair with raised eyebrows, as though evaluating Harry's reaction. His sleeve slid down from his left arm, though, and caught Harry's attention more. There was a large, ugly mark on Nott's arm, a black-and-purple bruise.
Shaped like a hand.
Harry snapped his gaze back to Nott's face at once. He obviously knew what Harry had seen. He'd gone still, eyes fixed on Harry as if deciding whether he needed to hurt him.
"Your father?" Harry asked quietly. Normally, he wouldn't have. He certainly hadn't said anything to the other Muggle kids at primary school that he'd sometimes seen bruises on. Mostly because they wouldn't talk to him because of Dudley. But Nott had come back here and started this weird interaction. Harry somehow felt like he could say it.
Nott drew himself up. "No."
"Fine," Harry said, stung, and turned back to his book. That's what you get for reaching out, he told himself.
"I meant," Nott said, his voice still sharp but not sounding as though he was about to get up and storm out of the library, "that I was removed from my father's care last year and put in the custody of a couple named Figg."
Harry blinked, recognizing the name from the woman who had taken care of him when the Dursleys went somewhere. But that didn't seem like the most important thing to ask about right now. "Why? They did that?"
"They did that." Nott nodded sharply, looking at Harry all the while with eyes that somehow made Harry feel more watched than he ever had. "And they believed—my mother died, and they thought my father had murdered her and I was next." Nott's face grew sharper and sharper, as if a light Harry couldn't see was casting shadows over it. "It didn't matter how much I said that wasn't true. The Wizengamot and bloody Dumbledore ruled that I had to go to someone else's care, and it was Harris and Vanessa Figg." Nott's eyes glittered, his lips sliding back from his teeth in a way that reminded Harry of Ripper, Aunt Marge's dog.
"What do they think of you?"
"They think I'm a Death Eater's kid, and they're going to get it out of me any way they can," Nott said simply.
Harry flinched. The words came roaring back to him. Work the freakishness out of you.
"You know what I mean," Nott said, leaning forwards. "I saw you jump when the Weasley twins set off that firework and I knew."
Oh, great. Harry stared back at him, hands clenched around the sides of his book. "Go ahead and tell people," he said. "It'll humiliate me, but I'm already going to be humiliated. And it'll probably make things worse for you, because my parents and Dumbledore will be upset."
Nott's eyes widened for a second. Then he gave a soft, dark laugh.
"You're more interesting than I thought," he said, giving Harry some semblance of a smile. "Look for me on the train." And he stood up, slid his book back into his robe pocket—Harry wondered now if it was something he didn't want his guardians to catch him reading—and walked away.
Harry stared after him, shaking his head a little. Emotions dashed back and forth inside his head like waves. He felt sorry for Nott, and wanted to help him, and thought trying to help him would be useless because Dumbledore had put Nott with those people, and wanted to know more about the Figgs, and thought he should tell someone anyway because Dumbledore and his parents might be horrified that the Figgs were actually abusing Nott…
And then he thought about the way that his wand wasn't working for him and how Felix's snowy owl, Hedwig, tried to attack him every time he got close and how secret he needed to keep his Parseltongue and his abuse, and anger replaced the other emotions.
I have enough to worry about, just fighting for myself and trying to make sure the Potters keep liking me, Harry thought. And looking for Nott on the train? Is he mad? He's probably going to end up in Slytherin, and being friends with a Slytherin when I have to be a Gryffindor would be mental.
Harry turned back to his book.