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Chapter Sixteen—What To Be Called

"Harry, if you will reserve a moment to speak with me?"

Those words had been echoing in Harry's mind all day, since Belisarius had asked him after breakfast. Now Belisarius was standing and holding the door to his private study open. Harry hadn't been in there yet, only glimpsed the room from the open door. Even Theo had said he was rarely invited in.

Harry stepped inside with his magic humming around him and his attention focused on the water inside Belisarius's body. He would freeze it if he had to.

Belisarius was picking up a goblet of something dark and foamy from a magnificent cherry wood desk. He froze as if Harry had already used the water the moment his eyes settled on Harry. Then he sighed. "I am sorry. I should have remembered the life you have had up until this point, and warned you that what I wanted to talk to you about is nothing negative."

Harry didn't answer, but watched him.

"Please sit down." Belisarius motioned to a chair covered in yellow cloth in front of the desk, but seemed to realize Harry wasn't going to sit until he did so himself, and finally settled into a chair opposite Harry's that looked almost like a golden throne.

It surprised Harry that Belisarius wouldn't sit behind the desk, but it also made him feel less like he'd stepped into a professor's office at Hogwarts. He walked in and sat in the chair, and shook his head a little when Belisarius started to lift a hand to call a house-elf. He wouldn't be able to eat or drink anything.

Belisarius studied him in utter silence, except for his own breathing and the sound of his swallowing when he lifted his mug to his lips. Harry reached out with his elemental senses and found that he could feel the liquid in the mug, too. It wasn't pure water, but close enough that he could freeze it in Belisarius's throat and choke him if he had to.

So far, his sense of water was by far the best. He could influence the fire in his bedroom hearth, too, but his senses of air and earth weren't delicate enough to affect the air in someone's lungs or shift the minerals in their body. Harry was determined they would become so, and he worked on that kind of meditation when he was lying in his bed at night.

"How much do you know about Lords in the magical world?" Belisarius asked when he seemed to have finished studying Harry and was leaning back in his chair.

"I know you have one." Harry didn't bother to hide the way he looked at Belisarius's left arm.

Belisarius chuckled. "And no one has heard from him for eleven years."

Harry stared at him and said nothing. He knew Theo had told his father about the confrontation with Quirrell. Harry had only asked Theo to keep quiet about the exact way Harry had killed Quirrell, not that Voldemort had been there.

"Almost no one," Belisarius corrected softly. He leaned forwards. "What have your parents told you about the political structure of our world?"

"That they hoped Felix would be the kind of Lord that ends Lords," Harry said. He no longer had enough loyalty to the Potters to keep their secrets. But then, he thought their enemies probably knew at least the outline of their political goals, anyway. "And they hoped I would tell everyone about the goodness of the Muggle world and bring magical and Muggle people closer together."

"Ahhh." Belisarius leaned back in his chair. "And you have no interest in doing that."

"No."

"Because you were in danger at your Muggle home."

"Yes."

Belisarius smiled. "And is your brother a Lord?"

Harry hesitated. He wanted to say yes; he wanted to say no. He hadn't paid enough attention to Felix to notice his magic influencing anyone the way the magic of Lords was said to do, but then, maybe it had been and Harry just hadn't felt it because he was Felix's twin brother or because he was an elemental wizard.

On the other hand, there were some people following him around, right? Dean Thomas and Ron Weasley. Maybe Hermione, although Harry didn't know if a Lord's follower was supposed to yell at him until he studied. (Felix telling Hermione that he could remember everything he read had just made her snort and ask why his performance in Potions wasn't better).

"I'm not sure," Harry settled for saying. "He's powerful. He never had an outburst of accidental magic. He's been able to use the Potters' wands since he was a kid. And there are some people who really look up to him, but I don't know if that's his power or because of the Boy-Who-Lived thing."

"Ah," Belisarius murmured. "That is an interesting thing, is it not? Your brother's magic has never been wandless. Yours has never needed a wand."

Harry tensed, but Belisarius just nodded at him. "Theo has been loyal to you, and hasn't told me all your secrets, as you must have noticed. But I know what I can feel, Harry, and I have noticed the way that you call things to you without using a wand, and how often you leave your wand in your bedroom."

Harry relaxed a little. At least Belisarius didn't seem to realize that the winds were floating objects to Harry, not that Harry was using a wandless Summoning Charm. And then his mind caught up with what else Belisarius had said, and he blinked.

"Yes," Belisarius said. He was good at reading expressions, which Harry resolved to remember. "Your brother's magic complements yours, in a way. Split perfectly in half. At least, when it comes to wanded magic. I do not know how his perfect memory for what he reads would complement the curse that makes animals react badly to you."

Maybe it doesn't, Harry thought. Maybe his perfect memory for looking back complements my sight that looks forwards to things that have yet to happen…

But he chased the thought off. He didn't know for sure if that was the case, and he hadn't had a vision in months, so he didn't know why they happened or what triggered them. He should have had one of Voldemort threatening Theo if he'd had one of the troll doing that, but nothing.

And as neat as Belisarius's theory was in some ways, it didn't say anything about what Felix might have instead of Parseltongue.

Then again, since Harry never intended to tell anyone about his Parseltongue, it didn't matter much.

"Where are you going with this?" he asked, and met Belisarius's eyes.

Belisarius sipped from his mug again. "Just this, Harry. If your twin is a Lord or supposedly destined to be one, so are you. Your magic is more than powerful enough for it."

Harry wrinkled his nose. "Maybe so, but I don't want to be a leader. Theo's talked to me a little about followers, and I don't—want that. I want to protect my friends. I don't want them to serve me. And I don't want to combat Death Eaters or make speeches or whatever else the Potters were envisioning for me."

"If people wanted to serve you?"

"I'd refuse."

Belisarius regarded him for a long moment over the rim of his mug. "You are an unusual child."

"I think my childhood ended before I went to Hogwarts."

Harry had said it partially to test the man, to see if he would laugh or tell Harry he was being melodramatic. But instead, although Belisarius's eyes widened a little, he just nodded. "I think you are right."

Harry relaxed, and the rest of the conversation was less loaded, with Belisarius asking Harry how he was liking the house, how he found the Nott house-elves (Harry didn't think he needed to tell Belisarius about the conversations he had with them), how much time he'd spent on his summer homework, and other ordinary subjects. Harry looked up in surprise when someone knocked on the study door.

Someone, he mocked himself a minute later. There was only Theo in the house other than them and the elves, and the elves would simply pop up when Belisarius summoned them, rather than bothering them with knocking.

"I'd like to borrow Harry for a moment, Father, if you're done with him," Theo said.

His eyes were clear and his face open in a way that Harry had never seen when they were at Hogwarts. He seemed to stand taller, too. Harry was glad that he had apparently made the right choice about bringing Theo back to his father, that Belisarius really wasn't abusive.

"Yes, of course. We've had an interesting talk. Perhaps we'll speak again before you go back to the Potters', Harry."

"Yes, sir."

"Belisarius."

Harry nodded to him, although it was still beyond strange to call an adult by their first name without at least an "Uncle" or an "Aunt" in front of it, and escaped. Theo grinned at him. "What did he want to talk to you about?"

"Lords. Politics. That kind of thing."

"What did you say?"

"That I have no interest in being a lord."

"Hmm." Theo stared at him for a second, maybe because he would have been a Lord if he could have. Harry looked calmly back at him. It would be different, for Theo, who had grown up with at least one adult who loved him. For that matter, Harry wasn't sure when exactly Theo's mother had died. Theo probably thought being a Lord was exciting.

Harry thought it sounded like a lot of work he had no desire to do, and letting people you didn't really trust but who just wanted to follow someone into your secrets. He would never be able to afford that, not with the amount he was carrying.

"Well, come on, let's go play Quidditch," Theo said at last, and dashed outside towards the pitch. Harry followed willingly. The Nott family's brooms were older than the Potters', but still pretty fantastic.

Belisarius stood by the window that overlooked the pitch, hands behind his back, watching his son and Harry Potter circle around each other on Nimbus 1900's. Theo's laughter was audible even from here. And Harry was a talented flyer, twisting his body to the side and diving after the practice Snitch in a way which made Belisarius regret, a little, that he would probably never play Quidditch at Hogwarts.

If there was a need for a Seeker on the Gryffindor team, the spot would almost certainly go to his twin. And although Belisarius would have known without Theo telling him that Harry had forced the Sorting Hat to do his will, there looked to be no chance that Harry would ever play for the Slytherin team, either.

Powerful. Uncommonly powerful.

Also one with an unstable political position, given his twin brother's fame, the apparently destroyed plans that the Potters and Dumbledore had had for him, and his confrontation with Belisarius's own Lord at the end of the school year.

Belisarius's hand drifted to the Mark on his left arm. It was quiescent, which was not a comfort. If the Dark Lord had returned, Belisarius should have known.

He had been loyal. He had lied and said he had been under the Imperius because he had thought retaining his freedom and political position would help his Lord more than going to Azkaban, as the Lestranges had. But it seemed that his Lord would have killed Theo for a mere whim. It wasn't even about Theo obstructing a plan of his. It had been solely to teach Harry Potter a lesson, or something of the sort.

If people wanted to serve you?

I'd refuse.

Belisarius sighed to himself. Yes, it was easy to say that when so far there had been only a few confrontations where Harry had been able to make the choice to save or spare Theo, and it had meant showing his power to a few people or not at all.

But if becoming a Lord meant sparing the friends he wanted so much to protect from more trouble?

Belisarius wondered how long Harry's resolve would last.

And what his own resolve would be, if his Lord returned and again proposed to sacrifice his son.

Felix glanced over his shoulder and then took a long breath. Mum and Dad were both at an urgent political meeting with Dumbledore, discussing how to block a law that would deprive werewolves of the last vestiges of their rights. No one else was in the house, and this was probably as good a chance as he was going to get.

Felix turned and aimed his wand at the locked drawer in front of him. "Alohomora."

For a minute, he thought the spell wouldn't work, but then the drawer trembled as he pushed more power into the spell, and the Locking Charm broke. Felix smiled in triumph and yanked the drawer open.

He had known vaguely that there were locked drawers in his parents' bedroom, but he hadn't known what was kept there. Legal documents, he'd thought he'd heard Dad say once. And important mementoes of the war or something like that. But this morning he'd got up early and was on his way to the kitchen when he heard Mum say that it was things related to that night.

They'd shut up the instant they saw him, and then started trying to distract him with sausages. But all the time, Felix had been thinking about what they'd said. That night always referred to the night Voldemort had come to kill him and Harry.

He had no idea what was in that drawer, but he wanted to see it. Wanted to see what was so important that Harry had to spend a week with terrible Muggles and they had to keep the drawer locked at all times.

His first glimpse into it was disappointing. There was a little leather folder of the kind that Dad kept some of his legal documents in, right enough, and a book shoved further back that might be a ledger, given that it was also bound in leather and didn't seem to have an author or title on the spine. Maybe he'd been wrong about which drawer it was.

He flipped open the folder in any case, just to check, and blinked at the sight of the two pieces of parchment in it.

My and Harry's birth certificates?

Felix spread them out and looked at them in mild interest. He'd never seen them before, but he didn't expect them to be some fund of hidden knowledge. They were just records of when he and Harry were born. If they'd got burned up or something, then Mum and Dad would be able to get another copy from the Ministry.

Felix paused as he thought about that.

If that's true, why are they locked up here?

Felix peered at the documents with a new interest. Harry's certificate, the one that had been on top, had his name, the time of his birth—11:49 PM, July 31st, 1980—their parents' names, Sirius recorded as his godfather, a blank where the name of the attending midwife should have been, and Madam Pomfrey's name. That was right, as far as Felix knew. Mum and Dad hadn't been able to trust that a midwife wouldn't be a spy for Voldemort. They'd trusted Madam Pomfrey, and everything had gone all right.

Felix glanced at his own certificate. Felix Chance Potter (the middle name his father's idea of a joke), 11:59 PM, July 31st, 1980. Parents James Fleamont Potter, Lily Marie Evans Potter. Godfather—

Felix's thoughts scrambled to a halt. In the space where Sirius's name should have been written was another one.

Who the hell is Remus Lupin?

Felix stared blankly, even though just a glimpse of the paper would have been enough for his memory to grab hold of it. He could have copied it down perfectly later, even the fanciest strokes of the calligraphy. But he had no idea who Remus Lupin was, or why the man would have been listed as his godfather. The rest of the information, except for his name and the time of his birth, was the same as on Harry's.

What the hell?

Shakily, Felix scanned the rest of the parchment and even flipped it over. Wait. There was one more thing that separated his birth certificate from Harry's. In the lower left-hand corner on the back of Felix's parchment was stamped a small shape, a solid circle surrounded by a circle of broken, dashed lines. Felix had no idea what it was.

It was on Harry's, too, but in the lower right-hand corner on the back instead. Felix held the parchment up to the light, but couldn't make out any more about the symbol than he'd already seen.

What is going on?

At least Felix thought he might know now why Mum and Dad kept their birth certificates locked up. They were important documents, sure, but he and Harry also weren't meant to find them and see them. Or Felix, at least, would have had questions about who Remus Lupin was and what this symbol was.

He shoved the certificates back into the leather folder they'd been in with a shaking hand and dropped the folder back into what its approximate place had been. Then he looked at the book, shoved back in the drawer, and pulled it out. He no longer thought it was a ledger.

It still didn't have an author or title, though, even when he turned it over so he could see the cover. What the cover did have was an embossed form of the symbol that had been on the back of their birth certificates. Seeing it bigger, and done in gold the way it was, Felix thought it might be a symbol of the sun.

Shakily, he flipped open the book, and discovered that it was handwritten, in a neat script that wasn't either of his parents'. Felix squinted at it, and then scowled. It appeared to be in Latin, which he knew a little of, but not a lot. The only word he could make out for sure was sol, sun, and that didn't tell him any more than the cover had.

He flipped quickly through the pages, letting his eyes skim lightly over each one. The book didn't look thick, and he would be able to copy it out later and look up the words. It would take a long time and be tedious, but it would work.

When he'd finished scanning the eighty pages of the book, he sighed and slid it back into the drawer, then shoved the drawer shut again. His head felt oddly full and stuffed with cotton, the way it often did when he'd read something without comprehension, just to regurgitate it later when he needed it.

He locked the drawer again as best he could, and then eyed the long, flat drawer beneath it. That one was locked too, wasn't it? He reached out and jiggled the slender silver handle. Yeah, locked.

And then Felix froze. Because unlike when he'd unlocked the first drawer, this time, he felt as if something huge had opened one eye and turned its head to look at him.

Something that had been asleep until this point.

Something that was now staring at him.

"Felix? What are you doing in here?"

Felix jumped and yelped, then winced as his voice cracked. It had been doing that, lately. It wasn't fair that Harry, who after all was a whole ten minutes older, didn't sound like that yet. "Sirius! You surprised me."

"Yeah, well, you surprised me by being in here, kiddo." Sirius was giving him a strained smile. "Come on, let's have some butterbeer." And he turned and left the room without giving Felix a chance to respond.

Felix rubbed his shoulder, which he'd wrenched a little when he jumped, and wondered if the sensation of something watching him had just come from Sirius standing behind him in the doorway and his not noticing. But then he glanced back at the lower drawer, and flinched. No, the sensation of something watching was still there.

Something that wanted to eat him.

Felix left the room, just managing not to run.

"So who's Remus Lupin?"

Felix, of course, just had to ask that question when Sirius had a mouth full of butterbeer.

Sirius choked and coughed and grabbed his throat and mimed dying. Felix smiled at him, but there was a hard darkness in his eyes that didn't look as if it was going away. He kept drinking his own butterbeer and eating the chocolate biscuits Sirius had got out for them, but he also kept watching Sirius, and there wasn't a whole lot of patience in his eyes.

Felix had come home from school harder, Sirius had to admit. He wasn't sure if that was because Felix had had to cope with a whole bunch of kids staring adoringly at the Boy-Who-Lived, or if he was upset because he'd failed to protect the Stone, or if it was because…

Of his brother.

"Who is he?" Felix repeated. "I saw his name listed as my godfather on my birth certificate. That was kind of a shock, given that I've always thought you were my godfather."

Sirius sighed. He'd told James and Lily that never telling Felix about Remus was going to backfire. He would find out someday from a stray reference, or, yeah, the bloody birth certificate (which was also not a good idea, but had anyone ever listened to Sirius? Of course not), or because Remus might come back, unlikely as that was when he'd washed his hands of the lot of them. But now he was the one who had to deal with it.

The world was highly unfair to people named Sirius Black.

"He was a friend of ours in school," Sirius said quietly. "The fourth Marauder, with me and your dad and Pettigrew."

Felix blinked, hard. Then he said, "You left him out of all the stories you told me about Hogwarts."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Sirius looked at Felix and wondered what the kiddo would say if Sirius told him the truth. That Remus had reacted with utter violence when he'd found out what Lily and James and Sirius and Albus had done to prepare for that night. That he'd screamed at Lily and James for essentially giving up on Harry the moment they heard the prophecy.

"You don't just decide that your kid is going to die! You don't decide that!"

They were probably all lucky that Remus had left instead of going to the press.

Sirius took a deep breath, and chose the lesser truth.

"Because we all thought he was a spy," Sirius said softly. "He was acting cagey and not attending a lot of Order meetings, and after you and your parents went under Fidelius…he started acting weirder than ever. Saying that he didn't think the Fidelius was safe. I thought he was trying to hint that he wanted me to change the Secret-Keeper over to him. It was one of the reasons we picked Peter."

Sirius closed his eyes. Of course, it was beyond obvious now that Peter was the one acting suspicious, including whispering rumors about Remus when Remus wasn't around to hear, but they'd all been out of their minds with fear at the time.

And hatred of Voldemort. And thinking they knew better.

We didn't know shit, Sirius thought, heartsick, heartsore, heart-weary.

"And then—then everything happened, and I tried to apologize to Remus, but I did it in a terrible way. I kept telling him that it was understandable we thought he was the spy, with the way he'd been acting. And he got upset and stormed off. James and Lily tried to reason with him, but they didn't do it any better than I did."

"And that was it? He just left your friendship like that? You just let him go?"

"There was also, um. You know that you were sick a lot the first year after that night?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Lily and James were frantic not to expose you to certain kinds of—Dark magic. And we didn't know if Remus might influence you the wrong way." Felix's eyes were narrowed, suspicious. Sirius added reluctantly, "Remus was a werewolf."

Felix stared at him. Then he leaned back in his chair and stared down at his butterbeer. "And what did he think about Harry? I was going to say—I was going to ask why he couldn't take care of Harry, but if he was a werewolf…"

"Legally, he wouldn't have been allowed. Yeah." Sirius cleared his throat. "And he was upset about what your mum and dad planned to do with Harry."

"So am I."

Sirius stared at the floor for a second. He wondered what Felix would say if he knew all about what they had planned for that night, the kinds of decisions they'd had to make, the shock when they'd returned to the house after Voldemort's defeat…

He took a deep breath. He might have tried to explain it to Felix when he was younger, but that wasn't his decision. It was James and Lily's. And at least he had got Felix out of the room before he tried his unlocking spells on the bottom drawer.

"I know," Sirius said quietly. "But it's still the best decision that they could have made."

"Best! How is it the best, when he gets abused there?"

Sirius tensed, but his butterbeer bottle didn't explode or anything like that. It might have, if this was Harry who was so angry. But Felix had never had an outburst of accidental magic. It was one thing that had made Albus absolutely sure that he was capable of defeating Voldemort. His magic was perfectly contained and controlled, even as a baby. Someone so much the opposite of Voldemort, someone who would never collapse into the chaotic madness that haunted a Dark Lord, was the savior they needed.

"I know," Sirius said quickly. "I didn't really mean—I didn't mean best as in, it's a good thing. Just that…listen, we came home that night and there was all this Dark magic around you. And you were having a seizure. Lily and James had to separate the two of you. Harry was making you sicker."

"And they couldn't give him to you? They had to give him to the Dursleys?"

Sirius sighed. "I spent so much time around you that they were afraid I would come back carrying a taint of Dark magic from Harry and infect you again. The Dursleys were also your mum's relatives, and with the Potters unexpectedly prominent all of a sudden because they were the Boy-Who-Lived's family, they were afraid that Petunia and her husband and kid would get attacked. So they thought they would kill two Snidgets with one stone and establish magical protections around her house by anchoring them in Harry."

And if he'd died…

Sirius didn't agree with it, but he knew the end of that argument. It would have been less of a loss than if Felix had.

"We've been back together most of a year," Felix said mulishly, picking at the biscuit in front of him. "Living in the same dormitory. And he hasn't got me sick, or anything."

"It's possible that he can control it better now that he's older," Sirius said carefully. "Or that the time you spent apart meant you had the chance to heal and become stronger. But you can't blame your parents for wanting you apart at least part of the summer, to make sure."

"Bollocks," Felix said, which made Sirius blink, because he couldn't remember hearing Felix swear before. Well, at least not when he wasn't being punished for something. "They could have put him somewhere else if that was the case. With you, like I said. If it was only for a week during the summer and no more."

Sirius sighed and sat back. He thought again of what was in that locked drawer Felix hadn't managed to open, and what Felix would say if he saw it, and what James and Lily would say if they knew how much he'd already told Felix.

Sirius didn't like a lot of the decisions he'd made, the things he'd done. He wasn't proud of them. And he liked even less some of the things that James and Lily and Albus had sworn him to secrecy on.

But what was done was done. Revealing everything now, when it would only make Felix hate them and turn against them, wasn't an option. And Sirius did agree that Harry couldn't be allowed to just run off and do whatever he wanted with his wild magic. They might have lost the chance to be good parents and a good godfather to him forever.

But they could still prevent him from joining with Voldemort.

"Are you going to answer?"

"I love you, kiddo," Sirius said, and leaned across the table to hug him. Felix was stiff and unresponsive in his arms. "And I don't always agree with your parents. But they have the right to make decisions for you and your brother."

"I don't think they'll have the right to do it for Harry for much longer."

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked sharply, pulling back. If Felix thought Harry was going to run off to Voldemort or with one of the Death Eaters' families—

"I mean that Harry is going to get fed up with their nonsense and leave."

"Felix, he's eleven. Where would he go? What kinds of political connections do you think he could forge, especially with—the way he is?" Unpopular in Gryffindor House, was what Sirius was thinking. With magic that came so slowly to him that he still had to struggle to use his wand. Suffering because of those horrid Muggles.

Sirius was sorry for what had happened to Harry, but he also knew that that very damage would make it harder for Harry to forge strong connections with his peers or become a political pawn. Just because Sirius might worry, irrationally, about Harry being caught up in Death Eater antics didn't make him think Death Eaters would try to use an unstable kid with erratic magic. He'd be too dangerous to them.

"I mean that he'll stay at Hogwarts for all the holidays and stay somewhere else for the summers. And what will Mum and Dad do then?"

"They might cut him off if he's too erratic," Sirius said quietly. "If he's too dangerous. What source of money would Harry use to buy his books and his robes and so on if the Potter money was gone?"

Felix paused, and then looked abruptly sick. "They couldn't do that—"

"They were willing to abandon him for ten years with abusive Muggles without checking up on him." Sirius shoved his chair back from the table, forcing himself not to care about the harsh noise or the way that Felix's begging eyes fastened on him. "If you think that they wouldn't cut him off from the vaults, you're wrong."

"Sirius…"

Sirius shook his head and walked towards the Floo. He shouldn't have said as much as he had. He'd made his choices, and those choices were to stand with Lily and James no matter how wrong he thought they were. He couldn't change his mind now and somehow pretend that made everything he'd done in the past better.

He despised himself. And he was stuck. Some errors, there was no mending.

It was the best week of Theo's life.

Part of it was because he was with Father again. He could feel Father's hand on his shoulder or hear his voice whenever he wanted. He could eat meals with him. He could ask him questions and hear the rumbling of Father's voice as he answered. He could refer to a memory they shared and see the quick flare of laughter or sorrow across Father's face.

But the other part of it was Harry.

Harry would race Theo, and laugh when he lost a game of Exploding Snap, and swoop and dive like a busy Seeker. He would perform daring dives on the broom that made Theo lose his breath yelling at him to be careful, you idiot, and made Theo wonder if there wasn't a streak of Gryffindor in his perfectly Slytherin friend after all. He would swim in the pool with Theo, and jump on the beds with him, and watch some of Theo's spells carefully so that he would be able to perfectly mimic the effects with his elemental magic.

But he also spent time studying in the library, and he would smile at Theo when he sat down at the table across from him but still continue reading. Or he would ask questions and then keep pushing for extra answers to what Theo thought were easy questions, easily answered.

One of those was what Theo thought of, afterwards, as the Great Dark Lord Debate.

"Why do people want to follow Dark Lords and Ladies? Aren't they afraid that someday they'll turn on them, too, and they'll become victims of the torture and murder?"

Theo blinked at Harry, surprised that he would ask a question with such a simple answer, but willing to give it to him if it meant that Harry would lose that tight, unhappy expression on his face. "Because they want to see their enemies punished."

"But that doesn't answer my question. Don't they think the Dark Lord could turn on them someday?"

"Not if they're loyal enough." Theo set his Charms textbook aside and focused on Harry. Harry had said he would do his homework when he was with the Potters to give himself something to concentrate on that wasn't hurting them. Right now, he was clutching a history book. "Why? Do you find it so unthinkable to follow someone?"

"Yes."

Theo studied him in silence for a long moment. Harry just stared back, and Theo finally said, "Well, you have power, yourself. You've killed a troll and a man already, and you've discovered a permanent, wandless Imperius. You can keep yourself safe. But other people know they can't, and they have to—"

"Is magical power the only kind of power worth respecting, then? Does everyone think they'd be vulnerable without it? Because I know your father's not as powerful as I am, but I know he would find other ways to defend himself."

Theo hesitated. He and his father had never talked in depth about Father's decision to follow the Dark Lord. Theo only knew that he had made that decision, and probably wouldn't have made a different one.

"He wanted to see his enemies punished," Theo said. "And I know that you've heard the theories about some people finding a Lord's or Lady's magic so compelling that they have to do what they're told."

Harry blinked at him. "Oh," he said. "So the Imperius defense wasn't a lie?"

Theo hesitated again. But Harry had trusted Theo with secrets of his heart and soul that, even if they weren't as politically damaging, would have hurt Harry if they'd been revealed. "No," Theo said quietly. "It was."

"Oh." Harry thought about it, and shook his head. "Then I still don't understand. How you can care about revenge more than survival…"

Theo felt as though someone had cast a Lumos inside his brain. He gaped at Harry for a moment, who stared at him, and then sat back and shook his head.

That explains so much. He cares so much about survival that he wouldn't risk the Potters finding out about his magic, even if that would mean they wouldn't leave him with the Dursleys anymore. He won't take revenge on the Muggles because someone might find out. And what does he think they would do?

Well, that was obvious when Theo thought about it. Harry thought they would expel him from Hogwarts. Find some way to cut him off from Theo forever. Take his magic away, if they were properly motivated.

Dump him back with the Muggles with his magic bound? Yes, that was probably Harry's worst nightmare.

Theo breathed out slowly. "You know that my father would do almost anything to protect you, right, Harry?" he asked. "He meant what he said about literally being unable to let you go live with the Muggles when you'd saved my life and brought me back to him."

"Almost anything."

"What?"

"If Voldemort came back and made him obey, then he wouldn't be able to do anything. He'd have to hand me over, or kill me, or torture me, or whatever Voldemort would want."

Theo was slowly learning to control his flinches at the Dark Lord's name, although he did wish that Harry would call him by a pseudonym the way most people did. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Okay, look. Can you trust that my father at least wouldn't do that without—without the Dark Lord's telling him to do?"

"But he would if he was told to."

Theo just stared at Harry, at a loss for words. Harry stared back with flat eyes.

"And that's another reason why I don't want to be a Lord," Harry added, when the silence had stretched for a little while. "I never want to tell someone to obey me and watch them have to hurt a family member, or a friend, or someone they care about. Or even just someone their family member cares about."

He twisted a little and jumped out of the high library chair to the floor, a flash of fire searing the air around him for a minute. "Come on. Let's go flying. I have to go back tomorrow."

Theo watched him race out of the library, and got up to follow. But his mind was full of thoughts he hadn't considered before, and he didn't know what to do with them.

He had always assumed he would follow a Lord someday, since he wasn't powerful enough to be a Lord. He had never thought he would have a completely confusing, maybe-Lord for his best friend.

But he didn't want to change Harry, either. Not when Harry had rescued him from the Figgs and saved his life without a second thought and didn't seem to have entertained the idea that his elemental magic gave him something to hold over Theo's head.

I'll follow him. Maybe not the way I thought, but I'll follow him.