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Chapter Twenty—Learning to Act

"That was stupid."

Harry rubbed his eyes and said nothing. He'd spent most of the night drifting in and out of dreams in which he was standing in a dark forest with an orange moon floating above him, while a distant voice called endlessly for his help. A path had stretched in front of him, illuminated by the moonlight, but even in the dream, Harry knew better than to take it.

"Harry, are you listening to me?"

Theo was leaning forwards over their library table. The Privacy Charm was up around them. Harry met his eyes. "Yes."

"It was stupid of you to turn your elemental magic on Snape like that," Theo said flatly, and folded his arms. "You could have kept it secret. You could have done something to him that wouldn't lead so obviously back to you. You could have ignored him and focused on your potion. You know he hates you. This isn't news. Why in the world did you lose control like that?"

"I was tired," Harry said. He mumbled it, and he knew it didn't sound impressive, but it was the truth.

"Tired of what?"

"Tired of him bullying me. Tired of him bullying Neville. He wouldn't ever learn better unless someone showed him better. So I showed him."

Theo stared at Harry without an expression on his face. Then he said, "Harry. Listen to me. I need to know that you're really listening, not just humoring me the way you do sometimes."

Harry sighed and focused all his attention on Theo with an effort. The way that the stupid tiredness kept dragging his eyelids down was—stupid. "All right. I'm listening."

"You can't just lash out that way and do whatever you want," Theo said softly. "I know that you don't want to reveal your elemental magic and your Parseltongue to people, and you don't think you need good marks to be a Dragon-Keeper. But someone could—Harry, someone could decide you were dangerous based on just what you've done even when you're hiding the truth. Look at what happened because you attacked Snape. You have Potions with Dumbledore. You know he's going to pry harder into your secrets, not leave you alone. You did something that felt good in the moment but was counterproductive to the goals that you've told me you have."

Harry stirred restlessly. "I hate it when you make sense," he muttered.

Theo's smile was fleeting. "I think the chance is gone to make the Potters just think of you as a good little boy on par with your brother," he said. "But you could do other things. Make them ignore you. Make them think of you as normal, average, not someone who needs careful watching and handling."

"How do I do that?"

"Concentrate on your marks—"

"Come on, Theo. How is that going to do—"

"I'm not saying that you have to strive to be top of every class," Theo interrupted him. "I know that Transfiguration and Charms are always going to be hard for you because of the way you have to work to imitate the spells. But if you concentrate on your marks, they'll be more willing to overlook you. They'll just think that you're a normal schoolkid, and maybe even that you're shocked at your own behavior and willing to try being quieter and calmer. You can even attribute the shift to being out of Snape's class. You can say that he irritated you so much that you did something you didn't mean to, and now you can do better."

"They'll never look at me as normal. They'll never trust me."

"It's not about making them trust you," Theo said evenly. "It's about making them look elsewhere. Drop their guard, if you want to think of it that way."

Harry hesitated. One reason he hadn't wanted to listen to Theo scold him about the incident with Snape was that he didn't see a way to change it. Yes, it was stupid, but it was done now, and he would always be the one who got stared at and whispered about by the people in his family except for Felix. Why bother regretting it?

"You can see why I want you to do this?"

Harry glanced up sharply. He might be wandering in a daze of his own tiredness, but he still recognized the moment when there was a tone shift in Theo's voice. "Theo? What's wrong?"

"I'm worried about you, you idiot!" Theo's face cracked wide open now, losing the neutral mask, and Harry stared at worry and fear he had never seen before, not even during the summer at the Notts', when Theo had seemed to think he could express things more openly. "Just lashing out in the middle of Potions class—that wasn't subtle, that wasn't well-considered, and now you're going to be under Dumbledore's eye! And I've lost my partner in Potions class, too. All of this is something stupid that you shouldn't have done!"

Harry blinked, then blinked again. He had thought of what he'd done as mainly affecting him and Snape, but it had affected Theo, too, and Harry felt stupid all over again for not seeing that.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Theo paused for a second, then nodded and sat down on the other side of the table again. "Good," he said, without nearly as much heat. "But it's going to take you a while to repair what happened, you know."

"I don't see how I can repair it with Snape."

"Oh, him." Theo made a rude gesture that Harry would have thought he'd die rather than use. Theo grinned when Harry stared at him. "I had some influences in my life apart from Father, you know. Just not many. And I wasn't talking about Snape. I was talking about your parents and Dumbledore."

"And Felix?'

"From what I heard him saying the other day, I think he's fully on your side."

Harry had to smile. Yes, Felix had been telling off Malfoy for saying something about Snape and how he never received respect from students. "Yes, all right."

"There."

Harry started. "What?" As far as he could tell, just agreeing with Theo and smiling ought not to be enough to set him off, but—

"You can smile like that," Theo said, pointing at him. "You should smile like that when you go to Dumbledore for your first lesson. You should think about how people would want to see you. Yes, right now you probably seem wild and dangerous, but you're still twelve years old. Act polite and open and friendly and curious, and you'll have them falling over themselves to assume you're normal."

Harry cocked his head. "Do you think I can act like that?"

Theo started to speak, and then stared at him instead. "Why did that impress you when nothing else I've said in the past did?"

"Because you said act." Harry lowered his voice and leaned forwards over the library table despite the Privacy Charm. He also sent a small current of wind humming around them which should probably keep anyone who might break the Privacy Charm from hearing what they said. "I was thinking that one reason it didn't matter what I did was because I would never convince them otherwise. My parents would always think I was useless and dangerous. Dumbledore would always distrust me. Snape would always hate me. So I might as well do what I wanted."

"Okay," Theo said slowly.

"But if you really think I'm a good enough actor to fool them and at least get them to back off a bit…"

Theo smiled himself now. "Yes, I do think you can do that. Maybe knowing some of the consequences will spur you to be better at it," he added dryly.

Harry nodded. Yes, that was something to consider. "Okay. I'll try."

Theo sighed and reached across the table to grip his hands. "Thank you, Harry. I don't want you kicked out of the school before we even reach the age where I can really see what you become, you know?"

"Well, I couldn't be a Dragon-Keeper until I'm an adult, anyway," Harry muttered, feeling himself flush.

"You know very well I'm not talking about that."

"Just because I'll try to be a better actor and a better friend to you and work on my marks more doesn't mean I'm going to be a Lord or whatever you're talking about," Harry informed him crossly.

Theo smiled, and said nothing.

Felix looked over the letter that he was sending to his parents. He wasn't sure that it expressed everything he wanted to say, but it expressed some things they needed to hear, and that meant he was going to send it.

Mum and Dad,

I can't even call you dear anymore. Why did you think that Harry was at fault for hexing Snape? He's the one you always call Snivellus, Dad! He's the one you told me to beware of when I was first going to start Hogwarts! And now you're taking his side?

Why do you always assume that Harry's at fault and wrong? It's just stupid. Why did you put him back with the Dursleys for a week? Why do you think he needs to be disciplined or whatever by the actual Headmaster?

I don't understand you. But I want to. Write back to me and try to give some coherent excuse, because I don't understand.

Really sincerely yours,
Felix.

Felix nodded and put his quill aside, then picked up the letter and glanced towards Harry. "You need to start towards the Headmaster's office for your lesson soon, don't you?"

"Yes," Harry murmured, and stood up. The lesson had been delayed the week before, Felix knew, something about an emergency at the Ministry that Dumbledore had to attend to. But now that was resolved, and Harry had his first Potions lesson with Dumbledore tonight.

"I need to go to the Owlery. I'll walk part of the way with you."

"That letter to James and Lily you said you were going to write?"

Harry murmured the words as they left through the portrait. Felix sighed, both grateful that Harry was comfortable enough around him not to call their terrible parents Mum and Dad and worried about what would happen if someone overheard.

Their House didn't seem to know what to make of Harry anymore. Some people thought he was a hero for standing up to Snape and an idiot for doing it in the middle of class. Some people thought he was dangerous, but also that it was just accidental magic. People stared at Harry and gossiped about him when they thought he wasn't listening.

As far as Felix could make out, Harry was always listening. He seemed to be able to hear things he shouldn't, often around corners.

"Yeah," Felix said, wrenching his attention back to the present when he realized Harry was staring at him and waiting patiently. "I want them to know that I think their behavior where you and Snape are concerned is a load of bollocks." He savored the last words.

"Don't…Felix, don't make them so upset with that you that…"

Felix stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned to stare directly at Harry. "You think they would hurt me?"

Harry let his gaze dart aside. "I know they're your parents…"

"Not nearly as much as they used to be," Felix said. "But I don't think they would do that. Harry, please look at me."

Harry did. His green eyes were bright and piercing in a way that Felix had never thought of Mum's as. Felix reached out and put his hands on his brother's shoulders, ignoring the way that the letter crinkled a little.

"I don't think they would do that," Felix repeated. "Not because they're good people all of a sudden, but because they don't want to get their hands dirty. They sent you away and never checked up on you instead of abusing you themselves. They locked up our birth certificates like I told you instead of burning them or just not keeping copies in the house. Or telling us about them. They let Dumbledore handle the thing with you and Snape instead of trying to discipline you. They won't hurt me because it would ruin that nice little shield of plausible deniability they have going."

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. He said, "Oh."

"You still sound like you're trying to find a way to blame yourself."

"They were your parents until I came back."

"Right. And that was not your fault. They sent you away to an abusive home and never checked up on you when we were just babies. They made their decisions to be horrible people a long time ago."

Harry blinked and blinked again. Felix hoped he was absorbing the fact that his brother would stand up for him, and it didn't matter what Mum and Dad did or said. They might have wanted to forget that they had two sons, but Felix was never going to forget that he had a brother.

"Okay," Harry finally said. "Thanks."

Felix smiled and walked with him in silence until the point when they had to part ways. Then he waved and continued up to the Owlery alone, smoothing his hand down Hedwig's breast feathers as she swooped to his shoulder.

"Here you go, girl," he said, handing her the letter. "Mum and Dad, all right? And fly fast."

Hedwig clicked her beak at him as if to say that she always did that, and soared out the window. Felix watched her go with both a heavy heart and something like satisfaction burning in him.

They might not answer. In fact, Felix was kind of expecting them not to. But then they would have to live with the consequences of not doing that.

Like Felix thinking they were weak cowards.

One way or another, someday I'm going to find out the truth.

"Harry! Come in, my dear boy!"

Albus watched carefully as Harry Potter stepped into his office. The boy ducked his head and murmured a greeting, or one that would pass for that if you were listening carefully enough. Albus sighed a little as he waved Harry to a chair in front of his desk.

He knew he couldn't expect the boy to behave exactly like Felix, not when he had been raised by Muggles. Blood didn't will out that much. And Harry would feel inferior because of his magic, his difficulties in getting it under control, and the lack of a perfect memory for what he read that Felix had.

But he could be at least open to being corrected.

"Please tell me what difficulties you have with Potions," Albus said, leaning back behind his desk and inviting Harry to look at him with a smile.

The boy raised his head, but only a little, so that he was staring at the top of Albus's desk. "Mostly the teacher up until this point, sir," he mumbled. "The way he attacks and blames Neville and me and Felix was distracting."

Albus blinked. He had, of course, anticipated that Severus would go after both Potters because of his grudge against the boys' father, but Mr. Longbottom was an odd choice for Severus's bile. "Mr. Longbottom?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can you tell me why that is?"

"He made a mistake during our first Potions class last year, and so Snape—"

"Professor Snape, please, Harry."

"—seems to have decided he's stupid, and he calls him an idiot and tells him he's doing things wrong in every class since then."

It didn't escape Albus's notice that Harry hadn't accepted his correction about Severus's title. He concealed a sigh. If anything, he would have expected an overly meek and submissive child from Lily's description of the Dursleys, but instead, he had this wild and willful boy.

His personality reflecting the orientation of his magic, perhaps.

"You know that Professor Snape needs to keep an eye on the cauldrons of the entire class, Harry? And that he might get upset when one student persists in making mistakes."

"But he makes it worse by yelling at Neville, sir. And he never tells him how to avoid mistakes. He just waits until Neville makes them and then yells at him."

"Well, it seems as if you don't like bullies, Harry."

"I don't, sir."

"Then I find your behavior towards Professor Snape all the more interesting, but also confusing," Albus said, as gently as he could. "One could argue that you bullied him by hurting him the way you did."

Harry twitched. He said nothing. Albus waited, and then added, in a coaxing tone, "Please give an answer to that, Harry. I would like to know what you think of that."

I think that you don't give a shit about Neville.

Of course, there was no way that Harry could say that aloud. But Theo had given him the idea that he could say it in his head, and make sure that his behavior showed him thinking something different.

He felt free in a way he never had when he'd thought he might as well do exactly as he wanted because no one would believe him anyway.

Harry nodded and said, "Yes, sir, when I think about it, I could see how some people would think that. I won't do it again."

No. He probably wouldn't do that because he never expected to run across Severus Snape in classes again. And outside of them, if Snape hurt someone or antagonized Harry, then he would do something subtler and something that wouldn't get him in trouble.

"Good." Dumbledore smiled, or so Harry thought he did from the way he was keeping his head bowed, and leaned back behind his desk, clapping his hands. Harry started as the desk shuddered and began to spin, another top unfolding from beneath the one that had a fluffy cloth on top of it. "Let us begin with a simple potion, then. In fact, the one you were brewing the day you attacked Professor Snape. Please read the instructions and tell me what you should do first, Harry."

Harry glanced down at the instructions and read them over carefully. He hadn't actually studied them in that last disastrous Potions lesson because Theo had been the one directing him to do things like cut up the slugs. He nodded when he had reached the end and went back to the top. "It says that you have to fill the cauldron with water, Professor."

"Excellent, Harry! Please do so."

Harry picked up the cauldron that had appeared on the new desktop and glanced around. "Is there a way to fill it with water here, sir?"

"Oh, I'm sure you can do that, can't you, Harry?"

"No, sir," Harry said slowly. "We haven't learned conjuring water in Charms yet."

There was a bit of silence, while Dumbledore stared at him intently and Harry kept his head down and his eyes on the desk and the cauldron. The cauldron appeared to be made of iron, he thought. He should get better at identifying metals if he was going to be using earth magic.

"Of course," Dumbledore said finally. "My mistake. Here." He tapped his wand on the rim of the cauldron and conjured water easily, without speaking a word. Harry watched it fill the cauldron and thought about what Dumbledore's face would look like if Harry froze it, not only without a word but without a wand.

But Theo's advice about acting was still useful. If Harry thought about how he could do it and how Dumbledore might react, it was a lot easier to keep a bland look on his face, nod, and go back to the instructions to read about chopping slugs.

The boy produced a Hair-Coloring Potion that was several shades off the proper blue. Too-thick slices with the slugs, Albus thought, judging with an expert eye. He waited until the potion was steaming in the cauldron to ask, "Do you think that's perfect, Harry?"

Harry glanced back and forth between the notations at the end of the recipe and the cauldron several times. "No, sir," he said eventually. "The recipe says it should be sky-blue, and the potion is—darker blue than that."

"So uncertain, my boy?"

"Well, I do have to wear glasses, sir. I thought that maybe the potion was really more off the color than that and I just wasn't seeing it right."

Albus huffed in amusement. The boy was calmer than he'd suspected, and also more capable of cleverness. Albus wondered if that was influence from Miss Granger of Gryffindor. She had spent some time tutoring Harry, from what Albus knew.

"Yes, it is several shades off. Can you tell me what the reason is?"

"Sorry, sir, no."

"Without even looking at the recipe?"

Harry shook his head. "Sorry, sir, no. I don't know what factors influence the color of the potion."

Albus frowned. "But surely you remember reading about this in your book? Or in the lecture that Professor Snape undoubtedly gave?"

"We didn't have an assigned book reading or a lecture before we brewed this potion, sir." Harry held himself utterly still on the other side of the cauldron, and didn't fidget or adjust his robes. It worried Albus a little. He wasn't used to children who acted like miniature adults. "I think Snape—"

"Professor Snape, Harry."

"He prefers that we read ahead, but he doesn't tell us to." Harry nodded slowly, as if thinking about his words and finding them good. "And he usually does the lecture the class after that potion."

Albus stared at him. That was—not the way he had thought Severus was teaching. Certainly it had not been the way old Horace taught, when he was in the classroom. He had always assigned reading the week before, given the class a good lecture afterwards, and then had them brew the potion. If they couldn't reasonably do so by the end of the class period, he would place a Stasis Charm on the cauldrons, and the students would spend time in the next week finishing up.

"Why do you think that is, Harry?"

"I think Snape—"

"Harry," Albus said calmly. "Please. No more of your continued disrespect."

Harry watched him with opaque eyes for a moment. Albus waited. Perhaps the outburst he had been anticipating would happen now, as childish as it seemed to him for Harry to stage one over a professor's title. But then again, Harry was a child.

I don't respect him, was what Harry wanted to say.

But he heard Theo's voice murmuring in the back of his head. There's no point in saying that. Either he knows it and doesn't care. He just wants you to say the title anyway. Or he doesn't know it and would be upset if you say it.

Harry didn't want to bow his neck. He wanted to stand up and scream at Dumbledore that Snape was the real bully here, and that it was mad that Dumbledore allowed him to continue teaching, and he didn't even know that Snape didn't lecture—

But while Theo might have approved of Harry saying that, in the same way he might have approved of Harry telling Dumbledore and the Potters about his elemental magic and the Parseltongue, he wouldn't have approved of the screaming. Or the lashing out.

Harry breathed out slowly. What does it matter, in the end? What does it matter next to not giving Dumbledore a reason to suspect you of anything? Right now, he hasn't renewed the monitoring charms, but he might. He hasn't decided that you're a dangerous monster who needs to be kept under tighter restraint, but he might. He already took you out of the classroom. Don't give him a reason to do anything else.

"All right, sir," Harry said finally, and hearing himself say the words settled him. If he could give one person a false title, why not another one? In the depths of his mind, he knew exactly what those titles were worth. "Professor Snape."

Dumbledore beamed at him and nodded encouragingly. Harry wondered idly why everyone, the Potters included, seemed to find that smile so important they would do anything for it. Harry just thought it looked exaggerated.

"Please go on, Harry."

"I think Professor Snape wants us to take initiative to do the reading. And he might believe giving us a lecture is coddling us."

"Ah, yes. I suspect that, as well." Dumbledore gave Harry another smile that Harry knew was meant to encourage confidences and listening. Harry returned it with a bland one of his own. "Do you think that you could do the reading in the future?"

"Is that what you'd like me to do before lessons with you, sir?"

Dumbledore paused for the barest moment. Harry blinked at the cauldron and pretended not to have caught it. He didn't think that he'd said anything particularly important, which made Dumbledore's response…interesting.

"You do not see yourself as returning to Professor Snape's classroom?" Dumbledore asked delicately.

"I thought I wouldn't, sir," Harry said, and blinked a little more. "Professor Snape said that he didn't want me there again, and you said you were taking me on yourself, so…"

"Only until the end of this year," Professor Dumbledore said, and smiled. "Or even this term. I never meant for this to be a permanent arrangement, Harry."

Well. I'll have to work on my temper when it comes to Snape, then. But at least Theo would be glad to have his brewing partner back.

Harry gave a demure little smile. "All right, sir. I suppose it'll depend on Professor Snape, but I'll think about it. Is the reading something you'd like me to do before lessons with you? And would you be giving lectures, too?"

Dumbledore laughed. "Indeed, dear boy. It's been a while since I lectured on Potions, but I dare say I might be able to remember how to do it."

And Harry nodded and sat back with wide eyes to listen and nod to the lecture. Dumbledore didn't say he had to take notes, so he didn't try. Just nodded and listened and made soft murmuring noises at appropriate points.

And if Dumbledore didn't seem entirely convinced by the act, he at least let Harry go with nothing more than a twinkle of his eyes and a recommendation to do the reading in the book that Snape hadn't bothered assigning.

Harry went down the stairs with thoughts turning over and over in his mind, mainly how much freedom controlling his temper and pretending that he believed the same things as the Potters might give him.

I have misjudged the boy.

Albus glanced at the cauldron on his desk and shook his head before Vanishing the half-correct potion inside it. He had thought, given his subtle testing of Harry's temper and control, that he might explode, might rant about having to call Severus by his title, might snap that he knew what Albus was doing and he hated it.

But he hadn't. And that pointed, at least, to a child who knew he had done something wrong by hexing Severus and might be wary of the consequences even if he didn't regret it.

At this point, Albus would take wariness. Morality could be taught later.

Why do you think you're an elementalist when no one else in your family is?

Harry snorted. Tom had been asking those sorts of questions ever since Harry had told the diary he was an elemental mage. He wrote back the same answer he wrote to most of them, which was simply I don't know.

But don't you think that it's the kind of thing that would be interesting to research?

Harry sighed and flopped back on his bed. It was late at night, and the second-year Gryffindor boys' bedroom resounded with the snores of the others, from Felix's light snuffling to Ron's baritone. As usual, Harry was short on sleep. When he did sleep, he had the same stupid dream about the path in the forest and the orange moon shining overhead and the distant voice calling for help.

Awake or asleep, Harry wasn't about to blindly follow a path into a forest that looked a lot like the Forbidden one.

A swirl of movement from the side caught his eye. Harry turned his head and laughed a little when Tom's handwriting formed his name. For someone who had been living in a diary for over fifty years, according to him, Tom was pretty impatient.

Why don't you research it?

Harry flipped over and wrote back, Where would I find the material? The most likely place would be private Potter genealogical records, and I don't have access to those here at the school. And if I tried to do it when I go to the Potters' house for the holidays, they'd want to know what I'm looking for.

Why would that be a problem? There was a pause, and then Tom's intricate hand began a few lines below that. For that matter, why do you refer to them as the Potters and not your parents all the time?

Harry rolled his tongue around his mouth. Then he shrugged a little. Drip-feeding some information to Tom couldn't hurt. It wasn't like Harry ever intended to show this diary to the Potters or Felix and ask them to answer the questions.

They just think that I'm weak and my magic is childish because it doesn't use a wand. That I have King Canute's Disease and need to catch up to other children. I haven't told them about my elemental magic and don't intend to.

Silence, which meant a blank page, from the diary. Harry shook his head, closed it and tucked it under his pillow, and rolled over to try and get some sleep.

The stupid dream with the orange moon and the path in the forest came back. Harry scowled at the path, ignored the pleading voice, and sat down leaning against a tree, closing his eyes. It felt solid, much more real than any dream he'd ever had, but so what? He would just outwait his brain until it got bored with this and gave him something else.

"What an interesting mindscape."

Harry jolted, and his eyes flew open. A boy who looked about sixteen or seventeen was standing in front of him, looking around with sharp, interested dark eyes. His hair was dark, too, and curled around his temples in a way that emphasized the paleness of his skin. Harry supposed other people would probably think he was handsome.

Harry just watched him in silence, because this was probably the result of a spell, and he had no idea who had cast it on him, but he was prepared to move in a second and burn this magical projection of a human if he had to. But he was trying to listen to Theo and not be so hasty. So he waited.

The boy turned around and caught sight of Harry. He smiled. He wore a prefect's badge and a Slytherin tie. "Harry Potter, I assume?" He sat down across the path from Harry, with a tree at his back as well. "Tom Riddle at your service." He inclined his head, eyes narrowing. "You look different than I expected."

Harry ignored that. "How did you get into my head?"

Riddle's smile widened. "Do you know, I'm not sure? I've never been able to do this before. Usually I would say that it's a similarity in our minds or our magic, but I am certainly not an elemental wizard." He continued examining Harry. "Do you know anything else it could be?"

Help. Help me.

The voice echoed down the path, and Harry jerked his head in the direction of it. "I think some arsehole cast a spell on me and put me in this bloody dream and is trying to make me go down that path to help them. Or help someone else they like. I thought that might be your voice, but I suppose not, since they're still talking and you're here—"

Harry cut himself off, because Riddle's eyes were wide and his expression was greedy, hungry. "What?" he asked warily, and gathered fire around himself.

"The voice you're hearing?" Riddle cocked his head. "The one that's calling for help?"

"Yes?"

Riddle's smile widened more and more. "It's speaking in Parseltongue, Harry. I think I have the answer to our similarity."

Harry jerked back, and found himself flying out of the dream. He panted, one elbow braced on the bed, staring around. The diary was still under his pillow, as he could feel when he pushed cautiously down with his other elbow.

A dream. It was just a dream?

But then something stirred within him, a feeling like a cat stretching luxuriously in the sun, and a familiar voice whispered in his head, How endlessly interesting you are.