Title: Weapons of the Light
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Theo
Content Notes: Angst, violence, AU starting in sixth year, references to child abuse and past character death
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1500
Summary: After Sirius's death, Harry demands training in Light battle magic, and finds an unexpected partner in Theo Nott, whose father trained him in it to cover all the Nott family's bases.
Author's Notes: This is one of my "Theo/Harry Confectionary," or short Harry/Theo stories, being posed between the first of December and the winter solstice. Nathan Desrivieres requested a Harry/Theo story where Harry is trained in Light battle magic.
Weapons of the Light
"Incendio animae!"
The bright white fire struck from Harry's wand, burning up the wooden table that Theo had launched at him. Harry leaned over for a second, gasping. The spell he'd created pulled fire directly from his soul, meaning it was something a wizard could continue to cast even when magically exhausted, but he hadn't known the kind of pull it would still exert on him.
It feels like someone's used me to create a reverse Horcrux.
"Good!" Theo said, and then grinned. "But is it good enough to stop this?"
When Harry glanced up, the air between them was full of small winged snakes, a variant of the canary spell that Hermione had used on Ron a fortnight ago. But these snakes were better at dodging than the birds and had venom.
Harry grimaced and cast in Parseltongue, which was more tiring but would take care of this kind of spell better. "Purify the enemy."
The air between him and the snakes turned so bright and pure and peaceful that nothing with a hostile intent could pass through it. The snakes disappeared in puffs of brilliant white light, and Harry gasped a little.
"Usually that one's used for a ward," Theo said, eyebrows raised.
"Are you critiquing it or expressing your admiration?"
"What do you think?"
Theo was smiling, and Harry couldn't help smiling back. Most of the time, it was Dumbledore or Moody teaching him these spells, but Dumbledore's blackened hand and Horcrux research were taking up more and more of his time, and Moody had reached the limit of spells that were safe or legal to teach Harry.
Theo, who had approached him one night after overhearing Harry and Moody's discussion of their training session, was the perfect practice partner, and a lot less worried about what was legal.
Practice partner, and maybe more, Harry was thinking as he watched Theo take off his shirt and cast a spell that would flick the sweat off him more efficiently. It showed his lean muscles, the kind Harry would never have thought Theo Nott would have. If anyone had asked him about Theo before this year, his answer would have involved the words "that skinny, quiet, pale kid."
It had turned out Theo was a lot more than that.
Skilled. Ruthless. Capable of keeping secrets. Capable of challenging Harry and driving him past what he had thought were limits and what had turned out to only be horizons.
Trained, as it had turned out, in Light battle magic by a paranoid father who had wanted his son to be able to survive if the tides of war had turned against the Death Eaters, or if Death Eaters had been the ones attacking them. His institution had paid off.
Voldemort had come to the Notts' manor house over the summer. What exactly had happened, Theo had only hinted at, and Harry, who could only talk around Sirius's death and not about it, understood. But it had meant Theo had to go on the run, and Voldemort had detailed some of the Death Eaters to capture him.
Malfoy had apparently tried, a few weeks ago. He'd spent the night in the hospital wing with the Dark Mark seared off his arm.
Harry knew that. Harry was the only one Theo had told.
It made him feel honored.
"That's an admiring gaze. I know one when I see it."
Harry flushed and raised his eyes back to Theo's face. He'd been staring at Theo's muscles while he thought of the past, and he opened his mouth to apologize—
Only to find Theo smiling at him.
"You—don't mind?"
"You're asking if I mind that the Boy-Who-Lived and the fiercest duelist I've ever met looks like he wants to touch me? Are you mental?"
"I'm not the best duelist! You're better than I am—"
"I said fiercest, not the most skilled. The skill will come, you know that. And answer the question, Harry."
Theo's voice had gone husky in a way that Harry couldn't remember hearing before. He shivered absently as he stared at Theo. Theo stared back, his smile deepening and deepening some more.
Harry shivered again and said softly. "I didn't think my title would matter to you. Or my dueling skill, for that matter. You wouldn't date someone you weren't attracted to just for the sake of the connections you could make from it." Maybe some of the other Slytherins would, but Harry had come to see how different Theo was from the "typical" Slytherin.
"I never said I wasn't attracted to you."
"You never said you were, either."
Theo's face froze for a moment, and then he laughed. "I've been looking at you with half-lidded eyes and just happening to take off my shirt when I could cast the Sweat-Dispelling Charm through it. I see subtlety is wasted on Gryffindors."
Harry flushed, but he asked, "You're attracted to me, then, Notti?"
All of the laughter vanished from the room as Theo looked Harry up and down with a blazing heat in his eyes and said simply, "Yes."
Harry moved a step closer to him. Theo didn't try to put his shirt on or retreat or act as though he was upset. He just watched Harry, and then leaned forwards a little when Harry came to a stop a few centimeters away but didn't try to touch him.
Harry's fingers brushed over Theo's chest, and it seemed to Harry that both of them swallowed air at the same time. Harry shuddered. Theo's skin felt warmer than some of the fire spells he'd been practicing under his touch, and the ropy scar he was stroking just—felt right.
He moved a step forwards. Theo reached out and clasped his shoulder, sliding his hand down Harry's arm as he whispered, "Fair is fair, Harry."
Harry didn't know what he meant for a moment, and then he did. He took his shirt off, although his hands trembled a little. The Dursleys had inflicted scars on him that he hoped wouldn't turn Theo off, in any sense.
Theo looked at Harry's chest for a long moment, his eyes wide and darkening. Then he said, "Yes."
"Yes what?"
Theo leaned in to kiss him without more explanation than that, but maybe Harry didn't need one. He grabbed Theo's shoulders the way Theo had grabbed his earlier, and they swayed together, their lips and then their tongues creating another burst of heat in between their mouths.
Theo stepped back a minute or so later. His arms were looped around Harry's waist. Harry didn't even remember them getting there. He just knew that he was shivering so hard it seemed he wouldn't stop, and it was incredibly hard to take his eyes from Theo.
"I did something really right, to be gifted with you," Theo whispered.
"You're yourself. That's all I need."
"Lots of people would say—"
"Yeah, but they're not the people in this room," Harry murmured, a little surprised to hear how deep his own voice was, and leaned in to kiss Theo again.
Theo met him touch for touch, boldness for boldness. Harry found himself leaning against the opposite wall of the Room of Requirement while not being quite certain how he'd got there, Theo's fingers trailing through his hair as they kissed.
When they broke apart this time, Theo closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Harry's.
"Are you going to tell your friends?"
"That's up to you," Harry said softly, because it was. "Ron and Hermione don't need to know, but I also don't want to hide you from them if you want to be open about it."
Theo continued leaning against Harry, shuddering now and then from what Harry assumed was the storm of emotions taking place inside him. Then he leaned back, swallowed, and said, "Can we talk about it later? And keep it to ourselves for now?"
"Of course." Harry caught Theo's hand and held it to his lips.
Theo stood there, letting Harry touch him, for long moments. Then he broke away and took out his wand, smiling. "I trust that's enough of a break, Harry, and that you'll be ready to cast some more powerful Light spells now."
Harry groaned, but took out his wand and assumed his stance opposite Theo again. "I would have preferred a break with food and a rest, but okay."
"Do well, and the next break, you can have a kiss."
Harry grinned as he lifted his wand. "You know how to give a bloke incentives."
Theo smiled at him, eyes glinting, before he launched a volley of lightning, and Harry turned himself to meet it.
Kisses were a great temptation, but even greater was doing well enough to survive this war so that he could stand with Theo at his side in the world that would follow.
The End.
