Thank you for all the reviews! This is going to end up as four parts, it seems.
Part Two
Theo slammed the paper on the dining room table with a noise of disgust.
"Theo?"
Theo took a deep breath and shook his head, turning to face his father. "I'm sorry, Father. I'm just upset that the Ministry is working to make Arithmancy a fourth-year subject instead of a third-year one. That will only make people less interested in it, not put off the damage students can do with it."
"Interesting, considering that you were scowling at the front page and the story about the Ministry's folly is on page four."
Theo lowered his eyes.
"Why are you wearing the wrist cuff, Theo? You never did before."
Theo looked up, assured that at least his father would understand Theo's reservations about being Harry Potter's bloody soulmate. "This name appeared on my wrist during my last term at Hogwarts…"
Father heard Theo out, with his usual silence, stirring sugar into his tea in the meantime. Theo could admit that he was almost ranting at the end, but, well, Father was the one who had taught Theo the value of silence and patience and intellectual work over flashy spells. He was the best audience for this.
Father did indeed listen. Then he put down his teacup and said, "That was stupid of you."
Theo gaped at him. It took long moments before he could get back control of his face. "Excuse me?"
"That was stupid of you," Father repeated, and picked up his cup again.
Theo glared at him. Demetrius Nott had been a respected and talented Death Eater, one of the Dark Lord's chosen—in the first war. By the time the Dark Lord had returned, he'd decided that he'd had enough of the stupidity of the war and that he should be able to express whatever dissatisfactions with the Dark Lord's plans that he desired. It hadn't made him popular. It had ensured he hadn't done much in that war and had only spent time in a holding cell instead of Azkaban, however.
Theo had always been assured that he was making the correct choices because of his father's lack of criticism. To have him turn on Theo now was—
"Why?"
"Because the boy approached you with an open mind and eagerness to have you. You could have made sure that he would oppose the papers whenever they reported on you. You could have received unprecedented emotional support. You could have secured funding from the Ministry much more easily for your Arithmantic research, and successfully scuttled their ridiculous plans for Hogwarts. They would do much to oblige the Boy-Who-Lived's soulmate."
Father drank his tea.
"Father, didn't you hear me say that I don't want to be noticed? At all? And what is Potter doing?" Theo gestured at the story on the front page he had been scowling at. "Prancing around and getting noticed and making announcements! His soulmate would have been a huge announcement."
"He could have protected you from that. I told you."
"He wouldn't want to protect me!"
Father put down his cup again, and Theo squirmed. He looked mostly like his father, except for his blue eyes, which he'd inherited from his mother. Father's intense, piercing grey gaze was always sharper than Theo's, always stronger, but he was rarely subjected to the full force of it.
"I don't know the boy. I did not spend seven years in school with him. I did not sit in classes with him. And yet, I know enough about him from the papers to know that he is only seeking publicity to serve his goals. If you'd told him you wanted privacy, he would have moved the stars themselves to secure it for you."
Father stood up. "But as I said," he added, in the driest voice Theo had ever heard from him, "I am not his soulmate."
He swept away. Theo sat there and stared at the front page until his eyes stung.
"Why is the Ministry trying to make it so only fourth-years can study Arithmancy?"
"They claim that some of the Death Eaters were using Arithmancy to predict their enemies' movements. So obviously it's evil and terrible and fourth-years will be so much more mature about it than third-years."
Hermione was going to wear a hole in the carpet with her pacing, Harry thought—quite possibly literally. They had chosen, for their headquarters, a small building just off Diagon Alley that was being sold cheaply due to damage it had suffered in the war, and "make sure the floors and walls are stable" had been a higher priority than "get nice carpeting" so far.
"That's stupid."
"Yeah, tell me about it." Hermione spun around to face him. A spark of magic leaped from her fingers and scorched the carpet. Hermione sighed and drew her wand to repair the hole with a silent charm. "This is ridiculous. The Ministry is getting more paranoid than they were during the war."
"And with even less reason."
Hermione nodded. "No one's actually trying to cast the Imperius Curse on most of them this time.'
They lapsed into silence, Hermione still pacing, Harry sitting with his eyes on the Prophet article and trying to figure out what they could do about it. There had to be some way to fight this stupid thing. To convince people that their stupidity was more damaging than letting third-years practice Arithmancy in peace.
If we could convince them something else was a greater threat, without that other thing being something it would hurt to lose—
"You've thought of something."
Harry glanced up with a faint smile. "Was it that obvious?"
"Yes. Give, Harry."
"All right. So if they're afraid of people using Arithmancy to predict people's movements, then we should tell them all about the true threat that predicts movements, and that would give Dark wizards a terrible advantage. In fact, it almost lost us the war."
Hermione's eyes were wide by then. "What are you talking about?"
Harry leaned towards her. "Divination," he said in a hoarse whisper.
Hermione burst out laughing.
Harry let her laugh until it was subsiding in giggles and snorts, and then winked at her. "Think about it, Hermione. There was a prophecy about me and Voldemort. He spent a lot of time and effort trying to know what it said. He did know enough of what it said to go after my parents and me. He almost killed me! Imagine what would have happened if he had."
"But—then people could say that the prophecy was a good thing, because otherwise you might not have defeated him."
"Sure, they could, but not if we drum up enough fear to concentrate them on the idea of a Dark Lord in the future getting hold of a prophecy. And imagine, Divination is taught at Hogwarts to impressionable third-years! And it's a much more direct method of prediction than Arithmancy is, where you have to use all kinds of maths. With Divination, anyone can look in a teacup. Or someone might recite a prophecy and not even realize they did. We have to stop it!"
"Is this revenge on Trelawney?"
Harry smiled at her. "Would I do that?"
Hermione snorted. "Probably not. On the other hand, if you could help keep a magical discipline within reach of third-years while also incidentally making sure a much more useless class is removed from Hogwarts…"
"Precisely."
"Did he do this for you, Theo?"
Theo blinked, still half-asleep. Staying up late the night before to read the new book that was essentially several Russian arithmancers arguing with each other had made his head fuzzy. "What are you talking about, Father?"
Father waved his wand and floated the Daily Prophet over in front of Theo.
Theo was glad that he'd put down his tea, as he otherwise would have choked at the headline.
MAN-WHO-WON SPEAKS UP AGAINST PLAN TO CHANGE ARITHMANCY TO A FOURTH-YEAR CLASS!
Theo stared at the headline in stunned silence, and looked down at the picture of Potter standing in what seemed to be the Ministry Atrium. He was glaring at the camera, eyes burning with righteousness and hair as tousled as usual.
Theo scanned down the page.
Divination is the greater threat…a Dark Lord could use a prophecy the way that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named used the one that pointed to Harry Potter…Divination is broad and general and easy, Arithmancy beyond the reach of all but the skilled…
Theo skipped a paragraph and looked near the bottom of the article, where Potter was quoted.
"Yeah, honestly, Divination was a pretty useless class for me, because the professor just liked predicting my death," Harry Potter told this reporter in a confidential conversation. "That's why I dropped it after my OWL year. But for other people? They really learned something from Trelawney, I know they did. If you can just look into the bottom of a teacup and see most of the immediate future, then why ban Arithmancy? If you ask me, Divination should be either removed from the Hogwarts curriculum or restricted to NEWT students who show a special gift and are willing to swear one of a number of oaths."
The article was inconclusive about what the Ministry was actually intending to do with third-year Arithmancy now, but Theo was sure he knew. They would back off and fawn all over Potter. Just the way they did with everything else.
Theo closed his eyes.
"I thought you said Potter didn't take Arithmancy."
"He didn't," Theo said faintly. He forced his eyes open after a moment, because sitting in front of Father with them closed made him feel vulnerable. "He took Divination."
"Did he know you took it?"
"No, I doubt it, Father. I don't think he knows anything about me."
"Except that you rejected him."
Theo snapped his eyes to his father's face. "I have made my decision, Father. You know what I want out of life. Do you truly think I could get that, the quiet and solitude and peace, with Potter by my side?"
"Yes."
Theo glanced away and picked up his teacup. He had a letter he wanted to write to Aliana Bar, a renowned Arithmancer who had attended Hogwarts in Dumbledore's time, and he had to phrase it exactly right, so that she would agree to mentor him.
He had no time for Potter. He had no time for regrets. Those weren't regrets, either. They were thoughts, and Theo had no time for wishing that things were different, because he had chosen this life.
That was better than being chosen, no matter whether magic or another person was doing the choosing.
"I'm sorry. I don't think it's going to work out."
Ernie Macmillan gave a long, slow sigh and leaned back against the dark wooden wall of Harry's flat. "I didn't think it would," he said. "Not after I saw that name on your wrist."
Harry felt his face freeze for a second, but he forced his way past that. It wasn't Ernie's fault. "He actually asked that I leave him be. So it isn't your fault, and it isn't his, and it isn't mine. I just think we want different things out of life."
Ernie nodded, then grinned sharply. It made him look less refined and more focused and likely to bite someone. It made Harry like him better. "I did accept that after the third date you canceled because there was someone who needed your help."
Harry smiled back. He'd Apparated in between a werewolf child and a bunch of Ministry people who wanted to "compel" her to register. After the tenth time they'd bounced off his dome-shaped shield, he had thought they'd got the point, and he'd torn them apart in the papers the next day. "Yeah. I hope you can find someone to date who's for you."
"I hope you can find him."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "It might be a woman, you know."
"I didn't mean just anyone."
"He rejected me." Saying the words still stung a little, but no longer filled Harry with terrible, searing pain. It had been almost three years since then. "Thank you for the good wishes, but he's shown no sign of changing his mind."
"He's a fool."
"Please don't tell anyone about him."
Ernie gave him a freezing, haughty look, much more the kind of thing that showed up on his face often. "I wouldn't invade your privacy like that, Harry."
"I know. Sorry." Harry ran his hand down his face. Nott hadn't made Harry promise that he wouldn't reveal the soul-mark to people he dated, but then, he doubted Nott had thought that far ahead. "I just—it's a tender spot."
Ernie leaned towards him to kiss his cheek, and then turned and picked up the small trunk of clothes that he'd had hanging in Harry's wardrobe for a while. "If you ever do come together, then tell him that he's a fool. From me."
Harry laughed. "He's actually a very respected Arithmancer, you know."
"I am sure you know that climbing intellectual heights doesn't prevent someone from also wallowing in the mud of stupidity."
"Yeah. I seem to remember a really smart Hufflepuff who thought I was the Heir of Slytherin once upon a time."
Ernie shot a Stinging Hex at him that Harry dodged, still laughing, and swept grandly out the door. Harry shut it, leaned against it, and tilted his head back for a moment while his fingers rubbed the words on his wrist.
He did sometimes wonder what Nott was doing from day to day. But the Prophet had published that review of his book a while ago, gushing about how brilliant the equations were and how Nott had somehow incorporated Transfiguration into them.
He'd written the book incredibly quickly. He'd advanced to respected Arithmancer status incredibly quickly, according to Hermione and other people Harry trusted to know what they were talking about.
Harry sighed a little. He'd wished he could owl Nott his congratulations, but he couldn't, and dwelling on it wouldn't make a difference.
He went to find the latest letter from Lucius Malfoy, the incredible pustule who was somehow back on the Hogwarts Board of Governors and fighting Harry and his friends, up, down, and sideways, about the changes they wanted to suggest to Hogwarts classes now that Divination was gone. Turning Malfoy's face red was always a good time.
"You should tell him."
Theo turned his head and glared at Blaise. "He knows. I rejected him." He'd known that having a casual fling with Blaise would have its costs, but he hadn't anticipated one of them being that Blaise would harass him about Potter's name on his wrist.
Or intrude on his lab time, come to think of it.
Blaise leaned on the door and looked around the lab for a moment. Theo looked with him, wondering idly for a moment if Blaise was jealous that he didn't have something like this setup at home. Then again, Blaise had never been as much into Arithmancy as Theo was, and he wouldn't have a need for half the sparkling glassware or the crystalline globes connected to cauldrons.
"Ah," Blaise said. "It turns out Arithmancy rots the sensible part of your brain. Who knew?"
"You and my father think that."
"I am honored to agree with as sensible a man as your father."
Theo snarled and went back to the equations in front of him. He was not going to get upset or think about Potter. He was thinking, instead, about the best counterarguments to the article that had appeared in the Daily Prophet whinging that his book wasn't as original as he'd claimed.
"Theo."
"What?"
Theo looked up in time for Blaise to bend down and seal his lips over Theo's in a kiss. Theo sighed and relaxed, his hand coming up to rest on his best friend's shoulder. Blaise was always and ever that, whether or not they decided to be lovers again.
"You should go to him," Blaise said softly, drawing back.
"I made the choice, Blaise. No one controlled me. No one held a wand to my throat and demanded that I do it. I rejected Potter because he can't give me the kind of life I want. Why would you urge me to reverse my decision?"
"Are you aware," Blaise asked precisely, "that in the last twenty-four hours, you've ranted about Potter five times? First it was because the Prophet reported that he broke up with Susan Bones, and you decided to sneer about him dating her in the first place. Then it was because you fouled up that equation, and you made fun of the idea that you would have needed Potter to rescue you from the fallout. Then you muttered about how you have Potter to thank for Arithmancy remaining a third-year subject at Hogwarts. And then you said something about how no one would have been as critical of your book if Potter wrote it. And now this."
"I wasn't ranting."
"Theo."
Theo looked away.
"He didn't do what you thought he would, did he?" Blaise asked, and there was a smile lurking in his voice, because Blaise was an arsehole. "He didn't mope about it forever, and he also didn't come crawling back to you and beg you to reconsider. He went on and lived his life, and he doesn't ask for your approval of his decisions."
Theo closed his eyes. "Why did magic make this choice, Blaise?" he whispered, and he hated the way his voice trembled. "Why would it—he doesn't know anything about Arithmancy. He's a public person, he has tons of friends and lovers already, he doesn't need me. I didn't particularly want a soul-mark, but I would have wanted to be chosen for someone who needed me."
"Perhaps he would have. If you'd given him the chance."
"Well, it's done, now. It can't be taken back."
"You're such a stubborn idiot," Blaise sighed, but didn't say anything else. He clapped Theo on the shoulder and strolled out the door. "You say that you don't want a life outside your lab, but your actions say otherwise."
Theo scowled at his book until his mind turned crystalline again and let him focus on his equations. He had made his choice. He wouldn't change his mind. Couldn't. Even if he could, he would probably regret it in a few days, and Potter would be spiteful enough about being rejected a second time to spread the news around, and then Theo's life would be miserable.
He wouldn't, sighed a voice in his head.
Theo threw the thought away.
