Thank you again for all the reviews
Part Four
"Wow," Hermione says weakly.
Harry nods. They've spent most of breakfast staring at the Daily Prophet, which is an extra thick edition covered with photographs and essentially with multiple front pages because of all the stories they had to give room to. And the chatter surging through the Great Hall makes it clear that the newspaper is achieving the effect the writers wanted.
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE QUESTIONED IN THE MATTER OF NECROMANTIC BLOOD PROTECTIONS! is one article. It has a picture of Professor Dumbledore beneath it giving a speech in the Wizengamot.
HARRY POTTER LORD SLYTHERIN? is another one. Harry doesn't know why they bothered with the question mark. The story is filled with quotes that make it very clear he is, or at least people in the school like to pretend he is.
Theo is looking as pleased as Dudley with a hundred presents probably would. Hannah and Susan are whispering together busily. Half the Gryffindors are laughing; the other half look particularly shocked by Professor Dumbledore's fall from grace. Malfoy is telling everyone who will listen, and some of the people who won't, that he told the Headmaster his father would hear about this.
Oliver comes up and claps a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Have you thought about staying with my family for the summer, Harry?" he asks, in a voice that makes a lot of people turn around and pay attention to him.
Harry clears his throat. "I appreciate the invitation, Oliver, but I haven't decided yet. The Wizengamot might declare Sirius Black innocent, and then he would have a custody claim, since he's my godfather."
Oliver blinked. "But you're Lord Slytherin."
Harry sighs a little. "I know, but—I mean, it doesn't matter as much as people think it does."
"Yes, it does. In the case of Lord Slytherin, then you get first say over where you go. Oh, sure, the Wizengamot might discount it and make a decision for you if you said something like wanting to stay with You-Know-Who and they decided you were insane, but you can choose any of your followers' families, as long as they've been your follower for at least two months."
Oliver rattles that off cheerfully, without pausing for breath, and then nods at Harry. "Anyway, I've been recruited to play for Puddlemere United. You should come stay with me so we can practice."
"Oliver, you don't need the practice," Fred says from down the table.
"You know how to keep the Quaffle from the hoops," George adds.
"Yes, but this is a professional context! You never know. And Harry could use the practice, too, since he'll probably be a professional Quidditch player someday and I know whoever has the team after me is going to go soft on him."
"Um, well, but you're not one of my followers, Oliver," Harry says. He wishes they weren't having this conversation in the middle of the Great Hall where everyone can listen in.
"Sure I am. Been following you around since that day in the library in October, haven't I?"
"I don't think that's quite—"
"Mr. Potter. If I could speak with you, please."
That's Professor McGonagall's voice. Harry thinks that it would probably be Professor Dumbledore's, but he isn't at breakfast. Harry imagines he's probably at the Ministry trying to deal with the chaos in the Wizengamot. Harry turns around to look at his Head of House.
Professor McGonagall puts her hands on her hips. "If you would come with me, please."
"Sure, professor," Harry says, and puts the Daily Prophet down on the table again. His mind is still kind of whirling. He can choose where he goes because he's a lord? Well, yes, Theo did say something about that, but Harry didn't know he meant in spite of any ruling the Wizengamot might make about Sirius.
Hell. If he could go anywhere, where would he go?
Harry wrestles with the fact that he doesn't know while he trots after Professor McGonagall.
"Mr. Potter, may I ask what possessed you to send an owl to the Ministry accusing the Headmaster of necromancy?"
Oh, shit, Professor McGonagall is upset. Her hair strains at its tight bun, and sparks of magic are falling from her wand. She seems to notice that after a moment, and tucks away her wand with a little huff. But she's still looking at Harry and waiting for an answer.
"I didn't send that owl, Professor," Harry says. Maybe the honesty in his voice calms her down or something, because she sighs and takes a seat behind the desk.
"Mr. Potter, you do not know what you have done."
"Are they really necromantic blood protections?" Harry asks, because now that he thinks about it, maybe he should have asked more questions of Theo and Susan. He trusts them, yes, but they could have said anything in that owl. Maybe something to get Professor Dumbledore in more trouble than he deserves.
Or maybe something that will end up causing trouble because their accusations will turn out to be unfounded.
It's, well, Harry doesn't like thinking like that, but he seems to have started more often since other people decided he was Lord Slytherin.
Professor McGonagall hesitates. Then she leans back in her chair. "It is a bit of a grey area," she admits. "The sacrifice itself is based on mother's love. But the fact that your mother died…it means that no one, precisely, is directing the protections now, and so would not be able to stop them if, for example, they latched onto you as a source of power in the way that the more common kind of blood protections do. If your mother was still alive and had made the choice to continue feeding her magic to those kinds of protections, of course it would be different."
Harry shoves away the loneliness he feels hearing about his mum, whose voice he's never heard except when a Dementor's near. "How much of a grey area do the laws have, Professor? How much trouble is the Headmaster in?"
"Not much," Professor McGonagall says, and her eyes flash for a moment. "And quite a bit. That is why I think it would have been much better for you not to inform the Ministry, Mr. Potter."
Harry argues again that he didn't, but he can't help the thought that bubbles up in the back of his mind, the one he won't voice to anyone because it sounds too much like Lord Slytherin's instead of his.
If he didn't want to leave any grey area in the laws, he shouldn't have used magic like that.
Snape pulls Harry aside the minute he reaches Potions the day after the newspaper stories come out. Professor Dumbledore still hasn't returned to the school, or if he has, no one in Harry's group has seen him. Harry is trying not to feel nervous about that.
"You may as well realize," Snape says softly, bending towards Harry, "that I will not tolerate any Lordship nonsense in my class. If you were expecting special treatment because of that, you should lay aside the expectation now."
Harry stares at Snape and refuses the temptation to do it with his mouth open. But he does say, "I've never expected any special treatment, sir."
"Five points from Gryffindor for your cheek."
Harry just shakes his head as Snape turns around and sweeps up the aisle. Harry sometimes thinks that he could lose all his Boy-Who-Lived status and remove the life-debt Snape owes his father tomorrow, and Snape would still hate him. At this point, his hatred is kind of a living force on its own.
Abruptly, Snape trips.
Harry feels his mouth hanging open. He slaps it shut again before anyone can turn and look at him. Not that anyone would, probably. They're all paying much more attention to the spectacle of Snape dragging himself back to his feet. Most people seem too astonished or scared to laugh, but Harry can hear a kind of background snicker that's making its way around the room, and will probably burst out in full at the end of the class.
Snape dusts his robes off with precise movements, his hands shaking with what Harry is sure isn't fear. Then he turns around and glares.
Everyone goes utterly quiet and still.
"Accio students' wands," Snape snarls.
Harry's wand goes flying out of his hand, and so does everyone else's. Snape starts casting a spell on them that makes cloudy images fly out of the wood. Harry blinks. It seems that this spell can tell you what other spells a person performed recently.
Cool. Harry wants to learn it.
Snape finds the Trip Jinx on a wand that Harry doesn't recognize, but which Snape stares at for long moments before he shifts his eyes up. He's looking at Greengrass. She folds her arms and does her owl-stare back.
"Miss Greengrass," Snape breathes. Harry has the odd feeling that he isn't sure what to do. Snape probably assumed that of course it was going to be a Gryffindor, probably Harry, and he doesn't usually take points from the Slytherins or assign detentions. "Can you tell me what the purpose of this spell was?"
"To bring some of your behavior more in line with your erudition, Professor," Greengrass says in her Madam Pince voice. "It hardly befits a professor with so many years of teaching experience to be lecturing a lord who has done nothing to him personally."
Snape turns a rich shade of plum. But he says nothing. Instead, he Banishes all their wands back at them with a flick of his own, and then spends the rest of the class snarling insults at Harry.
Harry shakes his head a little. He kind of appreciates what Greengrass did—and at least she didn't get in trouble for it—but he doesn't think it had the effect she wanted. Nothing will, because nothing will make Snape stop hating Harry.
Then Snape makes a scathing comment about Harry's arrogance in the corridor the next day, and breaks out in boils. Snape counters it at once, furious, and then once again doesn't know what to do when Theo walks forwards with an angelic smile and holds out his wand to be examined for the Boil Hex.
Harry catches Theo's eye across the Great Hall later, and Theo waves at him. Whatever the consequence was, then, it wasn't bad.
Then Snape walks past the Gryffindor table and takes points off Harry for slurping his soup too loudly, and a jinx openly leaps from the Slytherin table and winds his hair around his face and ties the strands together in a bow under his chin. Snape undoes it in a second, and it's Zabini, of all people, who walks up to surrender his wand.
"Sorry, sir," Zabini says, radiating innocence. "I don't know how I can stop myself. It's like an instinct. Sort of like hating someone who hasn't done anything to me."
Snape stares at him in silence. He returns Zabini's wand to him and says, "Detention, Potter, tonight at seven," without taking his eyes from Zabini, before he walks away.
Harry sighs when Zabini turns to him. "Look," he says. "I appreciate the intent of all this. But you've seen what happens. Snape just steps up the detentions and insults for me. It's not working. You'll have to try something else if you want him to stop picking on me."
"Hmm. You might have a point," Zabini says, and wanders off.
Harry shakes his head as he watches him go. "Why do you think he did that?" he asks. "He hasn't been especially close to me, not like Theo or Greengrass. Or even Malfoy, coming along to the meeting with Dumbledore like that."
"Professor Dumbledore, Harry," Hermione corrects him, her voice crossing over with Ron's, "I dunno, mate. But maybe he thinks that it would be better to have an in with you if half his House is going to than not."
Harry just nods in response to both of them. He doesn't particularly feel like calling Dumbledore by a title anymore.
Snape comes to breakfast the next morning in such a rage that Harry draws back instinctively, before he can help himself, the way he would from Uncle Vernon. He feels eyes burning into the side of his head, and turns to look at Susan, smiling weakly. Susan promptly leans over and whispers something to Justin Finch-Fletchley. Justin nods and slips away from the Hufflepuff table.
"Oh, shit, it's spreading," Harry mutters. At least when it was just Susan and Hannah, it was probably a contained conspiracy.
"What happened, do you think?" Ron asks, leaning over. Hermione is frowning at Harry, likely for his language, but she does the same thing.
Harry hears a sound behind him and turns around with his hand on his wand, but he needn't have worried. It's just Fred and George, who grin at him and drop into the seats on either side of Ron.
"I think dear Snapey—"
"Just discovered that most of his cauldrons—"
"Have died long overdue deaths."
Harry stares at the twins. "You got into his office and destroyed his cauldrons?"
"Yeah." George looks smug.
Fred holds up a hand. It's covered with some sort of dried purple stain. "There was a potion we didn't recognize going in one of them. Looked experimental—"
"Smelled expensive—"
"He's probably not very happy!"
"Well, Gred, he's never happy."
"No, but now he's discovering new depths of unhappiness."
Harry shakes his head back and forth. When he looks at the High Table, Snape and Professor McGonagall are glaring at the twins. Dumbledore's seat is still empty. At this point, Harry doesn't know what to think. The Prophet has been vague about reporting the debates in the Wizengamot on the topic of necromantic blood protections, mostly just saying they're ongoing. "He's going to kill you."
"Yes," George says, putting an elbow on the table. "But we're rather—"
"Good at resurrection—" Fred gives Harry a bright smile.
"And after that, he'll stop targeting you."
"Unless he wants to lose all his storage cupboards, too."
And either Snape overheard Fred and George's threat, or he decided it wasn't worth it to keep bothering Harry. He averts his gaze from Harry when they pass in the corridors, doesn't say a word to him during Potions, and limits his comments on Harry's essays to correcting misspellings and leaving the mark.
(Fred and George are serving detention every Friday and Saturday night for the rest of term. It costs them some Quidditch practice, but they don't appear to care).
Harry supposes that's the best he can hope for. The only thing that worries him about it is that it means his "followers" are extremely proud of themselves and strutting around in puffed-up arrogance, and he doesn't know what will happen when they meet a challenge they can't beat.
It's Harry's bloody Harry Potter life. It's bound to happen eventually.
"Mr. Potter. I wanted to speak to you, please."
Dumbledore has actually come and found him in the library, which is something Harry didn't think would happen. He takes a deep breath and turns around. On either side of him, Ron and Hermione are watching the Headmaster.
Susan stands up. She's on the same side of the table as Harry, but still moves to place herself between Harry and the Headmaster. Greengrass has a hand resting on an open book in a peculiar, emphatic way. Theo's slouched back in his seat, but Harry knows enough about him by now to realize that his hand is near his wand.
They really will get in too much trouble to handle if one of them casts at Dumbledore. Harry steps on Theo's foot and asks loudly, "Yes, sir, what is it?"
Dumbledore sighs and stares at him. He looks as though he's been through a battle. "In private, please, Mr. Potter."
And he isn't calling Harry "Harry" anymore, either. Harry is relieved by that, but also worried.
He swallows and stands up. At once, everyone's heads swivel around to look at him. Theo looks astonished, Greengrass annoyed. Hermione is worried. Ron is turning red. And Susan turns around and says in a sweet voice, "Are you insane, Harry?"
"I think I need to know," Harry says. Apart from anything else, he wants to know if Dumbledore is going to try to keep him with the Dursleys for the summer, and what exactly the necromantic blood protections were doing and if Dumbledore knew about them or not.
"Your conviction that he is a purveyor of truth does not speak well of your intelligence," Greengrass says, frowning at him.
She's probably right (and hell, when did Harry start understanding most things she says?) But if there's the slightest chance that Dumbledore will tell him the truth, then Harry has to speak to him, and get it from him.
He's thinking of the best words to explain that without revealing to Dumbledore how much he distrusts him when sharp footsteps cut through the library. Harry looks up and blinks. Justin Finch-Fletchley is striding towards them, and he looks much too smug and full of himself. Kind of like the twins, Harry thinks.
He give a half-bow to Harry, who doesn't like it, and then turns to Dumbledore. "Sir," he says politely. "You know as well as I do that an accused necromancer cannot be left alone with a child until such time as he is acquitted."
Harry stares at Justin. Susan leans over a little and murmurs, "I asked him to look up laws relating to necromancy. His parents have the money to buy him and owl him all sorts of legal tomes."
"Why him, though?"
"He likes law."
Harry shakes his head and refocuses back on the conversation as Dumbledore gives an exhausted-sounding sigh. "You must know that the situation has not been settled yet and I would never hurt Harry, Mr.…"
Dumbledore trails off. Harry blinks at him, wondering if Dumbledore wasn't able to think of a counter to Justin's argument after all, and then realizes what it is.
Dumbledore has no idea of Justin's name.
I suppose there's a downside to just focusing on a few Gryffindors, Harry thinks in wonder.
"Finch-Fletchley, sir." Justin's smile is a little sharper, and so is the glitter in his eyes. "But you're right that the situation has not been settled yet, and that means the Wizengamot hasn't yet decided if your necromantic practice hurt Lord Slytherin yet, and to what extent. That means you can't be alone with him."
"He is not Lord Slytherin," Dumbledore says in a voice as tired as Harry feels after one of Oliver's Quidditch practices.
"Excuse me, Professor Dumbledore?" Hermione asks, standing up.
Dumbledore looks relieved to turn away from Justin and focus on her. "Yes, Miss Granger?" he asks with an encouraging smile.
Hermione doesn't smile back. "You don't actually get to decide that, sir," she says, in such a polite and cutting voice that Harry thinks she might make a really good lawyer, too. "Harry can reject the title if he wants, and his followers can decide that he's not Lord Slytherin and walk away. But you can't. That's not the way it works."
Dumbledore looks as if he wants to wipe his face, and also as if he doesn't want to do it in front of everyone in the library. There are other people coming out from behind the shelves now, Harry sees. Zabini is lounging against one shelf, and Malfoy is with him, looking as if Christmas has come back again. Fred and George manage to have menacing grins on their faces when they wander over from what looks like the aisle that leads to the Restricted Section.
Dumbledore glances around at their audience and seems to decide that they're going to have this confrontation in the library, so they'll have the confrontation in the library. He straightens his shoulders and looks at Harry. Harry sits up, hoping that there will be answers he doesn't have to kill anyone to get.
"Harry," Dumbledore whispers. "Did you do the research I asked you to do, about why Lord titles had fallen out of use?"
Harry shakes his head. He'd meant to get to it, but there was too much else going on to worry about it. And he'd half-suspected that was some kind of trap, anyway, that Dumbledore wanted Harry to find bad information and refuse the title out of nervousness about things that aren't true.
Which is a horrible thing to suspect about one's Headmaster.
"No, sir," he says quietly, when it becomes obvious that Dumbledore won't move on without an answer.
"Well, then." Dumbledore glance around once more at the other students, and the crowd has increased since Harry last looked, holy hell. There's Padma Patil, standing with her arms folded behind the twins, and Luna Lovegood with her big eyes, and Marcus Flint lurking near Oliver (who's ignoring his existence). "You should know that Lordship titles were a means of asserting control over their lives used only by young people, very often. They weren't used by older people, who had their own political power bases and didn't need them."
"Okay," Harry says slowly.
"And that means that the young people could be manipulated by those older or wiser than they were, or both," Dumbledore continues in a heavy voice. "The last Lord Slytherin before you ended up the ward of a Mr. Malfoy who used him shamefully, to sign declarations that sowed dissent in Hogwarts, and urge the Wizengamot to take actions that nearly enshrined blood prejudice into law."
"So you're saying that the other Lords in the past were too young and naïve and didn't know what they were doing?" Harry asks. "So people could use them?"
"Yes." Dumbledore looks relieved. "That's exactly what I'm saying."
"Well, that's not what's happening here," Harry says simply. "My friends would tell me if they thought people were using me. I mean, maybe Oliver's using me for Quidditch practice—"
"You get better, too, Potter," Oliver objects loudly, but he's grinning.
"And sometimes I think Fred and George are using me to get in even more trouble than they would otherwise—"
"Harrikins! How could you?"
"But otherwise, we're protecting each other," Harry says. "And Hermione and Ron would tell me if someone was trying to use me and didn't want to give something in return. I know they would."
He grins at his best friends. Hermione smiles back at him. Ron looks a little stunned, maybe because he didn't know Harry thinks he's smart enough to spot manipulations, but he grins, too, after a second.
Dumbledore simply shakes his head, slow and heavy. "The consequences of such manipulations might be subtle and far-reaching and impossible to see, Mr. Potter." The alternations back and forth between his first and last name are getting on Harry's nerves. "Some students might be telling you what to do on the orders of their parents. This conviction that the protections on your relatives' house were necromantic ones and the fact that Lord Slytherin can choose where to reside might be simply a ploy to get you into the clutches of someone who wouldn't release you."
"Were they necromantic protections, sir?"
Dumbledore hesitates.
"It's a simple question," Theo drawls, and he's about to draw his wand. Harry steps on his foot again. Theo doesn't look at him, too focused on Dumbledore, and the expression on his face reminds Harry of when Theo hexed Snape. "Since you don't want to answer it, I'm inclined to think the answer is obvious."
"They were only necromantic in the sense that your mother cast them before her death," Dumbledore says quietly. "Otherwise, they fit no part of the definition. I promise you, Harry, I would never expose you to that kind of danger."
Harry's not sure where the intuition comes from. Maybe just spending day after day with suspicious Slytherins, or maybe because, as he can acknowledge to himself, he does have political insight when it counts. He just doesn't use it often.
"That kind of danger?" he asks. "What about other kinds, sir?"
Dumbledore gives him a very old look. Harry doesn't think he's imagining the circle of tension drawing tight around the professor. Every student he can see is leaning forwards at least a little. Oliver does have his wand drawn, but at least he's gripping it down at his side and would probably cast a Quidditch-related charm first out of sheer habit.
"Oh, Harry," Dumbledore murmurs. "There are things you are not yet old enough to understand."
"That excuse doesn't work now," Justin says. He sounds very posh and stuck-up, and Harry is sure that he's exaggerating the tone on purpose. "He's a Lord, and he's spent time solving problems none of the professors would solve, so that means you can tell him."
"I did ask to speak to him in private."
"And I explained why that wouldn't work, sir," Justin says, as calm and polished as the politicians Harry overheard sometimes on shows Aunt Petunia watched on the telly. "However, you could have asked for a smaller audience. That would have worked."
Dumbledore looks around as if studying Harry's "followers." Harry wonders who he'll pick. Maybe just Ron and Hermione. That would still be fine, although the others might not appreciate it if Harry tells them to go away. Hermione will remember anything suspicious Dumbledore says and can report it back to the others later.
Instead, Dumbledore turns and walks away.
"Wow," Hermione says, sitting down with a thump. "I didn't think he would—I thought he would take the chance to speak to you with just us."
"I think I might know why he didn't," Ron mutters.
"Why?" Susan asks. "Because he's a condescending old git?"
Theo smiles, and Padma snickers. Greengrass leans back and says, "I do not think that his age pertains to the ways in which—"
Harry waves an absent hand at her, concentrating on Ron. Ron is already the color of a brick and won't speak if he thinks that someone is making fun of him. Greengrass goes quiet. "What is it, Ron?"
"Well, my parents used to talk about how Professor Dumbledore was involved in all sorts of things during the first war," Ron says, after taking a deep breath. "He was Headmaster then, but he wasn't Chief Warlock or Supreme Mugwump yet. But he was involved in the resistance against—against You-Know-Who, and he was escorting Muggleborns out of the country, and he had something like half a dozen apprentices in Transfiguration and Alchemy, and he was doing all these things for the war effort that no one even found out about until later. What if he just, he's so used to that that he doesn't want to give it up? He can't give it up? And Harry being Lord Slytherin is something that Professor Dumbledore didn't take account of, and he's reacting badly because it's messing up all his plans?"
Ron stutters to a halt. Hermione and Padma exchange glances, blinking. Justin nods slowly. Ron slumps down in his chair, apparently not having seen Justin's nod, and mutters, "Anyway, it's just a theory."
"It's a brilliant one," Hermione says, so warmly that Ron flushes harder than ever. "Yes, that explains it exactly. Professor Dumbledore isn't even trying to be difficult on purpose." She ignores Theo's deeply skeptical expression. "He's used to being in control, and he can't let anything go, because that might mean other people aren't doing it correctly."
"Other people did fight in the war against You-Know-Who," Susan says, a little coolly. Harry remembers hearing something about how some of her family died in the war.
"Yes, of course, but the Ministry wasn't effective," Hermione says. "And you know that Professor Dumbledore is the only one You-Know-Who ever feared. So he didn't have any reason to change his tactics during the first war, and now he thinks that You-Know-Who is coming back, and most people don't believe him, and he sees us as just—just a bunch of little kids running around and messing things up."
"You-Know-Who is coming back?" Oliver asks loudly.
Madam Pince dives out of absolutely nowhere at them and hisses them all into silence, tossing Fred and George and Oliver out after a brief but heated argument. Harry is kind of grateful for it. He could use time to plan what happens next with people who are less impulsive than they are.
He pauses when he thinks of what he just thought.
Plan what happens next.
He was just supposed to be a ceremonial Lord. He wasn't supposed to—
Well. Harry throws the notion impatiently away. It still doesn't mean that he has to swan around wearing leather robes and a crown and, and whatever else people like Voldemort think Lords should wear.
What matters is having the ability to get things done.
Two stories come out in the Prophet the next day. One is good. The Wizengamot has found Sirius innocent of all charges and sentenced Pettigrew to Azkaban, at long last. Sirius will have to spend more time with Healers than he'll like, based on the letters he's still sending Harry, but he'll be free.
The second story claims that the blood protections on the Dursleys' house were indeed necromantic, that there was no proof Dumbledore knew about all their effects but he'll be fined in any case and forbidden to have any more say in Harry's living arrangements, and that the protections could have stunted Harry's magic, given him nightmares, and prevented him from absorbing much energy from any food he ate.
Harry scowls at the paper. They're guessing. Or rather, the protections could have done that, but there's no sign they actually did.
The way the Dursleys treated me probably had a lot more to do with it.
Then Harry looks up as a strange wave of silence sweeps across the Great Hall, and realizes that some people at every House table are getting to their feet. It's his followers, again. Greengrass is the one who happens to reach him first.
"Madam Pomfrey awaits the chance to examine you for the adverse effects of necromantic protections. You will allow us to escort you to the hospital wing."
Harry isn't blind to the looks he's getting, or the wands that are being subtly pointed at him. He opens his mouth to explain that it's not what they think.
More wands point at him.
Sulkily, Harry stands up and goes to the hospital wing.