Thank you again for all the reviews! This was originally going to be the last chapter, but there will be one more, since the Flint situation took up the whole of this chapter.
Chapter Thirteen—Before the Wizengamot
"They should at least have prepared a set of golden trumpets for you."
"What?" Harry asked, half-laughing, leaning towards Theo as they strolled through the Ministry Atrium. They'd taken the Floo from the Headmistress's office, and Harry had to smile at the looks they were getting. That was probably because of Flint's case, but also because Harry was Harry Potter and Theo had the horns and the hooves and the claws of his full satyr form.
"That's what they used to do when they knew they were going to have Dark Lord guests. Golden trumpets, blown from the walls by enchantment, to welcome the Dark Lord and warn everyone else to get the hell out of the way."
Harry snorted a little as they stepped into the lift that would carry them down to the Wizengamot courtroom. Harry found himself half-hoping it would be the same one they'd held his farce of a disciplinary hearing in the summer before fifth year. "You know that would be excessive, Theo."
"Why? Are you not a Dark Lord?"
"Not one who claims the title, and because the Ministry can't get anything right most of the time. Do you want to see what they would do to enchanted trumpets?"
Theo blinked and hesitated, and Harry nodded. He pressed the button for floor 10 on the lift, and it shuddered and began to lower.
"Point," Theo said at last. "They should still have tried."
Harry rolled his neck and raised a hand in front of his eyes, frowning at it. He'd thought for a second his fingers were getting longer, and he didn't fancy losing control in front of Shacklebolt and the Wizengamot.
Then he relaxed as he realized it wasn't his fingers getting longer; it was just white flames edging them.
Wait, should I be relaxing?
"Come down upon them like one of the ancient Sidhe out of stories, my lord, I beg you."
Harry peered suspiciously at Theo. "I've heard about the Firewhisky that sometimes gets passed around in the Slytherin dormitories. Did you have any?"
Theo looked mortally offended, but the point was, he was now looking at Harry with human eyes, not a goat's. "My lord—"
"The way you keep calling me your lord all the time, and now this talk about golden trumpets. I just wanted to know. I'll need to shield you from the Wizengamot if you're drunk, or even if you're half-drunk."
Theo stamped a hoof on the floor as the lift slowed. Harry helped him off it, a little concerned that his indignation would prevent him from making the step. He seemed incapable of taking his eyes off Harry at the moment. "I am trying to see that they pay you the respect due you!"
"But if I come marching in as a Dark Lord, that'll just undermine my position with regards to Flint. We're trying to position me as a savior who's protecting him from the Dark Mark, but will sadly let him go, right?"
Theo didn't respond for a moment as they walked down the corridor. Harry took out the note the Wizengamot had sent him to look at and was delighted to see that it did say Courtroom Ten, the same one he'd had the hearing in.
"Yes," Theo said at last. "Forgive me. I didn't think."
Harry ran his hand up the back of Theo's neck and into his hair, smiling as he watched his lover's eyelids flutter. "You've done nothing you need forgiveness for, Theo. I just wanted to make sure I was understanding you."
"I regret that we don't have enough time for me to prove my understanding and devotion."
"Me, too. But I did think of one thing I need to know. What exactly are the stories about the Sidhe that make everyone so nervous? Ron talked about whether I was going to eat them, and the centaurs expressed some of the same fear."
Theo came to a halt outside the courtroom's door and looked him over, eyes warming with a trace of gold again. "Exactly what you just said, my lord. The Sidhe were predators who hunted everyone else because they could, and were the ones who originated the Wild Hunt."
"The one that hunts down everyone who tries to flee before it?"
"Yes. The oldest legends I've heard of said one could join the Sidhe or they could run and die." Theo gave him a smile that seemed to show more fangs than Harry had thought he had the last time he looked. "I have chosen to join you."
Harry shivered, leaned in, and pressed his lips quickly to Theo's. Then he pulled back and knocked on the courtroom door. Theo's heavy, clawed hand came to rest on his shoulder for just a moment.
Smiling, Harry moved back to lean against him briefly as the door of the room swung open.
"Mr. Potter, you need to explain your actions in the matter of Mr. Flint."
Harry shrugged a little as he looked at the woman who had introduced herself as Madam Selwyn. She was a tall, world-weary witch with dark skin and piercing grey eyes who glanced back and forth between Harry and Flint as though she were watching a duel. And she wanted to keep making Harry repeat things.
"It wasn't different for him than for all the others. I took over the network of the Dark Marks and ensured the people who had them would survive. I didn't know I would summon the Blood of Avalon to awaken in them," Harry said for the third or fourth time in ten minutes. "I didn't single Flint out. I didn't know he would manifest troll heritage. That's just what happened."
"But you refuse to release him."
"If I do, he'll die."
"Bollocks!" Flint said in a voice even deeper and huskier than he'd had before, from the other side of the courtroom. "If you're that powerful, Potter, you could keep me from dying if you wanted."
Harry glanced over at Flint. He was taller than he had been, and he had dark blue skin here and there—on his hands and face, mostly—and more muscles. But he didn't smell like a troll, and as far as Harry could tell, his magic and his intellect hadn't been affected. Harry honestly didn't know why a few changed looks and extra strength had upset Flint so much.
Maybe it's more about there being proof now that his ancestors fucked trolls.
Harry held back the chuckle he wanted to give, since of course Flint wouldn't appreciate it, and inclined his head. "I think there might be a way for me to release him and make sure that he doesn't die."
"Tell us what it is!" someone shouted from far back in the Wizengamot. Harry wouldn't be particularly surprised if that was a Flint relative.
Madam Selwyn held up a commanding hand without turning her head, and whoever it was shut up. "Please tell us what it is, Mr. Potter," she went on a moment later, not having turned a hair at all.
"I think the price will be his magic," Harry said, and watched even Madam Selwyn recoil, although she stayed seated. "His health and his magic and his body are all tangled up together. The way things work right now, it's his body that's affected by becoming trollish. His magic and his health are good. If I force his body back into a human form, and work on stabilizing his health at the same time, then that leaves his magic as the only thing that can be affected."
"I do not see how you can be sure of that, Mr. Potter. This is unexplored theoretical territory."
Harry snorted and spread his hands. "Then I have no idea what's going to happen! No one has ever done this before!"
"You're strong enough!" Flint yelled.
Harry glanced at him, and watched Flint stare, probably because a spark of Sidhe magic was coming through Harry's eyes. "I'm tired of the people who hate and despise me also wanting me to save them," he said softly. "I see no reason that I should do this when I saved your bloody life, Flint, and that should mean you owe me a life-debt. Not that you should haul me in front of the Wizengamot."
"Do you think you can do this or not, Mr. Potter?" Madam Selwyn asked.
"I don't know."
"So it would depend on if Mr. Flint is willing to take the risk?"
"Yeah, exactly. It would."
Madam Selwyn nodded and turned to Flint as if she had all the time in the world. "What do you say, Mr. Flint? Are you willing to take the risk that you would lose your health, or your magic, or something else, to become human again?"
"I want to live and be human and keep my magic! He did this in the first place, he can put me back!"
"If I simply reverse the process, then you'll be human with a Dark Mark on your arm that's killing you."
"You can do something else!"
Harry stared into Flint's eyes and shook his head. He didn't need Theo, who might have known Flint a little better, to explain where that attitude was coming from. It was the same one Dudley had had when they were kids. He always wanted someone to "fix" things, whether or not they could be fixed. Harry could just remember the tantrums Dudley had pitched when he understood Harry would keep living in the house with them and not be thrown out.
"There are only a few solutions, and the one you want is so theoretical I don't know what exactly would happen. Take it or leave it."
"Why did you do this in the first place?"
"Because I wasn't thinking about you, you enormous wanker. I didn't even know that you'd taken the Dark Mark!"
"Mr. Potter, please keep a civil tongue in front of the court."
"If Flint got away with bollocks, I should be able to get away with wanker. Or is this just a case of one standard for everyone else and another for Harry Potter again?"
Madam Selwyn looked a little flustered. "Yes, I suppose that is true. Everyone keep a civil tongue in their heads."
Harry nodded and turned to look at Flint again. "You take a chance that you become a Squib, or you become a dying human, or you stay a troll. Take your pick from those choices. Which do you want?"
"I want to be myself!"
"So, a troll?"
Flint growled at him. Theo growled back. Harry started. Theo had been so quiet for the last few minutes that Harry had thought he wouldn't take any part in the proceedings. But maybe he considered a threat from the Blood of Avalon different from a human one.
"Being of the Blood of Avalon isn't lesser than being a human," Harry said quietly, wondering if this was part of what was bothering Flint. "I'm going to make sure that all my kin are accepted by the magical world." He saw Madam Selwyn and a few of the other Wizengamot members staring at him, but he ignored them. If this was news to them, then they deserved to be surprised.
"It's not me! I'm human! I was born human, and I want to die human!"
"So you want me to put you back in your human body with the Dark Mark killing you?"
"It was a figure of speech, Potter! Are you too much of a beast to understand those anymore?"
Harry blinked, not sure what the best response would be.
It turned out he didn't have to respond. Theo blurred past him and slid to a halt in front of Flint, claws pressed against his side. Flint turned so ghastly pale that it looked odd with the blue patches of skin on his face.
"Say that again," Theo whispered. "Say that again to the one who should be your lord."
"Mr. Nott!"
"Theo!" Harry said at the same time, not as loudly as Madam Selwyn, but his voice was the one that made Theo turn his head. Harry caught his eye and shook his head. "I don't care what he says. I don't want to try and protect anyone who's unwilling to have me protect them."
Theo paused for a long moment. Then he inclined his head and withdrew his hand from Flint's side. It hadn't seemed to be in a particularly vulnerable spot. Then again, maybe Theo knew something about troll anatomy that he didn't.
Theo practically pranced back to Harry's side, his claws gleaming and his hooves stomping loudly and obviously on the floor. He came to stand behind Harry, and rested his hands on Harry's shoulders. Harry shivered a little, but he also wondered if Theo had been wise in threatening Flint the way he had. A Wizengamot who already hated the Blood could use this as an excuse to persecute them.
But Theo leaned close to Harry's ear and whispered, "There are laws saying satyrs can threaten those who threaten their mates."
"Your mate, am I?"
"Did you really doubt it?"
Harry dug an elbow into Theo's side and turned to face Madam Selwyn again. "All right. So I can try to turn Flint back if he wants. But I refuse to be prosecuted if Flint dies or becomes a Squib. He's the one who chose this, and who wanted me to go ahead with it even though this is unexplored theoretical territory."
"So you want immunity from the consequences of your actions?" the person who might be a Flint relative asked in the back of the courtroom.
Madam Selwyn twitched and then said in a calm voice, "Hit Wizards."
Harry tensed in case they were coming to try and take down him and Theo, but Theo put a hand on Harry's shoulder and shook his head. Harry took a deep breath and did his best to relax.
And, in fact, the Hit Wizards walked smartly to the back of the courtroom and heaved a man even taller and heavier than Flint to his feet, marching him out of the room. Harry relaxed a little more and looked at Madam Selwyn again.
"Yes," Madam Selwyn said at last. "I agree that this is unexplored, and Mr. Flint will swear an oath that he will not seek to prosecute you for what happens when you set him free from his troll heritage and not to have his family do so, either."
"If he's alive to make that decision."
Harry wished Theo wouldn't say things that were meant to make him laugh right in the middle of a solemn courtroom session. He had to settle for digging his elbow into Theo's side again and saying simply, "An oath would satisfy me."
He turned to look at Flint, who scowled at him and said, "I don't want to die, and I don't to be a Squib, and I don't want to be a troll."
"It's going to be one of the three. Pick."
Flint just sneered at him and said, "I'll swear the bloody oath."
"Keep a civil tongue in your head, Mr. Flint."
Flint scowled at Madam Selwyn, but he took out his wand and followed Madam Selwyn through the wording of an oath that would keep Harry safe from legal harm by the Flint family, whatever happened. Harry listened carefully, but all the wording seemed fine to him. And more to the point, Theo was standing relaxed at his side. He would have got upset if he had thought something was wrong.
When the oath was done, Harry faced Flint and took a long breath. Then he began to pull on his magic.
He had the sensation that he wouldn't have been able to concentrate on just one part of the network before, when he wasn't Sidhe. But now the delicate, dancing nature of the web spread before him, blowing back and forth, and it was so easy to reach out and pluck Flint's thread from it that Harry did it without thought.
There was a long, agonized scream that shuddered through the web. Harry was surprised to open his eyes and find it echoing in his ears, too, but not surprised that Theo's hands had clamped down on his shoulders hard enough to draw blood.
He was only mildly astonished to notice the wounds knitting closed the minute they appeared, and that his blood had a sparkling golden tinge to it.
He glanced up. Flint was swaying back and forth behind the podium where he'd stood, and then he crashed to the ground. Harry narrowed his eyes, and Flint's left sleeve moved up a bit. The Dark Mark was gone from his arm.
He was a Squib, then. Harry nodded. Well, that was the fate he had chosen.
"Healer?"
Harry started a little. He hadn't even realized a woman in a Healer's green robes stood near the front of the room. He frowned. He would have to be more careful and observant.
And that's probably the Sidhe predator in me speaking.
The Healer cast a diagnostic charm, wand and hand moving so fast that Harry thought vaguely he wouldn't want to duel her. Then she bowed her head. "Mr. Flint is now a Squib," she said.
As the Wizengamot roared insults and accusations, Harry found himself turning to Theo. Without his focus split between Theo and Flint, it was more than obvious how little he had in common with anyone else in the room. Theo was his only kin here now.
Theo gave him a quiet, reassuring smile, even with the edges of his fangs showing. "I suppose now we know which theory is correct."
Harry smiled, because he thought the humans would probably take it the wrong way if he laughed, and reached up to trail his fingers along Theo's face. Theo went still at once, wide eyes still on him.
Harry forgot about what the humans would care about, and leaned up to kiss him.
He had to keep some considerations in place, but the part of him that had cared so much about people who would only ever demand more from him was still burned to ash.
Even if it hadn't been, it would have burned in the dazzling fire in Theo's eyes.
