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Chapter Fourteen—Different Meanings of Loyalty

"Expecto Patronum!"

There's a silvery flicker in front of Blaise's wand. He drops it and scowls, but Harry smiles at him. "That's a good try!"

"But I can't get it to manifest."

"Most people can't."

Several people scowl at him now. Harry shakes his head. They're at Defense group practice out near the lake. The last several days have been sunny and warmer than they usually are in April. Harry has decided they might as well practice outside while they can. "It doesn't matter how much you scowl at me. It's still true that it's a tricky bit of magic."

"You can do it," Theo says. He has his eyes closed, his head tilted back so that he rests against the tree nearest the lake. Harry is glad to see him relaxed. He and Susan have been spending too much time researching a way to strip the Horcrux from Harry's head, lately. "And you didn't have to practice it that long. A few weeks."

"I had a snake helping me. I can still only cast it with his help." Harry shakes his head again when the scowls deepen. "I have no pressing need to cast it otherwise."

"The Defense practical," Blaise begins.

"That's not a pressing need, frankly."

Loaded glances go around the people who are standing in a loose half-circle in front of Blaise. Then Katie clears her throat. "You don't think that we could use it to do better on the Defense N.E.W.T.'s?"

"Sure." Harry blinks. "That's one of the reasons we're practicing it, isn't it?"

Theo gives a quiet chuckle that Harry ignores. Honestly, sometimes Theo just does things to mess with him, Harry thinks.

"I mean," Katie says, "we'd get it faster if you showed it to us."

"But I can only do it with Parseltongue."

"If you showed it to us, and we practiced it in English, we might get it faster."

Harry sighs, but Blaise isn't the only one who's looking at him hopefully. He did think that the Defense Association's practice might mean people would be more comfortable with getting high marks on the exams, but apparently not. He nods. "All right."

Ahalam makes a sleepy protest when Harry gathers him up from his sunny place. "The best and prettiest snakes need much sunlight. It is second only to cheese."

"The others want me to perform the Patronus for them. Can you help?"

Ahalam immediately perks up and winds around Harry's fingers, making Harry smile. Sunlight and cheese might be his most pressing needs, but the need to show off is right behind them. "They must all see how a wonderful snake does it."

"They should," Harry agrees, and stands up with Ahalam balanced on his shoulder.

He's only cast this spell a few times since the first time he got it, so he doesn't expect it to be easy. But when he draws his wand and Ahalam hisses softly, he can feel magic pouring back and forth between them like water in different rivers.

Huh. Maybe I have more of a familiar bond with him than I thought.

"Form, prey, form!"

"Expecto Patronum!"

The silvery-blue smoke wavers into existence, and then a pretty solid Niffler is left sitting there. Harry raises his eyebrows. He thinks he can actually see the dents in the soft earth from the Niffler's claws.

"Wow!"

"It's a Niffler?"

"Have you named him, Harry?"

Harry glances up with a grin. Sirius has wandered over to the edges of the group, and he seems to have forgotten that he tries to use formality with Harry when they're at Hogwarts now. "Sure. His name is Godric."

Someone laughs, but it's not Blaise or Katie or the few other people who seemed to really want to see Harry's Patronus. They're leaning in and scrutinizing it intently. Harry doesn't see how that will help them cast their own Patronuses, but maybe it will.

Then Katie steps back with a nod and exchanges a glance with seventh-year Ada Pucey that Harry really doesn't understand. "Can you do it again?" she asks.

Ahalam is more than happy to help Harry cast the Patronus again, and Harry is more than happy to indulge his friends. He ignores Theo's quiet laughter and the way that Hermione is rolling her eyes at him. He can do this, he can show them, and hopefully they'll be able to do it, too. That's all he can ask.

"Oh, they did it because they wanted to see if you have powerful magic, since you're someone who was declared a Lord more or less on accident."

Harry blinks at Susan's bowed head. They're in the library, and she's reading a few truly enormous tomes that have illustrations of serpents and fire, alternating back and forth between them in an odd manner. "What?"

"I thought I spoke clearly, my lord."

"Don't you start," Harry complains. Susan mostly calls him by his title in public when she thinks she has to show off to people, unlike Theo, who does it all the time because he—believes in it, Harry supposes. "I just asked you a question. Why would they care about how powerful I am?"

Susan looks up, keeping one finger in place on the page in front of her, even though the book doesn't show any inclination to fall shut. She regards him with strained patience. "So they can see if you're worth following."

"What?"

"I know that I really didn't speak in a mumble that time," Susan says, although she lowers her voice to a whisper while Madam Pince peers at them around the shelves. "Come on, that can't be a surprise, right?"

"I thought I was teaching people in the Defense Association! Not recruiting followers!"

"Oh, some of them are only there to learn and wouldn't become your followers if you paid them. The Slytherins especially. But Bell and Pucey and some of the younger years were evaluating you."

"But they don't need to."

"I don't understand that."

Harry holds back the temptation to retort that he thought he spoke clearly. "Other people wanted me to be their Lord to protect them or make a political point or change something they didn't like about the school. And some of you are just plain friends now." Susan smiles at him. "But Katie and Pucey and most of the younger years don't need things like that from me."

"They want to follow you, then."

"But they don't need to!"

"I don't believe you don't know the difference between want and need, Harry."

Harry sits back and closes his eyes. He's going to snap at Susan otherwise, and he doesn't want to. Susan chuckles a little and goes back to reading through the books and making notes on them, from the sound.

"Are you going to tell me what you and Theo are planning?" Harry finally asks, when he'd decided to put the subject aside, because there's no reason to keep going when it frustrates him so.

"No."

"Huh?"

Harry's eyes pop open, and Susan gives him a faint smile and finishes writing something down with a flourish. "You would try to stop us, and you would worry about it, and there's just no reason for you to worry about that," she explains, as she scans down to the bottom of the page, shakes her head, and flips to the next one.

"I should be able to figure it out by reading the books that you are."

"I doubt it."

"How come you never remember that I'm supposedly your Lord when I want you to do something? Where's that Hufflepuff loyalty, huh?"

Susan stills for a long moment. Harry leans forwards, hoping that he's got through to her, and they'll finally tell him what this is about. It's possible that they have found something that can free Harry from the Horcrux.

It's far more likely that they haven't, and in that case, Harry can talk to them, softly, gently, and prepare them for his perhaps inevitable death.

(They might not like hearing it, but they need to).

"There are different kinds of loyalty," Susan says quietly, her eyes locked on her hands. "Some that go deeper. Some that go higher. And I'm loyal to you as a friend and my principles more than I am to you as a Lord."

"So that means doing all sorts of research?"

Susan just nods and goes back to her work, not speaking again. Harry sighs, sits back in his chair, and tries to drown himself in his own homework.

Two months until the end of term. Two months to O.W.L.S.