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Chapter Four—Stands

"Pathetic Potter messed up his spell in Defense again. That's why Slytherin lost ten points this afternoon."

For a moment, Theo's hand clenched on the side of his book. He would have preferred to wait longer to challenge Draco.

But they were in the middle of the Slytherin common room, and Draco was getting laughs as he mimed Potter's casting performance. Potter wasn't here at the moment. That was how Theo knew Draco was bored.

It didn't matter. If things were going to change, if Theo was going to change, he had to do it when Potter wasn't watching, too, or it didn't matter.

"Just what I would expect of a half-blood—"

"Just how closely related are your parents, Draco?" Theo interrupted in a pleasant voice that nonetheless cut through the noise in the common room. It was the way his father had trained him to speak. "Your great-grandmother on your mother's side was a Malfoy, from what I understand? Of course, there are all the rumors about your mother's father being a Malfoy, too, because of her blonde hair? Or am I mixing up the rumors?"

Draco stared at him. So did a few of the other Slytherins. Blaise had put down his book on the couch for some reason and was leaning forwards, his eyes wide.

Theo didn't understand the reaction, but he didn't have time to contemplate it. Draco had narrowed his eyes and was twirling his wand between his fingers. "You have a death wish, Nott?"

Theo laughed at that, genuinely amused. That part wasn't new. "Have you forgotten what happened the last time we dueled, Draco?"

Draco flushed to the tips of his ears. It was desperately unbecoming. Strange that his parents hadn't trained that out of him. "That wasn't in public."

"I'm sorry, you think people watching is going to make you better?"

No one except the two of them would understand the subtext behind that. Theo and Draco had dueled often when they were younger, including at some private parties where their parents had watched, and Draco had lost in front of an audience every time. He grew too nervous with critical eyes on him.

And seventh-year Slytherin and unofficial top Crup in the House or not, there were plenty of those on Draco right now.

Draco shot a Stinging Hex at Theo. Theo turned to take it on the shoulder, shaking his head a little, keeping his tone light and mocking. Let all of them see how impervious he was to pain, and keep what he had to say in mind. "Beginning a duel without going through the formal declaration, Draco? What would your father say?"

"You shut up about my father!" Draco snapped.

"I don't think I will. He mustn't have taught you very well, after all, if you can forget a step as basic as this. Maybe he wasn't training you as any sort of political successor to him, of course. Maybe he was training you like a pet."

And Draco lost his head, starting to his feet and casting the Entrail-Expelling Curse, of all things, at Theo.

Theo had already been poised to move. In seconds he was on the floor, rolling, and the curse crashed over him and into the back of the couch. Someone screamed. Someone else, more sensible, raised wards around him and Draco.

Theo was on his feet, and his wand was in his hand. Draco was storming towards him, face darker than Theo had ever seen it.

Theo acknowledged a distant thrill of fear. But a plain thrill was stronger.

He should have done this a long time ago.

"What are you doing, Nott?" Draco hissed, halting in front of him. "You could have chosen easier ways to die."

"And you could have chosen easier ways to humiliate yourself than accepting the bait," Theo said softly. "You do realize that by using that kind of potentially deadly curse, you've opened up the field?"

Draco turned pale at the same moment as Theo bowed to him. And Draco had no choice but to bow back, as jerky as the gesture was. The wards that the other Slytherins had raised only protected the bystanders from spells. They were transparent, letting the audience watch the duel.

Theo smiled at Draco, and Draco's clutch on his wand tightened.

For all that, he was the one who struck first, a curse that would have shocked Theo with lightning if it had landed. And Theo was the one who raised a casual shield, one that distributed the lightning along its length, crackling, and dissipated it at the same time.

Draco stumbled back a step. Presumably that was one of the curses his father had taught him that was supposedly unblockable.

Theo moved a step forwards. Draco promptly struck again, lashing out with spells both silent and verbal, ones that were meant to hurt, to maim, to humiliate, to flatten.

Theo caught all of them on his shields. He could have stepped back or dodged away from at least some of them, but that wasn't the point. The point was to humiliate Draco and to show how weak Draco was, that Theo wouldn't even become exhausted shielding from him.

By the time Draco had retreated almost to the edge of the wards, his arm was trembling with exhaustion and his wand was drooping. Theo hadn't broken a sweat. He smiled at Draco, and Draco swayed as if he was going to faint.

But of course, that couldn't happen. It wouldn't be fun if that happened.

"Vigilans," Theo cast softly, a spell that would keep Draco awake through what followed, and then, "Quasso ossa."

It was a variation of the Bone-Breaking Curse, but not a commonly-used one. It hit Draco in the right foot, where Theo had aimed, and delicately began to break his toes.

One by one. The regular Bone-Breaker would have done it all at once, and would have shattered the bones of his foot and then stopped.

But this one spread slowly upwards, moving onto the bones of the foot and the ankle when the toes were done, and aiming for Draco's femur.

That kind of injury, even a Healer might not be able to treat well if treatment was delayed. For example, if the victim was isolated behind wards and no one was able to drop them and Floo the hospital wing in time.

Draco knew that as well as Theo. Draco, screaming, knew what would happen to him.

"Nott! Nott, wait! I yield!" Draco shouted, and then went back to shrieking in pain.

Theo waved his wand, and the curse halted, hovering just short of Draco's tibia. That was another reason he had chosen this spell. It remained under the command of the caster, and Theo could stop it any time he wanted—and let it start again, any time he wanted. "You're ready to admit you lost the duel and give me your forfeit?" he asked pleasantly.

"Yes! Yes!"

There was snot on Draco's face. It didn't seem polite to mention it. Theo nodded. "You'll cease talking about blood status and using the word 'Mudblood' for as long as I tell you to."

That got more than one person staring at him. Theo ignored the stares, his gaze locked on Draco. He had to start here, or he would never get anywhere. Draco had enough power in Slytherin that he would simply intimidate anyone else Theo talked to about blood status comments into agreeing with him.

"What? Why?"

Theo tilted his head and lifted his wand.

"All right, all right, it doesn't matter! What are the time limits for this?" Draco was shaking with fear and probably pain, his eyes locked on Theo's wand rather than Theo's face.

"The rest of your life."

"What? Nott, I can't…"

"Then I suppose that you'll be relearning how to walk. Or perhaps forgetting to," Theo said, and loosed the curse from his control. Draco's tibia broke with a crunch, and Draco wailed and spoke quickly.

"I agree! I agree! No more comments on blood status or the word 'Mudblood' for the rest of my life!"

"A pleasure making bargains with you," Theo said, and ended the curse. He heard someone lower the wards, but didn't linger to see who. He turned around and sauntered back to his chair, where he sat down and picked up the Charms book he had been reading when things started.

More than one person came up to stare at him, but no one actually asked him what had inspired that, or why he had made the bargain he did with Draco. Theo kept his head down and his smile to himself.

"Did you think I would be impressed?"

Harry was beyond pleased at the way his words made Nott jump. He'd come up behind the other boy in the library, and used a spell that, twisted a little, silenced every sound Harry made, not just his footsteps, which it had originally been designed for. Harry had used it to sneak around and in and out of the Slytherin common room many times.

Nott turned around and blinked at him, keeping one finger in his Charms book. "What?"

"I heard about what you did in the common room. You probably think you're noble, torturing Malfoy like that." Nott stayed silent, and Harry forged closer to him, grabbing the back of his chair. "Did you think you were going to impress me?"

"No," Nott said flatly. "Or I would have waited until you were in the audience."

Harry paused. That was something he hadn't thought about in any detail. He had simply heard what had happened, and that it was Nott attacking Malfoy out of nowhere, and felt the same kind of blinding rage that he had the day he'd confronted Nott in the air.

"Why did you do it?" Harry said.

"Because I learned that I'd been wrong, and—I always knew that blood status didn't have anything to do with talent. I felt pretty stupid when I realized I'd been acting as if it did."

"That's a stupid realization."

"Yes, stupid that it took me so long to come to it."

Harry moved a step closer. "That wasn't what I meant," he snapped. "It's stupid that you decided that the way to make up for your bullying was to torture Malfoy."

Nott shrugged, although a flash of emotion moved through his eyes that Harry couldn't name. It wasn't like he'd ever spent time watching Nott for more complex emotions than anger or cruelty or the boredom that might mean he was about to start taunting Harry. "I'm doing what I can."

"In what way? Did I ask you to be my champion?"

"No. But I don't know any other way to stop Draco from making more blood status comments. He would just go back to doing it unless someone terrified him into stopping, and an ordinary prank spell or jinx wouldn't do that."

"You—" Harry bit his tongue and closed his eyes, taking a long, deep breath. "You can't make up for what you did to me."

"Yes. That's one reason that I attacked Draco even though you weren't there."

"You shouldn't have attacked him at all!"

"I'm afraid that's out of your hands." The flash of what might have been humanity was gone from Nott's face, and he spoke coolly. "You told me I can't apologize or make up for what I did to you. Very well, I'm not trying to. I'm doing what I can to make myself feel better for how stupid I was all these years."

"And you think—what? That stopping Malfoy from making blood purist comments will make other people feel better?"

"The Muggleborns he might run into after school will feel better. I know that we're in our seventh year now and he doesn't have much time left at Hogwarts, so maybe that won't matter as much. But I wanted to do it, and I did."

"And what next?"

"Professor Snape."

"He doesn't make blood purist comments," Harry said quietly, while a soft, uncertain drum began beating in his ears.

"No," Nott agreed, with a flash of teeth that wasn't a smile. "But you're not the only one he picks on. Just the only Slytherin. He basically destroyed Longbottom's chances of becoming an Auror, and Longbottom could have been decent in Potions, with his Herbology knowledge. I know that Granger kept going in the class in spite of him, and she does a lot of studying on her own. Even Millicent gave up on Potions because she couldn't bear the thought of spending two more years with Snape teaching her. She studies on her own, too."

Millicent? Harry almost asked, but then remembered Bulstrode. Right. He was so used to thinking of Slytherins by their last names that he hadn't considered her at all.

She was also the only other half-blood in Slytherin, as far as Harry knew. She deferred to Malfoy all the time. Harry had thought that was because she was toadying to the blood purists, but now he recognized it as a tactic she had taken to protect herself.

Just a different one from mine.

Harry took a deep breath and said, "I don't want you to try and handle Snape, Nott. I want to do that on my own."

Nott watched him with deep, wild eyes. "I told you that I wasn't handling Malfoy for you."

"But I know where the inspiration came from," Harry snapped, and took a step forwards. "You want to make things up to me? Let me do this."

"And if you don't manage to make him back off from tormenting you?"

"Then I'll try something else. But I'm fairly sure that this tactic is going to work."

Nott nodded slowly. "All right. I suppose you deserve the right to confront him."

"So good to know that I have your consideration," Harry sniped, and turned away.

Theo sighed a little, quietly, as he watched Potter go. There was a scar of disappointment in him.

He hadn't confronted Draco for Potter, not exactly. But it would have made him happy to have Potter's approval of his actions.

Then Theo shrugged. Potter didn't owe Theo anything, and Theo could hold back from confronting Professor Snape. It had been his next plan, but not his only one.

Potter wasn't the only person he had bullied, and there were other people out there who might still accept Theo's apologies.