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Chapter Nine—Posturing

Blaise eyes Neville. Neville eyes Blaise. Harry stands in the middle of their Potions brewing room and folds his arms. "You will get along," he commands them.

"Why should we?" Blaise sounds soft and unpleasant, the way that Harry has only heard him be with some other Slytherins. He seems to have few friends in his own House. Of course, a lot of them believe the rumors about his mum. He keeps his eyes locked on Neville. "I'm a Slytherin. He's the Boy-Who-Lived. Most people would already agree that's a potion heading for disaster." He coughs a little. "No offense, Longbottom."

Neville turns bright red. But he says, "I a-agree with Zabini, Harry. Why do we all need to get along?"

Harry claps his hands. "You agree with each other! That's the first step!"

Now he has two unimpressed people glaring at him. Harry folds his arms again and glares right back. "We could all help each other," he says. "We can help Neville learn to get better at brewing, Blaise. We can help other people see that Blaise is more important than just stupid rumors, Neville."

"What about you?" Blaise is staring at him with his eyebrows raised, like Harry is a bunch of improperly stewed lacewings.

"I get to have two great friends who both get along."

Blaise and Neville stare at each other again. Artemis stirs a little in Harry's pocket, and Blaise's eyes snap towards her. A second later, he's mouthing something at Harry. Harry has to squint to read Blaise's lips.

Have you told him about her?

Harry gives a tiny shake of his head. Blaise smiles in a stuck-up way and steps forwards, holding out his hand to Neville.

"I suppose we can try, Boy-Who-Lived," he says. "For Harry's sake."

Neville looked uncertain, but when he turns to Harry, Harry gives him a much more obvious nod and waving motions. Neville shakes Blaise's hand.

Harry beams, and tries to ignore the smug way Blaise acts as they set up their cauldrons. He's putting way too much emphasis on knowing about Artemis when Neville doesn't.

Sometimes Blaise is great, and sometimes he's very weird.

"I want to know about your mother, Zabini."

Oddly enough, it's Malfoy who approached him first, even though Nott has seemed the most curious about Mother of any of Blaise's roommates. Blaise stretches his legs out and insolently surveys Malfoy up and down. Malfoy scowls at him and sticks his chin up.

They're attracting attention. The common room goes silent as people turn to stare at what they must assume is an interesting spectacle.

"You know that she exists," Blaise says. "You know that she's Italian and beautiful and dark-skinned." He watches closely, but Malfoy only keeps frowning at him. "That's as much as you need to know." He reaches for his book again.

"I want to know more than that. I demand it."

There's someone gasping in a whistling breath. Blaise thinks it might be Nott. No, wait, probably Greengrass. The voice is a little high-pitched for Nott, and anyway, Nott is sitting in a corner with his own book and a smile of secret delight widening across his face.

The part of his brain that's thinking like that clicks along on separate rails, like the Hogwarts Express. The important part is the one that has Blaise looking at Malfoy, holding his eyes, and Malfoy turning paler and paler.

"You demand."'

Malfoy finds some modicum of courage somewhere and says, "Yes, I do. It's intolerable to have someone with so many rumors about them in our dormitories." He glances around as if hoping for someone to back him up, but of course it's not impressive that Crabbe and Goyle are nodding along, and Nott sits as still as a poisoned bullfrog. "I demand to know the truth."

"If you wish," Blaise says.

Malfoy blinks, caught off-guard, and some other people murmur in confusion. Blaise takes the moment to flick one of the spells that Mother buried in his skin at Malfoy. It's much higher-level than Blaise could cast himself right now, with his lack of training, but that doesn't matter, not when it will look like it came from Blaise.

And wandlessly, no less.

Blaise watches as Malfoy curls over himself with a low moan. Someone in the back of the room shouts, "His stomach's gone!"

Technically, it isn't. The curse has simply chewed a hole through Malfoy that has neatly removed his inner organs and skin and flesh that were in the way, so someone can look through Malfoy like they'd look through a hole in a Swiss cheese. The organs and the like have been moved into another dimension for an hour.

They'll come back.

Malfoy might hope he's in the hospital wing and already taking a pain potion when that happens.

Blaise turns around and meets the eyes of everyone who's still looking at him. Most people drop their gazes. The few who don't, like Nott, at least have better sense than to look like they might challenge him.

"The rumors are true," Blaise says icily, and turns and stalks towards the dormitory, bringing his book with him. He hopes to have some time to read in peace and quiet before he gets pulled in front of Professor Snape.

If he does. Malfoy might have better sense than that, too.

Blaise lies down on his bed with his skin tingling and lifts his book above his face. He can't pretend that he's made much progress when the door opens. Blaise rolls over, gripping his wand, but it's just Nott, pausing to give Blaise a look of intense interest.

"I'm glad the rumors are true," Nott says, and then turns around and heads for the showers.

Blaise shakes his head. Nott is creepy.

"Think you'll try out for Quidditch?"

Harry grins at Neville, who's come up beside him where Harry stands watching the Ravenclaw players. They're dropping and looping across the pitch, seemingly training their new Seeker, a girl called Cho Chang who's a year older than Harry. "Maybe next year. But I'd really want to be Seeker, and that spot is occupied. So I don't know."

"People want me to be good at Quidditch."

Harry glances at Neville. He's standing with his hands in his robe pockets and his head bowed, and Harry has already learned that's the way he looks when he's talking about something his grandmother wants. "But you don't want to?"

Neville stares at the ground and shakes his head.

Harry claps him on the shoulder. "I don't know why everyone has to be good at Quidditch," he says. "Things would be pretty boring if everyone was. And then there would be too many people who want to play on the teams anyway, and it would be chaos. So I think it's fine that you don't like Quidditch."

"My Gran is disappointed, though."

"Why?"

"My dad was good at Quidditch." Neville is hunching so much that he almost disappears into his cloak. Harry kind of envies him the cloak. He didn't think to buy a thick enough one in Diagon Alley, and now he'll have to work hard on casting Warming Charms so that he can keep the cloak and Artemis and himself warm. "She thinks I should be j-just like him."

"He never defeated a Dark Lord as a baby, though, did he?"

Neville gapes at Harry. Harry raises his eyebrows, wondering if this is somehow something else that he didn't know about, and it's a Longbottom family tradition or something. "Did he?"

"Um. No. But she thinks he was perfect."

"She's wrong," Harry says firmly. "And I'm here if you ever need to hear someone say that."

"Yeah. I." Neville looks a little dazed, and Harry wonders if Neville was really the one who wasn't ready to hear it. "I think—I think I'll go—grow some plants." He gives Harry an unexpectedly shy glance. "You want to come?"

"Sure."

Harry isn't the best at Herbology, because that's Neville, but he finds working with plants soothing, and Artemis likes to just flicker her tongue out of his pocket and pick up on the smells of flowers and herbs. Harry listens to her whispered comments with a smile while he plucks and prunes, and when Neville isn't looking, he reaches out and tugs on the leaves of the nearest rosemary plant with his magic.

Make something. Come to life.

Nothing happens, though. Harry doesn't feel the slightest stirring like he did when the strange little creature made of stone shards came to life and tore at the troll's throat.

Neville turns around and seems to mistake Harry's disappointed expression for disappointment with him. His shoulders hunch up. "I'm s-sorry," he whispers. "This probably isn't as interesting as Potions or anything."

"It's not you," Harry says. "I was just trying to feel the plants' magic, and I couldn't do it very well. I have trouble with my wand sometimes, and it's not worth trying in Potions with Snape breathing down my neck, so it would be good to have another class that I'm good at."

Neville promptly perks up. "That's the kind of thing I can do! Let me show you. You have to sort of concentrate and reach out without moving your hands…"

Harry spends a fun afternoon listening to Neville talk about the plants' magic. Apparently rosemary's is sort of spiky, and lavender's is soft and soothing like the flowers' scent. Mandrake tingles in Neville's nose, and Neville says that sunflowers' magic always makes him sneeze.

Harry just spends it amazed at what Neville can do, thinking that's plenty great for the Boy-Who-Lived, and silently pleased that he has a friend.

An unfamiliar owl brings Harry post at breakfast in the middle of November. Blaise pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth. If Mother killed someone recently, she wouldn't use their owl. Too showy, and easy to track. But it would hurt if she's telling Harry before she tells him, her own son.

And Harry reads the letter, and his face gets pale, and his eyes wide, and his shoulders slump. He stands up and walks out of the Great Hall altogether, ignoring the way that Patil tries to talk to him and Longbottom stares after him.

Blaise stands up, too. This is a matter for Harry's oldest and most real friend, obviously. He knows already that Harry will have gone to one of their private corners to be with Artemis and talk to her.

"Running after Ravenclaws, Zabini?"

"More interesting than you," Blaise says dismissively, cutting Malfoy dead without even looking at him. He can hear Greengrass picking up the mockery as he follows Harry's path. Malfoy seems oblivious to how much other people in their year dislike him, even if Crabbe and Goyle follow him around most of the time.

Then Blaise puts thoughts of Malfoy aside. Harry needs him, and neither Patil nor Longbottom know Harry well enough to realize where he'll go. Blaise quickens his pace a little. He wants to know who wrote the letter that could do that to Harry.

And then he'll want to make sure that he can hurt them.

"He didn't know you, or he would have stayed for you."

Harry starts to answer Artemis, but the door of the small storage room where they're hiding abruptly creaks open. He aims his wand despite knowing how hard it will be for him to cast most hexes, but it's Blaise, slipping into the space. Harry drops his wand and reaches out a hand, choking a little.

Blaise immediately drops to one knee, clutching Harry's hand. "What happened? Who wrote to you?"

Harry picks up the letter and hands it over with his free hand. Artemis is hissing softly, anxiously, but it's hard for Harry to listen to her. And it's not like he has to keep the letter with him to know what it says. Even though it's only been about fifteen minutes since he got it, the words are engraved on his heart.

Dear Harry,

Yes, I am your godfather. And you're right to ask where I was and why I didn't stay to raise you. I can only tell you how sorry I am, and that there were greater concerns. I'll try to explain them. I just ask that you don't share them with anyone else, because it could be dangerous for both of us.

After James and Lily died and the Longbottom boy defeated You-Know-Who, I went to talk to my friend Remus Lupin. He was friends with your mum and dad, too. But we suspected each other of being spies during the war, and I thought he had something to do with James and Lily dying.

Headmaster Dumbledore was the one who sat us down and made us realize we were the survivors of a terrible tragedy, not enemies. And then he told us that he was pretty sure You-Know-Who wasn't dead and would return someday. He asked us to go abroad and trace You-Know-Who's steps.

You see, when You-Know-Who was a boy named Tom Riddle, he disappeared for about ten or fifteen years on the Continent. Maybe even longer than that. The people who knew him best aren't talking. The Headmaster is pretty sure that he was searching out the path of immortality. He wanted us to try to follow that path and gather up the lore so that we would know how to defeat You-Know-Who when he returns.

I thought it was the best thing I could do. The Headmaster promised that you would be in safe hands, raised by family, and I knew that I wouldn't do a great job. I was just twenty-one and torn by grief. And if you were in the Muggle world instead of the magical one, then you would have an extra layer of protection just in case some of the Death Eaters—they're the ones who followed You-Know-Who—returned and decided they should kill you for being your parents' son. Your parents were mighty warriors for our side.

I'm sorry that you feel I abandoned you. I know you didn't say that, but it came through your letter. I'm so sorry, Harry. But Remus and I have found some clues to You-Know-Who's immortality, and it should only be another year or so before we can come home. I promise, we'll talk then, and you can decide if you want to live with me or not. Maybe you won't. I don't always like the person I've become, researching such Dark Arts. But it'll be your decision.

My love, always,
Your godfather, Sirius Black.

Harry slumps against the wall and watches as Blaise finishes reading. His eyes feel wide-open and stung, even though he hasn't really cried. Sort of, maybe. He reaches up and there are tears on his cheeks that he doesn't remember being there.

He doesn't even know why he's so upset. Sirius said that he loves Harry. He's one of the few people ever to say that to Harry. (Presumably his parents did). He said that he didn't think he would have been a good godfather. He apologized.

So why is Harry upset?

"He's an idiot."

Harry blinks and comes out of the spiral that he's dropping into, the kind of dark loneliness that he vaguely remembers consuming him in the cupboard when he was a kid, before Artemis came to life. "What?"

"He's an idiot to have left you behind and gone off to do whatever the Headmaster wants him to do," Blaise says flatly, and tosses the letter back to Harry. Harry catches it when he it would have fluttered to the floor. He has the feeling that Blaise would have liked to crumple it up, from the look on his face, but maybe he thinks Harry would get upset about that. "Why was he listening to the Headmaster, anyway? What right did the Headmaster have to put you with the Muggles?"

Harry shrugs helplessly and shakes his head. "Everyone says Dumbledore is a lot more than a Headmaster…"

"Yes, yes, he's the Chief Warlock and the Supreme Mugwump, we know that, but that doesn't give him the right to put you somewhere or order your godfather to leave you behind." Blaise's eyes are glowing with a light that is similar to the look in his mum's eyes when she started talking about power. "How could he…he makes me want to hurt him."

Harry smiles and reaches out. Blaise clasps his hand. Maybe Harry should be upset about Blaise wanting to hurt Dumbledore, but he just appreciates it. And anyway, Artemis is hissing her soft approval. "This is why I like this friend of yours."

"Right now, Dumbledore is too powerful for you to hurt," Harry tells Blaise quietly. "Maybe later."

"I was actually talking more about your godfather." Blaise leans back and narrows his eyes. "Notice that he didn't even talk about coming home to take you in this summer?"

"He said it would be another year or so—"

"He knows now that you didn't grow up happily with the Muggles and you want him back and he still continues to prioritize Dumbledore's mission over you."

Harry breathes out slowly. He reckons that's why he's upset, now that he thinks about it. "I know. But he'll eventually come back, and—it's the only chance I have to live with someone who—well, he acts like he cares about me, anyway. So that's why you can't hurt him, Blaise. You would frighten him away, and then where would I go?"

"To Italy with me and Mother."

Harry blinks and stares at Blaise. Blaise is looking back, with the kind of strong certainty that Harry has only seem him display about saying Artemis and Parseltongue are brilliant. "I—really? I thought she distrusted me."

"Only because you were new. And because I never really had a close friend before you."

Blaise is speaking while looking away from him, staring at the wall. Harry reaches out and squeezes Blaise's arm, once. Blaise scoots a little closer to him without looking away from the wall.

"When she knows you, now that she knows you, she'll want me to invite you with me." Blaise leans over so that his shoulder rests against Harry's. "I intended to ask you to come with me over Christmas, in fact. I was saving it for a surprise, but then Black had to ruin everything."

Harry's smile quivers. It's like Blaise to blame Sirius for that instead of Harry.

"I approve of this one. I told you that. I made a good choice," Artemis hisses.

Harry reaches down and pulls her out of his pocket. Blaise's face quiets and softens the way it always does when he sees Artemis, and he reaches for her, giving Harry just a quick glance for permission. Harry nods. He thinks it does Artemis good to spend time with people other than him, and it's not like there's a huge variety of choices.

Blaise cradles Artemis and holds her close to his cheek. Harry breathes out slowly. That decides him.

Blaise likes Artemis. He values her. He won't tell Harry to get rid of her even if he knows the truth of how she came to be and that Harry is expending a lot of his magic to keep her existing.

"There's something I have to tell you about Artemis," he says.

Blaise swallows. He has to admit his first thought is that Harry has decided Blaise can't hold Artemis anymore.

But he buries it. Harry is so straightforward that he would just come out with that, and he would have said something before he let Blaise pick Artemis up. So Blaise just holds Artemis close, listening to her soft noises as she slides around his hands, and listens.

"When I was six, I was locked in my cupboard one night and so lonely I felt like I could die." Harry's eyes are wide, and Blaise wants to hurt someone again, but this time it's not Sirius Black. "I didn't know I had magic, then. I just wished as hard as I could for a friend, and I felt something kind of snap inside me, but I didn't know what it was.

"When I went out into the garden the next morning, Artemis was there. And I discovered that I could speak Parseltongue. I never noticed it before then. I eventually figured out that my magic created Artemis and gave me the ability to speak to her."

Blaise opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.

Harry plows on. "That's why I kind of have trouble with the regular spells that use my wand, I think. I sort of changed my magic. Now it's more about the kinds of things like Potions that I can do without a spell. Those sparks in Ollivander's shop happened because I wasn't trying to consciously create them with a spell."

"Harry," Blaise whispers.

"Um. Just let me get to the end of this."

Blaise nods, rapt, eyes locked on Harry. His mind is spinning so fast that he's not sure he would have known what to say, anyway.

Harry locks his arms around his knees and bows his head so that his chin rests on them. "And the night the troll came into the school, I ran into it on the way back from Charms practice. I was running away from it, but I knew I wasn't going to be fast enough, and I wished so hard for something to happen. And some stone shards came to life and tore the troll's throat. I didn't kill it, but maybe I sort of weakened it so that the professors could kill it later."

Blaise reaches out and clasps Harry's hand. Harry takes it with a look of relief. Did he think Blaise was going to reject him?

The thought irritates Blaise so much that he has to speak, even though he's not sure Harry has reached the end of the story yet. "Harry, this is fantastic. I've never heard of someone doing something like this! It's wonderful."

"It—is?"

"Of course it is! Did you think I would say it wasn't?"

"I—I thought that maybe you would tell me to get rid of Artemis so that I could practice regular spells. Because it's a drain on my regular magic and I can't practice them without a lot of, of practice."

Harry is stumbling over his words, something Blaise has heard him do a lot less in the two months since they came to Hogwarts. Blaise shakes his head and shakes the hand he's clasped around Harry's at the same time. "I think extraordinary is always better than ordinary."

"Even if it means that I have trouble with Charms and other classes?"

Blaise nods firmly. "You are able to pick up those spells with practice, right?" Harry nods back, and Blaise smiles at him. "Well, then, just make an extra effort to learn those spells that will defend you best, and otherwise concentrate on learning the kind of magic that lets you bring things to life."

His voice softens with amazement on those last words, because it really is amazing.

Harry ducks his head and peers up at Blaise from beneath his eyelashes. "You think that's okay?"

"Of course it's okay."

"I thought—well, it's not being powerful in the way that everyone else thinks of being powerful. The way your mum thinks of being powerful."

Blaise laughs aloud. "Harry, you can bring things to life. My mother would tell me to concentrate on that particular talent if I had it. And I'm sure she would tell you the same thing." He pauses. "Are you intending to tell her?"

"I was worried about what she would say."

"For the same reasons that you were worried about me?"

"Um. Yeah. But also, she doesn't know me as well. Maybe she really would have a different attitude about it."

Personally, Blaise suspects that his mother is going to want to learn all about the theoretical underpinnings of this talent and have Harry practice it as much as possible, but all he can do now is smile warmly and shake his head. "I promise, Harry, she's going to be excited for you."

"Oh. Okay." Harry's smile comes back, tentative at first and then blazing as though the blood in his veins has been lit on fire. "Brilliant."

Blaise hesitates, and then asks, "Do you think that you could create something small for me? Just so that I can see how it looks?"

"I'll try," Harry says. "But so far it only happens when I'm really—upset, or in need, or something. I don't know if just wanting to create something is enough for the magic to function."

"Just trying would be enough," Blaise says quietly, and prepares to settle back and listen. Sometimes he can hear, or feel, or otherwise sense magic, although it doesn't work in classrooms or any other loud and bustling location. But he wants to hear Harry's magic so badly right now that he thinks he can probably do it.

If Harry can conjure even the barest trace of it.

Harry nods and closes his eyes. Artemis twines around his left arm and lifts her head. For a second, Blaise thinks that he sees the light catching on her darting tongue, and he nearly smiles.

Then something twitches off to the left. Blaise whirls around to watch it, but he can't hear or sense anything else. Just the twitch, which seems to be coming from a pile of dust on the floor near one of the corners.

Harry clenches his fists and pants a little. The dust whirls into the air and forms the image of outspread wings. To Blaise's stunned eye, it looks like a miniature dragon, or maybe a flying horse. It seems to have a slim neck and slender legs, anyway, and it could really be either of those.

Then Harry sags forwards with a cry, and the image of the beast vanishes. "Sorry," he says, and he's breathing as though he's run several miles.

"Don't worry about it," Blaise says, and leans over to help Harry to his feet. His hands are shaking, but then, Blaise's hands are shaking, too. This is incredible. Even the barest sight of what Harry did is enough to tell Blaise that it's like no other magic that he ever sensed before.

Harry might really be able to create life.

Blaise can't wait to tell his mother.