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Chapter Fifteen—Pride
"And of course you're coming to the Manor for next summer."
"You said that your father might not want me to."
"That's ridiculous, Harry. I don't know where you got that impression. You know how fond he is of you."
Harry was glad that he was looking down at his parchment and could hide the skeptical expression on his face. He didn't know if Draco was saying soft words to get Harry to agree or was willfully blinding himself, but there was no way that Lucius Malfoy was fond of the random Muggleborn who had come to his house last summer, no matter how good he might be at brewing.
"Well, I was just thinking that he might not want me to, that's all." Harry squinted down at the Arithmancy problem in front of him. He had chosen Arithmancy and Ancient Runes for his elective classes next year, and had thought that it couldn't be wrong to start practicing with them already. "I don't add much value to his home."
Draco was silent enough that Harry forgot about him for a bit, involved as he was in the intricacies of how this problem was supposed to work with symbols substituting for half the numbers. Then Draco leaned forwards and said in a small voice, "You know that you're more valuable than you think."
"Huh?"
"You're one of the most talented brewers I've ever seen." Draco's eyes were bright, and if not for the way that his fingers were sinking into the robes gathered over his knees, Harry might have thought he was entirely sincere. "You'll add value to whatever pureblood families can claim you as an ally in the future. I wouldn't have you doubt that, Harry."
He must have been told to make nice with me for some reason. Maybe his parents know about my service to the Dark Lord.
Harry ducked his head and gave his best flustered, shy impression. "That's really nice of you to say, Draco."
"It's nothing but the truth. Does that meet that you'll come home with me for the summer?"
"Well, Theo invited me, too, you know."
"But his father hates Muggleborns!"
"I know. From what Theo says, his father mostly wants to meet me because he's curious what kind of Muggleborn could have got Theo to pay attention and stop throwing the word Mudblood around. But Theo says they have a fantastic Potions lab and that everything I could possibly want is there. So it is tempting." Harry shrugged, while turning his eyes back to his parchment as if it was the source of all fascination in the universe.
Harry could hear Draco struggling with that one, and smiled with the corner of his mouth out of Draco's sight. Around them, the bustle of the Slytherin common room continued. No one acted like it was remarkable anymore to see Draco sitting next to Harry Grayson. That made it all the better to force Draco to have these little battles like this.
Harry was coming to realize how much he enjoyed forcing purebloods to do what he wanted, without even letting them know that was what he was doing.
They think they're better than me? Let's see them prove it.
The only person Harry acknowledged to be actually better than him was the Dark Lord, and that came from magical power and knowledge, not because of his blood. He wasn't even sure that the Dark Lord was a pureblood, no matter how sure Draco and Theo seemed.
"There's another reason that my parents want you to visit again," Draco said at last, his words blurred.
Harry looked up, curious to see if he would admit it.
"I didn't—I didn't have a lot of friends growing up," Draco said, stiffly, his gaze averted. "Not that many of my acquaintances were suitable to spend time with me, and some of those who were had parents whose arguments with my parents took years to resolve."
About what exactly they did in service to the Dark Lord during the war, I'd wager.
"So it matters to them that I have a friend my own age. Your blood status is nothing, next to that. So." Draco turned back to Harry. "Will you?"
Harry let himself visibly waver. It helped that Theo wasn't in the common room at this point. When he arrived, then Harry would have to go through some of the same song and dance with him.
But really, he had already made up his mind. Staying with the Malfoys once hadn't been so bad. And he knew that Lucius Malfoy hated Muggleborns, but it didn't seem to be with the personal, poisonous edge that Theo's father had.
"All right," Harry whispered. "If you're certain. I'd really like that, Draco. But if it's for you, not just your parents."
"Of course it's for me! My parents would do anything for me, and that includes having one of my friends over for the summer. I've just never had the chance to do it. Before last summer, I mean."
Does he realize how vulnerable that makes him to me? What kind of pressure I could bring to bear on him?
Draco didn't know that, though, Harry knew, or he never would have spoken the words that put him so much in Harry's power. Harry smiled at Draco, letting real fondness leak through his expression, and Draco sat up.
There's little chance that I would have won someone so compliant and who thinks he's manipulating me as I manipulate him without Draco.
"Then I'd love to visit, Draco."
Draco leaped to his feet. "I have to go owl Mother!"
Harry shook his head, still with the same faint smile, as he watched Draco trot through the common room and towards the dormitories. He'd probably have to tighten his chains in the future as Draco grew in political awareness and awareness of what his family's money could buy, but for now, it was good to let Draco have some freedom in the middle of the manipulations Harry was winding around him.
Always better to keep your servants happy.
Harry wasn't around the next time Draco saw Theo, walking to breakfast early the next morning. Draco smiled and sped up. He couldn't wait to break the news.
"Harry's coming to my house for the summer," he said casually, as he slowed to match his pace to Theo's. They were perfectly without an audience. Crabbe and Goyle were ahead of them—far ahead, as usual when there was food to be eaten—and Blaise had left earlier. Harry had probably gone to the library.
Theo turned and narrowed his eyes in Draco's direction. This was one of the reasons he and Draco had never been close friends, the greed on his face, and the frustration, so that he looked like a child balked of a toy.
"He told me that he was seriously considering my offer to host him this summer."
"Seriously considering isn't the same thing as accepting."
Theo visibly struggled with that for a moment. Draco stood still and enjoyed the show.
"Did he tell you why?" Theo finally forced the words through tight lips. Draco started walking towards the Great Hall, and Theo kept pace with him, opening and closing his hands. Draco was delighted. It was a long time since he had seen Theo this angry.
"I told him that I was his friend."
Theo growled at him. Draco just raised his eyebrows. He was frightened, so frightened.
(And if he had had his wand in hand beneath the covering of his robe, then no one else ever needed to know).
"I'm his friend, too."
"And do you think your father would welcome him the way my parents would have? Would he be treated as a friend, or as a curiosity? And have you told him in so many words that you're his friend? Or just ignored it so that you could continue to posture about blood status?"
"You're proud of being a pureblood, too, Draco."
Theo's voice had descended into a low enough growl that Draco turned around to face him before they could walk into the Great Hall. Theo was staring at him with absolute betrayal, and Draco wanted to defuse that before Theo could curse him in the back.
But he also wanted to tell Theo something he had only recently learned himself.
"I was proud of it," Draco said. "And then it came to me: why should I be? Crabbe and Goyle are as pureblooded as I am, and I would be ashamed to associate with them if Father hadn't told me I should do it. The Weasleys are pureblooded, but Father despises them. Mr. Severus Snape is a half-blood and an incredible brewer, better than Slughorn, for all his connections. Talent isn't linked to blood, Theo."
"Careful, Draco, that sounds like turning against your parents' dogma."
"No, it's your father's dogma," Draco said, relishing how powerful the words made him, and how Theo's face fell and turned flat when he spoke them. "Not my mother's. She's always acknowledged the worth of talent. And Father had a few years when he didn't, but he does now, or he never would have invited Harry for the summer."
In truth, Draco was less sure about Father's views than Mother's, but it didn't matter. What did was watching the uncertainty that wavered over Theo's face in the moments before Draco turned and walked into the Great Hall by himself.
He'd been wrong about Harry, as it turned out. If he'd been to the library, he'd come back early, and was buried in a book on Arithmancy at the Slytherin table. Draco claimed the seat beside him and smiled when Harry glanced at him.
Harry raised his eyebrows and smiled back. Then his gaze went over Draco's head to where Theo was slouching into the Great Hall, and he uttered a little laugh.
Draco smiled. He could get used to making Harry laugh like that.
And having Harry all to himself.
Theo stood staring after Draco for long moments. He knew that he probably looked stupid, that someone else coming by could notice and make fun of him, but for right now, he couldn't do anything else. The bitterness in his throat locked him in place.
When had Draco become the sort of open-minded, tolerant person that the Gryffindors would have favored?
It wasn't that Theo wanted to become that person himself, he thought as he finally walked into the Great Hall and chose the opposite end of the table from where he normally sat. He got a few glances, but he sneered at them and they looked away. Theo would have been happier about it if he didn't know that it was mostly his father's reputation, not his own, cowing them.
It wasn't that Theo really wanted to become that person himself. But he prided himself on being realistic. Adaptable. Cunning. All things his father had taught him, although maybe without thinking that someday Theo would use them in favor of a—
A friend. That's what Harry is.
And if seeing Harry smile at Draco and act pleased with him was particularly cutting, well, all that meant was that Theo had been lying to himself about how valuable Harry was to him. Harry was worth more than his own weak pride. He was worth more than Theo's determination not to change his ways.
In the end, there was something Theo valued more than being his father's son, and that was establishing his own reputation. Someday he would make people cower or work to gain his favor just by walking into a room. He wouldn't have to announce his last name. They would know him.
And he would show it, to Draco and Harry and himself, by winning this contest.
"I wanted to ask you to reconsider your summer plans, Mr. Grayson."
Harry paused. He had come to the Headmaster's office when summoned because, well, one had to. But he didn't like or understand the opening words that Dumbledore had spoken.
"Sir?"
"I understand that you are planning to visit the Malfoys for the summer." Headmaster Dumbledore leaned forwards across his desk. "I do not think that you realize they are only using you, Mr. Grayson. They do not care about you as a person."
Harry blinked and sorted through a few responses that he could give. None of them sounded respectful enough in his own ears. In the end, he shrugged and said, "We understand each other, sir. The Malfoys and I, I mean. They hosted me last summer, and it was fine."
"But they will use you."
"The way that Sirius Black wanted to use me when he wrote with the offer to supposedly sponsor me, sir?"
Dumbledore paused. Harry sat there and wondered if he should have mentioned it, especially since Dumbledore looked shaken. But he didn't really believe that Dumbledore was unaware of it, when he seemed to think Harry didn't belong in Slytherin the way that Professor Potter and Mr. Black did.
"He was not planning to use you," Dumbledore said at last, quietly.
"How do you know, sir?"
"I know him personally. He did not inform me before he made the offer to sponsor you, but I could hardly disapprove of it. I fear that—that your faith in Slytherin friendship will prove unfounded in the end."
Harry wanted to laugh. But instead, he shrugged and said, "It's not so much faith in Slytherin friendship, sir, as faith in Slytherin mutual benefit."
"Do you not think that you deserve more than that, Harry?"
"Why would I, sir?"
Again the Headmaster seemed to choke on air. Harry wondered idly if the Dark Lord had cursed his enemies to do that when the enemies tried to talk to his servants. Then Dumbledore slumped back and said softly, "Because you are a talented young Muggleborn who had no say in the Hat's decision to place you in Slytherin. Because I fear that decision may destroy you."
"It hasn't so far, sir."
"And in the future?"
Harry sighed a little. "May I be honest with you, sir?"
"I wish you would, my boy."
It was sounding more and more like Headmaster Dumbledore suspected Harry's connection to the Dark Lord. He was trying to sound warm and welcoming, to draw him in so that Harry would serve him instead. Although, from what Harry knew about Professor Slughorn and Dumbledore's own skills, he could brew his own potions if he wanted to.
Harry was going to become a brewer to surpass Slughorn and this rumored Snape someday. But he wasn't yet.
"You're giving me an unanswerable argument, sir."
"Please tell me what that means, Harry."
Yeah. Look at him lean forwards and give me that same warm smile that Professor Potter was trying to use. Or that one primary school teacher who promised over and over again that he would get me away from the Dursleys, and then avoided my eyes the next week while mumbling about how I must have been lying because my aunt and uncle were so kind.
"It means that no matter how long I go without something happening, you can always say that something could happen to me in the future. Is it fine right now? It won't be fine in the future. When will that happen? At some unspecified future point. I can't defend myself by pointing to the past, because it could always go wrong. You're making it so that there's no way I can rely on the past to be an indicator of anything." Harry sighed a little at the stupefied expression on Dumbledore's face. "It's a little like a prophecy."
"A—prophecy?"
He looks more stupefied than ever.
"You could say that the prophecy hasn't been fulfilled yet, but could be fulfilled in the future. And nothing that anyone cites saying it won't come true matters, because it could come true in the future."
"Are you planning to take up Divination, Harry?" Headmaster Dumbledore gave him a pallid smile, while sweating hard enough that Harry's nose wrinkled a little. "It sounds like you would be quite good at it."
"No, sir. Arithmancy and Ancient Runes."
"This is—even if it were like prophecy, prophecy is important, don't you agree, Harry? Sometimes it offers the only spot of hope in a troubled world."
"I don't think that's interesting, sir. People like me have to work with what they have."
"People like you? Have your Slytherin friends been voicing such opinions to you?"
"I meant that people like me who are low status and don't have a lot of money or a powerful family backing them."
"Muggleborns, in other words. I am so sorry that your Housemates have convinced you of your own inferiority, Harry."
Harry took a deep breath and held it. Getting angry would only encourage Dumbledore to think that he was right and Harry was ashamed of being a Slytherin.
He finally breathed out and said, "Sir, I only meant that I'm poor. I don't think all Muggleborns are. I heard Justin Finch-Fletchley, from Hufflepuff, telling some of the other students that his family is pretty rich. But I'm not rich, so I have to deal with what happens to me."
"And you think that you need powerful friends for that."
"Well, of course, sir. Haven't even the overtures that you and Mr. Black made to me relied on the notion of powerful friends?"
Dumbledore looked a little constipated then, and dismissed Harry without any further arguments. Harry paused on the staircase outside the Headmaster's office and listened for a moment. He would be interested to know if Professor Potter or Mr. Black Flooed in. He wouldn't recognize Black's voice, but he might be able to overhear what was going on from the way Dumbledore addressed him.
There was nothing, though. The wards were probably too strong. Harry shook his head and went his way.
His choices might be limited, but he had made them.
"I am sorry, Lily, James. I think it unlikely at this point that Harry will reconsider his choices."
Albus closed his eyes at the sorrow in his old students' faces. He closed his eyes for the uncertain future that Harry Grayson, once Potter, was walking towards, one that didn't have to be, but was going to end up being.
If they had done things differently, if they had reached the young man sooner and guided him into the magical world earlier than they had…
But what was done was done.