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Chapter Seventeen—Visits

"Where are you going, Neville? You still have your History lesson to attend to."

Neville swallows, and swallows again, and reminds himself that Harry believes in him. He turns around and gives his Gran a watery smile. She opens her mouth, probably to say something critical, but Neville blurts, "I'm going to visit Diagon Alley, Gran."

"Not until after—"

"I was thinking about it," Neville rushes ahead, for all that he knows she hates to be interrupted. "A-and I was r-realizing that if I get too afraid of V-Voldemort, I'll just want to hide in the house all the time. I've been doing that this summer. What if other people think I'm doing that? I don't want to disappoint them. I don't want anyone to think I'm a coward, Gran."

Gran blinks. Then she blinks again. Then she says, "That's very well-reasoned, Neville. I only want you to stay out two hours, mind."

"And you'll—you'll let me go alone?"

"How would it convince your public that you're unafraid if you have your grandmother trailing behind you?"

It's exactly the kind of reasoning that Neville hoped she would accept, but that he didn't let himself believe she would. He ducks his head to hide the grin that wants to twist his lips. "Thank you, Gran."

"Go on, then."

Neville throws the Floo powder into the flames and shouts, "The Leaky Cauldron!", pretending that he doesn't see the way she stares at his back. She'll probably check up on his movements later, but he can truthfully say that he's worried about Harry being left alone with a family as Dark as the Zabinis, and that he feels he owes Harry something because their parents died together.

It'll work. He fooled her once. He can do it again.

"Neville! Neville! Over here!"

Blaise wants to sigh as he watches Harry wave enthusiastically at Longbottom. Yes, all right, Longbottom is sort of his friend. Blaise sometimes calls him Neville. But he doesn't think the boy is worth making a scene in a public place over.

Of course, when an ancient hag at another table stirs and glares at Harry, Blaise still stares back at her until she glances away and mutters something that isn't a curse. He's the only one allowed to be exasperated by Harry's behavior, thanks very much.

"H-hey, Harry. Zabini."

Longbottom plops into the chair across from Harry and leans near. There are people muttering and staring at him, far more than Harry, but Tom brings over butterbeer and shepherd's pie for them and puts up wards with a snap of his wand, glaring at the people nearby until they turn away with frowns.

"Longbottom," Blaise says with a nod.

"I thought you were friends now."

"We're friends!"

Blaise tilts his head. Longbottom catches Blaise's eye and gives him a sympathetic half-grimace, acknowledging, as clearly as Blaise has ever seen him do it, that they will probably become friends in sheer self-defense. Because otherwise Harry will be terribly upset with the both of them.

Blaise is finding that there's not much worse than an upset Harry.

"Friends," Blaise agrees, and Longbottom settles back in his chair and picks up his mug of butterbeer.

"So what did you have to do to get your grandmother to let you out of the house?" Blaise adds, to ease them past the moment and because he's genuinely curious. Longbottom didn't look in June as if he could have tricked a flea into leaping onto a Kneazle.

"I told her that people would think I was cowering in the house if I just stayed there all the time and people had to see me walking the streets so they would trust me to defeat You-Know-Who."

"Oh, well done!" Harry crows, and Blaise can agree. Again, it's more clever than he would have thought.

"Do you think they would think I was a coward?"

"Who cares? The British public believes all kinds of crazy things since they're basically counting on a child to save them in the first place." Harry flaps a hand with a kind of magnificent unconcern that Blaise wishes he could imitate and leans forwards. "I want to know if you think we could find a moon orchid."

"What, just growing wild?"

"Why not? Stranger things have happened."

Blaise hides his grin behind his mug, since he's been in the center of a lot of those stranger things with Harry, and listens to Longbottom stumble through an explanation as to why finding a wild moon orchid anywhere in Britain is less likely than those other things. Harry seems skeptical.

Blaise believes everything will go just fine from here.

Hey, Harry,

Just wanted to let you know that Remus and I will probably have to spend a little more time on the Continent than we thought at first. We're close to tracking down the traitor who killed your parents…

Harry sighs and lets the letter fall from his fingers. He doesn't really need to read more.

Blaise picks it up, of course, and snorts several times as he reads through it. Harry watches him. Blaise could probably read it aloud and make Harry laugh more than he's snorting. He's gifted like that.

"Move your arm back into the sun."

Harry rolls his eyes and casts a charm that Aradia taught him to make sure his skin doesn't get sunburned. Artemis rolls herself luxuriously around his elbow without changing position, hissing something long and wordless and happy.

"Is she all right?"

"Yeah, she just likes sunbathing and I was moving around."

"So what do you think of Black?"

Harry turns to the side and looks at Blaise again. They're out in one of the smaller gardens that Aradia uses for some kind of magical purpose related to the Suns that she hasn't explained to Harry yet. Blaise has admitted that even he doesn't know all of the reasons, like the particular pattern of the vines that climb up the wall.

Blaise stares back at him. "Why are you looking at me?" he asks after a minute.

"I want to know why you're asking the question."

"We have to decide what we're going to do about Black."

"Just ignore him?"

"Why should we do that? He abandoned you. He should be punished for that."

Harry stares towards the sky, intrigued by the notion. He agrees that people like Quirrell should be punished, but they did something direct to Harry, and to his friends. It's harder to get angry about Black when Harry has never met him (that he remembers) and the initial sense of betrayal is past.

But…

"What do you think would be a good punishment for him?" he asks, to see, and Blaise wriggles in the grass like an eager viper.

"We could feed him to the Suns."

"Too violent. Next."

"We could cast the Near-Drowning Curse on him. It's a curse that makes you feel like you're drowning for the rest of your life. Sometimes it drives people mad and they kill themselves just to escape it."

Blaise's eyes are shining. Harry has the idea that he should be freaked out about this, but not only is Artemis hissing in approval on his arm, he's just flattered that someone likes him enough to want to cast that curse for him.

"It's not really a response to what he did to me, though," Harry says at last, after thinking through it for a bit. "He didn't try to drown me. He left me with the Dursleys. I'd want to do something related to that."

"We could feed him your despair."

"What?"

"We could take all the despair that you felt, like the kind that drove you to make Artemis and give yourself Parseltongue. Then we could congeal it in a food and feed it to him. The only problem is that we would have to wait until he came back to give it to him, because we can't do it at a distance. The despair would run out of the food before it traveled to him on an owl."

"Would he feel it all at once?"

Harry's voice has dropped to a whisper. Blaise wriggles towards him again and settles solemnly against Harry's side. "No. Dripped through his soul across years, the way you felt it. There's no point in letting him get away with less. And I haven't told you the best part."

"What best part?"

"Once we feed it to him, then you won't feel it anymore. You'll be free. You'll still remember the things that happened, but you won't feel the emotion. Oh, Harry, please say that we can do this."

Harry stares at him with his mouth a little open. He knows that he must look stupid, because Artemis wraps her tail around his wrist in a signal that means something like laughter. But it's still wonderful to know that he has her and he also has other friends.

"Yes."

"We can feed Black your despair?"

"Yes, we can."

"Good," Blaise says, and leaps to his feet. "Let me show you how we'll make the food. We can't cast the actual spell yet, because I need Mother to show us the incantation, but we can start practicing with the cooking."

Harry laughs and runs after Blaise. He used to have to cook all the time when he lived with the Dursleys. He never imagined that he would be able to put those skills to use like this when he was suffering to learn them.

It's incredible. It's freedom.

Albus takes a step back from the new ward that's strung, glittering, around Gryffindor Tower, the last point where he raised it. He wanted to be sure that he took his time and went slowly, so that by the time he reached the bedroom where Neville sleeps, the ward was the strongest he could make it.

The ward encircles the whole school. Or it will, once Albus chants the final knot into being.

He closes his eyes and plunges into the immense pool of glowing power that occupies the center of his being. It's not something that he has does often or willingly. The time when he used that power most freely was the time with Gellert.

He whispers, "Ariana," and then strikes down with pure magic, pure force of will, straight into the middle of Gryffindor Tower's floor.

The knot untangles in his mind, as he simultaneously unpicks it inside his thoughts and weaves it tight around Gryffindor Tower. The ward that he's strung around every window and crack and door and hidden passage into the school flares with power and comes alive with a roar that makes him glad he urged all the other professors to go on holiday this week.

He staggers as the magic drains out of him and ends up sitting down on one of the beds that will belong to a second-year boy in the upcoming year. He bows his head and breathes long and slow and calm, as the churning power inside him rolls from side to side of his being like a wave in a pool.

It calms down, the way he already has. Albus stands and glances from side to side, nodding as stray glints from the ward catch his eye here and there.

The heart of it is Neville's bedroom, but he has the whole school under watch. Voldemort's spirit will not be able to come inside Hogwarts undetected again, no matter who he is possessing.

"What's all this?"

Harry sounds both surprised and suspicious. Aradia lowers the book she's been reading on the best ways to get around ancient wards like the ones on Hogwarts and nearly laughs at the look on his face. "Did you think we would forget your birthday, Harry?"

Harry blinks rapidly and draws himself up as if about to deliver a speech, but then he slumps a little. Artemis twines out of his pocket and about his arm. "No one's ever made a big deal of it," he whispers.

Aradia shakes her head. Something will have to be done about Harry's Muggle relatives, but she is content to leave the planning to him and only help when he requests her help. "We are not them," she says, and stands.

"Happy birthday, Harry!"

Blaise bounces into the dining room looking both excited and happy. Aradia smiles at him in contentment. It is time that Blaise learned the joy of looking out for other people and yielding the center of attention to them. She had many excellent reasons for raising him with little contact with the outside world, given the enemies she has made. But she did worry about the way it might stunt him with selfishness.

At least he has one person he can beam at, and Harry is slowly smiling back, really believing that the pile of presents on the table is for him and that it won't disappear.

Aradia sits back down and lets Harry open all his gifts before breakfast. No need to hold to rules on such a joyous day as this.

"I'm amazed that Longbottom managed to send you something."

Harry, who is lounging under one of the big olive trees on Aradia's property with the book on dangerous magical plants and plant magic to soothe them that Neville sent, grins. "Why? He stood up to his grandmother to come and find us in Diagon Alley. He did that once, he can do it again."

"Yeah, but he was able to leave the house for that one. This one, he probably had to send from the Owlery."

"Or he told her that he wanted to go to Diagon Alley and display himself for the masses again, and sent it from there."

Blaise snorts and rolls over so that the sun is shining directly on his closed eyes. Harry admires his tolerance for it. He likes sitting in the sun, but not when it's right above him. "I give up. You obviously know Longbottom better than I do."

"I thought you were friends."

"That doesn't entail knowing each other well. We're mostly friends because of you."

"Yeah, but don't you think it would be worth it, to be real, true friends with the Boy-Who-Lived? I know your mum was talking the other day about how she has a lot less political influence in Britain than Italy. If you were friends with Neville for real, she could have that."

Blaise rolls over and looks at him. "Sometimes I think you're the most naïve creative to exist, and then you say something like that."

"Well, don't you agree?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Longbottom is weak," Blaise says, and lowers his head, shaking it back and forth. "He might swear to stand by your side, but it wouldn't last. He would turn and run away when the danger came at him—or when his grandmother asked him something, he would spill your secrets. I don't think any gain we might get from him is worth the risk."

Harry frowns and struggles to come up with a reply to that. Finally he says, "Well, Neville did lie to his Gran when he told her he was going to Diagon Alley to show people he wasn't afraid of Voldemort."

"Yeah, but does that mean he would keep your secrets? Especially if he thought you were doing something with Dark Arts or he found out about Artemis and your Parseltongue?"

"Perhaps he would keep it," Artemis says doubtfully from Harry's shoulder.

Harry sighs and gives up. If both Artemis and Blaise doubt Neville's ability to keep secrets, it's probably for the best to not tell him anything too important. "Yes, all right. But you have to admit that the way his grandmother treats him is wrong. And that Neville could use some real friends who aren't just after his fame."

"I can admit those things. But it doesn't mean that the person who stands up to his grandmother or becomes his real friend has to be me."

"Then it'll be me."

"And I'll be by your side even though I don't like Longbottom that much."

Harry swallows and closes his eyes. If he doesn't, then he might say something horrendously sappy and make Blaise laugh at him. Or look the way he does when he's trying not to laugh.

For right now, Harry doesn't want that. He just wants the sunshine and the friendship.

"Blaise, if I could speak with you alone for a moment?"

Blaise hesitates and casts Harry a glance. Harry gives him a little smile. "I know that your mum is your mum," is all he says, before he turns away and jumps on the Hogwarts Express. A second later, Blaise can hear him chattering away, probably greeting Goldstein and Patil and other Ravenclaws he wrote to during the summer.

When Blaise turns back, Mother has already raised a shimmering ward around them that he knows from experience will block out any sounds from beyond and prevent anyone from hearing in. She crouches down in front of Blaise and studies him closely. Blaise stares solemnly back.

"This is the first time I have involved you in one of my hunts. And I never meant to undertake the first one with you at a distance, instead of right beside me where I could watch over you and help you if you needed it."

Blaise leans forwards and hugs his mother for a moment. She touches him on the shoulder, then gives in and hugs him back.

"It's going to be all right," Blaise whispers. "Harry and I can pretend with the best of them. It's necessary anyway for me, in Slytherin. And Harry is used to hiding the secrets of Artemis and his Parseltongue."

"You're still only twelve."

"I am older than that in experience, and you know it," Blaise says in Italian.

Mother watches him in silence for a long moment. Blaise shifts from foot to foot, even though he despises himself for it. He isn't worried about seeming like a child. He's worried that Mother will decide he still is, even with all his efforts to prove himself otherwise, and withdraw her approval for him to participate in the hunt.

Mother abruptly sighs and reaches out to slide her hand down the back of Blaise's neck. "I will admit my real concern is that you will not withdraw from the hunt if it is dangerous, and neither will Harry, but attempt to confront Quirrell on your own."

"Because of what happened during our last term?"

"Yes."

"Neither of us meant to be down there. It just happened that way."

"And you will ensure that it does not happen that way this time."

Blaise straightens his shoulders at the serious tone in his mother's voice, which sounds almost like she's gained the ability to speak Parseltongue herself. "I promise, Mother. I promise that our safety is more important to me than our revenge."

"Will you see that Harry believes that?"

"Yes. If Harry suggests going after Quirrell on our own or tries to do that, then I'll make sure that he doesn't."

"Even if it damages your friendship with him?"

"Even then."

Tension flows out of Mother, and Blaise abruptly realizes that it's been there since the beginning of the summer. At least. Perhaps since the day he met Harry in Diagon Alley. As happy as she must be that Blaise finally has a friend, as proud as she is of Harry, she must have wondered if Blaise would sacrifice his safety or other things in pursuit of that friendship.

"I value Harry's life more than I value his never being angry at him. I'll watch out for myself crossing that line, Mother, I promise."

Mother leans in to kiss his cheek. "You are a good son, Blaise, and I will miss you very much."

The comfort of that kiss, and the touch to his shoulder that Mother gives him before she dissipates the ward and sends him onto the Express, fills Blaise with happy, warm confidence all the way to Hogwarts.

"Are you all right, Nev?"

Neville takes a long breath and turns around to face Ron, making sure that a happy, confident smile is in place. Ron is one of the people who's a friend but who also wants Neville to be a hero, and Neville can't look at him without one. "Oh, yeah. All right. Just—it was harder than I thought, seeing Quirrell at the professors' table."

"Oh, but he was possessed at the time, right? Mum said something about that, something she heard from your gran."

Neville nods jerkily, and then he has to turn around and start taking his pyjamas out of the trunk at the foot of his bed, because otherwise he'll be sick to his stomach. She said that. She didn't live that.

"So it'll be fine. He didn't really know what he was doing, and he would never do anything like that again."

Neville says nothing, and Ron claps him on the shoulder and goes to the bathroom first. Neville pretends to be searching for more things in his trunk, listening to Seamus and Dean talking casually behind him, while his head and heart pound together.

Yes, Quirrell didn't really know what he was doing. Supposedly. But he went to Albania in the first place, and Neville has read some of the books about possession in the Longbottom library that say possession has to be willing, at least on some level. Voldemort couldn't just have invaded Quirrell's head and taken him over without his saying Voldemort could.

On some level.

But even then, Neville might have managed to accept his gran's words and that Quirrell was sorry for what he'd done, except that Quirrell spent most of the feast glaring at Neville from one corner of his eye when he thought Neville wasn't looking.

Neville shivers, and goes to use the bathroom.

"Mr. Potter, if I could have a w-word with you?"

Harry turns around curiously. Padma and Anthony tense on either side of him. They don't know very much about what Quirrell did to him last year, but they know something happened. And it is a little strange for Quirrell to be coming up to Harry in the corridor when he's teaching Muggles Studies again and Harry doesn't have that class and Quirrell isn't his Head of House.

(Harry never plans to take Muggle Studies, either. He reckons he knows everything he needs to about Muggles right now, and other things he can pick up from books if he's curious).

"I'm on my way to Charms, Professor."

"It will only t-take a minute, Mr. Potter."

The stutter is fake and he knows I know it's fake, so why bother with it? But Harry suspects it might be just to make Quirrell look more harmless to the other kids. He plasters a puzzled expression on his face. "Then can't you just tell me now, sir?"

"Not in f-front of an audience." Quirrell eyes Padma and Anthony as if they deliberately showed up to ruin a private conversation he was having with Harry.

Padma narrows her eyes. "That sounds like a good reason for us to stay."

"Yeah. I think Harry needs us," says Anthony. "And Professor Flitwick is less likely to take points off if three of us are late instead of one."

Harry doesn't actually know about that, but it makes him feel a twisting warmth like the night he created Artemis to know that his friends are willing to stand with him.

Quirrell looks back and forth as if wondering if he can make Padma and Anthony vanish, or conjure some distraction to get them to go away. In the end, he sighs irritably and says, "It concerns what happened last year, Mr. Potter."

"Oh, are you going to apologize, sir?"

"Apol—" Quirrell cuts himself off. Then he says, "You know what happened, Mr. Potter."

"Yeah, sir. Both what people say happened, and what really did."

"Then you know that I feel you should apologize to me, rather than the other way around."

There's a threat in Quirrell's eyes. Harry didn't expect to understand everything about a man who let himself be possessed by Voldemort, but he understands this well enough. Dudley used to look at Harry like that when he was lying about Harry being the one who beat Dudley up, and it meant that he wanted Harry to support the lie.

But Dudley always tried to come back and hurt Harry later, even if Harry went along with him. Harry thinks Quirrell will just do the same thing.

Now, Harry is a wizard and not just the Dursleys' freak nephew. He doesn't need to go along with lying because someone would prefer him to.

"No, sir," he says.

"What?"

"I don't know why you feel like I should apologize to you. I didn't do anything to you."

For a minute, Quirrell's hand goes to his throat, but maybe he can see that Anthony and Padma are looking too interested, because he just scowls at Harry and mutters something and turns away. Of course, Anthony and Padma whirl around and start questioning Harry the minute Quirrell gets around the corner.

"What did he mean?"

"Why did he want you to apologize?"

"What really happened last year?"

Harry just shakes his head absently, his eyes locked on the place where Quirrell vanished. He didn't expect the man to approach him, really. Just lie low and try to seem like he learned his lesson and is a good little professor so Dumbledore won't kick him out of the school.

That he did this…

Well, he might approach Blaise, too. Might pretend he's sorry for what he did last year and then try to harm Neville.

Harry will tell Aradia about this and see if she wants to move on killing Quirrell sooner.

You deserve to be fed to the Suns.