Nothing is mine.

Beware of spampires...

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Ghosts swam in Slughorn's pale green eyes, ragged, tattered spectres. Some of them, Harry sensed, had names, names he knew, and many more had names he never would, and though none of them left crease or shadow upon the burgundy suit and its shining silver buttons, or even in the jovial smile, he could see them carved deep somewhere beneath the surface of Slughorn's skin.

'Not today, Harry,' he said, closing the door of his office. 'Today my mistakes would like to feast upon me alone.'

The door shut with a soft click.

'Well.' Harry twisted on his heel and stared into his bubbling cauldron. 'I guess the Potion of Crippling Guilt was a great success, even if it was just the vapour.'

The surface shone like a mirror, a small roiling sea of liquid silver, releasing little wisps of grey fog.

He poked the cauldron over with the end of his ladle and smiled as he watched it pour across the desk, reaching back beneath his robes to draw his wand from its sheath. 'As great a success as Felix Felicis, at least.' A little snarl of frustration tangled beneath his smile. 'Well, nothing is lost; all is just on hold until my only and most crucial task has been accomplished.'

Hermione poked her head around the door. 'Greengrass left.'

'I noticed,' Harry replied. 'She's having a dilemma at the moment.'

'You mean after she outed your really not very secret secret relationship?'

'Yes.' He grinned. 'I think she was a bit caught up in the fact that other girls might try to make me eat things with amortentia in, and forgot about what her little sister and parents might think when they learn she has a boyfriend.'

'What, because you aren't part of their religious fascist cult?' Hermione scowled. 'Aren't completely part of their cult.'

'I resent that,' Harry said. 'If I was really part of the cult, I would get some perks. Like a cool skull tattoo.' He thought it over. 'Aunt Petunia would be horrified. She hates people with tattoos.' He laughed. 'It would be worth it just for that. Maybe I could get one made of red flowers or something.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Forget about Daphne.'

'I'm actually not sure I could.'

A long sigh escaped her. 'Well, that's kind of sweet, actually, but you have terrible taste in girls.' She shuffled her feet. 'I am sort of sorry about being mean about her, it's just… all that stuff she believes in really worries me, Harry. It sounds so… insane.'

Harry shrugged. 'I know you don't like it. I'm not sure I like all of it.' He fixed her with a long, serious look. 'But don't ever call her a monster again, Hermione. I mean it.'

She shrank back a step. 'Sorry.'

'Anyway, this has been a total failure, so I'm going to go eat and then go to the Common Room and plot something new.'

'What?' She trailed after him as he strolled back. 'What are you even trying to do?'

'Get that memory out of Slughorn about how many dark artefacts Voldemort made. Professor Dumbledore said that it's vital to stopping Voldemort.' Harry waved a hand back in the vague direction of the classroom. 'Slughorn taught Tom Riddle. I think… from what he's said to me, I think he also privately told Tom Riddle a lot about the magical world's culture and faith, and everything he's been able to do as a result…'

'Is his fault,' Hermione whispered. 'Oh.'

'Right. I don't know exactly what memory we need, but Slughorn definitely knows. I just have to get him to show it to me or tell me. He really doesn't want to, though.'

'Why not?'

'He feels guilty.'

Hermione frowned. 'So tell him he can make up for it? If someone feels bad about something, they usually want to put it right.'

'He doesn't think he can.'

'Oh.'

Harry nodded. 'Yeah. I tried just asking and telling him how important it was after I drank the Felix Felicis—'

'I remember.' She huffed her cheeks out. 'What else did you try?'

'Talking to him a bit. My potion today was meant to amplify guilt, kind of how my Draught of Dread worked, so that maybe he'd feel guilty enough to tell me, but he just felt too guilty to talk to me.'

Hermione yanked him into an abandoned classroom.

Harry glanced around as she locked the door. 'You know, the last time I got dragged into an abandoned classroom by a girl—'

'She told you were the saviour of the magical world, you just had to be a bit more fascist and murder all the Muggles and Muggle-borns?'

He laughed. 'No, but she took most of her clothes off, which I thought was much better.'

Hermione flushed scarlet. 'Harry!'

'What?'

'She's manipulating you with… with…'

'With?' Harry grinned at her. 'With what, Her-My-Ow-Knee?'

'Whatever you did in the classroom,' she retorted. 'I don't want to know any details.'

He cackled. 'Well, I hope you don't want the same thing as she did.'

'Urgh.' Hermione wrinkled her nose. 'No. No, I want to help you with Slughorn, Harry. Someone has to stop Voldemort.' She dropped her bag on the desk with a dull thud. 'I've been combing the school library and there's almost nothing on the ICW, but the little bits and pieces that I do find and what they imply are really scary, Harry.'

'Well, I mean, they are basically all-powerful, so…'

'Every law that's passed by the Ministry is stamped as ICW-approved no matter what it is. Every. Single. One.' She shuddered. 'There's no process for vetting them or anything like that that I can find. They're all ICW approved.'

'Well, I mean, the whole Ministry—

'Exactly,' Hermione hissed. 'The whole Ministry. It's not a devolved democracy making its own decisions, it just chooses from whatever the ICW allows it to do. That's not democracy, it's just… just… wrong!'

'You know what you have to say.' Harry chuckled to himself. 'Go on and say it.'

'Say what?'

'Who was right about the Ministry?'

Hermione scowled. 'Greengrass.'

He laughed. 'Okay, as funny as making you say that was, it's not actually that funny. Pendragon pulls all the strings of the Ministry whenever he wants; the only thing Fudge can do is try and stop him from wanting to pull.'

'That's why Fudge was so determined to stop anyone talking about Voldemort,' she replied. 'He denies it and covers it up, then Pendragon doesn't do anything horrible or make Fudge do anything, and he just has to find a way to stop the rest.'

'And people like Fudge don't want to believe Voldemort came back from the dead to begin with,' Harry said. 'Because one of the signs is—'

'I know,' she snapped. 'I remember all that nonsense.'

'Well… Professor Dumbledore thinks Voldemort has to be stopped before Pendragon learns the truth and decides to do something genuinely horrifying.' He flopped back across one of the desks, kicking his feet off the edge. 'Maerdrid and the Graal-Kynak all seem to be off somewhere in South America, but Pendragon sent someone to hunt down Bellatrix and make sure anyway. If they learn about it really being Voldemort back from the dead and tell Pendragon…'

Hermione gulped. 'I guess they do something bad?'

'I think a very long time ago, when Myrddin tried to rebel against Pendragon and everyone thought he was the saviour, they killed Myrddin and massacred every single one of his followers who refused to stop waiting for him to return,' Harry said. 'They buried them all in a mass grave, salted the sacred area so nothing would grow there for ages out of what just seems like pure spite, tore down the sacred stones, and then built a guesthouse over the top which they forced everyone to come and use to literally just rub it in that they had done it.'

She shivered. 'That's… that's barbaric.'

'Myrddin never came back from the dead,' he said. 'Voldemort has. Because he did die. And he is back. So this time, he's probably going to seem even more of a threat…'

'Oh my god,' Hermione whispered. 'So you think...'

'Professor Dumbledore thinks.' Harry shrugged. 'I probably agree.'

'So we have to stop Voldemort to stop them.'

'Yeah.'

'And we have to get this memory to do that.' Hermione took a deep breath, pacing back and forth across the door. 'Well, how else can we get it?'

'I actually don't know,' he confessed. 'I'll get it, I always do, but… I haven't worked out how yet.'

'You can't convince him by telling him you need it, or by charming him, or by making him feel guilty,' she mumbled. 'So what else do you know?'

'He liked my mother,' Harry replied. 'One of his favourite students.'

'That's it?'

'I think he believed in Voldemort back when he was younger and less snakey and nose-less and murder-ey.'

Hermione made a small disgusted noise. 'Stupid.'

'I think he just wanted to be saved,' he murmured. 'If you knew everything you know about the ICW now, and everything that they might and probably have done as well, wouldn't you want to be saved by someone too?'

'Not by genocide!'

'I don't think the prophecy actually specifies genocide,' Harry said. 'Just Winter. And then Spring.'

Hermione glowered at him. 'You say it just like Greengrass does.'

'I like it,' he admitted. 'I like how it goes around in circles. How nobody disappears. How nothing is lost. My parents. Sirius. They die, but they aren't just gone; they're changed. They're a part of everything beautiful that comes afterwards; it's like their legacy. We live and then we die, but we're not gone, we're part of everything that comes afterward.'

'Well, I guess that's sort of true. The carbon cycle and stuff.' She shook her head. 'But forget about that. I'll try and think of something for you, Harry. I'll research Slughorn and see if I find anything useful.'

'Please do, because I am currently all out of ideas and waiting for another moment of genius to strike.'

'What if you can't get him to tell you?' Hermione asked.

'I will.' Harry grinned. 'You know how it is, these things always work out for me somehow. Maybe you'll find something. Maybe something will happen. He's not the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, so we have lots of time to figure it out still.' He bounced off the desk and opened the door with a flick of his wand. 'Now, I'm going to go and grab some lunch.'

'Fine.' Hermione followed him to the Great Hall, frowning to herself and muttering under her breath. 'Wait, one last question.'

Harry lingered in the doorway. 'What?'

'You and Greengrass—'

'Don't say anything about betrayal and murder. Or how awkward it's going to be when it somehow turns out that we're cousins and I have to meet all three of her grandparents.'

'No, I heard she kissed you in the Slytherin Common Room after you broke in using parseltongue, accused Malfoy of plotting to murder Professor Dumbledore and having the Dark Mark, and then told everyone Voldemort won't save anyone. Is that true? It sounded so ridiculous I kind of assumed most of it had been made up and I heard it from Lavender, so…'

'Technically you did mention murder. And Daph.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'That's a yes, isn't it. Harry, something is really wrong with you.'

'I feel fine. Actually, I've been much happier.'

'You are insanely reckless! That potion that gave Greengrass a full on panic attack didn't make you bat an eyelash. That thing you made today, Slughorn never even drank it. He just inhaled the fumes. You were breathing it in all lesson.'

'They have a different effect on the brewer so—'

'It feels connected.'

'To what?' Harry swept his gaze across the Slytherin table but only met Astoria's mismatched eyes. 'Don't say terrifying ladies in the snow with only one eye and a missing finger.'

'That's weirdly specific,' Hermione muttered. 'But also so ridiculous it's probably just nonsense. Or maybe just someone you saw in one of your Voldemort dreams.'

'Glossing over that.'

'You promise me nothing happened during the summer when you were attacked by dementors?'

'I was attacked by dementors.'

'Other than that!'

'I had lots of weird dreams?'

'Not your dreams, that's just Voldemort.'

'Not all of them.'

'The other ones don't count, they're just dreams. I went through all the things in the Restricted Section of the Library after you said you had them. They're just magic messing with your dreams. It's normal for powerful wizards, Harry; whatever you're most caught up in, you'll have weird dreams about. For you, it's probably genocidal, fascist blonde girls in short skirts with pretty faces, flowers and culty nonsense.'

'Sometimes those dreams do very much remind me of Daph,' he admitted. 'She feels too amazing to not be a dream sometimes.'

Hermione sighed. 'If you had just chosen a nice girl, I would be so happy to hear you saying stuff like that. It's actually really romantic.'

'She is a nice girl.'

'Genocidal. Religious. Extremist. I'm starting to wish you'd actually somehow ended up dating Fleur Delacour instead. And she's three years older than you. Nothing that bad could have happened with her.'

'She was also really pretty. Probably the only girl as pretty as Daph, but she's not all human, so it doesn't count.' Harry grinned. 'But yeah, other than that, not really. Not unless you count Dudley actually managing to stick to his grapefruit diet.'

'I do not mean that.'

'Well that's it. This summer has been way weirder, mostly because of Tonks.'

'And Greengrass.'

'She's actually very sweet.'

'Only after you've pledged yourself to the Hitler Youth,' Hermione retorted.

'Wow, dark, Hermione.' Harry grinned at her. 'I think your inner dark witch is creeping out again.'

She huffed. 'It's not my inner dark witch I'm worried about.'

'I know… Ronald's getting worryingly into pumpkin themed things and if he decides he likes short black skirts any more, he might start wearing them too, and nobody needs to see his hairy legs…'

Hermione shook her head. 'What would it take, Harry, for you to really believe in all the rest of it? Because that's what she wants, you know. You to believe in it completely. Like she does. What would it actually take for you to believe in it without any doubts? Do you even know?'

'No doubt?' He considered it, considered her waiting in the snow with that sharp, sharp smile. 'I think I'd have to see it. Really see it. Right in front of me. And someone else would have to see it. Maybe several someone elses, just to make sure I wasn't totally insane. Otherwise… I don't like it and I don't want to believe in it. Even knowing how they see it, to be the actual person who brings Winter… No. I like helping people. Not… that.'

She nodded. 'Good. Because no matter what Greengrass says or does for you, she can't show you that. It's not real.'

'I know. It's a way of looking at things, not literally true.'

Hermione breathed out a long sigh of relief. 'So you agree with me. Good.'

'Well, not entirely. I think the non-Voldemort culty parts have value. Everyone has to believe in something, otherwise, well, my uncle and aunt don't believe in much and look at them.'

'You don't need religion.'

'But something,' Harry replied. 'I like the idea of nothing ever being lost. I don't need an old man in the sky, or a goddess of Spring, or stuff like that. It's just nice to value things that should be valued.'

A light tug came at his sleeve. 'Hi Daph.' He turned around.

Astoria's mismatched eyes widened, one as green fresh spring grass, the other as cool a blue as the winter sky. 'Daph?'

'I mean…' Harry floundered. 'Actually, no, I have nothing. Hi Astoria, you heard nothing.'

She tugged at his sleeve, edging back toward the Entrance Hall.

'Okay.' He waved to Hermione. 'Catch you later for some plotting.'

Hermione nodded. 'I'll get Ron.'

'Why?' Harry asked. 'Ronald is terrible at planning things. The only time Ginny's life has been in more danger than the end of Second Year was when Ron tried to plan her a birthday surprise last year and made her a cake that smelt strangely like petrol.' He grinned. 'It also caught fire like petrol when he tried to light the candles.'

'He might have an idea we can build off, something we've overlooked.' She bustled off along the Gryffindor table, making a beeline for Ron.

'Poor Ronald,' Harry said. 'Now he will suffer Hermione's research obsession all alone.' He laughed to himself. 'But lucky me, I've escaped. Thanks, Astoria.'

Astoria led him out, up the stairs, and into the little alcove between the pair of suits of armour. She stood there, squirming and staring at her hands as she tugged at her left forefinger.

'Are you okay?' Harry asked. 'Do I need to find a way to torment Peeves for you? Maybe Malfoy? If I have to torment Peeves, I will require payment in amusing stories about Malfoy. If it's Malfoy, I will torment him for free. Honestly, I just enjoy it.'

'No,' she whispered. 'It's just, I heard my sister kissed you.'

'Oh. Yes. That.' Harry groped for an explanation. 'She drank a bad potion during Slughorn's lesson and needed phoenix tears so I had to do it. Really, I kissed her. But, you know, it wasn't really a kiss, because it was about making sure she got the phoenix tears in her mouth.'

'In Potions?' Astoria screwed her face up into a frown. 'In the Slytherin Common Room?'

'Er…' Harry offered her a rueful grin. 'I guess the snake is out of the bag?'

'Oh no,' she mumbled. 'Harry, you mustn't. You're nice, but my sister's not like other girls.'

He laughed. 'I noticed. She's much prettier.'

'She's—' Astoria lowered her voice to such a quiet whisper Harry had to half resort to reading her lips '—she's cursed.'

'I know.'

'You… know? But everyone says you weren't raised to know about our ways.'

'I know about all of it.' Harry nodded. 'She's not a monster, not to me. Just cursed.' A faint smile spread across his face. 'She shows me amazing things and she's really very sweet.'

A little shiver swept through her. 'Do you know about… about Tracey?'

'Yes.' He poked his head out of the alcove. 'I know what Daph did. But I don't think she can resist forever. She tries. But she can't.'

'I was there,' Astoria whispered. 'She kept saying sorry but she kept on biting and Tracey kept screaming and I thought she was going to do it to me and I couldn't move. I just sat there while Tracey begged me to help over and over and then she was dead and Daphne just sat there and stared, all covered in blood—' she trembled like a leaf '—and it got all over me and I still couldn't move, but Daphne just sat there staring at Tracey until our parents came back…'

'That sounds mildly permanently traumatising,' Harry murmured. 'But she was sorry, Astoria. She always is; she just can't help it.'

'Every time I see her, all I can think about is Tracey.'

'She's better now,' he said. 'Or your parents wouldn't have let her come here. She might eat someone otherwise. Like Sally-Anne; she seems like a prime target for jampiric attacks.'

'They didn't let her out because she's a tiny bit better,' Astoria whispered. 'They spoke to someone who said they should let her out now because if she grows up in there all alone, she'll be a real monster when she finally gets out.'

'She's not a monster,' Harry promised. 'You know she's not, Astoria; her dearest wish is that one day you won't have to worry about the curse at all. She took that mark you carry just so you wouldn't have to carry it all by yourself, and, well, you probably understand the whole marks thing better than I do, so...'

Astoria's mismatched eyes went very wide. 'Who told you that?'

'Daph did, of course.'

'Oh,' she breathed, her eyes filling with tears. 'Daphne never told me; she really took it for me? She has it?'

'I've seen it. All those runes in loads of spirals across her stomach.' He gave her a gentle smile. 'And I don't think monsters care that much about their sister, so… cursed, yes. Occasionally bitey, also yes. Loves her sister a lot, definitely.'

Astoria broke down into soft sobs.

Harry frowned. 'Wait. What? I thought that would make you happy?'

'I—' she took a breath, tears streaming down her face '—I always refuse to talk to her or visit her.'

'Well maybe stop doing that,' he suggested, 'because she doesn't want to hurt you, and she thinks you hate her and it upsets her a lot. She wants to save you; she wants it more than anything.'

Astoria cried harder, burying her face in Harry's chest.

'I am not very good at this,' he said. 'I was trying to make you stop crying, not cry even more and on me.' Harry poked the damp patch next to Astoria's cheek, the faint fragrance of her tears reaching his nose. 'Wow, there is a surprising amount of water coming out of your face right now. You're like a little fountain.'

A small hiccup escaped Astoria.

'And weird noises too.' Harry patted her on the head. 'Do you think Daph is going to be really mad I told you about that?'

She sniffed and shook her head. 'I hope not.'

'Me too. I don't want to get jampired.'

'What?'

'Okay, so, Daph isn't a vampire, she was very insistent about that, so she's a jampire instead.'

Astoria scrunched her face up. 'A what?'

'It's a very long and complicated story involving Filch's least favourite jam ever, Umbridge's horrible taste in Floo Powder boxes, the moving staircases, a genius plan to use the Floo to steal a ball of glass of absolutely no value in the end, and some fake Felix Felicis that the Weasley Twins made,' Harry said. 'But before I tell it, I just want to clarify that absolutely nothing that happens in the story is at all my fault. She leapt of her own accord.'

Astoria giggled.

'If anything it was Hermione's fault. She's supposed to stop me doing things that everyone thinks are insane.' Harry paused. 'No, wait. That's Ron. He's the sane one. Hermione is also insane and can't be relied upon as any sort of moral compass if there are Muggle-borns involved. Or journalists. Now, where was I?'

'Something to do with jam?'

'Right. Yes. Jam.' Harry chuckled to himself. 'Jampires. Jampires are very sweet and pretty, like Daph, but they bite, also like Daph. Not to be confused with vampires, who hate garlic, holy water, and are generally unreasonable about daytime get togethers. Or spampires. I don't know what those would be, but I can say with utter certainty that they're an abomination, quite possibly in favour of house-elf liberation and likely in cahoots with Hermione, who is very obviously a dark witch.'

More via the link! Lots lots more.

linktr . ee / mjbradley