I Have Been a Brother to O.W.L.

S
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/52703788.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of
Violence
Category: Gen
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationships: Theodore Nott & Harry Potter, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron
Weasley, Sirius Black & Harry Potter, Hogwarts Staff & Harry Potter,
Hogwarts Students & Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Ministry of Magic
Characters: Harry Potter, Ernie Macmillan, Theodore Nott, Daphne Greengrass,
Sirius Black, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Zacharias Smith, Padma
Patil, Susan Bones, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Goblins (Harry Potter), Albus
Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Not Canon Compliant - Harry
Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Humor, Drama, Action/Adventure,
Occlumency (Harry Potter), Confusion, Mass Confusion, Harry Potter is
Lord Slytherin, Sort Of, Defense Against the Dark Arts, O.W.L.s |
Ordinary Wizarding Levels, Present Tense
Language: English
Series: Part 4 of This Lord Business
Stats: Published: 2024-01-01 Updated: 2024-03-26 Words: 23,137 Chapters:
13/?
 I Have Been a Brother to O.W.L.S
by Lomonaaeren

Summary

The second half of his fifth year means that Harry has to take his OWLS, which are a matter
of great concern to him. But the world, with its magical creatures and Muggleborns who need
help, corrupt Ministry, and stupid Voldemort, still spins on.

Notes

This is my next “Lordship Business” fic, which I didn’t get to during the latest seasonal story
arc. It’s the sequel to my stories “Confusion Is Mine, Saith the Lord,” “Thou Shalt Have No
Tournaments Before Me,” and “Of a Sweet Nonsense Unto the Lord.” Make sure that you
read those first; otherwise, this won’t make any sense. The title is a twist on the Bible quote,
“I have been a brother to dragons and a companion to owls.” I plan to post a scene or a few
scenes from this fic every day until it’s finished.
 Harry Attempts to Learn Occlumency

“Take slow, deep breaths. That’s it. Let your mind sink into itself, into the plain that I told
you about.”

Harry keeps his eyes closed and his breathing slow and deep, as Ernie is advising him. It’s
odd that it would be Ernie, of all people, who knows the most about Occlumency, when he
seems pompous and easy to irritate so much of the time.

But those thoughts are the kinds of things that will keep Harry from succeeding with
Occlumency. So he tips his head back and lets the thoughts run out of his head like water,
along with the worries about his nightmares that are the reason he’s learning Occlumency in
the first place.

“Do you see the plain?”

It takes a long moment of concentration, but Harry can see the plain, an immense, flat, black,
glassy expanse stretching out in front of him, reflecting the rippling light of a few stars
overhead. Harry breathes. There are distant flares of green and purple light like an aurora, but
he stands there passively while they play over him.

“I see the plain,” Harry says at last, when the silence has dragged on so long that it’s become
an imposition itself and he realizes, distant, that Ernie is waiting for him to answer. The plain
shimmers in front of him.

“Focus on a distant point of light.”

Harry picks out a purple one. It shines like starling feathers.

“Walk towards it. Leave your burdens behind as you do.”

Harry goes stepping lightly across the dark plain towards that distant point. The way that he
has to walk means he sheds more and more burdens. Worries, fears, concerns, qualms of
conscience. At last he stands in front of the purple light.

“Touch it.”

Harry reaches out. His hand travels through the air with incredible slowness. He watches it
move, watches the light play over the back of his knuckles and fingers, the way that he turns
as if to cup it in his palm…

And his hand slams against an invisible barrier.

Harry tries again to move forwards, and again, pushing against the molded air and trying not
to feel the irritation that wells up inside him. That will just push him further away from
touching this point of light.
But it’s useless. Harry exhales and opens his eyes, and finds himself staring at Ernie, who has
his head cocked, lines falling into place as he frowns.

“Did you touch it?”

“I was blocked again.”

“You’re blocking yourself.” Ernie’s voice stops sending inhuman and ghostly, and sounds
disapproving enough that Harry bristles. Ernie holds up his hands. “You need to let go of
everything, and that includes worries about what will happen to your followers and Professor
Black if you master the final step and abandon all your emotions to Occlumency.”

Harry shuts his eyes and leans back on his hands. They’re sitting outside by the lake, and it’s
not Ernie’s fault that Harry is too afraid to complete that final step, or that the air around
them has grown chill enough for snow to fall. They’re inside a Warming Bubble Charm that
Sirius taught Harry, anyway, and it blocks the wind and keeps the snow from getting
anywhere near them. “I know.”

“Why are you so worried?”

Harry swallows and opens his eyes. “Because of what happened to the other people with the
title of Lord Slytherin. They became puppets of others who manipulated them into evil
actions, or they were too proud of themselves and ended up being blood purists. What if that
happens to me because I stop caring?”

“But you won’t.”

“That’s what you want me to do with Occlumency!”

“Yes, but it will only be temporary. You’ll be able to pull your mind out of the aurora and
back into your body, and your emotions will return to you. The goal is to be able to leap back
and forth between the open state and the blocked one, the emotional state and the emotionless
one, at will.”

Ernie sounds like he’s quoting someone. Harry nods. “To block Voldemort.”

The name still makes Ernie flinch, but he doesn’t run away. “Yes.”

“I have a hard time doing it.”

“I know. But you said he’s been resurrected. You have so much to protect from him that you
can’t afford not to do it.”

Harry knows that, which is why he’s out here practicing Occlumency in the first place. He
takes a deep breath and shakes off some of the crowding fears as much as possible. “All right.
Let’s try again.”

“Picture a plain…”
 Sirius Black Is an Irresponsible Professor
Chapter Notes

Thank you for all the reviews!

Harry hears people screaming as they enter the Defense classroom, and starts hurrying down
the corridor, his only thoughts focused on The curse, the curse, I thought I had more time
before it started affecting Sirius—

And then he skids to a stop as he comes to the doorway, and sighs. There’s a very realistic
Nundu standing in the center of the classroom, roaring and opening its mouth as if to breathe
poison all over everybody.

Realistic, that is, if you don’t notice its tiny size or the way that its head thins into wispy
nothingness as it approaches the ceiling.

“Sirius,” Harry says wearily.

“What?” Sirius’s head pops up from over the Nundu’s back, his mouth wide open. “Help,
help, I’m being kept captive!”

“It’s an illusion,” Harry calls down the corridor. Hermione and Ron step up beside him.
Hermione is shaking her head with disapproval, while Ron peers at the illusion with curiosity.
“Notice the way it turns into little more than shadow and light near the ceiling?”

“And the floor,” Ron says, pointing out the way that the Nundu’s paws appear to hover above
the stones.

“Five points to Gryffindor for observation skills!” Sirius rolls his wand, and the illusion
fractures into light and disappears.

Harry sighs and enters the classroom. “You don’t have to scare anyone,” he says to Sirius out
of the corner of his mouth, as students take their seats.

“Everyone.”

“What?”

“I don’t have to scare everyone. Some of you are probably good enough at Defense not to
need it. But I have to scare anyone. Anyone who can be fooled by illusions like that needs a
better grounding in prank spells.”
Harry is sort of starting to regret that he suggested Sirius take over the Defense post, although
to be fair, Dumbledore didn’t have to listen to him.

“Welcome to your first real class of Defense Against the Dark Arts this year!” Sirius winks at
all and sundry and points with his wand to the blackboard. Large, angular letters appear,
spelling out Sirius’s name, the name of the class, and a list of five spells. “How many people
already know how to perform all of these spells?”

Harry blinks at the list. The Shield Charm, the Blasting Curse, the Disarming Charm, and the
Stupefying Charm are familiar to him, but not the last one.

“What’s the Light-Blinder, Professor Black?” Hermione asks at the same time.

“One that constructs illusions like the Nundu I had in front of the class!” Sirius says, waving
his wand around with enthusiasm. “It keeps your enemies from seeing what’s right in front of
them. Light-Blinder!”

Harry thinks that’s a somewhat roundabout name for the spell, but he’s willing to try it. He
puts up his hand. “Is there a way to keep it from fading out near the extremities so it’s not as
obvious what it is, sir?”

Sirius snorts a little, maybe because Harry is calling him “sir.” “If you concentrate hard when
you cast it, yeah. It also works better when it’s an illusion of something that your enemy
expects to be there.”

Harry nods, already determined to master it. He didn’t practice any illusion spells except a
few very basic ones with the Defense study group, mostly because he thought it was more
important for them to master other hexes.

Sirius looks around the classroom with a glint in his eye. “These are the five most useful
spells you can have when it comes to defeating your enemies.”

“But it’s a mixture of defensive and offensive magic, Professor.”

That’s Neville. Sirius points at him, which makes Neville flinch in his seat a little. “That’s
right! But when it comes to defeating someone, it doesn’t really matter if you leave them
Stunned or just make yourself able to run away. What matters is that they’re not coming after
you anymore.”

“What about injuring them, Professor?” Padma asks.

“Well, of course, the Blasting Curse does that…”

And Sirius starts going on about the Blasting Curse, while Harry takes notes with a sense of
relief. It’s important to have a competent Defense professor.

Now, more than ever.

*
“Hermione, are you all right?”

“Yes, of course I am,” Hermione says, turning around to stare at Harry as if it’s much more
insane to come back into the common room at midnight with a cage full of struggling Niffler
than it is to be sitting by the fire at midnight huddled over a book. “Where were you?”

“Salazar got out and went to the seventh floor again. I’ve retrieved him.”

“Have you figured out why he wants to go there?”

“No.” Harry scowls down at his pet. Salazar rears on his hind legs and chatters at Harry. “I
hate saying that he’s being unreasonable, when he saved my life in Vince’s house, but he
won’t give us back the locket, either.”

“What locket?”

Harry gives Hermione a sidelong curious glance as he sets Salazar’s cage down beside the
couch. “I thought I explained? Salazar took a locket from Grimmauld Place that Kreacher
wants back, and normally he lets me take things out of his pouch without a problem, but he’s
not giving this back.”

“Yeah, I think you explained.”

Harry watches Hermione for a second. She’s staring at the page of the book in her hand so
hard that her eyes appear to be watering. “Are you okay, Hermione?”

“I can’t do it!”

Harry blinks as Hermione flings the book into the air and breaks down, her arms wrapped
around her head, sobbing. Even Salazar stops scratching the cage bars to watch her. Harry
pats her awkwardly on the back.

“You can’t do what?”

“Study everything I need to study for O.W.L.S! I can do some of the spells, but I can’t do all
the practice I need for the practicals, and I need more time for the written exams, and the
Muggle Studies exam is going to be hard because it’s based on what people think about
Muggles, not what’s actually true—”

“You’re brilliant, though, Hermione—”

“I could do it if I had a Time-Turner! But I don’t! So I can’t do it!”

“I promise, Hermione, we’re going to—”

“What if I fail? What if I get the worst score on any exam since Barnaby the Useless?”

“I think his name was Uriel the Useless,” Harry says thoughtlessly.
Hermione gapes at him for a moment, and then bursts into tears. Harry pats her back
awkwardly.

Ahalam, who insisted on coming with Harry while he searched for Salazar and then just slept
through the whole thing, wakes up and edges his head out of Harry’s robes. “What is the
matter with your friend? Does she have a torn sinew-thing? Does she want me to show her
my scales? They are beautiful and glow in the firelight.”

“I don’t think she would like that right now,” Harry tells Ahalam, who only stretches and goes
back to sleeping in Harry’s robe pocket without answering. He pats Hermione’s back again
and hugs her when she goes on crying.

She does calm down eventually, and lifts her head, drying the tears on her face with the back
of her hand. “You’ll help me, Harry, won’t you?”

“Calm down?”

“Help me study!” A truly terrifying fire has come to life in Hermione’s eyes. “If I have a
study partner who’s great at the practical magic, then I can handle studying for the written
portion of the exams. If you help me. If you stay by my side every day and never abandon me
—”

“Uh. Sure, Hermione.”

Hermione beams and hugs him. Harry goes up to the dormitory with Ahalam and Salazar’s
cage, and lies awake for a while hoping that Hermione doesn’t mean to make him keep that
promise literally.

With his luck, though, she will.

 Chapter 3
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Harry, make her stop!”

Ron hisses the words to Harry when Harry is still busy stepping off the bottom step of the
stairs up to the boys’ dormitory, scratching his face and yawning. Salazar tried to escape from
his cage again a few hours after Harry caught him the first time, and now his body aches with
tiredness.

“Make her stop what?” Harry mumbles, trying not to collapse into the chair by the fire so that
he can just sleep the day away.

“Make Hermione stop that!”

Ron’s voice thunders through his head and finally wakes Harry up a little. He blinks stupidly
at what seems to be a map spread all over the floor of the common room, a huge piece of
parchment covered with dashes of different colors and blocks of numerals and letters. Harry
frowns. From where he’s standing, he can’t read anything on the map (or whatever it is), but
he has a very bad feeling about this.

“This is our study schedule!” Hermione announces from where she’s sitting in a chair by the
fire. One of the seventh-year students edges around the parchment, crinkling the side.
Hermione gives him a dirty look and casts a charm that flattens it.

“Hermione?” Harry asks in some alarm.

“I coded every hour between now and the onset of O.W.L.S!” Hermione’s eyes are so bright
that Harry thinks he could use them to light his way down a corridor. “I made sure to leave
enough time for sleeping and meals and walking between classes. And I didn’t count the time
that we’ll be on the Easter holidays. But otherwise, every minute is accounted for!” She
glances at a watch on her wrist Harry doesn’t remember her having. “I have allowed five
minutes for debate.”

“Harry,” Ron says in dangerously whiny tones.

“Hermione,” Harry says as gently as possible. “What about time for relaxation and studying
for the classes we have right now and doing the homework for them?” He hopes he can
appeal to Hermione’s love of all academic success to make her realize how mad this is.
“I built that in. Well, time for relaxation is built into sleeping and walking between classes.”
Hermione grimaces a little. “I also built in some for Quidditch games, but I suppose I might
have missed some of the hours they could take. On the other hand, you barely need to
practice, Harry, and Ron is a good enough Keeper with Oliver encouraging him. So you don’t
really need to attend practices. We can just invite Oliver to the school. You know he’ll come.”

Harry stares at her for a moment. Hermione looks back at him, nodding slightly, as if to say
that she knows this is overwhelming but he’ll get used to it if he just thinks about it.

Harry doesn’t want to get used to it.

“I appreciate your effort, Hermione,” he says. “But we also have to make time for more
relaxation than just sleeping and walking between classes. You remember what happened
third year?”

“That wouldn’t happen now, Harry!” Hermione says quickly. “I’m much older and more
level-headed.”

“What kind of definition of level-headed is she—”

Harry Silences Ron with a little twitch of his wand, and Ron looks at him in outrage. Harry
decides he’ll apologize later, but right now, he’s aiming to prevent two kinds of explosions.

“I think it will happen, if you try to break down every hour between now and the exams this
way,” he says, and starts walking along the edge of the parchment. Peering at it shows that
the area near Hermione’s feet is the one leading up to the O.W.L. exams themselves, and he
crouches down and studies it. Then he sighs and looks at Hermione. “Hermione, you’ve only
left yourself time for four hours of sleep.”

“I wouldn’t get more than that for worrying anyway! I might as well make productive use of
it.”

Harry sighs again and stands up. “Hermione, I will help you study,” he says, and waits until
her face lights up before he adds gently, “But not like this. My life can’t be this regimented
anyway. You know all the stupid and weird things that happen to me. If nothing else, I don’t
see any room for Lord Slytherin business that might arise.”

“I built it in.” Hermione glances over the enormous wheel of parchment for a moment.
“There, you see? An hour on March fifteenth.”

Harry doesn’t roll his eyes, because Hermione is his friend and this is very important to her.
But he does lean forwards and say, “This is going to damage your health, Hermione? And—”
how to reach her “—do you think that you’ll be at your best on the exams if you’re battling
exhaustion and maybe sickness?”

Hermione sucks in a loud breath and stares at him. Then she says, “But mental health is
important, too, and by doing this, I can protect my mental health!”
“But what if something happens that prevents you from completing what you need to do
every hour? Is that going to be less worrying?”

“Why should something happen?”

“I mean—if you get sick. Or a professor doesn’t assign as much homework as you think they
will, or they assign more. Or one of us gets detention.”

“You are not getting detention, Harry Potter.”

Right, if this is what happens when Hermione has too little sleep, I am definitely not letting
her go down this path. “I’ll do my best,” Harry says evenly. “But you know that some of the
professors haven’t been sympathetic to me in the past, and Hogwarts can’t do anything about
them if they’re just being professors. And I don’t want to use my Lord Slytherin powers to
undermine them, either.”

“You are not getting detention.”

“It might happen anyway.” Harry reaches out and puts his hands on her shoulders. “You need
to leave room in your schedule for things like that, Hermione. Not every minute can be
devoted to studying.”

“At least five hundred minutes a day aren’t devoted to—”

“I care about you, Hermione. I’m your friend. I don’t want to do this, and I’m not going to let
you do it to yourself, either. You know that you’re going to do brilliantly on the O.W.L.S.
You know it. You don’t need to do this.”

Hermione’s bottom lip quivers a bit. Then she swallows and looks at Ron. “Does Ron
agree?”

Harry starts and releases Ron from the Silencing Charm. Ron gives him the kind of narrow-
eyed look that tells Harry they’re going to have words later, and then turns and faces
Hermione. “Yeah, I do,” he says. “Hermione, this is mental. You must see that.”

“I just—I just want to pass my O.W.L.S. And I want to make sure that you do equally well,
too.”

Ron leans forwards and gives Hermione a kind smile that Harry doesn’t think he could have
found in himself. “We’re not going to do as well as you, Hermione. But what matters most to
you is doing well, and what matters to me is other things.”

“Like what?”

“Quidditch. Staying healthy. Being able to spend time with my friends that doesn’t just
involve studying or quizzing each other.”

“Even if—do you think that you’ll be able to get a good career if you don’t have the right
O.W.L.S?”
Ron shrugs. “Everything I want to do involves good N.E.W.T.S, not good O.W.L.S. And a lot
of the N.E. W.T. classes do take you with an Acceptable, you know.” Hermione looks so
horrified that Ron adds hastily, “I want to do better than that. But the seventh-year exams are
the most important.”

Hermione looks down at the circle of parchment around her chair and bites her lip. “So this is
sort of silly, what I did?”

“You’re being Hermione,” Ron says. “That’s not silly. It just means that sometimes we need
to be Harry and Ron and bring you back to reality a little.”

Harry nods, glad that Ron has been able to handle this part better than Harry could. He can’t
do everything. It’s a solid reminder that he needs for himself. “And we’ll continue helping
you practice spells and everything, Hermione. We’ll help you. We just can’t use every minute
on the O.W.L. exams.”

Hermione sighs. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I don’t know why I—why I did this.”

“You’re being Hermione, and you worry about these things,” Ron says, and takes her hand.
Hermione looks at him in something like wonder.

Harry glances away, swallowing a bit. There are times that he’d really like to find someone to
take to Hogsmeade, and hold hands with, and kiss in dark corridors. But he won’t date a
follower—they might feel they owe him something—and he certainly won’t date someone
who’s a stranger when he can’t know if they’re just impressed by his fame.

Maybe someday he’ll find someone.

“Help me understand this, my lord. You want to advocate for wand rights for goblins, but you
don’t want violent confrontation with the Ministry about this?”

“Stop calling me your lord, Theo, you sound like a Death Eater.”

Theo breathes in sharply. He’s sitting at the library table across from Harry, but suddenly it’s
as if there’s a huge void between them.

Ahalam pops his head out of the robe pocket he’s currently occupying. “Why are you angry
at the clever boy? What has he done to make you angry? He does not smell angry. He smells
in pain. Are you angry that he is in pain?”

“No, I made a mistake,” Harry hisses back to Ahalam, who nudges at him with his nose. He
turns back to Theo. “Sorry, Theo. That was uncalled-for. I’m on edge for other reasons, ones
that have nothing to do with you.”

Theo studies Harry with narrow eyes, suddenly much more like the Nott of two years ago
than he’s been since. That’s fair, though. Harry was like a thoughtless git a minute ago.
“Apology accepted,” Theo says at last. “But may I suggest that you get your anger handled in
some way? It’s a weakness our enemies can exploit.”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Sorry. I will.”

“What are you angry about?”

Harry shrugs. Not even to Theo is he going to admit that he feels a little jealous of Ron and
Hermione. That’s his problem, not a reflection on his friends or the position as Lord Slytherin
that he chose to assume. “Things I can’t have. Problems that I’ll have because of the title and
people trying to have violent confrontations with me.”

“I hope you don’t regret your title.”

Theo’s eyes are fixed on him, and Harry doesn’t think he’s imagining the fear there. He
shakes his head. “No. It’s my problem. And being Lord Slytherin is still reward enough for
all of that.” He leans forwards and ignores the way that Theo opens his mouth, probably to
continue the argument. Harry finds his own whinging tiresome. “And I never said that I
didn’t want a confrontation with the Ministry about goblin rights.”

“Then—”

“We’ll have one. It just won’t be violent.”

 Children of the Storm
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Ready?”

Harry flashes a smile at Susan and straightens his shoulders. “Yeah, let’s go.”

The two of them walk out of the narrow alley that runs down one side of Gringotts, their eyes
fastened on the building. Most people don’t pay much attention to them first, even though it’s
a Hogsmeade weekend and therefore they should have been in Hogsmeade, not Diagon Alley.

But then a tall man in the plum-colored robes of the Wizengamot stops and takes a good look
at them, and shouts something. The crowd around them begins to grow, with people starting
to shout both his name and the words, “What are you doing?”

Harry doesn’t actually know what’s causing them the most consternation: the fact that he’s
Harry Potter, the box of wands he has floating in between him and Susan, or the banner
Susan is carrying that proclaims WAND RIGHTS FOR GOBLINS!

It might be the combination, come to think of it.

He and Susan get most of the way up the front steps of Gringotts before anyone thinks to stop
them. And then it’s the goblins on guard at the doors, rather than any of the wizards or
witches shouting in the alley behind. One of the guards comes down to meet them and aims
her axe at Harry. “What are you doing?”

“Bringing you wands.”

“Those are wood blanks.”

“No, they’re real wands, purchased from Ollivander’s,” Harry assures her. They are, too. He
went to Ollivander’s shop a few weeks ago by Floo and explained what he wanted, and
although Ollivander dithered at first, trying to insist that a wand must choose a wizard, he
eventually gave in to the challenge.

Harry doesn’t know if all the wands are newly-crafted or if Ollivander included some that he
hasn’t been able to find matches for before this. It doesn’t matter that much. The symbolic
gesture and the future matter a lot more than whether all these particular wands will find
goblin wielders.
The goblin stares at him with her face twitching, and then says to the smaller male goblin
who has halted behind her in uncertainty, “Fangbreaker. Go fetch Griphook.”

“Yes,” Fangbreaker squeaks, and darts off.

The female goblin plants her axe on the steps, and eyes them. She does such a good job of
ignoring the shouting behind and below them that Harry is impressed. She has green eyes and
green skin and green-grey armor that seems molded to her skin. “My name is Bloodcaller.
Did someone tell you to do this?”

“No. Although I did discuss it a little with Griphook.”

“No one among the wizards and witches?”

“Some of the followers of Lord Slytherin also discussed it,” Susan replies. Harry sneaks a
glance at her and sees her smiling. Yeah, she’s really enjoying this.

“Do those followers include members of the Wizengamot or the Ministry?”

“Some of them have relatives in the Ministry,” Harry says.

“Like my aunt. Amelia Bones,” Susan adds, when Bloodcaller adopts an expression which
Harry is sure means that she can’t be expected to know who every human showing up in front
of Gringotts is.

Bloodcaller frowns a bit, but says nothing as Fangbreaker comes back out of Gringotts.
“They say come in, and move your arses as fast you can,” Fangbreaker says breathlessly, then
winces when Bloodcaller just looks at him.

Bloodcaller sighs and faces Harry and Susan. “I suppose you had better enter.”

“How did you get the idea to bring wands for us?”

“It seems like the biggest problem for some goblins, from what Professor Flitwick at
Hogwarts says.” Harry is standing in front of Griphook’s desk deep in Gringotts, and Susan is
standing beside him, smiling. The box of wands is on the desk. Griphook is staring down into
it. “We talked to him.”

“Just him? A half-goblin? None of our people?”

“I sent a few owls,” Harry says. “To you and a few other goblins Sirius named that he knows.
I didn’t get any responses.”

“Yes, because we thought it was a prank.”

“Sorry?”
Griphook gives a great sigh and leans back in his chair to stare at Harry. “You know that the
Ministry will be furious,” he says. “There are numerous reasons that they don’t want us to
have wands, most of them predicated on their fear that we’ll grow too powerful if we have
them.”

“Lord Slytherin would never let you face the Ministry alone,” Susan says at once. “And this
is just the first prong in a campaign that he’s going to fight for all kinds of people. So if it
wasn’t this, it would be something else.”

“We would still have preferred to not do this now.”

“Oh, the timing is bad? Would something else be better?”

Griphook plants a hand on his face, claws wrapping around the sides of his mouth, and
mutters something that makes Harry abruptly glad he doesn’t know Gobbledegook. “We did
not expect to do anything about this in my lifetime,” he says, not looking at them. “It has
been goblin generations since we last made a serious attempt at carrying wands. Longer still
since we had human allies who decided to risk this.”

Harry does feel a little bad that he never tried to coordinate with the goblins through the Floo
or something. “Oh. So we should take the wands back?”

“I did not say that.”

“What are you saying?”

“That it would have been nice if you had planned this. Included us.”

“All right. I can do that from now on. Sorry for not doing it before.”

Griphook eyes him as if he doesn’t believe Harry, which is fair. Then he shakes his head.
“Have the confrontation with the Ministry somewhere other than Gringotts,” he says. “Wait
for word from us. But leave the wands here. We will try them and see who among our people
might match with them.”

Harry nods. “Sure.”

For some reason, that makes Griphook lean forwards over the desk, hands shooting out to
grip the sides. “You are not afraid of goblins having wands?” he says, and he sounds almost
like he should be speaking Parseltongue. Ahalam stirs around Harry’s neck. “Not afraid of
what will happen next?”

“Not more afraid than of humans having wands.”

Griphook narrows his eyes. “You don’t know enough of history.”

“It’s not well-taught at Hogwarts.”

Griphook just waits some more, and waits. But Harry doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, so
he can’t help.
Abruptly, Griphook gestures towards the tray of wands, which drops behind the desk and
down what seems to be a hole in the floor. “Get out of my office,” he says tiredly. “Wizard-
children. Spoiled children. Children of the storm who do not know what they have
unleashed.”

Harry just nods, because it seems best, and he and Susan walk out of there. There’s a large
crowd of people waiting for them outside the bank, who all start shouting.

Harry lifts his chin. He bet that no one would get violent in the middle of Diagon Alley. Time
to see if he’s right.
 Many Things Are Attempted
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Mr. Potter, would exactly did you think you were doing?”

There’s a brittle fury in Minister Fudge’s eyes. Harry half-nods to him and examines the rest
of the Alley over his shoulder. They haven’t called Dementors or anything like that,
thankfully, although there’s a detachment of Aurors spread over the bottom of the steps up to
Gringotts. Harry isn’t sure whether they’re there to bodyguard the Minister or hold down the
goblin rebellion they must think is happening.

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Bringing wands to goblins is an act of war!”

“It is, sir? Wow! I looked up some laws before I did this, you know, and I didn’t see anything
about that in the laws!”

Harry did actually read some legal books, too. The ones in Grimmauld Place aren’t the most
updated ones, but even Sirius had to admit that the Ministry changes so slowly they probably
wouldn’t give Harry the wrong information, either.

The Minister pauses. Behind him, someone clears her throat. Harry glances at her and finds a
tall woman who looks a little familiar watching him pensively.

“Sir…”

“Well, all right, not literally an act of war,” the Minister has to concede. “Yes, Cordelia, what
is it?”

Harry perks up a little. Daphne’s mother is called Cordelia. And she looks like Daphne, now
that Harry is looking for the resemblance, with wide green eyes, although her hair is darker
and she doesn’t have much of the same face shape.

“There is no law on the books about bringing wands to goblins,” Madam Greengrass says,
shooting Harry a quick look. Harry is happy to stand there and let her get on with it. “Only
about selling them.”

Fudge’s face does a complicated dance of expressions that makes Harry have to cough to
hold back laughter. He sometimes saw Aunt Petunia’s face doing the same thing, when she
was forced to concede someone else had a good point whether or not she wanted to.
“Why do you think those laws are on the books?” Fudge demands.

“I think wizards and witches are afraid of goblins, sir.”

“That’s right—I mean, no, of course not, we aren’t afraid of them! It’s just better for peace
all around if goblins don’t have wands.”

“Oh. Because they would be better with them than we are, sir?”

“Of course not!”

“But then why is it better for peace?”

Fudge looks around as if he expects someone to come up and start taking pictures of him.
Madam Greengrass is smiling widely and viciously, although she tames the expression as
Fudge spins back around to face her. “What is the wording of the laws?” Fudge asks in what
he probably thinks is a whisper.

Susan is shaking with laughter next to Harry. Harry hits her with an elbow in the side. The
last thing they want is to have the Minister think they aren’t taking this seriously.

“I believe that it says something akin to goblins causing a rebellion if they have wands.”

“You heard that, Mr. Potter,” Fudge says, turning back around and nodding violently to
Harry. Maybe he’s not enough fool to assume Harry didn’t hear him, then. “Because they
could cause a rebellion if they had wands.”

“Is that what the other rebellions started over, sir?”

“Eh? You know that the History of Magic class in Hogwarts concentrates on goblin
rebellions, I hope?”

“Oh, yes, sir. But Binns tends to emphasize the outcome, not the cause. I was just wondering
how many of the rebellions started over access to wands. And whether they might have been
solved by bringing the goblins wands. Not selling them, of course, that would be illegal.”

Fudge shakes his head impatiently. “I don’t have time for this, Mr. Potter. Where are the
wands now?”

“Inside Gringotts, sir.”

“And did you give them to goblins? Did you see them matched with those wands?” Fudge
lurches a step forwards.

“No, sir.”

Susan starts laughing under her breath again at this literal truth. Harry hits her with his elbow
again. Madam Greengrass looks back and forth between them but says nothing and doesn’t
change the expression on her face one iota.
“Oh, well.” Fudge straightens his bowler hat. “Then perhaps it’s still all right.” And without
even asking Harry and Susan how they got to Diagon Alley in the first place, which Harry
was sure would be the next question, he turns and practically runs into the bank.

Madam Greengrass lingers where she is, staring back and forth between Harry and Susan
with shrewd eyes. “You know that you are playing with fire?” she murmurs.

“Don’t worry. My Quidditch Captain has shown me how to fly through it.”

Madam Greengrass blinks, and then gives them a small, genuine smile before she follows
Fudge. Most of the other Aurors do the same thing, but two of them step forwards and nod to
Harry and Susan in an inescapable way.

“We’re to escort you back to Hogwarts, Lord Slytherin.”

Harry stifles a sigh. At least they’re not going to learn anything other than that Harry and
Susan came through the Grimmauld Place Floo.

And at least he knows that the goblins will accept the wands now, and Fudge didn’t manage
to prevent it. Harry will account that a victory.

“We wish to speak to you.”

It’s the most straightforward sentiment Harry has ever heard out of a centaur. He finds
himself blinking at the chestnut stallion who stands on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. He’s
apparently been watching the Defense class practice.

Harry’s Defense class, as opposed to Sirius’s. Sirius thinks the whole thing is great and
sometimes assigns them homework that coordinates with whatever spells they’re practicing
in the Defense group.

“Uh, all right.” Harry drags his hand through his hair and catches Ernie’s eye. He was
supposed to have Occlumency practice right after this.

Ernie gives him a stern look, but also waves a hand to tell Harry that he’ll wait, this once.
Harry holds back the urge to salute, which would just irritate Ernie, and walks over to stand
in front of the centaur, nodding to him.

“You call yourself Lord Slytherin?”

“Yes.” Harry is glad that none of his friends are with him, because they would probably get
upset about “disrespect” or something.

The centaur prances in place. Then he says, “My name is Stardim.”

“All right,” Harry says slowly. It sounds like an ominous name for a centaur, given how into
Astronomy they are.
“We have heard that you brought wands to goblins.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Why did you not bring them to us? We have also been deprived of them.”

“I didn’t know that you would accept them. And I’d already spoken with some of the goblins
about my plans to fight the Ministry for creature rights, but I hadn’t spoken to any centaurs. I
thought that you might dislike humans enough not to want to be involved.”

One of Stardim’s hooves slams into the earth and digs a divot. “That was ignorant of you.”

“Sorry.”

Stardim examines Harry for long moments more. His eyes are black and piercing and remind
Harry a little of Snape’s, although he’s pretty sure that Stardim at least can’t actually read his
mind. “You will enter the Forest with me now and speak to Magorian.”

Harry breathes out slowly. “I can’t do that without informing someone of where I’m going.”

“You will come with me now or the centaurs will never be your allies.”

Harry bites his lip. But…well, even if the centaurs are never his allies, they’ll benefit if Harry
manages to get wand rights for goblins and other non-human people. And Harry can just
picture Ron and Hermione and Theo and Sirius’s expressions if he goes off into the
Forbidden Forest without warning anyone.

“Sorry,” he says, on a hard exhalation. “I want to work with you, but not to the extent of
going off by myself and with a centaur I’ve never met before.”

Stardim’s eyes widen. Harry reckons that he was assuming his tactics would work. He tosses
his head up, makes a sound of contempt and disdain that makes Harry wince, and then turns
and bolts into the Forest.

“Harry!”

It’s Ernie coming up to him, but also Draco, Theo, Hermione, and Justin. Theo is watching
the way that Stardim went with a frankly disturbing look in his eyes. Harry moves in between
Theo and the edge of the Forest, casually.

“What was that about?”

“He wanted me to come with him right away to meet Magorian. He said that the centaurs
wouldn’t be our allies if I didn’t.”

“He wanted you to come alone?”

“Yeah.”
“Then it’s a good idea that you didn’t go,” Hermione says, for all that she also looks torn.
“I’m sure that we might be able to come up with a way to appeal to them even without your
visiting them, I can look in the library…”

Harry nods and drops back to walk with Theo as they go towards the castle. Ernie seems to
have given up on the idea of holding their Occlumency lesson outside, which is all right with
Harry. He’s getting a little better at it, and he doesn’t want to be near the Forest right now.

“What do you think?” Harry asks Theo.

“I’m thinking that the Dark Lord sometimes reached out to centaurs in the last war. And that
he’s frequented the Forbidden Forest before.”

Harry smiles grimly. “Yeah.”

He will be sad to miss out on an offer of alliance with the centaurs if Stardim was sincere.
But he simply can’t trust someone without proof.
 Lessons in Caution and Seriousness
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“You have unexpectedly become involved in major events, Mr. Potter.”

Harry smiles a little. “I don’t know how unexpected it was, sir. After all, you knew that I take
the title of Lord Slytherin seriously and I want to do things that will make people’s lives
better.”

“Do you think it wise to agitate the Minister on the eve of war, my dear boy?”

Dumbledore stares at Harry. Harry stares back. After a moment, it occurs to him that
Dumbledore is serious.

“You really think that Fudge is going to last long as Minister? Or, well, I suppose he might,
but that he’s going to be an effective Minister for wartime? Voldemort is just going to stay
quiet the way he has been and work around him. Or if Voldemort shows himself openly and
people demand the Ministry do something, then someone else is going to replace Fudge.
Either way, it doesn’t matter that much what he does.”

Dumbledore closes his eyes and looks like he’s asking the back of his eyelids for help. “It
still isn’t the wisest idea, Harry.”

“And I told you why I think it doesn’t matter.”

“Did you have to give the goblins these wands now?”

“When would you think it was a good idea, sir?”

“After the war! When certain things are settled.”

“But we had more than a decade of peace before this, and no one did anything then, either.
It’s kind of like how I kept thinking that if I just waited and hoped, someone would come and
get me away from the Dursleys. But that didn’t happen. I had to tell people about the
necromantic protections for it to happen.”

Dumbledore gives him a look that wouldn’t be out of place from an ancient dragon. Or Harry
thinks so, anyway. It’s not like he had to face dragons, in the Tournament or otherwise.

“Hagrid came and got you away from them.”

“Not permanently. I had to go back the same day. I never should have had to go back. And if
you think that everything is fine with that, sir, I don’t really know what to say.”

Dumbledore contemplates Fawkes on his perch for a second. So does Harry. Fawkes is nice
to look at. Even if Ahalam is hissing complaints in Harry’s front robe pocket about how he’s
the prettiest one in the room, not Fawkes.

“You may have damaged this war more than you can know,” Dumbledore whispers. “The
same way you did when you stopped our efforts to gain international cooperation with the
Tournament.”

“If you can only win a war by leaving children in abusive homes and hating goblins, then I
think you need to change your tactics. Sir.”

Dumbledore leans back in his chair and turns his head away, and Harry knows that he’s been
dismissed. He leaves, shaking his head. Dumbledore’s problems seem so easy to solve, to
him. Just work with people instead of telling them that they’re too young to understand or
they have to act exactly the way Dumbledore wants them to.

Or he could leave Harry out of the war altogether, but Dumbledore seems to think that it’s
important that he be there.

It confuses Harry, but it’s also not really his problem.

“Do you think the phoenix is more beautiful than me? I need honesty. I need to know the
spells that make my scales shine. I need to be away from the Niffler when we use them. Do
you think the phoenix is more beautiful than me?”

Harry laughs and takes Ahalam out of his pocket, letting his little snake twine around his
wrist. “I think that you’re beautiful and you don’t need any help. And I don’t want you to
become one of the things that Salazar collects. You’re so beautiful that I would miss you in
my day-to-day life.”

Ahalam flickers his tongue out as if considering that, then lowers his head to the back of
Harry’s hand. “If you believe that I am so beautiful, feed me more cheese.”

“One thing has nothing to do with the other.”

“Beautiful snakes deserve cheese.”

“I’ve told you before that I don’t like how it affects your health.”

“That is a risk I choose to take.”

Arguing with Ahalam on the way back up to Gryffindor Tower probably isn’t more
productive than arguing with Dumbledore, but at least it lets Harry feel better.

“Yes, I think you’ve almost got it.”

Harry blinks hard and tries to will away the feeling of standing on the cold, bright, black
plain instead of in the sunlight streaming through the window above them. “Thanks, Ernie,”
he says. His voice is detached, but a second later, the Occlumency bubble keeping him
separated from his emotions pops and they come rushing back in. He staggers a little.

“Are you all right?”

Harry manages to regain his feet and give Ernie a grim little smile. “Just not used to feeling
everything all at once after I deliberately kept from feeling it.”

Ernie nods sagely. “It takes time to get used to switching back and forth. But I couldn’t sense
anything except darkness and cold when I tried to get into your thoughts. No other
Legilimens will be able to sense much, either.”

“I keep hearing how powerful Voldemort is, though.”

Ernie looks uncomfortable at the name, but at least he doesn’t actually run away. “Well. This
is still the basis of what you’ll need to defeat him. You’ll have to study more and become
better and stronger, but it’s a good beginning.”

“Thanks for telling me.” Harry stretches his muscles and then whips around abruptly. He and
Ernie chose this corridor on the seventh floor because it’s deserted most of the day except
when people are going to and from Astronomy, but he heard a sound up the corridor just a
moment ago. He knows he did.

“Lord Slytherin?”

“I don’t think this is a situation where you need to call me that. But I heard something.”

“If a stranger’s here, then I should—”

Harry doesn’t pay attention to Ernie’s convoluted explanation. Instead, he shakes his wand
into his hand and prowls slowly up the corridor, sticking his head around the corner when he
reaches it.

When he sees what’s going on, he sighs and puts his wand away. “It’s all right,” he tells
Ernie, who’s peering worriedly after him. “It’s only Salazar.”

His Niffler is bouncing up and down near the wall, clawing at it. Harry is starting to think
that there’s probably something inside the wall, like the basilisk was in second year, but he
also thinks that there’s nothing he can do about it. He reaches out to catch hold of Salazar’s
neck.

His Niffler squeals and bolts towards that old tapestry covered with dancing trolls Harry has
seen before.

Harry chases him and darts back and forth in front of and behind the tapestry as he tries his
best to catch hold of Salazar. His thoughts are darting and wheeling in much the same way. I
wish I knew what the hell he’s doing…wish I knew…wish I knew…
“Lord Slytherin!”

Ernie’s voice is strangled and urgent. Harry Stuns Salazar and comes out holding the Niffler
in his arms. Ernie is pointing at the wall of the corridor where Salazar was doing his best to
dig through the stone before.

There’s a door there.

Harry stares at it, and then looks at Ernie. Poor Ernie has white all around his eyes. “Have
you ever seen this room before?”

“No, Lord Slytherin. Nor heard of it!”

Ernie must be really distressed, to retreat into formality when he knows there’s no one around
he would need to use Harry’s title for. Harry grimaces and nods. “All right. Then I suppose
we should investigate a little.” He conjures a cage for Salazar that will at least hold if he
wakes up from the Stunner and reaches for the doorknob.

Ernie’s hand gets there first, and he swings it open. Harry blinks at him.

“It’s right that a follower or vassal go in front of you when there might be danger,” Ernie says
pompously.

“You could have cast a detection charm.”

“Were you going to?”

“Point.”

Harry stares at the room that’s been revealed. It looks like it’s crowded with so much rubbish
that he would be surprised if anyone could move in there. There are frayed robes and broken
chairs and open trunks and smashed-up busts and splintered swords, and that’s only the small
portion he can glimpse through the half-open door.

Salazar wants something in there? How could he possibly have known about it, and why
would he want it in the first place?

“You’re not going exploring, are you, Lord Slytherin?”

Harry becomes aware that he’s taken a step forwards, and steps back again, shaking his head.
“Sorry, Ernie, I think it’s interesting, but you’re right. Something dangerous could be in
there.”

“Please let me fetch some of the others.”

Harry blinks at Ernie. “You don’t just—not want me to explore?”

“I know my lord. I know that he might agree with me to keep the peace and then come back
here on his own, when it would be more dangerous.”
Ernie’s voice is sharp. Harry winces, but says, “Well, I didn’t run off into the Forest after the
centaurs, you know.”

“I know, my lord.” Ernie’s voice is soothing, as if he’s humoring Harry. “But what matters is
that you don’t run off into the wilderness of this room now, either.”

Harry just sighs and nods. Ernie marches off down the corridor. Harry faces the room and
leans on the wall with his arms folded.

He’ll wait, like a good little boy. Even though he’s a bit resentful that he’s being managed.

Then again, that’s more than what Fudge knows on a day-to-day basis. Harry is glad to think
that he’s at least smarter than the Minister for Magic.

A sharp squeal comes from the cage that he conjured for Salazar. Harry draws his wand and
Stuns his Niffler again without looking away from the room.

No, he’s not going to be drawn into a chase after Salazar. Eventually, they’ll figure out why
the room is so important to him, but for right now, Harry will just remain here.
 Darkest of the Dark Arts
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Harry, what did you find?”

Harry snorts. “It’s not my fault, Hermione. I was chasing Salazar when he went after this
wall, and this door appeared.”

He glances up. Ernie brought Susan, Ron, Hermione, and Theo, or they brought themselves.
Harry isn’t sure who Ernie ran into first, and he doesn’t think it matters that much.

“I’ve never been aware of a door here,” Hermione says, and lays her hand on the wall for a
second. “No one told me about it even though I’m a prefect now. Ron, have your brothers
ever mentioned something?”

“No, but I think I might know what it is. The Room of—”

“Requirement,” Theo says, and he’s hissing the word. Harry glances at him in concern.
Theo’s eyes are fastened on the door and the rubbish in the room beyond, and so wide that he
honestly looks upset. Harry steps backwards so that he’s next to his friend.

“Is something wrong, Theo? What’s the Room of Requirement?”

“A legendary room in the castle that can give you whatever you want, whatever you need.
Supposedly it’s just a legend, like the Chamber of Secrets. Supposedly, Rowena Ravenclaw
created it.”

“That sounds like something Ravenclaw would do,” Hermione says eagerly. “She invented a
diadem that was supposed to increase the wearer’s wisdom, although it’s been lost for
centuries and no one knows—”

“What would your Niffler want with a rubbish room?” Susan asks, ignoring the way that
Hermione glares at her for the interruption. “I know that he collects objects, but it doesn’t
seem like there’s anything worth anything in here.”

“We don’t know that, do we?” Theo’s eyes are darting back and forth between Harry’s face,
the cage that Salazar is locked in, and the door. “Just because we can’t see much from here
doesn’t mean some of the rubbish isn’t valuable.”

Harry nods. “And I waited like a good little boy. So let’s go.” He tilts the door further open
with a little push of his fingers, and strides forwards.
The others yelp and scramble after him. Harry is glad to see that Ron is bringing along
Salazar’s cage.

He probably will get loose and run around in here at some point, but at least this way, they
have a chance of seeing where he went.

The room sprawls around them, vaster than Harry would have thought could be encompassed
by these walls. Then again, if it’s the Room of Requirement, it’s as big as it needs to be to
contain all this junk. And most of it is junk. Harry spots a Cleansweep broom stripped of all
its twigs, a Snitch with no wings, many empty mirror frames, and too many broken wands to
count.

“Harry! Look at this!”

Harry leans over, curious, and then blinks as he realizes that Hermione is holding up what
seems to be a silver staff with the bottom third or so snapped off. “What about it?”

“It looks like one of the historical staves that wizards and witches used before wands! What
do you think it’s doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Harry mutters, glancing around. Despite the silver of the staff in Hermione’s
hand, he’s becoming uneasy. There aren’t that many shiny things here. It makes him realize
that he has no idea what Salazar was seeking.

And that makes him wonder, more uneasily still, if the thing Salazar wants is rare and
dangerous, like some of the Dark objects Salazar wanted at Grimmauld Place, instead of just
sparkling.

Harry draws his wand. Theo’s back touches his, and he realizes his Slytherin friend has
drawn his wand, too. Harry smiles gratefully back at Theo and then faces further into the
room, eyes darting around.

They walk on, dust and particles of precious stones and metal crunching under their feet. Ron
is exclaiming over some of the older brooms. Harry would ordinarily be interested, too, but
right now, it’s hard to take his eyes from the shadows around them and the large cabinets and
the occasional things with shut doors. Who knows what’s hiding in them?

A flash of pain shoots through his scar, so suddenly that Harry hisses aloud without meaning
to. His friends immediately swing to face him, orienting on him in a way that makes Harry
blush. Theo looks over his shoulder and steps lightly to Harry’s side, one hand reaching out
to cup the air—

No, not the air. A drop of blood falling from Harry’s scar.

“My lord.”

The dark tone in Theo’s voice means that things are about to get very bad, very fast. Harry
turns back towards the door of the Room, but feels something shaking behind him, and
flinches as he turns and sees an object soaring at his head.
Theo blasts it with a curse before it can land. It clatters away into a corner, and Hermione and
Ernie go running to inspect it.

“Don’t touch it,” Harry says, hissing as he rests his hand for a moment on his scar. It’s as hot
as the stove felt one time when Dudley forced Harry’s hand down onto it.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to.” Hermione has conjured a bag to scoop up the thing in, or
maybe Transfigured one. She turns towards him with a ghost-pale face. “I think—this is
radiating Dark magic, Harry.”

Salazar abruptly squeals from his cage.

Theo Stuns him without taking his eyes from Harry. “Are you going to be able to make it to
the infirmary?”

“I’m only going there if you think Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t tell Dumbledore.”

“I’ll Obliviate her myself before I let that happen.”

Harry sighs and follows his friends, leaning a little on Theo’s shoulder and then on Ron’s
when Theo casts a curse at Hermione’s bobbing and swaying bag. Ron’s face is filled with
concern as he glances between Harry and the object in the bag.

“What is that, mate?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says, and draws what feels like a breath of cooler and fresher air as
they get back into the corridor. “But I’m going to make it my business to find out.”

“You know how I said Rowena Ravenclaw made a diadem to grant wisdom to people?”

Harry blinks at the tarnished silver thing that’s on a plate made of lead Hermione conjured—
or Transfigured—from something. It’s still radiating Dark magic, but not making Harry’s scar
hurt the way it did in the rubbish room. He thinks that might have something to do with the
web of spells woven over it, which are preventing it from being the kind of danger it was
there. “That’s it?”

“Yes. It has the inscription. Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” Hermione
explains when Harry raises an eyebrow at her. “There’s nothing else that would have that. I
don’t think someone would even dare to make an imitation.”

Harry wonders about that. He knows there’s plenty of pettiness and laziness in the magical
world. But Hermione’s right that it doesn’t make much sense to create an imitation of such a
famous treasure and then chuck it in a rubbish room barely anyone knows about.

And there’s the matter of the Dark magic it radiated.

“Don’t touch it, my lord.” They’re in a different version of the Room of Requirement, this
time with the kind of wards that can prevent the diadem from getting out of hand again, but
Theo is still trembling with anger as he leans over Harry’s shoulder. “I think if you do, you’re
going to be possessed.”

Harry blinks. Possessed. The only thing he’s ever heard of that could possess someone was
Voldemort’s diary.

On the other hand, that diary didn’t make his scar hurt the way this one did. But maybe it’s
slightly different. The book could get people to write in it, so it could lure them closer.
Maybe it didn’t have to attack people like the diadem does.

Harry pushes the conclusions he has no idea what to do with right now away, and asks
Hermione, “Why do you think Salazar was so attracted to that in particular?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Hermione says, and frowns at it. “It’s not like he could have seen it
from beyond the wall, and the shine of it is pretty damaged. I always thought Nifflers were
attracted to shiny things more than anything else, and what they were worth was a lot less
important.”

“I believe I may have the answer to this.”

Harry glances up and nods at Theo. Theo’s face is pale, his mouth clamped shut so that his
nostrils look like they’re flaring. “All right. Any idea you have is fine.”

“I’ve never felt anything like the Dark magic that radiated from that diadem, and I grew up
surrounded by Dark magic and Dark objects,” Theo says bluntly. “It makes me think that the
magic was attracting Salazar, perhaps because he’s spent a lot of time around Dark spells in
Grimmauld Place.”

“He honestly hasn’t. Sirius and Remus cleaned the house pretty thoroughly before they let me
visit. The magics that were left were just minor.”

“Then it must be something else. Perhaps he is being influenced by something we don’t know
about? Someone in your dormitory or the Tower has an object that they don’t know is Dark,
and he’s spent time around that.”

Harry opens his mouth to dispute that, even as Ron says, “Oi!” And then he closes his mouth
again, and feels himself shiver.

“You’ve thought of something.”

“Yeah,” Harry whispers. “Salazar found a locket in Grimmauld Place that he put in his pouch,
and he hasn’t taken it out again, even though Kreacher’s demanded it and threatened to kill
him for it. I didn’t even think it could be that, because the locket didn’t feel Dark to me the
one time I touched the chain. But…he usually lets me take anything out of his pouch after
he’s been able to hold it for a while, and he won’t let me take the locket.”

“I think we need to see this locket.”

Harry glances at the warded cage sitting beside his chair. Salazar is awake again, tucked
inside the cage, but his hungry gaze is fixed on the diadem, and hasn’t moved. “I mean, you
can try. But I don’t know any charm that will pull it out of the pouch without hurting him.”

“I know one.” Theo has a slightly unpleasant smile on his face as he draws his wand and
gestures at Salazar. The pink light that leaves his wand looks familiar to Harry, but Theo has
been casting silently for a while now, and he doesn’t know the spell without the incantation.

I need to work on casting silently, too.

The charm strikes Salazar, who’s scratching at the cage bars and doesn’t seem to notice. Then
he freezes. He trembles a little.

“Theo?”

“He’s fine, my lord. I promise.”

Harry nods uncertainly in the moment before Salazar opens his mouth and begins to vomit.

Harry stares. No wonder that pink light was familiar. Fred and George enjoy casting the
Nausea Charm on people, although they haven’t done it on anyone around Harry who he’s
friends with for a while.

“Are you sure this is—”

Salazar vomits again, and this time, he practically flips himself inside-out. That includes his
pouch. A torrent of little golden rings and Galleons pours out, followed by the glowing
locket.

Harry reaches out instinctively to snatch it before Salazar can pull the thing back into his
pouch, but he gets a stinging magical slap across the wrist for his troubles. He pulls his hand
back and glares at Theo, although he thinks Susan is the one Levitating the locket.

“I’m not having you possessed,” Theo says, not even bothering to apologize.

“I wouldn’t get possessed. Not when I know what it does.”

“Are either of you interested in the fact that this locket radiates Dark magic, too?” Susan asks
loudly. “Or are you just going to argue all day?”

Harry turns around and stares. He honestly didn’t think the locket was that much like the
diadem, but then again, he wasn’t around it without the shelter of Salazar’s pouch for very
long before. Now that it’s lying on the silver tray the Room just made for them next to the
diadem, it’s obvious how Dark it is.

Harry swallows.

“It might not have attacked you,” Theo says, his wand aimed somewhere halfway between
locket and diadem. “But it could still possess you if you touched it or wore it for too long.
And it makes you want to do so.”
Harry grimaces. Now that he’s concentrating, yeah, he can feel the lure of the locket, pulling
and tugging on his attention like a child with a robe’s hem. He leans back and draws his own
wand. He probably won’t have to cast anything, but it comforts him to have it there. “Any
guess what these are?” he asks.

“You said that the diary could possess someone. And it had Dark magic. These have Dark
magic. They could possess someone.”

“Voldemort made them, then?”

Susan stands a little straighter at the sound of the name, and Theo hisses. Ron and Hermione
swallow and keep watching him. Harry looks around and realizes that no one is going to
answer. He’ll have to do it himself.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think he did. Like the diary.” He traces his wand in a spiral on the air, one
of the spells that Sirius taught him over the Christmas hols. It should identify how much Dark
magic an object is emitting, which is at least a way to begin telling how dangerous it is.

The diadem and locket vanish behind a curtain of what looks like thick smoke. Harry thinks
he hears a deep voice chuckling, and another one screaming. His hand wrings around his
wand. It’s hard to work to sit there instead of flinching back like everyone else did.

But ultimately, he’s the one who needs to handle this. The one who’s Voldemort’s mortal
(prophesied, even) enemy. Harry stands up and clears away the smoke with a Finite, then
stands for a moment staring at the objects.

He wants to run and find Sirius, but there is the fact that the locket and diadem might take
him over. Harry will at least have to bring Sirius here, where the magic of the Room is
subduing the locket and diadem’s evil a little.

He straightens his shoulders and speaks with a confidence he doesn’t feel. “Nothing about
this to anyone else for right now, all right? Not until we know something more definite than
we know right now.”

“Of course not.”

“Yes, Harry.”

“Yes, Lord Slytherin.”

It really is disturbing, the way Theo bows his head.

Harry wakes up in the morning feeling weirdly well-rested, and it takes him a moment to
realize why.

Salazar stayed in his cage all night instead of managing to escape and go scratch at the wall
that holds the Room of Requirement.
Harry smiles at the sight of his Niffler asleep in his cage as if he never carried one of those
abominable things. At least one thing is going well, then.
 Fear of Snakes
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“I have no idea what those are.”

Harry winces despite himself. He was really hoping that Sirius, who grew up in Grimmauld
Place and got exposed to all sorts of stupidly Dark objects by his parents, would know what
Voldemort might have done.

“Then I suppose we have to—”

Sirius reaches for the locket and abruptly snatches his hand back with a yelp. “Nott!”

“Apologies, Professor,” Theo doesn’t look particularly apologetic for hitting their Defense
professor with the same stinging slap hex that he used on Harry yesterday.

Harry snickers, which makes Sirius turn to him with a wounded expression. “You’re going to
allow your followers to treat me that way? Really, Harry?”

“Just don’t try to touch the locket, and you’ll be fine.”

“So these are Dark things that You-Know-Who created.” Sirius sits down, still closer to the
table with the locket and the diadem than Harry would like, but he takes a deep breath and
reminds himself that Sirius is an adult. “I wonder how one of them got into our house?”

“Well, I mean, your parents were followers of his, right? The same way that Mr. Malfoy had
that diary.”

“Yeah, although neither of them were Death Eaters like Malfoy,” Sirius offers casually, and
then his face darkens. “My little brother was, though. Mum couldn’t stop going on and on
about that in the Howlers she sent me. Maybe this was something You-Know-Who gave to
Regulus to hide for him.”

Harry just nods, although he wonders if Voldemort would really hand these things over to just
anyone. The diary had the mission to try and let the basilisk loose on the school. What was
the locket’s mission?

Or the diadem’s? Could it really tempt and possess anyone when it was locked up in a
rubbish room that most people didn’t know existed?
Then Harry shakes his head. He doesn’t know enough about the—things. For all he knows,
only the diary had a mission, and the others were just there to decoy people in and possess
them and eat their souls.

Or something.

“You’ve really never heard of artifacts like these?” Theo is standing behind Harry’s chair, his
attention on Sirius, although Harry can feel the flickering tension in him, as if he’s strung on
wires. “You don’t know what they are?”

“I would tell you if I did.” Sirius’s face is apologetic as he glances back and forth between
Theo and Harry. “On the other hand, I might be able to tell you where to look.”

Harry smiles a little. They’re in the middle of the Room of Requirement, which ought to be
able to produce any books or research materials they require. Maybe it could reproduce the
entire Black library in a pinch. “I’d appreciate that.”

“Lord Slytherin.”

Harry sighs a little when he sees Zacharias Smith bowing to the floor outside Gryffindor
Tower. One of the first-years who was apparently staying up to participate in a past-curfew
Exploding Snap tournament came to fetch Harry and tell him there was a “weird Hufflepuff”
waiting for him outside. Harry guessed it would be Zacharias. Susan and Justin don’t qualify
as weird.

“What is it, Zacharias?” Harry asks, trying to be quiet but also firm and commanding.
Sometimes people just need him to be Lord Slytherin, without complications.

“Is he being weird?”

“He is being himself,” Harry hisses to Ahalam, who’s crawling up his arm. He keeps one eye
on Zacharias, but just like he thought, Zacharias relaxes at the sound of the Parseltongue,
instead of getting upset. Yeah, something is wrong, so it reassures him to be reminded that
Harry is the all-powerful (snort) Lord Slytherin. “But I think something bad happened.”

“Then you shall solve it. I shall help. Then there shall be cheese.”

Harry chuckles despite himself, and Zacharias relaxes a little more. Maybe he thinks that if
Harry can laugh, everything is under control.

“What happened?” Harry asks softly, and unfortunately, that’s all the reminder Zacharias
needs to tense up again.

“My family’s—grown tired of waiting for me to become Lord Hufflepuff. They sent me an
owl saying that I wouldn’t be allowed to return to Hogwarts after my O.W.L.s unless I made
significant progress.” Zacharias swallows loudly enough to scare a Niffler and straightens up
to stare into Harry’s eyes. “My lord, I’m afraid.”
“Where would your family send you?”

“They might send me to Beauxbatons, but they—I’m afraid they would just coop me up in
my room until I agree.”

“What?”

“They’ve done it before.”

Harry’s stomach churns violently, remembering the summer before his second year when the
Dursleys did the same thing to him, and he almost believed he would never see Hogwarts
again. “Then I’ll help you. What do you need?”

“They—they said that I should meet my older cousin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest
tonight, and tell him what progress I’ve made towards becoming Lord Hufflepuff.”

“And you want me to go with you to meet him?”

“Please,” Zacharias breathes.

This is probably the kind of situation that some of his other friends would yell at him for
entering, but Harry has his wand and Ahalam. And he has his Invisibility Cloak tucked away
in his pocket.

More to the point, though, Zacharias doesn’t seem like he could possibly be trapping Harry.
He seems to be in genuine distress.

Harry nods. “Lead the way.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“So you’re the Lord Zach has lost himself to.”

Harry doesn’t miss the way that Zacharias flinches at the words and the nickname. Maybe it’s
an equal flinch for both. Harry lifts his chin and pulls on all the arrogance that people keep
telling him he ought to have as Lord Slytherin, along with the way that Ahalam lies on his
shoulder. He’s special. He has a snake. He can speak Parseltongue. He killed a basilisk. He’s
special.

“Who are you?”

The boy who stands under the trees at the edge of the Forbidden Forest flushes violently in
the light of Harry’s wand. He doesn’t look familiar, although Harry has to admit that he
wasn’t paying much attention to the Hufflepuffs at the point this boy would have been in
school. “Tiberius Hufflepuff.”

“Hufflepuff? Then why aren’t you trying to become Lord Hufflepuff instead of Zacharias?”
“I had my name legally changed,” Hufflepuff answers, and then looks furious at himself for
answering. “What does it matter? The important thing here is why you are making a member
of the Smith family follow you!”

“He came to me and asked for protection.” Harry ignores the anxious way that Zacharias
shifts behind him. It doesn’t matter if his family knows that. Harry is going to protect him. “I
suppose because you couldn’t provide it.”

“He needs to become Lord Hufflepuff!”

“He said that he would need to undertake a quest for some special artifacts to do that, and
also that some older family members of his had already failed those quests. Did you?”

Hufflepuff turns red in a completely satisfying manner, and whirls towards Zacharias. Harry
promptly steps between the two of them. His wand is in his hand. Ahalam, who has a fine
sense of drama when the occasion calls for it, has reared up and begun to hiss.

“Call off your snake!”

“He’s not attacking you. He won’t do anything if you don’t yell at Zacharias.”

“Zach!”

“He told me that he hated that name.”

“He’s a little boy. We’ll call him Zacharias when he’s proven himself.”

Harry narrows his eyes. There are echoes resounding in his head, ones that have the names
Vernon and Petunia and Dudley behind them. There used to be a time when Harry believed
they would call him something other than “freak” and “boy” if he just tried hard enough to be
what they wanted him to be.

“You should call him Zacharias because it’s what he wants to be called.”

“I don’t know what he’s told you, but he’s a useless idiot.”

“Then you shouldn’t want him to be Lord Hufflepuff anyway.”

Hufflepuff stares at Harry for long moments. Harry doesn’t know what he’s thinking. He
doesn’t think he much cares, either. What is wrong with Zacharias’s family? Why would they
assume that he has to be Lord Hufflepuff and then despise him and bully him so much?

Harry doesn’t know as much about politics as he thinks would please his followers, but he
knows that people who want him to be a powerful Lord Slytherin don’t put him down and
bad-mouth him. This is probably less the result of the Smith family really wanting Zacharias
to be Lord Hufflepuff and more them grasping whatever tool they have.

Because they’re frightened.

The insight leaps from nowhere and strikes into Harry, but he’s sure he’s right. He smiles.
“You’re afraid of me.”

“We’re not afraid of a little boy.”

“The one who defeated Voldemort—look, you’re even afraid of his name—and killed a
basilisk and defended Hogwarts students from the Ministry for the past two years? Of course.
You would have to be smarter to be afraid of me.”

“You don’t want to make enemies of us.”

Zacharias makes a noise behind Harry that seems to confirm that. Harry doesn’t turn to face
him, though. Zacharias isn’t going to be a victim here, at least not any more than he already
has been. “I know that you’re already my enemies. You don’t threaten and try to coerce a
friend of mine and get to call me your friends, too.”

“Friend?”

It comes from both Zacharias and Hufflepuff at the same time. Harry says mildly, “Of course.
What did you think you were, Zacharias?”

“A follower.”

“He is a follower,” Hufflepuff says, shaking off his visible shock. “And he’s a poor tool, but
he’s the only one we have right now. You’re going to release him from following you around
and let him become Lord Hufflepuff, or you won’t like the moves we make in response very
much. Right now, everyone is so in shock that you gave wands to goblins that no one is doing
much about it. But what do you think will happen if we start telling people that we oppose
it?”

“Then I’ll keep going.”

“You can’t.”

“If your family was that powerful, just as political players, you would already have someone
who was Lord Hufflepuff. And you wouldn’t be so afraid of me.”

Hufflepuff takes a step forwards, until his face is just a short distance from Harry’s. “I’m not
afraid of you.”

“What about the rest of your family?”

“Give Zach back.”

“No. And that was a stupid rhyme.”

Hufflepuff stands there for a moment longer, as if he thinks Harry is going to change his
mind and start bowing down to him. Then he turns away with a rapid shake of his head and a
mutter that sounds like, “We’ll see where you are when the change comes.”
“I don’t see a whole lot of people bringing change to the magical world right now. Are you
sure that you don’t want to join up with me?”

Hufflepuff flinches at that, and then takes a step back and Disapparates. They must be closer
to the edge of the wards than Harry knew.

“I’ve never seen anyone stand up to Tiberius like that.”

Zacharias’s voice is soft and distant, as if he’s so shocked that he’s not thinking about what
he’s saying. Harry turns around with a small smile. “I promise that I’ll stand up to him if he
comes back again. And any member of your family who does, too.”

Zacharias watches him with wide eyes which have devotion dawning in them. Harry holds
back a sigh.

Theo would say that it’s better Zacharias is devoted to someone trying to protect him.
Hermione might even say the same thing.

Hermione would probably add something about how Zacharias has probably never had
someone to protect him, though, which Theo wouldn’t.

“Come on,” Harry says, putting a hand on Zacharias’s shoulder and squeezing. “Let’s go
back to Hogwarts.”

“Yes, Lord Slytherin.”

“You don’t have to call me that unless you want to.”

“Sometimes I do.”

But at least Zacharias sounds a little sly, a little mocking, which makes Harry smile at him as
they walk back to Hogwarts.

“The other boy left because of me! I am very pretty and very intimidating. I can speak
Parseltongue and I am a snake! He is afraid of me.”

Ahalam, Harry thinks, will never change, any more than Oliver will.
 Happiness Caused By Cheese
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Harry’s friends react in different ways to hearing that he went to the edge of the Forbidden
Forest by himself.

Hermione sighs wearily and shakes her head, smoothing out the folds of parchment across
her knee that seem to have a new revised study schedule. “If you insist on that, Harry. And it
sounds like it was what you had to do to keep Zacharias safe.”

Ron looks up at the ceiling. “Have any idea how powerful the Smith family is?”

“No.”

“Pretty powerful.”

“We’ll take them on the same way we’re taking on the Ministry. I don’t think they’re more
powerful than the Ministry.”

Ron grins at him and claps Harry’s shoulder. “Right on.”

Susan gets a weird little glint in her eyes when Harry talks about how Tiberius Smith changed
his name to Hufflepuff. “I haven’t heard that,” she says. “And it’s the kind of thing that Aunt
Amelia would pass on to me, if only as gossip.”

“You think he’s lying about it?”

“I think he might be intending to do it, but hasn’t yet. Let me see what I can find out.”

Theo gives him a long, patient look when Harry mentions that he went to the edge of the
Forbidden Forest. When Harry clarifies that Zacharias and Ahalam were with him, it doesn’t
seem to reassure Theo that much.

“You understand that I can’t protect you if I don’t know where you are, my lord?”

“That’s not true! If I was in severe enough danger, your oath would pull you to me. So you
would know where I was then.”

Theo rubs his hand across his eyes and mutters something that sounds like, “You and Ahalam
are well-suited.” But he doesn’t raise a huge protest about it, so Harry reckons they can
consider the matter settled.
Sort of.

“You might have a natural talent for Potions, Mr. Potter!”

Harry hides his skeptical smile behind his book as he watches Slughorn hover over the
cauldron of Draught of Peace he’s been brewing. Slughorn goes more slowly than Snape but
explains things more clearly. Harry knows that Hermione is worried about whether they’ll
cover all the relevant information in time for the O.W.L., though.

“Thank you, sir.”

Harry doesn’t really think that he has any natural talent. This is probably Professor Slughorn
wanting to flatter the Boy-Who-Lived.

“Yes, indeed, indeed!” Slughorn winks at him. “Some of us remember James Potter and his
Quidditch skills, like a colleague of mine I will not name, but some of us remember Lily
Potter and her Potions talent.”

Harry holds back a startled reaction as best he can. He doesn’t really want to give Slughorn
what he’s looking for. “Is that so, sir?” he asks. “People rarely speak of my mother to me.”

“Yes, it is. She was wonderful at casting spells that helped guide the potion along, once I
allowed students to do that in their N.E.W.T. classes! Wonderful! Why, talk to her about
Potions for fifteen minutes and you never would have guessed she was Muggleborn.”

Harry blinks and stares at Slughorn for a second. “Sir…”

“What? Oh, you mustn’t think that I’m a blood purist!” Slughorn flaps a hand at Harry. “I’m
not! It’s silly to think that purebloods are better at certain skills because of inborn blood or
any of that nonsense!” He laughs heartily. “It’s just that purebloods grow up with that kind of
training, and so Muggleborns are less likely to have it, eh? Muggleborns can be as good as
purebloods! Doesn’t happen more than one time out of five, but it can, and that’s what we all
need to work towards!”

Harry nods slowly, and then finishes bottling his potion for the mark and cleaning up his
cauldron. All the while, though, he’s thinking very hard.

That’s the kind of thing I need to fight. Not just blood purity nonsense like Mr. Malfoy and
Voldemort spout, but that kind of casual prejudice that thinks it’s really surprising when a
Muggleborn is as good at Potions as a pureblood.

That’s what I need to do.

“I think you ought to practice the Patronus Charm, Harry.”

Harry blinks at Blaise, who’s sat down next to him. They’re in the middle of another lesson
for the Defense Association, and Harry has been offering advice to a few people and shoring
up some shields. “What? Why?”

“You never did learn it, did you?”

“Well, not completely. Because the Ministry withdrew the Dementors when Sirius turned out
to be innocent, and I was taking lessons with Professor Lupin, but that stopped.”

Blaise nods, wraps his arms around his knees, and leans closer. “I think you ought to do it
because my mother has contacts among the Examinations Authority, and apparently you
really impress the Defense proctors if you can cast a Patronus.”

Harry thinks about that. “I could put it on the roster of lessons for the Defense Association, I
suppose, but I don’t think most people have the time to learn it. The O.W.L. exam is just a
few months away. But maybe it would be a good thing for the younger students. Were you
thinking of them?”

“I was thinking of you.”

Blaise’s voice has an edge to it. Harry eyes him cautiously. “Blaise—”

“Have you ever thought about what you’re going to do to keep the prestige of Lord Slytherin
alive?”

“I think it’s already more alive than I would prefer, mostly.”

And that’s true. Harry has a few random people bowing to him in corridors each day, now.
They’re not his followers, because he can scowl at the ones who do it (and anyway, mostly
they only do it to fuck with him). These are students who watch him with big round eyes and
murmur to each other about his “exploits.”

“But you yourself need to be more than just a teacher for other students. You need to show in
your Defense O.W.L. how much you know about the subject.”

“Now you sound like Hermione.”

Blaise doesn’t laugh. Instead, he leans closer. “Granger has good ideas. Will you at least
consider learning the Patronus?”

“I said I thought it was a good idea. I just don’t have time to learn it before the O.W.L., that’s
all.”

“I think if anyone could do it, you could.”

“Thank you for your vote of confidence. But I don’t think I could.”

There’s a stubborn frown on Blaise’s face as he pulls away and stands up. Harry watches him
go, shaking his head slightly. Yes, it’s good for his friends to have faith in him, but not when
they’re pushing him to do frankly impossible things.
*

“I wanted to speak to you, Mr. Potter, on a matter of grave importance.” And Harry does
think it must be one, both from the tone in Dumbledore’s voice and the fact that he called
Harry “Mr. Potter.” Most of the time, he still prefers to use Harry’s first name.

“Okay, sir. What is it?” Harry got called away from breakfast where he was trying to prevent
people from feeding Ahalam too much cheese, like normal, and so he’s dealing with a small
snake that has a large lump in his middle and also has one simple demand echoing over and
over in Parseltongue.

“More cheese! More cheese!”

“You’ve had enough cheese.”

“More cheese!” Ahalam sticks his tongue in Harry’s ear.

Harry pushes Ahalam’s tongue out of his ear, which means he misses the first thing
Dumbledore says to him. He coughs and turns back when Dumbledore makes a tired little
sound. “Sorry, sir. You were saying?”

“The Smith family has proposed new legislation to the Wizengamot saying that anyone who
declares themselves a Lord or a Lady would be immediately remanded for treatment at St.
Mungo’s.”

Harry blinks a little, then says, “How do they square that with trying to get people to be Lord
Hufflepuff?”

“What?”

“Their family keeps trying to send people on quests to find some sort of artifact and become
Lord Hufflepuff. Or Lady Hufflepuff, I suppose. It’s just that the only person I know about it
who doesn’t want to do it would have been Lord Hufflepuff.”

“I am sure that they have considered that and would say that the legislation would not touch
them because they have not actually declared any member of their family Lord Hufflepuff.
Or Lady,” Dumbledore adds after a moment. “But you are in danger, Harry.”

“No, I’m not. I didn’t actually declare myself Lord Slytherin. Other people did that and
started following me around. I’m not actually in any more danger of being susceptible to that
law than that bloke I met who changed his name to Hufflepuff. Only maybe he didn’t,
because Susan didn’t recognize it.”

“What?”

“I’m just saying, sir,” Harry says, and reaches out to pat Dumbledore’s hand as he stands up.
“It was nice of you to inform me about this proposed legislation, but I don’t need to worry
about it.”
“Given that you have used the title Lord Slytherin for the past two years, I don’t think you are
as safe as you might imagine, Harry.”

“But I’m not the one who called it Lord Slytherin’s Army. And I’m not the one who thought
they needed to get my permission to hold the Tri-Wizard Tournament. And I didn’t make a
huge official declaration in front of anyone.”

“The school is helping you.”

“They would have to bring that up as a piece of evidence, sir, and it doesn’t sound like they
would. It sounds like the declaration is what they’re focusing on. Stupid of them, but I
wouldn’t expect people who want a member of their family to become a Lord to be rational.”

“More cheese!”

“Yes, you can have cheese, in a little while.”

Ahalam wriggles happily on Harry’s shoulder and does at least stop tickling his ear, so Harry
is able to focus on Dumbledore again. His face is haggard, but thoughtful.

“You truly believe that you would win a legal challenge like this?”

“I believe that they don’t even have the legislation enacted yet. You said they were just
bringing it before the Wizengamot, not doing anything else yet. And it could take a long time
for the law to be passed. And I still believe that I have technicalities on my side.”

“What did you do to get the Smith family angry at you?”

“Refused to jump when they snapped their fingers.”

Dumbledore watches him for a long moment, as if he thinks he’ll get a different answer if he
waits long enough. But he won’t. Harry truly isn’t worried about the Smith family. He
thought when he spoke with Hufflepuff that they would try something like this, something
legal and scary to people who think like that.

Not to someone like Harry, who has to live every day in the reality where multiple people
have tried to kill him.

“I hope you are right, my boy.”

He must feel better, since he’s not calling me “Mr. Potter,” Harry thinks, and nods to him, and
leaves the office.

“But you could learn to cast a corporeal Patronus. And I want to see you do it.”

Harry sighs and leans back against the wall of the old ballroom in the dungeons where the
Defense Association is practicing today. They had to come inside because the wind and the
snow picked up to the point that it was actively dangerous to be out there. “Why are you so
insistent that I do it, Blaise?”

“Cheese!”

“I said you could have cheese in a little while.”

“It has been a little while!”

“Not long enough.”

“Cheese!”

Harry sighs again and turns back to Blaise. “Sorry about that. He wants things he can’t have.
So why do you want to see me master the Patronus so badly?”

“I didn’t start following you because I thought we needed a Lord Slytherin the way Theo and
Daphne did. Or because I’m too weak to stand up against my family without someone else’s
support, the way Draco is. Do you know why I did?”

Harry hesitates. Blaise has never been as close to him as Theo or Susan or Daphne or, of
course, Ron and Hermione. “Uh, no.”

“Because I know that you’re going to be great, and that means that your prestige can increase
mine.” Blaise makes a sharp gesture. “But I also found out that you’re friendly and actually
want to protect your followers, so that’s why I stayed.”

“Okay. But none of that tells me why you want to see me learn the Patronus Charm.”

“Because it will impress the examiners. And I think you would be good at it. And because
some of the gossip my mother sends me says that you’re a soft touch and anyone can take
advantage of you, and you mostly became Lord Slytherin by luck, not brilliance.”

“Uh. I mean. That’s true?”

“It shouldn’t be true!” Blaise leans close to Harry, scowling at him. “Lord Slytherin should be
brilliant and able to take the magical world by storm with the genius behind his spells!”

“But you know I’m not really like that. Why do you want me to be?”

“You could do so much better in school than you are! Why is that not your priority?”

“Because trying to protect people and defeat Voldemort is my priority?”

They stare at each other for a long second, and then Blaise lets out a sigh and seems to deflate
like a collapsing balloon. “All right, fair. But will you at least make a slightly better try? For
me?”

“Because you want me to be brilliant?”

“Because you—” Blaise clenches one hand into a fist. “Because you inspire me, all right?
And if you can master the Patronus Charm, maybe I can think about what I can do, myself.”

Harry blinks, then nods. He’s played worse roles than inspiration for someone else.

And at least Blaise just wants Harry to do well on the exams, instead of wanting him to poop
rainbows out his arse, or whatever most people in Britain wanted of him.

“All right.”

“Thank you.”

Blaise smiles at him, and Harry smiles at him, and turns around just in time to put out the fire
that Justin has somehow started in Zacharias’s hair.

“Cheese?”

Ahalam’s voice is very small and sad, and Harry sighs. It has been a few days since the feast
he had before Harry took him up to Dumbledore’s office. “Yes, all right, cheese.”

“I am very happy.”

Harry touches Ahalam’s scales, smiling. He does enjoy making people happy, especially
when it’s something simple like promising to study one particular spell.

Or giving them cheese.

 Upsetting Revelations
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Expecto Patronum!”

A silvery mist surges back and forth in front of Harry, and then dissipates. Harry sighs a little
and shakes his head.

He’s been practicing the Patronus by himself because, frankly, it would be pretty
embarrassing to have it fail in front of his followers. Well, no, his followers would probably
be fine, but the more casual students in the Defense Association might start worrying about
how weak he was.

And Harry has learned the hard way that he can’t trust the school’s opinion not to change
instantly when it comes to him.

“You are hunting hard.”

Harry glances curiously at Ahalam, whom he left asleep on a warm rock in the corner of the
old Defense classroom no one uses anymore. Ahalam’s head is up now, swaying back and
forth a little, and he looks so intent that Harry goes over to him.

“What do you mean?”

“You are hunting very hard. You want to look at the sinew-things, and you want to cast spells,
and you want to train your hatchlings—”

“Students, Ahalam. They’re called students.”

“You are teaching them to hunt, they are your hatchlings.”

Harry rolls his eyes a little. He reckons he’s not going to win that argument, so he just says,
“Yes, all right, I’ve been working. But no harder than Hermione or Ron or the rest of them
work, you know.”

“You are hunting hard when you have the best and prettiest snake to make things easier.”

Harry smiles and reaches out a hand. Ahalam twines up it, but doesn’t come up to Harry’s
shoulder like he usually does, resting on his arm and coiling there instead. He darts his
tongue out. “You remember when we broke past the ward on the dangerous man’s office.”
Harry nods. That’s what Ahalam always calls Moody. “Yes. And I wouldn’t want to ask you to
do something like that now.”

“But I added my magic to yours. You can cast in the real language, and that will increase the
power of your magic.”

Harry blinks. Yes, he’s called on Ahalam’s magic a few times, but it’s never been a consistent
thing, and it hasn’t happened in the last few months. It’s—well, a startling insight to emerge
from the mind of someone who’s concerned with cheese most of the time.

But then again, Harry is concerned with the protection of his friends most of the time, and
defeating Voldemort. It doesn’t mean he can’t think about other things, like this bloody
Patronus.

“Do you want to help me try?”

“I will try! I am the best and prettiest of snakes! I am also the strongest and the smartest!
Cast the spell in Parseltongue, and I will add my strength to yours, and we will hunt down
the spell together!”

Harry finds himself smiling and lifts his wand. He doesn’t try to concentrate on a happy
memory, since so far that hasn’t worked, but just the joy he feels being around Ahalam. He
takes a bracing breath and sighs out the words in Parseltongue. “Expecto Patronum!”

There’s a confused and confusing swirl in front of him, of blue and silver smoke. Harry is at
least relieved that he doesn’t seem to have done any more badly than the other times he’s cast
the spell today. But Ahalam is swaying back and forth on his shoulder, chanting, “Form, prey,
form!” and Harry blinks a little as the smoke takes on a definite form.

He laughs when he sees what it is. It breaks apart in the next moment and turns back into
formless drifting stuff, but he knows what he saw.

“Why is your Patronus that?”

“What did you think my Patronus should be?”

“A snake,” Ahalam says, in the same small hurt voice that he uses when he’s denied cheese.
“The best and strongest and smartest snake.”

Harry caresses Ahalam and smiles at the place where his Niffler Patronus has just
disappeared. “You’re still great, Ahalam. And you said the Patronus was prey. So it wouldn’t
really have been appropriate for the Patronus to be you, right? Because I wouldn’t want to
eat a snake.”

Ahalam sways back and forth cheerfully. “That is right! It is a crime to lie to snakes, and a
crime to eat one! Do you know what else is a crime? Keeping snakes from cheese!”

Harry snorts and gives the air one more smile before he walks towards the door of the old
classroom. He knew that sooner or later they would get back around to cheese.
*

Harry stumbles out of the Forbidden Forest, shaking. Hagrid just took him to meet his brother
Grawp, and Harry…

Harry never wants to do that again.

He stands and shoves his trembling hands in his pockets, while he tries to smile at Hermione.
Hermione’s face is pale, and she keeps looking over her shoulder as if she thinks Grawp is
about to come after them.

“That’s awful,” Hermione whispers. “That Hagrid had to go meet with him, and keeping him
tied up like that…it’s not right…”

Harry takes a deep breath. “Yeah.” He wonders for a second if Dumbledore was right, and
holding the Tournament last year would have meant they could have established international
alliances. Would that mean poor Grawp wouldn’t have been taken from his people and tied
up?

But then Harry shakes his head impatiently. He couldn’t countenance putting students in
danger—and creatures like dragons—to save one giant. He hates that he has to think like this,
but he thinks he made the right decision to keep the Ministry from bringing in the
Tournament.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t do something for giants now. He glances at Hermione. “Would
you be willing to help me look up laws about the treatment of magical creatures?”

“Yes, of course. I built some time free from the study schedule tomorrow evening. We can
meet in the library then.”

Harry conceals a smile. Hermione didn’t try to enforce her insane study schedule on anybody
after Ron and Harry talked to her about it, but she’s keeping herself to a pretty strict one.
“Yeah, that’ll work. Thanks, Hermione.”

Hermione nods determinedly to him, and then glances over her shoulder at the Forest again.
“I feel sorry for Hagrid, but he shouldn’t be keeping his half-brother captive like that.”

“I totally agree.”

“Are you all right, Sirius?”

Sirius asked Harry to visit him, and Harry thought it was going to be about what day and time
they would leave for the Easter holiday. As much as Harry likes Hogwarts, he doesn’t really
want to spend the hols here, now that he has a choice. He’d like to see Grimmauld Place and
Remus again.

But now Sirius is sitting in front of him and sipping Firewhisky straight from the bottle, and
his face looks ghastly.
Sirius sets down his bottle and reaches across from the squashy couch he’s kept in his
quarters since last term to clasp Harry’s hand. Harry holds on, searching his face. The only
thing he can think is that Sirius got bad news about one of their friends, or Remus, or
something.

“I cast—I found—”

Harry tightens his hold on Sirius’s hand. He doesn’t know what the problem is, but Sirius
really needs to talk to someone, obviously.

Sirius abruptly lunges forwards and wraps his arms around Harry, dragging him close. Harry
makes a muffled sound of surprise against Sirius’s shoulder, but hugs him right back.

Sirius breathes, close to Harry’s ear, “I found a spell that would let me identify what kind of
Dark magic was on the diadem and the locket. I found a horrible book at Grimmauld Place
that made sense of them. I think—I think they contain pieces of that bastard’s soul.”

Harry shivers, but the notion doesn’t really surprise him. He remembers what the diary said
about being a memory preserved in a book for fifty years. “And you think that’s—what? It
helps keep him alive?”

“Yes, I think it might. And I found a spell in the book that would identify the objects,
although it doesn’t do much besides confirm what they are.”

Sirius falls silent. Harry holds him closer. He doesn’t know if it’s just the existence of the
Dark magic that has upset Sirius, or delving into books from Grimmauld Place, or something
else.

“I tried the spell out in various places in Hogwarts,” Sirius whispers. “I thought he might
have hidden another of those objects here, since he hid the diadem. And—Harry—”

He begins to shake. Harry pulls back and stares up at Sirius. The only thing he can imagine is
that Sirius found the whole school itself is one of these things or something. That seems to be
the only conclusion that would cause him this much pain.

But Sirius is pulling back, forcing his shaking back under control, and staring at Harry.

“Harry,” he whispers. “You glowed. Your scar—you—you’re one of them.”

Harry feels as though he’s falling.

A second later, harsh and hoarse and horrible, Sirius begins to cry.
 Various Plans
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Harry sits on the Astronomy Tower and lets the wind blow through him.

He’s up here alone. No friends, no Sirius, no Salazar. No Ahalam. Nothing except himself
and the cold wind that still carries the smart bite of winter even though the weather below is
turning to spring.

Harry sits there and tries to come to terms with carrying around a piece of Voldemort’s soul.

Of course it explains more than it doesn’t, like the dreams that Harry finds hard to fend off
even with Occlumency and the pain that scorches him when Voldemort is near. But
explanations aren’t really what Harry feels like thinking about right now.

He sits, and the wind blows through him, and scrubs him clean.

He feels dirty—dirtied so much that he shakes with it. How long has he been carrying around
that bit of soul?

Of course, as soon as Harry thinks that, he feels stupid. He knows the answer. Since that
Halloween night when Voldemort tried to kill him. He’s been this thing, which Sirius says is
called a Horcrux, much longer than he’s just been a normal kid.

Panic tries to build up, but Harry stares up at the stars and breathes in the wind, and finally he
calms down enough to think about it.

He’s not possessed. Sirius reassured him vehemently of that, and Harry’s pretty sure of it,
too. He’s not trying to possess other people, like the diary. He’s not corrupt and stinking of
evil like the locket and the diadem, or someone would have noticed what he was much
earlier. The Dursleys certainly would have mentioned it.

He is—

He’s something that still has to be destroyed to get rid of Voldemort’s immortality.

Harry closes his eyes. That’s what he’s been trying to avoid thinking, but now, with the wind
picking up to a good old howl and the stars blazing cold above him, he can’t avoid it any
longer.

What is he going to do? He has to die.

He doesn’t want to die. He wants to live.

But so does Voldemort.

Harry buries his forehead in his knees, feeling like he’s about to start breathing impossibly
fast. But it doesn’t actually happen, fear and exhaustion hovering around him but not coming
out. Harry shudders and curls into a smaller, tighter ball.

It can be put off for a few years, he thinks. It will give them time to research what to do about
Horcruxes other than stab them with a basilisk fang. Maybe they’ll manage to move the shard
out of him. Maybe they’ll come up with a way of destroying it that Harry can survive. Stab
him with the basilisk fang and have Fawkes cry on the wound?

That didn’t get rid of it last time.

Harry breathes out. The thing is, he can’t keep this to himself. He has to tell some of his
friends, at least. They would know that something was different the moment they spent some
time around him and Sirius, anyway.

But he can keep one thing to himself.

The determination, wild as a thestral, welling in him that if worst comes to worst, if they
can’t do anything else and can’t find a way to remove the Horcrux…

That he’ll die.

He wants to live. But he wants to protect his friends more.

“Are you finally going to tell us why you and Black have looked like something’s broken in
your souls for the past week?”

Harry flinches before he can stop himself. It’s Theo’s wording, not his tone or the fact that
he’s asking the question. Harry already called his closest friends here, to a version of the
Room of Requirement covered with wards, to announce that he’s a Horcrux.

Theo, being Theo, reads his face and is out of his chair on the opposite side of the small table
in seconds, his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “What is it? My lord?”

Harry closes his eyes and retreats inwards for a moment, then takes a deep breath. He can’t
give in and lie down and die. He can’t make jokes and brush this off. But on the other hand,
he can’t just act like a lord.

“Please don’t call me that right now, Theo.”

Theo watches him with wild, wondering eyes for a moment, and then inclines his head.
“Harry, then. What is it? You’re frightening me.” His eyes dart to the door of the Room, but
right now, he and Harry and Ahalam are the only ones here.
“The intense boy is being very intense. What is wrong? Does it have to do with the dog-man?
What can the best and prettiest snake do to help?” Ahalam touches Harry’s neck with the end
of his tail. “Can it be solved with cheese?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says to Theo, “I didn’t mean to, but I’d rather only tell this once, so I’m
going to wait for the others.” He says to Ahalam, “No, it can’t be solved with cheese.”

“It is a mighty problem! Tell me what the problem is, and I will help you with it. And then
perhaps we can have cheese afterwards.”

“I’ll tell you in a bit,” Harry promises, eyes on the door of the Room, where Sirius is entering
now. Ron and Hermione are right behind him, giving Harry worried glances, and Susan
follows them.

The others seem surprised when Ernie joins them, but Ernie looks a little defiant. Harry just
waves him to a chair. He’s become close to Ernie since they started Occlumency lessons
together, and Ernie has seen some of his worst memories. He deserves to know this, too.

And because it’s not impossible that the Horcrux could attack Ernie now that he’s entering
Harry’s mind and seeing some of his memories.

“Sirius found a book that talked more about what the diadem and the locket are,” Harry says,
and some of his friends look around nervously even though the Horcruxes aren’t here right
now. “They’re called Horcruxes—”

Theo hisses like a snake someone has stabbed. Harry nods to him. He’s the only one here
who grew up with that kind of Dark Arts, other than Sirius, and Harry isn’t surprised he
recognizes the word.

“They’re containers for someone’s soul.”

Hermione is the one who turns the palest, but Susan is the one who whispers, “They’re
containers for parts of his soul? He split it? That’s awful.”

Harry nods. “Sirius thought that another one of them might be hidden at Hogwarts, since the
diadem was. He found a spell that would allow him to find the containers. He cast it.” He
swallows.

“It’s the school!” Hermione says.

“It’s you.”

Theo’s voice is completely flat, and so is his face. Harry nods without attempting to say
anything to comfort Theo. There would be no point. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah, it’s me. My
scar. Voldemort put a piece of his soul there the night he tried to kill me on Halloween, in
1981.”

Ron makes an awful choking sound that Harry never wants to hear again. It’s as bad as
Sirius’s crying was, in some ways. He reaches out a trembling hand. “Harry, if you are—if
you can—”
“We don’t know what to do,” Sirius says, in a rush, leaning over the table and slapping his
hands down on the surface. “We know how to destroy the others, but we—I don’t know what
to do, I don’t know if there’s ever been a living Horcrux before, if Harry can even live if we
get rid of it when it’s been in him so long—”

“There must be something,” Ernie says. Harry has never heard him so upset before. He’s
wide-eyed and pale and sweating. “There must be—I don’t understand all portions of this
situation, but there must be—”

“No.”

Theo’s flat voice steals the voices from the others. Harry shifts and blinks at him. Theo stands
still, arms folded, glaring at him. Harry raises his eyebrows. “What?”

“I know you have a plan in place that involves destroying yourself to destroy the Horcrux,”
Theo says. He’s still and cold, and for the first time around him, Harry feels a prickle of fear.
“That’s not going to happen.”

“Harry, you wouldn’t—”

“You couldn’t, not really—”

Harry bares his teeth. He didn’t intend to say anything about this, because he didn’t intend for
anyone to find out, but now he has to. “If it came down to choosing between my own life and
yours?” he asks, eyes locked on Theo’s for a moment before he looks around the table at
everyone there. “Yeah, I would. In a heartbeat.”

“No.”

Theo speaks like someone three times his age, his voice calm and quiet and still. Harry sighs
and puts his head in his hands for a moment. “I would always choose your lives over mine,”
he says. “That’s the way it is.”

“And what makes you think we should agree with that?”

“Because that’s the way I want it, and you’ve supposedly sworn an oath to me and also are
my friend?”

Theo recoils without moving. Harry tugs on his hair and ignores Ahalam’s hisses of concern
from his shoulder. “Sorry,” he mutters. “That was rude. But—I don’t know what else to do,
Theo.”

“Look into moving the Horcrux into something else. Look into different ways of destroying
the Horcruxes. Look into ways of disembodying the Dark Lord and capturing his spirit in
something else, rather than dying.”

Harry blinks at Theo. “I did think about the first two things. I’m willing to try and find ways.
I’m not just going to—march off to my death.”

“And the last?”

“We have to kill him, Theo. We can’t leave him alive.”

“But if he can never get out—”

“How would we know he can never get out?”

“We don’t know how to do any of these things yet,” Sirius interrupts in a loud voice, and
Harry jumps. He didn’t realize how intense his argument with Theo had got. “But we might
find ways to do them. So don’t just—promise us that you won’t run off and do something
rash, okay, Harry?”

“I don’t want to do something rash! I want to live! It’s just that I want you to live more.”

Sirius reaches out and hugs him, the flash of tears in his eyes. Then he takes a deep breath
and shakes his head. “Listen to me. We are going to investigate, and that means doing careful
research. Even though the kind of books we’ll have to read won’t make life pleasant for
anyone,” he mutters, only halfway under his breath. “No one is going to make any decisions
until we know for sure what those decisions have to be, okay?”

Harry nods, because he’s perfectly willing to wait and do research. His idea of dying to save
them is just a last-ditch idea.

It’s just that he has to face it. Has to make his own peace with it before he does it, if it ever
becomes necessary.

He glances around, and gets a nod from Ernie. Ron is watching him with a face so pale that
he looks like a murder victim, all his freckles standing out on his skin like drops of blood.
Hermione is sniffling, her head buried in her hands.

Theo and Susan are whispering furiously to each other.

Harry narrows his eyes at them. Susan glances up, catches him looking, waves, and goes
right back to whispering with Theo.

I wish I knew what the hell that was about. But in the end, no matter what they plot and plan,
Harry will have to be the one to make the final choice.

That’s part of what being a Lord is. If he claims the title and the privileges, he has to be
willing to pay the price.

“You’re not going to die.”

Harry sighs and turns around. He sort of expected this, after Theo’s opinions on the
conversation, but he didn’t expect Theo to come up to him while Harry was on the
Astronomy Tower, once again wrestling with his thoughts.

“If I have to, I will.”

“You won’t have to.”

Harry narrows his eyes. “And how do you know that?” he asks quietly. “We still don’t
understand all the minutiae of the prophecy, Theo, and we know that a basilisk bite doesn’t
destroy the Horcrux in me.”

“We shall arrange it.” Theo looks almost angelic with his faint smile and the wind blowing
his dark hair back. “You don’t have to worry about it. Susan says you should worry more
about your O.W.L. exams, in fact.”

Harry half-shrugs. Tests and studying feel very far away right now.

“Don’t worry, my lord. We won’t let him kill you.”

Harry frowns at Theo’s back as his friend turns and trots away. He wishes he knew what
Theo and Susan were planning—but then again, he’s pretty sure that it won’t work no matter
what. The prophecy says he has to face Voldemort. No one else.

All I can do is lessen the cost for them.

 Alive
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Sirius told me.”

That’s all Remus says before he holds out his arms. Harry runs into them and leans against
Remus for a long moment. Salazar is banging and rattling against his cage because he wants
to be let out to look for shiny things, but Harry ignores him for the moment, safe in Remus’s
embrace.

“We’ll get it out of you,” Remus whispers. His voice is warm and he smells of something that
might be butterscotch. “I promise.”

Harry just nods. He won’t say that’s impossible until he tries and fails. He just fears it will be.

But for the moment, he’s home for the Easter holidays, and there’s no point in moping about
things that can’t be helped. Harry steps back from Remus with a grin. “Did we tell you it was
Salazar who found them?”

Harry gets an odd owl on the second day he’s home, and frowns at it as he unrolls it near his
omelet.

“Master Harry is not getting omelet on his message!”

Harry rolls his eyes and moves the scroll further away. Then he starts studying it again,
because he thinks the writing should be familiar—something about it is familiar—but he’s
damned if he knows why.

Does Harry Potter wish to make allies of the werewolves?

“Morning, Harry.”

Sirius shambles into the kitchen with eyes so sleepy that Harry wants to go up to him, and
hug him, and tell him to stop searching through the damn Black library for a solution to the
Horcrux in Harry’s head. But he can’t tell him that, not without making Sirius upset and
driving him further into the books.

Sirius doesn’t think the Horcrux in Harry’s head is his fault, exactly. But he seems to think he
should be the one doing something about it, because he’s Harry’s godfather.
Well, Harry is Harry’s—Harry. He bears just as much responsibility as Sirius, and he’s the
one who will have to make the ultimate decision.

Plus whatever terrifying but futile thing Theo and Susan are coming up with.

“Morning, Sirius,” Harry says, and makes a snap decision. He holds out the scroll. “I got this.
The writing looks sort of familiar to me, but I don’t know whose it is. Do you have any
idea?”

Sirius picks up the scroll with one hand. His fork is in the other. Then he stares at the scroll,
and his fork clatters to his plate.

“Sirius?” Harry pushes his chair back from the table, and grips his wand, watching Sirius
narrowly. He hasn’t seen his godfather look so pale since the day he told Harry about the
Horcrux. “What is it? Who is it?”

Sirius gives a wordless yelp, to the point that Harry expects him to transform into a dog any
second. But instead, he snatches up the scroll and rushes out of the room, taking the stairs
two at a time. Harry wonders if he’ll yell for Remus, who might know someone who’s
writing about werewolves, but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t come back, either. Harry finishes breakfast by himself—Remus is going to be late
getting up, this close to the full moon—and walks his dishes absently over to the sink,
frowning, trying to search his memory. There was nothing particularly distinctive about the
handwriting, no unusual punctuation or loops on the letters or anything like that—

“Master Harry is leaving the dishes to Kreacher!”

Harry jumps, and the dishes fly out of his arms. Kreacher snaps his fingers and catches them
in midair. Then he stares at Harry with his arms folded until Harry gives up trying to explain
himself and plods out of the kitchen. He goes back to his bedroom, where he has letters that
he’s saved from his friends and some people who think sending demands and questions and
petitions to Lord Slytherin is a fun idea, and starts going through them.

There must be some reason that he nearly recognizes that handwriting.

Sirius is quiet when he comes back down to dinner, and he sits there staring vaguely at the
wall until Harry wants to shout at him. But he glances at Remus, and Remus shakes his head
a little. He looks pale himself. Harry bites his lip and wonders if the letter is from a werewolf
activist Remus knows.

Or just a werewolf. He doesn’t think Remus is on very good terms with any of the ones in
Britain, really. They’re led or controlled or something by Fenrir Greyback.

There’s someone Harry would like to see in Azkaban.

His thoughts distract him until the end of dinner, when Sirius sets aside his plate and leans
forwards with a hoarse little huff of breath. Harry promptly puts down his fork and turns to
stare at him.

Sirius clears his throat a few times, shakes his head, and finally whispers, “Let’s go to the
library.”

They almost never go to the library. That’s where all the books are that Sirius did the research
on Horcruxes in. But there doesn’t seem to be a reason to deny Sirius if it will make him feel
more comfortable, so Harry gets up. He finds that he has to lead the way to the library. Sirius
is so lost in thought he comes up about ten stairs behind.

Harry manages to contain himself until they’re settled in chairs in front of the fire and
Kreacher has popped in butterbeer for Harry and steaming mugs of what might be Firewhisky
for Sirius and Remus. “What is it? Who is it from?”

“My brother.”

Harry is glad that he hasn’t taken a sip of butterbeer yet, because he would have spewed it all
over the carpets and earned yet another lecture from Kreacher. “Your dead Death Eater
brother? The one who died in 1979?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know ghosts could write letters.”

“We don’t think he’s a ghost.” Remus leans forwards from his chair next to Sirius, his face
pale with concern. “We think—he may have faked his death, although I don’t know what
method of faking it would have convinced a loyal house-elf that he had passed and make the
date of his death show up on the Black family tapestry…”

“Maybe he’s a ghost who found someone else to hold a quill for him?”

“Harry,” Remus chides.

“Well, I’m sorry, it’s not every day that I get a letter from a dead Death Eater, you know?”

“Harry.” Sirius has his face in his hands. “Please stop calling him a dead Death Eater.”

“Okay, he’s an alive Death Eater.”

Sirius glares at him.

Harry raises his hands, swallowing. It’s just a lot to take in, and even as part of him thinks
that he probably recognized Regulus Black’s handwriting because he and Sirius learned to
write from the same people and their letters must look similar, his head is reeling.

What the fuck? What the hell?

Regulus would have been the last person Harry thought he would get a friendly letter from.
Even below someone like Snape, because at least Snape is alive and has hands to write it.
“Why would he send it?” Harry asks. “Was he close to werewolves when he was alive or
something? Was he a werewolf?”

“No,” Sirius chokes. He puts his hands over his face and shakes his head back and forth. “To
know that he’s alive, that I thought he was dead…”

“We’ve talked about this, Sirius.” Remus sounds weary. “He must have put in a lot of effort
to fool the tapestry and even to make You-Know-Who think he was dead. You couldn’t have
known.”

“It’s not your fault you didn’t know your dead Death Eater brother was alive, Sirius.”

That gets him another glare, but Harry ignores it. His mind is racing, wondering how
Voldemort got fooled and if there’s any way that Harry could contact Regulus and ask how he
did it. Harry’s Occlumency is still not perfect, and at this point, Ernie is beginning to despair
that it ever will be.

“You are very excited about something. What is it? Tell the best and prettiest snake.”

Harry smiles at Ahalam as the snake crawls out on his arm. “I got a letter from someone who
seems to be Sirius’s brother. I thought he was dead, but I suppose not.”

“Do dead things come back to life? Will mice come back to life in my stomach? It is
important that I eat cheese, which does not come back to life!”

Harry rolls his eyes and turns back to Sirius rather than getting into another argument with
Ahalam about cheese. “Are you going to write to him? Or do you want me to reply to him?”

“My mother tried to send him owls when Kreacher first brought us word of his death,” Sirius
whispers. “None of the owls would fly. That was how we knew for sure that he was dead.
Owls can’t find someone who isn’t living.”

“But you haven’t tried sending him one now.”

Sirius’s eyes are so haunted that Harry feels bad about teasing him earlier, and reaches out to
clasp his godfather’s shoulder. “I don’t—know. I don’t know what it means if the owl takes
off, and I don’t know what it means if it stays.”

“We could try with Hedwig. Do you want me to?”

Sirius nods and turns his head away. “I don’t want to watch—well, no, yes, I do. But I don’t
know what I expect to see happen.”

Harry makes his smile as gentle as possible while he stands. “I’ll go and write a letter to him
now.”

Harry writes a simple letter, asking Regulus how he survived and why he wants to talk to
Harry about werewolves, and gives it to Hedwig, who is tilting her head curiously in his
direction. “Regulus Black, girl.”

Hedwig turns her head in another direction and refuses to leave.

There’s a long moment of agonized, breathless silence, and then Sirius turns and runs out of
the owlery, his footsteps pounding on the stairs.

Stay safe. Do nothing without me.

That’s the whole of Theo’s letter, when Harry writes to tell him about the letter from Regulus.
Harry shakes his head and picks up Ron and Hermione’s letters, which are at least a little
longer and express genuine surprise.

It’s not like Harry’s going to run off in search of the alive Death Eater. If Hedwig can’t find
him, Harry doesn’t have the faintest idea where he would begin to look.
 Bafflement
Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Regulus Black was notorious among the Death Eaters.”

Harry doesn’t ask how Theo knows that. It’s perfectly obvious how Theo knows that. Harry
just gives him a steady look and sits down on the chair that the Room of Requirement has
provided for him. Theo has taken a chair across from him, and is almost vibrating with
nerves. “In what way?”

“He always did exactly what the Dark Lord asked of him. He considered it an honor to
serve.”

“He didn’t care about anyone else? Did he have friends? Or did all his friends join
Voldemort?”

Theo flinches at the name, which hasn’t happened in a while, and then shakes his head and
takes a deep breath. “Yes, just about all his friends were Death Eaters. He was part of a group
of young Slytherins who were all—recruited.”

Harry nods. He supposes he should have guessed that. “And so you think that he’s doing
something in some way to lure me to Voldemort?”

“Why else would he write to you? Are you seriously considering an alliance with the
werewolves?”

“If we can have someone contact them. But then again, Remus is the only werewolf I know,
and he’s told me that he’s despised by Fenrir Greyback and the packs Greyback controls.”

Theo snorts. “I’m not surprised. Greyback bit Lupin, and he’s never had the time for someone
who wouldn’t immediately roll over and start obeying him after that.” He leans a little back
in his seat, pulls at his hair, and then says abruptly, “What I’m about to tell you—you can’t
tell anyone else, Harry. Not Black, not Granger or Weasley.”

“What happened to calling them by their first names?”

Theo just looks steadily at him.

Harry sighs. “Okay, I promise.” He always would have made the promise regardless, and
from the look Theo gives him, he knows it. But his expression does look easier as he leans
forwards again.
“My father has blackmail on several werewolves working in the Ministry.” Theo’s expression
is unreadable now. “They manage it with Wolfsbane and by having established that they have
children or family members who need special care on a regular basis. Or by being too senior,
in a few cases, to have their absences questioned. I’ll give their names to you.”

Harry stares for a moment. Then he says, “Won’t your father…notice that they aren’t doing
what he wants them to do anymore?”

“It’s been a long time since he required them for some kind of active participation in his
plans, and now that Voldemort has returned, he still hasn’t issued Father any clear orders.”
Theo continues to speak from behind that unbreakable mask. “Of course, he still retains their
names and sends some of them Galleons for the Wolfsbane. You should be able to use them,
too.”

“I’m not going to blackmail them,” Harry says, more sharply than he meant to.

A deeply unsettling smile cuts across Theo’s face. “None of them are good people by your
definition, Harry. They put their fellow Ministry workers in danger every day, given that a cut
from a werewolf’s nails or teeth can at least scar badly, and make a lot of people think
someone who has it carries the infection. And their temper rises harsh and hot. Two of them
have scarred people, and had to come up with stories about curses they cast that did it. They
weren’t heavily punished, though, because Father provided them with the money for the
bribes. And several of them have deliberately bitten people they wanted revenge on. Or those
people’s children, like Greyback.”

Harry clenches his hands in front of them. The thought of children being bitten makes his
own harsh, hot anger ignite inside him. “I still don’t want to blackmail them.”

“You can blackmail them into good deeds. You could tell them that you’re fighting for the
political rights of werewolves and they have to assist you. Make some gesture the way that
you did when you gave the goblins wands. There are werewolves who would follow you if
you did something like that.”

“Are you managing me?”

“Of course not.”

“You’re speaking in this weirdly soothing tone.”

“My lord requires it.”

At least Theo’s eyes are bright and mocking, which makes Harry relax with a little huff,
shaking his head. “And you want me to have the names of these werewolves.”

“Yes. Whatever trick Black has pulled to make his own family tapestry think he’s dead, he’s
not going to trick you. You won’t need him to intercede with you for the werewolves, or
whatever he plans on doing.”
“Thanks,” Harry says quietly. He won’t refuse the names, and from Theo’s little nod, he
knows that. He stands up and walks towards the door.

“Theo?” Harry asks before he can think better of it.

“Yes, Harry?”

“What’s your definition?”

“Of what?”

“Of a good person.”

Theo’s eyes glitter, and he makes a little clawing gesture at the air that Harry isn’t entirely
sure is conscious. “One who follows my lord and safeguards my friends,” he replies, and then
slips out, closing the door softly behind him.

…Yeah, Harry should have anticipated that.

“Are you studying for your O.W.L.S., Harry?”

“Of course,” Harry says absently. In fact, he’s examining a letter that he got from Zacharias.
He wanted to warn Harry that his family is pressing the legislation they wanted to demand
against Lords and Ladies more heavily in the Wizengamot, and the chance is good that Harry
will be called to testify.

“It doesn’t look like it!”

Harry puts the letter aside reluctantly and smiles at Hermione. “Sorry. It’s kind of hard to
concentrate on just exams when—you know.” He lets his hand briefly brush across his scar,
since he and Ron and Hermione are in an isolated corner of the common room.

Hermione’s eyes soften, which is a lot more than Harry would ever get out of someone like
Theo or Susan. “Oh, Harry, of course. I’m sorry.” She pushes a book aside and reveals a slice
of treacle tart that Harry had no idea she had. “Try and eat some of this. Sometimes sugar
improves concentration.”

“…It does?” Harry asks as he reaches for the tart.

From the way Hermione blushes, Harry is pretty sure that that’s the kind of lie she tells
herself to help the studying go better, but he just smiles and eats the treacle tart. And then he
willingly gets into a discussion with Hermione about Charms, which, based on her obvious
pleasure and Ron’s grateful looks, probably counts as his good deed for the day.

“Tell me what you have.”

“Wand, check.”

“Wand holster, check,” Theo says from Harry’s side, where he’s stepping away and eyeing
the holster on Harry’s arm as if he thinks that it might need to be tightened again.

“Muggleborn semi-official lawyer, check.” Justin grins at Harry from where he’s leaning
against the wall in the anteroom outside the Wizengamot’s chamber.

“Supply of endless patience, check,” says Zacharias, who is standing stiffly next to Harry.
Then Zacharias flushes and looks around as though he thinks someone is going to scold him
for making a joke.

Harry interrupts just in case Theo has ideas in that direction. “Title of Lord Slytherin and the
best allies and friends anyone could have, check.” He smiles at Hermione and Susan, who
chose to come with him. Susan is known to a bunch of people on the Wizengamot because of
her aunt Amelia, and Hermione is here for both her brilliance and her ability to show that
Lord Slytherin has more than just one Muggleborn friend.

Theo won’t be entering the room with him. From the complex, shadowed expression in his
eyes as he looks at Harry, he regrets that.

Harry nudges him with an elbow, winks at him, and then opens the doors and steps into the
meeting chamber of the Wizengamot.

Eyes fasten on him at once, and the voices that were casually talking before turn into a dull
mutter. Harry makes himself walk forwards without looking around, to left or right. He halts
in front of a chair that faces the Wizengamot and frowns.

“My friends need chairs, too,” he tells the air.

There’s a shimmer, a flash of what seems to be a dark purple circle in the middle of the stone
floor, and then four more chairs pop up. Harry smiles. “Thank you,” he says, sitting down.
Zacharias sits on one side of him, and Justin on the other. Susan and Hermione sit behind
him.

“This is most irregular, Mr. Potter,” says a tall woman with thick glasses, frowning at him.

“I don’t see why,” Harry says blandly. “This is Justin Finch-Fletchley, my lawyer in training.
These are Zacharias Smith and Susan Bones, who know more about the Wizengamot than I
do and therefore qualify as advisors. And this is my friend Hermione Granger, who wants to
enter the Ministry someday and therefore wanted to observe the Wizengamot in action.”

“I mean that it is irregular not to stand before the Wizengamot.”

“Oh, but their legs would get tired.”

The tall woman stares at him. Harry smiles back.

“This is ridiculous,” says a man who’s standing up on the far end of the topmost row of seats.
Harry can see the resemblance to Zacharias in his face, and doesn’t need the sharp way
Zacharias moves in his chair to know that this isn’t a beloved relative. “They are only
children. They shouldn’t be here.”

“Then you’re going to dismiss me and say that I can’t cause any harm for declaring myself
Lord Slytherin, right?” Harry asks.

“You have no right to declare yourself that way!”

“Technically, other people declared me. They looked up the records and found out that
defeating the basilisk means that I won the title by Right of Conquest.”

“I don’t believe you defeated a basilisk.”

“Too bad. They do.”

The man glares at Harry from beneath a shock of sandy blond hair that honestly doesn’t look
that much like Zacharias, and then turns to Madam Bones, who’s standing with folded arms
at the end of his row of seats. “Amelia, send the others away. He can’t possibly need a lawyer
or advisors, and the Granger girl is only here for specious reasons.”

“I’m not minded to do that,” says Madam Bones. “Mr. Potter, you were called here to speak
about your title and your followers.”

“Yes, Madam.”

“Regardless of how you gained your title, legislation has been proposed that would
recommend you for immediate treatment to St. Mungo’s. How do you describe yourself,
given that?”

“The attempted victim of a bunch of hypocrites.”

Madam Bones blinks. “What?”

“The Smith family has been trying to get its members to go on quests for years to be
appointed Lord or Lady Hufflepuff,” Harry says, and loads his voice with all the scorn he can
muster, when Madam Bones looks as if she might ask for more detail. “They shouldn’t try to
take my title away just because they’re jealous.”

Zacharias and Theo both recommended he use that wording, and it works. The Smith relative
standing up, whoever he is, turns around as if stung with a hex. “It’s not jealousy, you little
moron!”

“Ah,” Harry says. “So you admit that you’ve been trying to get members of your family to
take up the title of Lord or Lady Hufflepuff?”

The man’s face freezes in hatred.

Zacharias leans over to Harry, although Harry can feel his friend shaking like a leaf. “My
uncle Horace,” he whispers.
Harry nods his thanks, not taking his eyes from Horace Smith. “I just asked you a question,”
he says. “I can’t command you to answer it, of course, since you’re not one of my followers,
but it would be nice if you would.”

Madam Bones turns around and faces Smith. “Is this true?”

“You would take the word of a bunch of schoolchildren?”

“You took them seriously enough to make a case that Lord Slytherin was mentally ill.
Answer the question, Horace.”

“We did, but that’s different!”

Harry laughs into his elbow as the Wizengamot chamber explodes into shouts and snarls. It’s
true that most of the people who are yelling right now probably don’t want to support Harry,
they just want to get back at Smith or they hate the thought of anyone being a Lord or Lady at
all, but he’s successfully side-tracked them, which was all he wanted.

“Is the Wizengamot always like this?” Harry hears Hermione asking Susan.

“This is restrained, honestly.”

Harry sits back and exchanges a smile with Justin and Zacharias. Honestly, he might have to
do something about the Smiths’ effort to attack him politically in the future, but it doesn’t
look like he’ll have to do anything today.
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