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Chapter Text

Theo sat under the Sorting Hat, and he thought about books and how his father expected him to Sort into Slytherin and how he didn’t want to have to defend himself and his possessions against preening idiots like Malfoy and how he wished there was another choice.

When the Hat whispered that there was, Theo began to wish with all his heart, and the Hat announced, “RAVENCLAW!”

*

Not Slytherin, Harry thought. Not a specific House. Just Not Slytherin over and over again, and the Hat chuckled and asked why, and Harry thought about how he wasn’t ambitious or cunning enough to fight all these battles with Slytherins and it would be like being bullied by his cousin all over again. He would rather be smart than cunning.

Would you? the Hat asked, sounding delighted for some reason, and then, “Better be RAVENCLAW!”

*

Theo glanced around the bedroom. There were six boys in Ravenclaw this year: Theo himself, Michael Corner and Terry Boot—both probably half-bloods—and Anthony Goldstein and Stephen Cornfoot, both purebloods from families Theo’s father had never bothered with.

And Harry bloody Potter.

Potter noticed Theo staring at him and just nodded back, before he turned around and put an admiring hand on his bed curtains. Theo snorted a little as he arranged his own trunk at the foot of his bed and hung up clothes in the wardrobe. Potter acted like he’d never slept in a bed before.

When he was safely inside the curtains himself after a few curt words with his roommates, Theo let himself relax against the pillows and really think about being surrounded by blue instead of green.

He hadn’t thought of this. He had always assumed that he would be part of his father’s plans for him when he got to Hogwarts, which meant being part of Slytherin.

But this was freedom that Theo hadn’t thought of, and he would catch hold of it with both hands.

*

“There! Over there! Next to that pale boy!”

Harry had rapidly become tired of people shouting about him and staring at his scar. At least the other Ravenclaws weren’t that bad about it, but Corner had still asked him the first night what he remembered of his parents being killed, and Cornfoot and Boot had somehow got the impression that Harry rode dragons and killed Dark wizards with a sword.

Goldstein hadn’t asked those questions, but that seemed to be because he was intensely involved in Gobstones and Quidditch and assumed that no one was worth talking to unless they shared his hobbies. Nott hadn’t asked just because he was quiet.

Harry liked quiet. He had sometimes hung out with quiet Muggle kids as a child before Dudley chased them away.

So he spent a lot of time with Nott, and the first time he caught Nott rolling his eyes about some of the people shouting Harry’s name in the corridors and snorted in agreement, Nott looked surprised, and then smiled, and so they became friendly.

*

Theo stared at Professor Snape as he shot questions at Potter that some of the Ravenclaw seventh-years wouldn’t have known, and thought that he had never been so glad to escape Slytherin.

*

“Go to bed, Potter.”

Harry started. He’d been reading in the common room for hours, scouring Potions books from the small Ravenclaw library available to new students for hints of obscure knowledge Professor Snape might ask him about next, and he was half-asleep. But…

“If I lose more points for cheek and wrong answers in class tomorrow, then everyone’s going to hate me,” he whispered to Nott, who was standing behind his chair and looking profoundly unimpressed. Then again, Nott tended to look that way about everything except books.

“You lost points for the cheek, not the wrong answers.” Nott replied, and rubbed his face as he yawned. “No one blames you for not knowing things that aren’t taught before you get to school. Just don’t talk back to him, and things will be fine. Now come to bed.”

It occurred to Harry, later when he was lying on his bed and listening to Cornfoot’s snores and Corner’s snorts and Nott’s absolute silence, that even though he’d done it brusquely and still called Harry by his last name all the time, Nott coming to get him in the common room was something a friend would do. Harry grinned at the canopy of his four-poster, hoping he had the chance to be as good a friend to Nott in the future.

*

“And you don’t know the answer to that one, either, Potter. Two points from Ravenclaw.”

“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Theo grimaced a little as he watched Potter lose points for the wrong answers after all. At least he kept his eyes down and didn’t lose any for cheek. Theo was becoming more and more convinced he had made the best decision of his life thinking about Ravenclaw under the Hat, if this was what it would have been like to have Snape as his Head of House.

*

“Why are there are blisters on your hand, Potter?”

“I’m brewing potions on my own, since Snape isn’t going to help any. Are you going to join in or just stand there gaping at me?”

*

It turned out that Potter was a good brewer, when he didn’t have Snape to distract him.

He might not be as inspired as someone like Draco was always bragging about being, Theo thought critically, as he corrected Potter’s chopping technique for the sixth or seventh time that morning. But he wasn’t as insufferable, either. Potter never bragged.

“Why did you decide to set up your own brewing station?”

Potter brushed his hair back from his forehead. Theo had thought at first he did that to make a point of emphasizing his scar, but he never seemed to notice or refer to it. So he was probably just doing it thoughtlessly. “Because this is dangerous. Snape doesn’t want to teach me properly, but I could still get hurt in class. So I’m doing it to make sure I’m safe.”

“Did you do something like this in the past?”

“No. None of the Muggle subjects in school are that dangerous, so I just went along with it. But none of the teachers in my primary school were as bad as Snape, either.”

Theo stared at Potter. Potter was bending over the instructions for the Boil Cure potion, muttering them under his breath and frowning.

“Potter. You—grew up Muggle?”

“Yeah? I thought maybe most people knew that. They seem to know everything else, like when my birthday is and all that stuff.” Potter began to crush the snake fangs, glaring all the while at the recipe as though it had done something to him.

“No,” Theo whispered, unable to take his gaze from the boy in front of him, while different thoughts he’d had about Potter whirled around and fell into new places. “We all thought you grew up magical.”

“No.” Potter blinked at him. “I don’t think I have any magical family left. I’m with my mother’s Muggle sister and my uncle and cousin.” Then he paused. “You’re not one of those people who’s weird about Muggleborns, are you?”

For a moment, Theo entertained himself with the thought of what his father’s face would look like if he heard his deepest beliefs referred to as “weirdness about Muggleborns.” Then he realized Potter was still waiting for an answer, and had in fact edged a little away from him.

“No.”

“Good,” Potter said. “I didn’t think you were. That kind is like Malfoy and can never keep it to themselves.”

“You know Malfoy?”

“He’s the reason I didn’t want to go into Slytherin.”

“The Hat offered you Slytherin?”

“Yeah. Had to talk it out of Sorting me there. Now, come on, you’re clever, how fine do the snake fangs have to be?”

Theo shook his head a little and stepped up to Potter’s shoulder. Apparently he’d been hesitating about the recipe because he didn’t know exactly how fine or not some of the ingredients should be, which was the kind of finicky question Theo could appreciate. “It doesn’t matter as much as how quickly you put them in and what order.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Theo admitted. “Want to research it in the school library tomorrow?”

He’d been hesitating to openly invite Potter to associate with him, because surely at some point someone would tell Potter that Theo was a Death Eater’s son and the rupture of what little companionship they’d managed to achieve would be more painful. But Theo was deciding now that he wouldn’t willingly let this go.

Potter grinned at him. “Let’s.”

And Theo, who’d been thinking he would go through Ravenclaw mostly alone and that was the only thing he regretted having lost by not Sorting Slytherin, relaxed a little.

*

“Why did you Sort Ravenclaw, mate?”

“The Hat offered me a few different choices, but that was the one that suited me best.”

Harry gave Ron a small smile as Ron leaned against the shelf of books that Harry was searching for some reference to how Potions ingredients were diced. Ron just shook his head and said, “I suppose it’s better than Slytherin.”

“Definitely,” Harry agreed fervently. The Ravenclaws shared more classes with Hufflepuff than Slytherin, but he’d had enough time to see how stupid Malfoy was in class and hear his bragging in the corridors.

“Potter, did you—oh.”

“Hi, Nott,” Harry said, with a small wave. “I’ve almost found the book. I think the one we really wanted is out with one of the Ravenclaw seventh-years, though.”

Ringing silence descended on the aisle of books. Harry looked up, and found Ron and Nott glaring at each other. He sighed a little. Nott was nowhere near as bad as Malfoy, and Harry didn’t think he had a name that Ron thought was stupid, either.

“Harry,” Ron began, speaking through gritted teeth.

“What?”

“Nott’s father is a Death Eater!”

“What’s that?”

Harry glanced at Nott and saw how still he had gone. Probably paler, too, but with his complexion, it was hard to tell. He had his arms folded and an expression on his face that was a little familiar for some reason.

After a moment, Harry recognized it. It was the expression he had probably worn himself when Dudley was telling other kids that Harry was a freak.

“Someone who followed You-Know-Who!” Ron was bouncing in place slightly, looking like he wanted to get closer to Harry and like he didn’t. “Someone who thought all Muggleborns should die!”

“I don’t think that,” said Nott, the first time Harry had seen him voluntarily talking to someone who wasn’t a professor or a Ravenclaw.

“Your dad does!”

“And your father thinks that Muggles are silly funny creatures who never notice when they’re being baited. Does that mean you do?”

Ron just stared at Nott, and Harry sighed and stepped in between them. “I don’t care about whose father did what,” he said loudly. It was something he’d had to learn not to care about, because he’d known nothing about his dad except the Dursleys’ lies. “I care about your being friends with me.”

“You can’t be friends with a Nott.”

“I’m going to say who I’m friends with, and I’m friends with him.”

Nott made a strange little sound. Harry didn’t look at him, because he thought it would hurt Nott. Just kept his attention on Ron, who worried his lip with his teeth for a few seconds and then nodded weakly.

“Okay, but if you knew—”

“I’m a Ravenclaw. I’ll read books about it.”

“Okay,” Ron repeated. He gave Nott a distrustful look. “Say, uh, mate, I think I hear Seamus and Dean calling me.”

Harry didn’t, but he was willing to allow Ron a way out of the situation that would let him have some pride. He nodded. “Okay.”

Ron nodded back and almost ran over and out of the library. Harry shook his head. He turned back to Nott finally, and found him standing with his arms wrapped around his stomach and his head bowed. He looked like he’d eaten too much.

“You all right, Nott?”

“You defended me to him.”

“Yes, because you’re my friend?”

Harry hated the way his voice went up on the last question. But, well, he’d thought he had friends before, and Dudley had proven him wrong.

“Yes,” Nott said slowly. He kept watching Harry like he thought Harry would transform into a bird and fly away or something. “Friends. I agree.” He half-bowed his head. “You will not find my friendship lacking.”

Harry could have protested against that and said it was already a good friendship, but it seemed important to Nott to say this. So he nodded. “Thank you. Can you show me a good book on the history of the war?”

“You would trust me to?”

“Yes, because we’re friends.”

Harry said it more firmly this time, and Nott threw him a long, lingering glance, but nodded and turned to walk into the shelves. He came to a stop near a thick book with a green cover, studied it for a second as though he wanted to make sure it was the right one, and pulled it from the shelves to gently place it in Harry’s hands.

“This one talks about the factors that led to the rise of the Dark Lord. It stops a year before the end, though, and the way you—defeated him.”

Harry wondered what he should say to someone whose family might have been harmed by him defeating Voldemort, and then decided that the best way to deal with it would be to say nothing at all. He took a firm grip on the book.

“Thank you.”

*

“Mr. Potter, if you could stay after class?”

Theo turned his head to watch Potter frowning. He caught Theo’s eye and shrugged a little. Theo shrugged back. Potter hadn’t been the quickest in the class to perform the Transfiguration, but neither was he the slowest.

Theo walked out the classroom door, but then lingered and cast an Eavesdropping Charm. He had learned that one early, by necessity.

“Sit down, please, Harry.”

“Er—thanks, Professor.”

Theo’s interest sharpened. None of their professors had called Potter by his first name so far.

“Now, Mr. Potter, I wanted to reassure you that your classroom performance has been fine. I am more worried about the company you keep.”

Yes, this was worth listening to.

“Er—the other Ravenclaws, Professor?”

McGonagall sighed as if she was hoping to Transfigure her breath into wind. “I see that I will have to speak plainly. I mean Mr. Nott, Harry. You do know that his father was a Death Eater and followed You-Know-Who?”

“Why does everyone keep assuming I don’t know that?” Potter complained, and Theo bit back a laugh. Potter had only known it for a few weeks. “I promise, Professor, Nott and I are friends and classmates. It’s not like I’m asking him for advice on Dark Arts or to invite me over to his house for the hols.”

Theo paused. It had struck him that, while he knew Potter had grown up Muggle, he knew nothing about where Potter was planning to spend the holidays.

He would have to ask.

“But if he tried to lure you into—”

“I grew up with a cousin who was a bully, Professor. Believe me, I know when someone is pretending to be my friend and they don’t really mean it.”

That explained a little about Potter’s impatience with some of the people in Ravenclaw who only wanted to be his friends for the fame, Theo thought.

McGonagall sighed. “You will tell me if Mr. Nott says anything dubious to you?”

“Why not Professor Flitwick? He’s my Head of House.”

“Well, to tell the truth, Harry, I had always hoped and assumed you would be a Gryffindor, like your parents were.”

Theo rolled his eyes. Potter had courage of a kind, yes, to brew on his own and keep going even when Theo had graphically explained some of the dangers of potions exploding. But he was far from wanting to fit people’s expectations. If he had, he would have pranced around Hogwarts reveling in his fame.

“I watched over your parents during their seven years of schooling, and fought beside them during the war,” McGonagall was going on. “I would have watched over you if it wasn’t imperative that you live with your Muggle family for your safety.”

Theo breathed in hard. She had just lost Potter, and had no idea.

“I see,” Potter said emptily. “Well, I’ll confide in you if I have to, Professor. But Nott is my friend.”

Professor McGonagall sighed and let Potter go. He stepped outside and didn’t seem surprised to see Theo standing there. He just nodded and started walking down the corridor, his face set in harsh lines.

“Is it because she knew about the Muggles and thought you should stay there anyway?” Theo asked, when they had gone far enough that there was no chance of McGonagall overhearing them.

Potter nodded, once.

Theo studied the side of Potter’s face. He knew him, he knew something about his background that Potter didn’t share with most people, and Potter had defended him to the Head of Gryffindor. They were friends. “Call me Theo.”

Potter started and glanced at him, then smiled, a quiet, brilliant smile Theo had never seen before. “Harry, then.”

And something in Theo settled.

*

“Why are we here?”

“I didn’t mean to be here!”

The staircase beneath them was still swinging around, and then it came to a floor. Harry peered ahead at the corridor warily. It didn’t look like one he was familiar with. It definitely didn’t lead back to Ravenclaw Tower.

“The third floor,” said Theo abruptly.

“What?”

“This is the third-floor corridor. The forbidden one. The one that we should stay away from unless we want to die a painful death?”

Theo’s voice was rising. Harry reached out and patted his shoulder without taking his eyes from the corridor ahead. He could feel a faint urge to explore it, mostly because he didn’t know what was down there and why it would be in a school.

Then again, they had dangerous Potions ingredients in the school and dangerous beasts in the Forbidden Forest.

“Do you know a spell we could use to summon the professors?” Harry asked. He glanced back down the staircase. It had swung away from all the others, so they could step off it into the third-floor corridor but not anywhere else.

“Um.”

Harry stared. Theo was blushing, and Harry had never seen him do that. “Theo?”

“I know a spell,” Theo whispered. “But it’s not one that I’m supposed to know.”

“Is it Dark Arts?”

“What? No! Just not the kind of spell that any of the professors are going to—appreciate.”

“Well, they’re the ones who should have set things up so that the students can’t just get on moving staircases that swing them into forbidden corridors,” Harry said firmly. “Cast it, please.”

Theo took his wand out and aimed it at the ceiling. Then he spoke a quiet phrase that Harry thought didn’t sound like Latin, and an enormous noise rolled out, like they were standing right in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Harry yelped and clapped his hands over his ears. He watched some dust drifting down from the ceiling, and heard running footsteps start from several directions. Theo sighed and put his wand away.

“That’ll teach us to stay out late exploring,” he muttered.

Harry nodded, and sighed in turn when Professor McGonagall was the first to appear near the bottom of the staircase across from them. He hadn’t realized they were so near her office. She glared at them, and Harry coughed and stood up. “Sorry, Professor, it’s my fault,” he said loudly. “I was scared, and my magic—built up—and it—sorry.”

He was aware of Theo gaping at him, but Theo luckily shut his mouth and just nodded by the time McGonagall got around to glancing at him.

“All right, Mr. Potter. Five points from Ravenclaw for being out after curfew.”

Neither of them spoke again until they were in Ravenclaw Tower, and then Theo glanced around and drew Harry into a corner near the fireplace. Some of the older students were studying and arguing near the bookcases and probably wouldn’t notice them.

“You think it’s a coincidence that the staircase brought us there?”

“No,” Harry said.

After a long moment, Theo nodded.

*

“Yes, Miss Granger can have visitors.”

Harry looked solemn as they walked towards the Muggleborn’s curtained bed. Theo felt rigid. He did not want to be here. And he didn’t know why Harry seemed to feel some sense of responsibility for Granger getting injured by the troll. He hadn’t caused her to run off crying to the bathroom. He hadn’t even been there when it had happened, or when the troll had hurt her.

But he’d wanted to come visit her, so here they were.

Madam Pomfrey pulled back the curtains and glanced sternly at all of them. “No more than ten minutes, mind.”

“Yes, Madam Pomfrey,” Theo murmured. Harry just nodded, his eyes fastened on the girl in the bed.

Granger gave them a wide-eyed glance. She had a book on the bed beside her. Theo was a little amused to see it was about trolls. He wondered who had got it from the library for her, or if she’d already had it and had just got around to reading it now.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Granger. We wanted to see how you were.” Theo just nodded, because it didn’t require him to speak. “Madam Pomfrey said that your arm was broken? Do you know how long you’ll have to stay?”

“It was my arm and my collarbone and my left leg.”

Theo winced before he could stop himself. As strange as it felt to be close to a Muggleborn after all of Father’s rants, he didn’t think that someone deserved those wounds just for being a little stuck-up and running off to cry in a bathroom.

“Ouch. Sorry.”

“Yeah,” Granger whispered. She looked at Harry then, sharply. “I know that we’ve never spoken. And why did you want to know who I was? We don’t share that many classes, and you compete with me for the top marks.”

It was actually Theo who competed most often for top marks with Granger, and sometimes Patil. Harry got the practicalities pretty well, but his grasp of theory was weak. It evened out so that he coasted along somewhere between an Acceptable and an Exceeds Expectations.

But that didn’t matter, because Harry was giving Granger a weird look. He said, “Because you’re a human being? And you were hurt?”

“You didn’t care before, when that awful Weasley boy was teasing me!”

“I didn’t know he was!”

“You could have asked!”

Theo stood back, his eyebrows rising. He had to admit that he didn’t know what to make of Granger. He supposed it was kind of Harry to want to come and ask after her, but if she was just going to blame Harry for her problems so that she didn’t have to blame another Gryffindor—

But then Granger gasped and looked at her blanket-covered lap and whispered, “I didn’t mean that. Please don’t leave.”

“Okay, we won’t,” Harry said, with a quick glance at Theo. Theo lifted his shoulders. He didn’t mind staying. “But why didn’t you go and talk to Professor McGonagall if Weasley was teasing you? That’s what Patil—Padma Patil, in our House, you know—did when one of the second-years was teasing her.”

“I—it would be snitching.”

Harry shook his head impatiently. “If your Housemates don’t like you for it, it doesn’t matter. They already don’t like you.”

“Some tact, Harry,” Theo hissed, watching Granger’s face crumple again.

“Sorry.” Harry ran his hand over his face and took a deep breath. “But anyway, they can’t like you less, can they?”

“No.”

Granger’s shoulders straightened. Fascinated, Theo watched her. He wouldn’t have thought that a Gryffindor would need Harry’s encouragement to be more Gryffindor, but it seemed she did.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll try it. You’re right, it can’t make a negative difference, and it may make a positive one.”

“Right.”

Granger abruptly leaned around Harry and stared directly at Theo. Theo felt his shoulders go rigid. He didn’t need someone staring at him, like they were trying to figure him out with the sheer power of their eyes.

“And what about you? Someone pointed you out to me and said that you didn’t like Muggleborns, but you came up and visited me, and you haven’t called me awful names like Malfoy did.”

“I’m not Malfoy,” Theo said, a little stiffly. It was about all he could say in public, even though he didn’t think either Harry or Granger was the sort to contact his father and talk about Theo being nice to Muggleborns.

Granger studied him with calm eyes for a long moment. Then she nodded and faced Harry. “Anyway, it was nice of you to come here. Do you think we can be friends and study together in the library?”

Theo bristled. If she was trying to take his only friend from him—

“Yeah, we could do that.”

Theo sighed as Granger beamed. It seemed he would have to get used to it, because after actually being welcomed into Harry’s life, he had no intention of giving friendship up. He could have some luxuries because he’d been Sorted into Ravenclaw, and Granger was not taking that away from him.

Chapter Text

“You don’t have to be so cold to each other all the time.”

Both Theo and Granger—no, wait, she’d told Harry to call her Hermione—started and flushed at that. Then they glared at each other. Then at him.

Harry rolled his eyes and put down the Transfiguration book that he’d been revising. So far, it was his hardest subject. There just seemed to be a lot that you had to think about and imagine as well as wave your wand and incant. “I mean it. Theo, you don’t have to glare at Hermione as if she’s going to explode in bugs and shower you with them.”

Theo stared at him. “That was a very…picturesque image, Harry.”

Sometimes it was just best to sneer at Theo and get on with whatever you were doing. Harry did it now, and turned to Hermione. “And Hermione, you don’t have to keep acting like Theo is Malfoy’s secret twin and he’s going to transform when you aren’t looking.”

“But Ron said that he was a pureblood who felt the way about Muggleborns that Malfoy does!”

“Ron, who upset you so badly that you ran and hid in the bathroom on Halloween? That Ron?”

Raw red color spilled down Hermione’s face. She whispered, “Point,” and stared at her hands.

Harry just nodded. He was still friends with Ron, in that they talked when they saw each other and sometimes sat with each other in the classes Ravenclaw and Gryffindor shared, but he’d done the wrong thing with Hermione and Harry wasn’t going to defend him from that. “So can you both stop?”

“It’s very hard, when that’s the way you were raised—”

“It’s very hard, when you never had friends in primary school—”

“Right, but the people who taught you that way or weren’t your friends were stupid, right?”

Theo and Hermione blinked at him. Then the table. Then each other.

“I didn’t have any friends in primary school, either, Hermione,” Harry said quietly. “And, Theo, I grew up with people who told me all sorts of stupid things. So I know how it is. But it doesn’t need to come between you unless you let it.”

Hermione gave him a tremulous smile. “When did you get so wise, Harry?”

“Not wise. I just want Hogwarts to be different from the Muggle world, and it will be, if we say so.” Harry picked up his Transfiguration book again. “Hermione, come on, how can you write your essays so well?”

Asking Hermione about schoolwork was always a good way to distract her. She beamed and began to chatter on. Meanwhile, Harry noticed Theo watching him with a thoughtful look. Harry just shrugged when Theo opened his mouth, and Theo nodded and started to pay attention to Hermione.

They didn’t hate each other when they thought about it. Harry knew some things were really complicated, like the way Gryffindors and Slytherins hated each other, and Malfoy hated Muggleborns, and the Dursleys hated magic.

But some things were easy, if you let them be.

*

“How was Hagrid?”

Harry had got an invitation to go see the groundskeeper that afternoon at breakfast, and Theo had nodded and assumed he wouldn’t ask about it, because Harry knew Hagrid thanks to going shopping in Diagon Alley with him. But Harry had come back from his trip to Hagrid’s hut with a weird look on his face.

“You went to see Mr. Hagrid?”

Theo started and glanced to the left. Sometimes he forgot they weren’t alone in the Ravenclaw common room, honestly, when they’d made this little corner their own and people so rarely bothered them. But there was Patil sitting down with an eager, shining face.

“You know him?” Harry asked, and Theo had the impression Harry was longing for a distraction from whatever he’d talked about with Hagrid.

“I love creatures, and he knows a lot about them.”

“Yeah, he does. He has this enormous dog called Fang, but he’s the silliest thing, you should see him…”

Theo let the conversation wash over him without paying much attention, other than deciding to remember that Patil liked creatures, because that might be useful later. He was focused on the way that Harry made big, expansive gestures and smiled widely, in a way that he never did with Theo or Granger or even Weasley.

Something happened.

Theo wouldn’t have cared about that a few months ago, but that was before he’d had friends.

The minute Patil was gone, he moved towards Harry and sat on the couch beside him. “What happened?” he asked.

Harry swallowed despite the quietness of Theo’s voice, darting his eyes around. Then he sighed and said, “Hagrid said he would have invited me over sooner, but he thought I wouldn’t want to come. Because he was friends with my mum and dad, but I’m not much like them.”

Theo blinked a little and sat back. “You—want to be like them?”

“I grew up hearing they were drunks and terrible people who got themselves killed in a Muggle accident. Then I heard they were heroes who saved me. Yes.”

“I—see.” Theo wrestled with the odd notion of a parent someone would want to be like, then put it aside for now. “But you managed to convince Hagrid that you wanted to be friends with him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He said I spent a lot of time in the library, and he thought I would have more friends, and he thought I would be in Gryffindor, and he thought that I would be—not friends with you.”

Theo just nodded. He had assumed it was something like that. “And what did you tell him?”

“That I was friends with you, of course!”

Theo lowered his eyes. “I didn’t think you were lying.”

“I know. But it matters, that I’m friends with you, you know? It matters a lot.”

Theo clenched his hands in his lap and took a deep breath. He wanted to say something. He should say something. This was an important moment, and he had to seize it before it passed. But he couldn’t think of anything to say.

He looked up when Harry’s elbow nudged his side. Harry’s eyes were wide and understanding and he just smiled a little before he turned and picked up a book that was lying next to the couch.

“Do you want to take Arithmancy when we get old enough, or Ancient Runes? They both look really complicated.”

“We’re Ravenclaws. We should take them both.”

“That’s not an answer!”

And the moment passed, and the fact that Theo didn’t know what to say turned out to be less important than he’d thought.

*

“Aren’t you going home for the holidays, Harry?”

Harry smiled and shook his head at Ron, who was lingering near the doorway of the Great Hall. “No. My family and I agreed it would be best if I stayed here.” And that was true even if they hadn’t really had a discussion about it. “What about you? The twins were saying something about you going to visit your brother Charlie or something?”

“Yeah. It was just going to be Mum and Dad and Ginny, but my Aunt Muriel decided to go, and so we’re all going. She has plenty of money.” Ron rolled his eyes a little and then peered over Harry’s shoulder. Harry didn’t bother to turn. He was sure he knew what Ron would be staring at. “And him?”

“Going home.”

Ron relaxed with a whoosh of breath. “I know you think Nott is fine, but—”

“He is.”

Ron peered at Harry’s face and then nodded uncertainly. “I reckon you really are friends with him.”

“I am.”

Ron bit his lip one more time and then said, “All right. Then I’ll try to get along with him when I get back.” He held out his hand, and Harry shook it solemnly, before Percy Weasley yelled something from the Gryffindor table and Ron had to go over to him.

Harry walked to the Ravenclaw table, where Theo was slumped over his plate. Part of that was just because Theo didn’t wake up very well in the mornings, but Harry knew a lot more of it was because his father had called him home.

“Can I send you letters?” Harry asked. It was a question he’d been working up to for the last day. On the one hand, Theo was his friend.

On the other hand, his father sounded awful, and Harry didn’t want to make it worse for Theo, if Hedwig would make it worse.

Theo started and looked up as if he had forgotten there was such a person as Harry in the universe. That didn’t make Harry feel great, but he stood still and waited, and finally, Theo gave his head a choppy nod.

“Yeah. My father will think it’s strange if we’re friends but we don’t exchange letters over the holidays.”

Harry felt a sudden burst of relief that the Dursleys had always been indifferent to him. He sat down at the table and loaded his plate with sausages. “All right. I’ll do my best.”

Theo gave him a fleeting smile and went back to staring at his plate. Harry didn’t bother him. Sometimes, that was all a friend could do.

*

Theo had never found home oppressive before. There was a silence at the heart of it where his mother, Adeline Burke, should have been, but she had been gone a long time, and Theo could always talk to her portrait. He and Father had their silences and their words and ways to shift around each other, and that was all Theo wanted. That and books.

But now there were no friends. No Granger to argue with about history and why Astronomy was a useful class. No Patil to disagree with about the laws relating to creatures and whether there should be a harsher penalty for those who smuggled body parts.

No Harry to sit with him in the morning and walk with him to class and brew with and laugh with.

“You seem to be growing dependent on these others you told me about, Theodore.”

Theo leaned back and looked up at his father. Father was a tall man with dark hair and grey eyes that were always narrowed as though against strong sunlight. Theo thought he looked a lot like a member of the Black family, not so much like the portraits of ancestors scattered around the house.

But then again, so did Theo.

“I welcome the opportunity to talk with other people about books I’m reading, Father. That’s not the same as dependence.”

“You haven’t eaten a bite in two minutes.”

Theo laughed a little. “I’m thinking about an Arithmantic equation that I saw in a book upstairs, Father.”

“Which one?”

“The equation that promises to reveal events from the past clearly. What use would an equation like that be? I thought Arithmancy was used to predict the future. Would anyone profit from knowing the past?”

“Ah.” Father smiled, a look that thawed his cold expression a little. “I think you might have misunderstood the intent of that equation, Theodore. It is meant to reveal the past so that someone might better conceal it.”

“To cover up your tracks?”

“Exactly. Let me show you…”

Theo listened intently, and he did understand the equation, and he did enjoy it. But at the same time, part of his brain wondered what Harry and even Granger were doing.

*

“Thanks for the flute, Hagrid.”

Hagrid smiled at Harry across the Christmas table, looking a little embarrassed. “Aw, you don’t have to thank me for that, Harry. Just thought it would make a good Christmas present.”

Harry nodded and dug into the pie in front of him. It was cherry, something he’d made for the Dursleys at times but never got to eat. “Well, still, thank you.” And it was. Just having gifts by his bed when he’d woken up, the only boy in the first-year Ravenclaw dormitory, had made him smile all day.

“What other gifts did you get?”

Harry laughed a little. “Mostly books, from Hermione. Granger? I don’t know if you know her. She’s a first-year Gryffindor,” he went on, when Hagrid shook his head. “And she’s really into books and studying. She got me two books! Both about magical creatures!”

Hagrid smiled. “Sounds right interesting.”

“And Ron got me a poster of the Chudley Cannons.” The thought made Harry feel warm, even if the Cannons were a pretty awful team and he hadn’t decided what Quidditch players he actually followed yet. “And his mum made me a jumper and sent me sweets!” That awed Harry. He hadn’t even met Mrs. Weasley, just saw her on the platform, but she was being so nice!

“And that’s all? What about anything from your family?”

“Oh, we don’t exchange gifts,” Harry said, even though he sort of wondered how Hagrid himself had forgotten he’d called them the biggest lot of Muggles. “But anyway, I sent Hermione a book about magical history, because she’s always complaining that Binns’s class is boring, and Ron a mirror that will tell him when his cloak is pinned the wrong way. He says Professor McGonagall is always scolding him about that.”

“What’s wrong, Harry?”

I can’t tell you about the other things I got.

But then again, the same way Harry couldn’t tell Hagrid about it, he couldn’t complain about not being able to tell him, so he just squirmed in the seat and told part of the truth. “I didn’t get Mrs. Weasley anything. I didn’t know she was going to send me anything, but still.”

“She won’t regard that, Harry. She’s a grand woman, a grand woman. Did I tell you we fought together sometimes during the war…?”

And Hagrid was off and telling a story, which Harry listened to and enjoyed, even with all the parts where Hagrid stopped dead and coughed and said something about how he shouldn’t be saying that. He didn’t mind if Hagrid kept some secrets from him. He knew Hagrid had expected him to be more like his parents, and besides, it wasn’t like a child should be learning everything about the war.

And Harry was keeping secrets from Hagrid, too.

One of them was the beautiful silvery cloak that made you invisible, and which had arrived in a mysterious package from someone who hadn’t given their name. Harry had cast a detection charm that Theo had taught him on the cloak, although all it had told him was that the cloak wasn’t poisoned.

And he had got a small stone dragon from Theo, which would lie next to his pillow, clinging to the blankets with its claws, and vibrate and growl if someone tried to open the curtains around his bed.

It made Harry smile. Hagrid just thought it was for his stories, and started telling them louder than ever.

Harry hoped Theo liked the gift Harry had sent, but he wouldn’t know until the end of Christmas.

Even though it was the best Christmas Harry had ever had, he missed his friends.

*

“Thank you.”

Theo smiled at Harry, who smiled back. It felt as though his presence was a river full of stars that Theo remembered—almost the only thing he remembered—from a fairy tale that his mother had read him before she died.

No matter how much Theo argued with Granger sometimes, it was worth it to have friends, when Harry smiled like that.

“I thought you might like it. I heard one of the seventh-years mention knives that dice Potions ingredients on their own.”

Theo nodded. He thought dicing was the most tiresome part of ingredient preparation. He would use the knife carefully, because Snape would probably ban it the instant he caught sight of it, but he didn’t pay that much attention to Theo’s cauldron either. Harry didn’t get the immunity that he should have had as a Ravenclaw, but Theo did.

“How did you enjoy the dragon?”

“I love it. It vibrates as if it’s purring sometimes, did you know?”

Theo just shook his head. He had chosen the dragon from a shelf of old Nott artifacts that stood in a corner of the cellars, and which Father would never notice something missing from. He had only checked that it wasn’t cursed and would growl when someone opened the bed curtains before sending it off to Harry.

“Well, it does. I get the feeling that no one’s treated it well in a long time.”

Theo held his tongue, even though he would have said most of the time that an artifact like that wouldn’t care how you treated it. Most of the time, to most people.

Harry wasn’t most people, and sitting on the edge of his bed, swinging his feet, he looked as if embodied all the cheer of Christmas that Theo hadn’t got to experience.

*

Harry trudged into the Ravenclaw common room and flung himself face-down on the couch next to Theo, then screamed into the pillows.

“Expressive.”

Harry sat up and leaned close to Theo. He hadn’t learned any good privacy charms yet. “Promise me that you’re not going to leap and shout if I tell you what it is.”

“All right.”

“Hagrid’s got a dragon egg.”

Theo closed his eyes and just sat there for a long moment, although he did exhale hard. Then he shook his head. “I don’t suppose that you could convince him to give it up for the good of the future dragon?”

“No. He says that he’s always wanted one, and he’s convinced that he can give it a good life.”

*

Theo leaned back and stared at the ceiling, sighing. This would concern Harry, that was clear, but it also concerned Theo. Harry would be unhappy if Hagrid got put in Azkaban for dragon smuggling, and Theo would be unhappy if his friend was unhappy.

Or if Hogwarts got burned to the ground, there was also that.

“Okay,” Theo said. “So our only option is to steal it.”

Now Harry was the one who jumped and squeaked hard enough that one of the older Ravenclaws, something Walker, glanced at them suspiciously. “Theo!”

“You said that you don’t think you can convince him to part with it. Do you think it’s a good idea to just leave the egg where it is?”

“No. He lives in a wooden house.”

“Exactly. So we steal it, and then we send it to a dragon sanctuary.”

“We can just—do that? Through what, the post?”

“Yes,” Theo said firmly. He winced a little, because to do this he would have to betray one of Father’s secrets, but it wasn’t like Harry was going to trot off to Father’s enemies and report it. “I know how to make sure that it doesn’t hatch on the way. Father—does things like this all the time.”

“He smuggles things?”

“Yes.”

Harry watched Theo with wide, unblinking eyes for a long moment, and then he shook his head and muttered, “At least I have a friend who can help me handle this.”

Theo probably shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help smiling. “We need to make sure that Hagrid doesn’t suspect us. And I would say that we need to make sure he doesn’t go around accusing people of stealing his dragon egg, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be that stupid. Not if he was smart enough to keep the egg a secret in the first place.”

Harry nodded. “What do we have to do?”

*

“Come in, Harry! And—Nott.”

Hagrid’s voice cooled down a lot when he saw Theo right behind Harry, but there wasn’t much Harry could do about that. He stopped and smiled at Hagrid. “Theo said that he’s never seen a dragon egg before and he wants to see one.”

Hagrid visibly wavered for a moment, and then he nodded and started piling more wood on the fire. “Well, come on in, come on in! You’ll never get a chance to see another as fine as this one…”

Theo made admiring noises and asked lots of questions about how warm Hagrid had to keep the egg and what sex of dragon would hatch out of it and the like, while Harry stepped around to the side and leaned close as if admiring the egg, too. Theo caught his eye and nodded.

Okay, Harry told himself as Theo drew Hagrid to the window so that Hagrid could point out the places in the Forbidden Forest that he was planning to hunt the dragon’s prey. You have to do this, and it’s now or never.

Theo had managed to Transfigure a branch from the edge of the Forest into a wooden model of a dragon egg, because he was better at Transfiguration than Harry was. But Harry was better at learning spells on the fly, and so he’d been looking up and obsessively practicing an illusion that would make the wooden model look like Hagrid’s egg.

They would leave the decoy here, and eventually the illusion and the Transfiguration would wear off, but by then, the original dragon egg should be safely away.

And Harry did have someone he could blame for the theft if Hagrid asked him, someone he didn’t like.

You might have done well in Slytherin after all, Theo had remarked when Harry had told him that part of the plan.

Theo glanced towards him from where they stood at the window. He jerked his head impatiently.

Right. Harry had to stop standing there and thinking, or Hagrid would turn back around and they might not get another chance before the egg hatched. Even looking at pictures of dragon eggs in books hadn’t told Harry how close it actually wats to hatching.

He took out the wooden egg from underneath his thick coat, which he’d worn down from the castle despite the warmth of the air today, and dumped it on the floor. Then he waved his wand over it and whispered, “Tenebrae lux,” concentrating as hard as he could on what he wanted the egg to look like.

The wood sparked and took on a dark appearance that was pretty close to the egg in front of the fire. Meanwhile, Harry clenched his jaw and grabbed hold of the real egg, dragging it after him and underneath the table.

It hurt. He hadn’t known how hot the shell would be! But then again, he’d burned his hands before cooking for the Dursleys.

This was nothing all that terrible.

Harry swallowed down his agony and cast another illusion spell, this time to make the egg look like part of his coat. By the time Hagrid turned around again and ambled back to the fireplace, it was done.

He hoped.

Hagrid seemed not to know anything was wrong, and hummed happily to himself as he tended the fake egg. Then he winked at Harry as Harry and Theo started making their excuses to leave. “Sure, Harry, sure. And hey, Nott, you’re better than I thought you were.”

Theo gave Hagrid a tight smile, and he and Harry stepped out the door. The minute they were out, Theo whirled around and seized Harry’s hands, casting a charm that made Harry gasp in relief as his blisters stopped yelling at him.

“You’re such an idiot,” Theo whispered.

“Hey, we did what we had to do.” Harry blinked the tears out of his eyes and stepped back so that Theo could conjure a sling for the egg, something he knew how to do for reasons he hadn’t told Harry. “You’re sure that you can get this to one of your dad’s contacts?”

“Sure.”

*

Theo sighed in relief as he watched the owl soar away with the special silver cage that would shrink the dragon egg and keep it in stasis. Only now could he allow himself to believe that the dangerous risk they’d taken was over.

“Thanks, Theo.”

Theo turned with a small smile to Harry. “You’re welcome.”

They were in the owlery, and Harry turned to hold out his arm to his monster of a snowy owl, who soared down and clacked her beak at Theo. Theo looked back calmly. He was mostly sure that Harry wouldn’t let her eat him.

“Hedwig, behave.” Harry shook his head at Theo over her head. “She’s just upset that she didn’t get to be the one to take the dragon egg.”

Theo laughed a little. “She’s too distinctive.”

“I know, and we discussed this.” Theo had the strong impression that Harry was talking to Hedwig, not him. “You can’t carry the illegal dragon egg on the dangerous journey to the dragon sanctuary.”

Hedwig hid her head beneath her wing.

“You’ll have to get to like Theo,” Harry told her, and turned to face Theo a little as he spoke. “Since he’s the one who’ll be taking care of you during the summers.”

Theo blinked at him. He knew how much Hedwig meant to Harry, although only because of listening to the way he spoke of her and watching the expressions on his face than because Harry had outright told him. “But Harry…she’s your only friend in that Muggle house.”

“And I’m afraid of what they’d do to her because of that.”

It took a long moment for Theo’s whirling thoughts to settle, but then he nodded. “Merlin knows my father won’t notice one more bird in our owlery.”

“There, see? He’s agreed to keep you. How can you hate him? Treat him like a lady.”

Theo watched as Harry scratched at Hedwig’s breast feathers, and thought it was a good thing that Harry didn’t want to take advantage of his Boy-Who-Lived fame. The world could be in trouble if he did, if the way he charmed people was actually conscious.

*

Hagrid told Harry tearfully a few days later that his dragon egg had actually burnt up, and he must have got it too close to the fire or too hot or something. Harry made sympathetic noises and hid a sigh of relief. He wouldn’t have to blame Malfoy for stealing the egg, then.

*

Theo sighed in disappointment when told they wouldn’t blame Malfoy.

*

“But aren’t you curious?”

“No,” Theo said flatly, without looking up from his book.

Harry’s lips twitched a little as he dropped the stack of books they were using to revise for their History of Magic exam on the table in the library. “Leave him alone, Hermione. Neither of us is curious about what’s up on the deadly third floor.”

“But there’s something really interesting there! And Ron said that he went to visit Hagrid, Harry, and Hagrid said something about Nicholas Flamel. He’s just the most famous alchemist ever. And you’re both Ravenclaws! The House of curiosity and intellect!”

“The House of not getting killed by acting stupid,” Theo drawled.

“I just want to know! I wouldn’t try to take whatever’s up there!”

“So you know it’s something you can take?” Harry asked her.

Hermione turned bright red and fell silent.

Theo, homing in as always on a weakness, pushed aside his Charms tome and leaned towards her with a small smile. “Did Granger break the rules? Hermione Granger, of all people?” he almost crooned.

“No! I was trying to keep other people from breaking the rules!”

“That sounds like you did.”

Harry just shook his head. He was starting to think that Hermione was incredibly smart, but not good at people. For one thing, she didn’t seem to understand that Theo was needling the truth out of her expertly.

“I did not! Fred and George are always sneaking out of the Tower, and they did it again the other night, and I followed them to make sure they wouldn’t lose us any more points after that huge fight Ron had with Malfoy put us so far down last week, and they went up to the third-floor corridor, and they managed to unlock the door, and I saw this three-headed dog standing on a trapdoor.”

Hermione said that all so fast that Harry wished for some sort of reality rewind button. Theo, meanwhile, had groaned softly.

“Look, whatever’s up there doesn’t belong to a first-year Gryffindor, or a third-year one either,” Theo added, probably because Hermione had opened her mouth to say something about Fred and George. “Just leave it alone. What do you care what it is? It’s defended by a three-headed dog, it must be safe.”

“Not if the door could just be unlocked by anyone!”

“Then that’s Dumbledore’s fault—”

“He’s a great wizard—”

Harry raised Muffling Charms around his ears and went back to reading. Honestly, he cared more about his History of Magic exam than whatever was up there.

*

Theo walked around the corner into the owlery. Harry had bolted into Ravenclaw Tower, said he had something to show Theo and to come up to the owlery in ten minutes, and run away again.

“Harry, did you get—”

He stopped and stared at Harry standing over Granger, who was tied up and leaning against the wall of the owlery. Theo blinked and looked from Harry to Granger and back again, wondering for a moment if someone had got hold of Harry’s hair and brewed Polyjuice.

“What’s going on?” he asked softly.

Granger tried to say something, which was when Theo first noticed that Harry had gagged her as well. Harry shook his head and his wand at the same time and said, “She thinks Snape is going to try and steal whatever’s hidden up in the first-floor corridor. She was going to go after him herself.”

“I knew you were smart, but you’re also insane,” Theo told Granger.

Granger made angry muffled noises at him.

“I don’t think it’s Snape,” Harry said, and Theo had to nod. Snape wouldn’t be that obvious if he was going after something important, and he probably would have managed to already steal it and replace it with a decoy anyway. “But even if it was, there’s no way that you can face an adult professor by yourself, Hermione. I’m keeping you here until you come to your senses.”

From the way that Granger’s face was flushed, Theo thought that would be a long time. He turned to Harry. “Or we could tell a professor, and then presumably they could protect whatever that thing is.”

“Hermione said she tried.” Harry gave Granger an intensely disappointed look that Theo instantly wanted to never have aimed at him. “Except she acted as though the thing was in imminent danger, and Professor McGonagall told her to forget about it and that it was protected.”

Theo raised his eyebrows. “And did she talk to anyone else?”

“No. She thought she had to go after the thing herself.”

Theo just shook his head. “Can you take the gag off? I don’t think we should gag her. She’s not going to shout loudly enough to be heard by anyone up here.”

Harry gave him a weird look, but removed the gag. Granger drew a breath that seemed to suck up half the air in the owlery. “You can’t just do that! You can’t just tie me up and fling me against the wall like a sack of leaves!”

“Do you know how to get past the three-headed dog?” Theo asked.

Granger turned and stared at him in angry confusion. Theo waited, and after long moments, she finally said, “No. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then how would you protect whatever the thing was? Even if the thief went down before you and did something that disabled the dog, how do you know that would last long enough for you to get past it? And how do you know that any of the other traps or guardians they’ve set up would be things you could get past?”

“We have to protect it!”

“Why? If the thief is a professor, then—”

“It’s the Philosopher’s Stone!”

“The which?” Harry asked.

Theo put a hand in the middle of his forehead and exhaled slowly while Granger tried to explain to Harry at an extremely high volume and with extremely high rapidity what the Philosopher’s Stone was.

Of course. Of course it would be something that could be stolen and associated with Flamel. I should have seen it.

But honestly, Theo hadn’t cared that much.

He interrupted when Granger started trying to convince Harry to follow her down past the trapdoor and into whatever space the Stone had been kept in. “Granger, what evidence do you have that Professor Snape is trying to steal it?”

“He was injured on Halloween!”

“So what?”

“He was limping, and Ron saw that he had a bloody bite on his leg! He must have been trying to sneak past Fluffy.”

“Fluffy?”

Granger blushed brilliantly. “That’s what—Hagrid said he named the dog.”

Theo shook his head, while Harry looked a little hurt. He was probably wondering why Hagrid had never told them about Fluffy.

(Because they had never asked, Theo would tell Harry firmly later. Because they were great students who spent their time bring great, unlike Granger who didn’t have to study as much and so got involved in stupid “adventures.”)

“And do you have any other evidence?” Theo asked patiently.

“He was threatening Professor Quirrell! Ron overheard them!”

Harry continued to look hurt. Theo sighed and mentally added “telling Harry there was no need to sneak around after Weasley and Weasley was still Harry’s friend” to his mental list. “What was he saying?”

“That Professor Quirrell had better not go after the Stone if he knew what was good for him—”

“Then couldn’t it be Quirrell who’s the thief?”

“Professor Snape could get past the dog and handle whatever other traps were there! Could you imagine Professor Quirrell doing that?”

Theo had to concede the point, but Harry interrupted before he could continue the argument. “I always get headaches in Quirrell’s class. Maybe he does have some kind of powerful magic or dabbles in Dark Arts?”

Theo pivoted in place to stare at Harry. “You never mentioned that.”

“I didn’t.”

“No.”

Harry met Theo’s eyes and then looked down, visibly abashed. It was the only thing that kept Theo from getting further upset. “I’m sorry. I suppose, since it started happening before we became friends, I just got used to it and didn’t tell you.”

“Where does it happen?”

“My scar.”

“Do you think—”

“Could we keep our attention on the professor trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone?” Granger asked loudly.

“Why should we? I still don’t think Snape is the culprit, and if the traps are as good as the Headmaster promised, then they’ll do more to protect the Stone than three first-years could.”

“We have to stop him!”

Harry opened his mouth, but Theo subtly shook his head at him. Granger wasn’t a Ravenclaw, but she was pretty good with logic when she bothered to apply herself. Sometimes she just got a bit hysterical, though.

But, well, Gryffindor.

“Imagine that Snape gets the Stone,” Theo told Granger. “What do you think he’s going to do with it?”

“Live forever and use it to make lots of gold!”

“It can do that?” Harry interrupted in interest.

Theo raised a hand, and Harry fell obediently silent. Theo was still concentrating on Granger. “Okay, say he does that. Don’t you think it’s going to be immediately obvious that he’s using the Stone that way? Because I don’t know what you’ve been told, but Hogwarts professors aren’t paid that well.”

“But he might keep it quiet and just store the gold in Gringotts and not use it right away!”

“Say that he did. Why is that a terrible thing?”

“Because—because he shouldn’t steal the Stone from people who need it!”

Theo shrugged a little. “Apparently the person who needs it most is Nicholas Flamel. You have to drink the Elixir of Life every day or every week, depending on the stories, to stay alive and in the best of health. And apparently he doesn’t need it, or he wouldn’t have stored it behind a bunch of traps. Can you see someone working past those traps every day to drink from the Stone?”

Granger stared at him.

“So will it be so terrible if Professor Snape steals it?” Theo repeated. “Or Quirrell? We can go and tell Dumbledore when he gets back from wherever he’s gone.” He’d heard from some older Ravenclaw students who had tried to ask Dumbledore’s permission to take their NEWTS early that he’d left the school. “And then he can go after them, even if they’ve fled.”

“I—that almost makes sense, Nott.”

“Almost?”

Granger scowled at him.

“I think it’s for the best, Hermione, really,” Harry said, eyes bright and earnest. “Think about it. If it’s Snape and he’s evil, we can’t stop him on our own. Quirrell might be a little easier, but maybe not, not if his stories about surviving vampires are true. And if the traps are that strong, then they won’t get it after all.”

Granger gave a long, slow sigh. “If you’re sure. And I reserve the right to say I told you so if one of them ends up immortal or something.”

“I’m sure,” Harry said, and finally freed her from the ropes. Granger stood up, massaging her arms, and gave Theo a thoughtful stare.

“You’re an interesting debater, Nott.”

Theo just inclined his head and said nothing.

*

“It is disappointing, Harry, what happened.”

“What happened, sir? And why is it disappointing? I had the impression that you caught Professor Quirrell before he got anywhere with the Stone?”

Professor Dumbledore sighed and stared at Harry over his glasses. Harry had heard that his eyes were always twinkling, but they weren’t right now. “We did indeed catch Professor Quirrell, Mr. Potter, who was hosting the spirit of You-Know-Who.”

“Wow, really?”

Professor Dumbledore nodded and sat back in his chair with what looked like tiredness. Harry wondered if he’d had to have a big duel with Voldemort or something. “Yes. It is disappointing, however, that you prevented Miss Granger from telling someone so that Professor Quirrell had time to get close to the Stone.”

Harry shook his head. “She did tell Professor McGonagall, sir, but the professor didn’t believe her. And how could she have stopped him? I’m sure you defeated You-Know-Who with no problem, because you’re a great wizard, but Hermione’s in first year, even though she’s really smart. How could she have stopped him?”

“You could have gone with her.”

“Into a bunch of traps, sir? After a bloke possessed by the spirit of a Dark Lord? Why should I have?”

Harry’s astonishment was genuine, and strangely enough, that seemed to be the thing that Professor Dumbledore found most exasperating. At least, he looked away with his mouth all tightened up after Harry had told him that. “You may go, Mr. Potter.”

Harry stood and nodded respectfully. He assumed that he probably wouldn’t get all the answers, and in reality, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to ask the questions. Just like he hadn’t really cared about knowing what the three-headed dog was guarding, but he’d had to find out anyway.

He went back to Ravenclaw Tower. Theo was sitting in the common room, and he stood up the instant he saw Harry, his eyes dark. “Would you come with me, Harry, please?” he asked in a loud voice.

Harry nodded. He knew what this was about, and he and Theo needed privacy to discuss it. “Of course, Theo.”

They left the Tower and walked out onto the grounds. The Weasley twins and some of the other kids were teasing the Giant Squid by blowing bubbles at it. They avoided the lake and walked towards the edge of the Forest.

“Why didn’t you tell me about your scar hurting in Quirrell’s class?”

Harry sighed and turned to face Theo. Theo was standing with his arms folded as if he were cold, but his face was the real cold thing. Harry winced. “I meant what I said, Theo. It happened before we were friends, and then by the time we were, it was just something that happened. I even thought maybe it was an allergic reaction to the garlic that he kept all over the place.”

“Even though it was happening right over your scar?”

“Look, Theo, until this year, the scar was just something that I thought was a memento of the car crash that killed my parents.” Harry hunched his shoulders against the memory. “I’m not used to thinking of it as special.”

“But now you know it is.”

“Yes, and I won’t hide it from you again! But I’m not going to apologize for not knowing that something was wrong.”

Theo took a deep breath and then relaxed his shoulders, leaning back against the tree behind him. “Thanks, Harry,” he said. “I don’t want you to lie to me or keep things hidden from me unless you feel you have to, and—I think the scar is too important to do that with.”

Harry nodded slowly. He could understand why Theo had felt threatened by Harry’s silence. Harry was Theo’s first friend, that was pretty obvious. He would get upset if he thought that Harry was keeping secrets, or even just moving on and leaving him behind.

Harry couldn’t promise that he would never have to do that, but he would do his best to make it not happen.

“Thanks for taking care of Hedwig this summer,” he said.

Theo flashed his smile and walked back with him to Hogwarts, talking about their summers in a way that made Harry remember Theo was his first friend, too, and he was going to miss him like fire this summer.

Chapter Text

Theo stared at the letter in his hand and said nothing to Hedwig, who had landed on the windowsill and was staring at him irritably. She leaned over and pecked him when Theo just stood there and held the letter.

“Yes, I know,” Theo snapped at her. “I don’t know why Harry isn’t getting the letters I sent with you either!”

Hedwig gave a mournful hoot and flew over to the perch in the corner of Theo’s room where he kept water and treats for her. In the end, he hadn’t been able to exile her to the owlery. And it wasn’t like he wouldn’t have warning if his father decided to visit his room and he needed to tell Hedwig to make herself scarce. Father made his visits to Theo’s room ones of such intense ceremony that he would send word half an hour in advance, with a house-elf.

Theo stared at the letter again, and then his head snapped up as he realized something. Before this, Hedwig had always come back with empty claws and no reply from Harry. This time, she had brought the message back.

“Hedwig,” he said. “What if there’s something at Harry’s house that’s preventing him from getting his letters?”

Hedwig twisted her head upside-down, giving him a look of intense skepticism. She was the most expressive animal Theo had ever met.

“But it could be happening,” Theo insisted. “So what I want you to do is take the letter and just fly close enough to the window or the house or whatever that he can see you. Tempt him outside to get the letter.”

Hedwig stared at him, and Theo suffered a moment of doubt. Most owls weren’t that smart—

Hedwig gave a happy clatter of her wings and swooped over to gather up the letter again right away, even though Theo had thought she would be tired. Then she soared back out through the window, and Theo sat down and hoped that he would hear soon from his best friend.

That he still had a best friend. That Harry hadn’t spontaneously decided Theo wasn’t worth writing to.

*

Harry hadn’t been let out of his room except to use the loo since the stupid house-elf had ruined Uncle Vernon’s dinner with the Masons.

Harry didn’t know who had sent the elf, or what the “terrible danger and evil” he was talking about at Hogwarts was. Harry had tried to reassure the elf by pointing out that he hadn’t been involved in the quest for the Stone or fighting You-Know-Who at Hogwarts last year. But the elf had just wailed a lot and said that he’d stolen Harry’s post and then Disapparated.

Harry was glaring out the barred window when he saw Hedwig fly by.

He caught his breath and looked more closely. Maybe he was just imagining things because he wanted so badly to speak to someone—

But no, it really looked like her. Hedwig twisted and flew back towards him, and Harry couldn’t help extending his hand through the window. Hedwig fluttered up and held out a letter to show him on her leg.

But she didn’t hand it to him.

“Come on, Hedwig!”

She clacked her beak at him and continued hovering, which looked as though it was costing her a lot of effort. Harry wondered why in the world she didn’t just hand him the letter—

And then he thought he knew. Hedwig didn’t know that Dobby had been the one stealing his post, or that the house-elf had revealed himself now. That meant she didn’t know she could just hand the letter to him and nothing would happen (probably).

Which meant that she must want him to do something else.

Harry concentrated on the letter tied on her leg and felt as if his world was expanding and narrowing all at once. His head pounded, and dark red blood surged around the edges of his vision. He reached out and reached out and reached out—

The letter abruptly untied itself from Hedwig’s leg and slid towards him. Hedwig made a happy noise and flew away to land in a tree in the neighbor’s garden that was thick enough to hide a snowy owl, as long as she didn’t move around too much.

Harry, his hands shaking, ripped open the letter and couldn’t help smiling at the familiar sight of Theo’s handwriting.

Dear Harry,

I didn’t think that you’d given up on being my friend, but I wanted to be sure…

*

Hedwig flew back down to Theo’s window the next night with a triumphant clack of her beak, and a letter tied to her leg. Theo nearly broke the shutter getting the window open.

Harry’s letter explained about the house-elf situation and ended with the lines, As if I could give up on my first and best friend.

Theo spent a long time tracing the words with a finger, until Hedwig made a questioning sound. Flushing, Theo looked up at her, and realized that she was extending a leg as though she expected to be given another message right this minute.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Theo snapped. “You’ll rest first.”

Hedwig fluffed up her wings and glared at him.

“That doesn’t work on me. You’re my only means of communication with Harry. If you want to help your wizard, then you’ll eat and rest.” Theo gestured towards the tray on the table next to her perch that held a pair of arched-back, frozen mice. “One of the elves brought this up for you, and you’ll agree to eat them and some owl treats, then hunt for anything else you need.”

Hedwig turned her head upside-down as if trying to view the situation from Theo’s perspective. Then she flew over to the perch. The charms on the tray dissolved in the presence of an owl, and the mice began to run frantically in circles, still constrained by the shield over the tray. Hedwig lifted her talons and pounced.

Theo turned back to the letter, tracing the last words with his fingers again.

The holiday he was forcing Hedwig to take would be beneficial to her, but it would also give Theo some time to think of what to write back that would be worth this. He never wanted Harry to regret his decision to befriend Theo.

*

“Harry! Harry!”

Harry grinned and waved at Ron. He had just arrived on the platform at King’s Cross; threatening the Dursleys with the notion that “freaks” would come looking for Harry if he missed Hogwarts had finally made them let him out of his room. There had been a bit of trouble with the barrier, when it had apparently tried to firm up and bounce him off, but one of the adult witches behind him had cast a charm that had made it relax.

“Come on, mate, let’s get a compartment together.”

“Only if you don’t mind if Theo joins us.”

Ron’s lower lip stuck out enough for the crazy house-elf to jump on if he came back. “Do we have to? You know I don’t like Nott.”

“Right, but I didn’t get to see anyone this summer, and I don’t want to wander around the train looking for everyone I’d like to speak to.”

Ron sighed as though Harry was the most exhausting person in existence, but he nodded, and he and Harry went to find a compartment that would seat all four of them as well as some other people. They found one about halfway down the train, and Harry floated his trunk onto the luggage rack, relishing in being able to use magic again.

“Hi, Harry. Ron.”

Hermione’s voice was a little colder when she spoke to Ron, but Harry couldn’t really hold that against her. She had become friends with Ron after the troll incident when he’d apologized, but they’d fought again and again since.

“Hi, Hermione,” Ron said, not sounding as cold, and sprawled back on the seat across from Harry. “Go anywhere this summer?”

That was all it took for Hermione to start telling them about her holidays in France, and Harry leaned next to the window and looked out. He saw some more people darting towards the train, late and frantic, but he didn’t see Theo among them, or a white owl that looked like Hedwig. Harry frowned. Theo had sometimes spoken as though his father didn’t want to let him come back to Hogwarts last year. If he was trapped at home—

“Harry.”

Harry spun around, feeling as though his heart wanted to leap out of his chest, and smiled slowly when he saw Theo standing there, holding Hedwig’s cage along with his own trunk. Even the way that Hedwig promptly started fluttering her wings and hooting, trying to get to him, couldn’t hold Harry’s attention away from his best friend.

“Hi, Theo,” he managed to say, casually, because he had the feeling that Theo wouldn’t want Ron and Hermione to see a big scene.

“Nott.”

“Weasley. Granger.” Theo opened Hedwig’s cage, and she swooped across the compartment and landed on Harry’s shoulder, hooting and butting her head against his. Harry stroked her and closed his eyes as he leaned his cheek on the soft feathers. “Your owl was certainly excitable this summer, Harry.”

“Why did you have Hedwig, Nott?”

“Unlike some people, Harry’s Muggle relatives don’t much like owls.”

“That’s just a stereotype, Nott. I’ll have you know that my Muggle parents are very supportive—”

Theo nodded along with Hermione’s lecture, but he wasn’t paying attention, not if you really knew him. His eyes kept seeking and finding Harry, and Harry kept smiling back.

Ron and Hermione were great friends, and Hermione seemed to have forgiven Harry for tying her up last year so that she couldn’t go after the Stone. But Harry had to admit that he was always going to enjoy spending time with Theo most. Something in him relaxed around Theo in a way that it didn’t around anyone else.

From the way that Theo inclined his head before he lowered his eyes to the floor of the compartment, Harry knew he felt the same way.

*

“And that crazy house-elf didn’t listen when you said that you hadn’t been involved in anything that happened in the school last year?”

“No. He just seemed to think that no matter what happened, I was going to be involved somehow.”

Theo snorted and stretched out on his bed beside Harry. “Someone might have thought that last year, when they still believed that the Boy-Who-Lived was going to be a Gryffindor who walked around looking for Dark wizards to fight, but anyone who still thinks it doesn’t know you very well.”

“It’s kind of creepy how you only talk to each other and never us, you know?”

Theo rolled over to look at Stephen Cornfoot, one of those idiots who had asked Harry last year how many dragons he’d ridden. On the first bloody night they were both Sorted into Ravenclaw, no less.

Under his stare, Cornfoot flushed a dull red and turned away. Theo nodded.

“It is kind of creepy,” said Corner.

“The rest of you lot wanted to talk about my scar and what I’d done, as though I didn’t grow up with Muggles and I weren’t eleven years old,” Harry said, with a roll of his eyes that was vicious enough Theo thought Harry must have studied him when Theo wasn’t looking. “Or you only wanted to talk about Gobstones and Quidditch,” he added, with a glance at Goldstein.

“The rest of you never have anything interesting to say,” Goldstein said idly from behind his Quidditch magazine.

That got Corner and Cornfoot and even Boot, who was the quietest of their roommates besides Theo himself, to turn on Goldstein. Theo caught a quick wink from the other boy as he set aside his magazine to argue, and blinked a little.

It seemed that Goldstein was more interesting, and more aware of the undercurrents between people, than he’d thought.

Theo made a mental note to worry about him if he ever became relevant, and turned back to continue a discussion with Harry of advanced Charms that they’d begun on the train. More and more, he was happy that he, or the Hat, had chosen Ravenclaw instead of Slytherin.

*

“Just want to know, that’s all.”

“You don’t understand anything, Ron!”

Harry blinked as he stepped around the corner in the library where he’d been supposed to meet Ron and was nearly knocked down by a tiny red-haired girl clutching a black book in her arms. She ran away from him without appearing to notice him, tears streaming down her face.

With an effort, Harry recalled the girl he’d seen at King’s Cross with Mrs. Weasley last year. Yeah, this looked like her, and she would have been old enough to come to Hogwarts this year. Ron’s sister. Jenny, or something?

Ron came around the corner of the shelf then, and turned his usual dull red when he saw Harry standing there. “You heard that?”

“Just the ending of it,” Harry said honestly. “Is she okay? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I—she’s writing endlessly in this diary she found, and she says it’s magical, and I looked at it, and I don’t like it.” Ron frowned and shook his head. “It seems like it’s way more powerful than a book should be, at least if it didn’t come out of the Restricted Section or something. Ginny said she found it in her books from Flourish and Blotts and insisted they had to have given it to her as a free sample or something. I—don’t think that’s true.”

“Huh. And she gets upset when you try to take it away?”

“Yeah. I just asked to see it, and she got all defensive, even though she was telling me non-stop about it before that.”

“Hmm.”

“What are you thinking, Harry?”

“Mostly that it does sound like it’s pretty powerful and it’s interesting,” Harry said, honestly. And not honestly. A book that had a hold like that over someone might have put Ginny under a compulsion. But that wasn’t the kind of thing he was going to say to Ginny’s worried brother. “Where does she usually spend her time?”

“In Gryffindor Tower. She’s a Gryffindor.”

“I mean outside that.”

“I don’t know.”

Harry kept his opinion of siblings who didn’t know anything about their siblings’ lives to himself, and nodded. It wasn’t like he had a little sister. Maybe this was just what it was like. “Well, maybe Theo and I can find her and talk some sense into her. At least let us see the book. We’re not overprotective big brothers.”

“I’m not overprotective!”

At least in the argument that followed, Ron seemed to forget some of his worry about Ginny.

*

“A powerful magical book is interesting.”

All Theo had had to do was say that to Harry, and Harry thought he had agreed to investigate Ginny Weasley. But, well, it was more interesting than going over Charms theory for the fiftieth time. Theo enjoyed actually casting Charms, but he hated how slowly Filius went to accommodate the dunderheads in the class.

“Lovegood said she saw Weasley here.”

“Wait, who’s Lovegood?”

“That little blonde first-year with the butterbeer cork necklace?”

Theo frowned. He did remember Lovegood getting Sorted, if he really strained his memory. He was just astonished that Harry had bothered to remember her.

“Isn’t she the one who got locked out of the Tower the other day?”

“Yes. I let her in.”

“How did they manage to even lock her out? She should have just been able to answer a riddle and get back in.”

“I don’t know.”

Theo sighed. Harry’s voice was tense. That probably meant he was about to adopt Lovegood’s safety as a personal crusade. Theo would have to be the voice of sanity, as per usual.

But right now, they were tracking down Weasley, and they did spot a glimpse of red hair around a corner a second later. Theo put his arm out and barely managed to stop Harry from stepping into Weasley’s line of sight.

Weasley leaned over the table in front of her, writing feverishly in a small black book that very well might be a diary. Theo focused on it and let a few of the mental guards that he usually kept up relax.

A second later, he reeled back with a curse that he barely kept quiet enough to avoid attracting Weasley’s attention.

“Theo?”

“I can feel that thing,” Theo hissed. “It feels exactly like the—the objects that my father used to train me to enhance my senses and extend them beyond my body. My sense of magic, not my sight or hearing.”

“It’s a Dark object.”

Theo whipped around to face Harry, who just looked at him steadily.

“I know that your father was a Death Eater, and it makes sense that he would have trained you to sense those kinds of objects,” Harry said quietly. “He couldn’t have his son and heir wandering into a trap that he’d set for someone else or touching just any object he might have lying around the house.”

“Harry,” Theo began, his throat working.

“It doesn’t matter, Theo! Haven’t I said over and over again that I’m your best friend? That I don’t care if your father’s a Death Eater?”

Theo just stood there and said nothing. Because it was one thing for Harry to say that and send him Christmas gifts and defend him to Weasley, who was annoying, and another to just accept that Theo had been trained to sense Dark objects.

“How bad is it?” Harry asked, softly, coaxingly.

Theo chose to interpret that as a reference to the book and not anything else Harry might have meant. “It’s the Darkest thing that I’ve felt in a long, long time,” he whispered. “Maybe ever. It’s powerful. It absolutely could compel someone to write in it, I think. We’re going to have to be so, so careful if we take that away from Weasley, Harry. So careful.”

Harry just nodded as if that didn’t surprise him. “Okay. So we can’t just ask her to look at it.”

“No. She was probably enjoying telling her brother about something that was unique and just hers, but the magic of the book would compel her to protect it, too, and not let it out of her sight. Unless it did something to badly frighten her, I suppose. It hasn’t yet.”

“Is it safe for us to touch it with bare skin?”

“You managed to pick up the one useful part of that idiot Lockhart’s book.”

Harry gave him a fleeting smile. “I don’t think he could have invented something like iron and lead and dragonhide neutralizing Dark objects. Well? Is it?”

“I don’t think that it just traps someone the minute they touch it. I think it’s more subtle than that. But Harry, I don’t know for sure. Not really, completely for sure.”

“Then we go find a container, or make one, and come and get it when we’re completely sure.”

“Why don’t we just go tell a professor?”

Theo would never have suggested that if they were in Slytherin, but it was a reasonable conclusion for a Ravenclaw to come to. After all, a lot of their Housemates were huge rules-followers and would always run to a professor the moment there was a conflict.

“You know what they said about you last year.”

Theo felt a moment’s confusion before he remembered what Professor McGonagall had said to Harry about Theo’s father. He blinked. “You think that—that they would just assume we were making it up? Or that the object wasn’t Dark?”

“Or that we were trying to get a blameless Gryffindor in trouble. Yeah. And if we didn’t tell them that we took it away from Weasley, it would go even worse.”

Theo nodded. McGonagall and perhaps some of the others would think it was something Theo had brought from home. “I agree. We take it and then we—destroy it? Try to destroy it? Bury it somewhere?”

“Bury it somewhere, if we can’t destroy it. We shouldn’t open it or read it or write in it the way Weasley’s doing.”

Theo peered back between the shelves, and shuddered a little at the way Weasley’s quill moved. She looked like she was entranced, her lips parted and her cheeks so red that she might have been running a fever.

“We’ll do that.”

Chapter Text

“Mr. Potter.” Snape sounded as though someone had poured Bubotuber pus down his throat. “Why did you put powdered moonstone into your cauldron instead of the whole moonstone that the recipe calls for?”

Harry looked up. He could feel the tension of his Housemates behind him, waiting for lost points. It would happen no matter what Harry said, an apology or a protest or anything.

Given that, Harry thought suddenly, he might as well say what he really thought and felt.

“The recipe in the book calls for powdered moonstone, sir,” he said quietly. “You put whole moonstones on the board, but I think you forgot to copy out the word powdered.”

It sounded like everyone else in the room had swallowed all the air. Snape stared at him. Harry lowered his eyes a little, but only because he sometimes got an odd piercing sensation when he met Snape’s gaze, and not because he was afraid or wanted to miss what was going to happen next.

“Detention, Mr. Potter,” Snape whispered.

“For what? Telling the truth?”

“Detention. Every night this week.”

“Is the recipe in the book wrong?”

Snape turned and swept away from Harry’s table. Harry sneaked a quick look at the board, and then back at his Potions book. Yes. He hadn’t made a mistake. The recipe in the book did say powdered moonstone.

He looked back up at the board, in time to see Snape’s wand retracting into his sleeve. The notes on the board now had the word “powdered” where the word “whole” had been.

Harry felt his face crease in a small, hard smile.

*

“I just can’t believe that the Potions master of Hogwarts would have made a mistake like that.”

“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he did it so that he could catch someone out. It doesn’t have to have been me. You know that he dislikes a lot of people in our class because we have the gall to be Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws instead of Slytherins.”

Theo closed his eyes and let his head sag back against the couch behind him. They’d been brewing a variant of the Calming Draught, not a volatile potion. If it exploded, the worst it would do was make someone feel sleepy if it landed on them, or maybe blister their skin a bit.

But the thought that Snape might have put the wrong ingredients on the board deliberately to catch someone out…

He might do it with a volatile potion. He hates Harry that much.

Theo swallowed. He hadn’t respected Professor Snape, exactly, not after his stupid attacks on Harry last year. But he had thought that the man was competent enough and cared enough about safety in his classroom not to put the wrong instructions on the board.

Shit. I’m not safe in Potions. I’ll never feel safe again.

“Theo.”

Theo turned towards Harry. He didn’t feel safe, but he desperately wanted to. And from the way Harry was looking at him, holding his eyes steadily, he was about to suggest something they could do.

“I don’t know if Professor Flitwick would act on my word alone,” Harry continued. “You know that Snape’s got away with favoring the Slytherins and taking random points from Gryffindor years. But he might act on yours. And you have a concerned parent.”

Theo suddenly couldn’t breathe. “I—you think I should bring Father into this?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“He—he wouldn’t like it that I came whinging to him instead of being able to stand up to Snape on my own. And.” Theo swallowed. “Harry, there are rumors that Professor Snape was a Death Eater. They might know each other. Father might be reluctant to act against an old comrade for me.”

“Would he?”

“Harry, you don’t know him.”

“Yeah, I realize that. But this is his heir we’re talking about, Theo. You’ve told me over and over again how important children are to purebloods. And that your father won’t have more of them because he swore not to marry again after your mother died.”

It was one of the memories most seared into Theo’s mind, kneeling in front of Mother’s portrait with Father while Father swore that his hand would fall off and he would sacrifice his magic before touching another woman with the intention of making a child. But he hadn’t thought he’d conveyed anything of that seriousness when he hinted at the truth to Harry.

Harry was standing with his hands on his hips now, and he looked as if he would storm Nott Manor himself and drag Father out of it if he had to.

“Harry…”

“Do you think he’s more inclined to stick up for an old ‘friend’ than his son? Because if so, then we’ll go straight to Professor Flitwick and make as much of a fuss as possible.”

Theo shook his head slowly. He didn’t really think that, he had to admit to himself. He had just never assumed that the matter would come up, because he hadn’t expected to encounter anything at the school worth owling Father over.

At least, past the ordinary owls Father demands with reports on my marks and the like.

“Think about it,” Harry went on. “If they were Death Eaters together, but Snape got released and is trusted to teach at Hogwarts, around children, probably most people don’t know everything he did.”

“So?”

“So maybe your dad has blackmail on him.”

After a long moment, Theo began to smile. Harry smiled back at him and leaned forwards so that he could cover Theo’s hand with his.

“I promise that you’ll be safe,” Harry whispered. “I don’t think it’s right or fair that anyone should be endangered in Potions, but especially not you, and not because of Snape’s stupid grudge against me. We’ll make this right, Theo. I promise.”

Theo’s hand closed, crushingly tight, on Harry’s. Harry only leaned a little closer.

Theo didn’t know what he had done right in some past life—because it couldn’t have been anything in this one—to be blessed with Harry Potter as a friend, but he would do anything he could not to fuck that blessing up.

*

Professor Flitwick listened to them describe what Snape had done with a little frown on his face. Harry was waiting for this not to be enough. After all, it couldn’t have been if Snape had got away with taking unfair numbers of points from other Ravenclaw students, which he had.

Sure enough, when they reached the end of the description of what had happened, Professor Flitwick sighed and sat down on the high, cushioned chair behind his desk. “You say that you were brewing a Calming Draught?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In other words, not a dangerous potion to have explode.”

“So it doesn’t matter, then?” Harry asked. “You would only be concerned if someone got injured or died, sir? But I thought prevention was important.”

Theo coughed beside Harry, probably holding back laughter. That was something Professor Flitwick had told them himself, when describing graphically how some Charms could go wrong and how they should try to prevent accidents as much as possible, instead of doing risky things because the charm seemed safe.

Professor Flitwick beamed, which wasn’t something Harry had expected. “So you do remember those lessons! You do Ravenclaw proud, Mr. Potter.”

“Thank you, sir. And the class?”

“I do wonder,” Flitwick said with a tilt of his head, “if it was a test. If he wanted to see who would notice the difference between the recipe on the board and the recipe in the book, and who would be quick enough to say that they didn’t match.”

“If that was the case, sir,” Theo said, taking up the argument, “then he would have had to reward Harry with points for following the recipe in the book. Not give him detention for every night of the week.”

Flitwick looked startled. “Professor Snape did that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Theo could radiate innocence when he wanted to. Harry didn’t know how he’d learned to do that, but it did come in handy.

“I shall speak with Severus.” Flitwick now looked massively uncomfortable. “But you ought to know that it might come to nothing, Mr. Potter. Professor Snape is…passionate in his hatreds, and sometimes unreasonable.”

“Why does he hate me so much, sir? I’ve never known.”

“It’s not my story to tell.” Flitwick looked far too relieved to have an excuse to say that, Harry thought a little viciously. “But I shall speak with him, yes. Passing a test correctly is no reason to give you detention.”

Harry inclined his head. They would see if anything changed. From the glimpse he got of Theo’s face, his friend didn’t think it would.

*

“Detention for every night this week, Potter.”

“Why, sir? What did I do?”

“You leaned towards the cauldron and belched as if you were inhaling, Mr. Potter. Don’t you know that you could have breathed in dangerous fumes? I am merely looking out for your safety, as your Head of House asked me to do.”

Theo’s hand tightened on the edge of the table. It was going to be easier than he had thought it ever would be to ask his father to intervene.

*

“Harry? Are you all right?”

Harry started and turned around. Theo had let Harry accompany him to the owlery stairs with the letter that he was going to send to his father, but he had insisted on going up alone. He had said that he wouldn’t send it if Harry were with him, which didn’t really make sense, but Harry was willing to respect his friend’s wishes.

“Er, yes,” Harry said, when he saw Ron’s sister standing behind him. Ginny, yes, Ginny. She had the little black book that practically flooded the air with Dark magic under her arm. Theo had been teaching Harry what to look for, and Harry had a hard time keeping his eyes away from it. “You—you know who I am?”

“Everyone knows who Harry Potter is!”

“Right,” Harry said, a little disappointed. He had thought that somebody from Ron’s family would be more sensible. But Ron had said something about Ginny having a crush on him, now that Harry thought about it. She was blushing furiously and avoiding his eyes. “I’m fine. Are you fine?”

“You’re talking to me.”

Ginny actually swayed on her feet as if she was going to faint. Harry started to reach towards her, concerned, but she uttered a squeak and took off around the corner before Harry could touch her. Now that he thought about it, she might have thought he was trying to take her book away.

They needed to get a container ready for that damn book as soon as possible. Ginny looked more pale and feverish every time Harry saw her.

“Are you all right, Harry?”

It was so like the question Ginny had asked that Harry almost turned towards the owlery stairs with his wand drawn, but of course it was only Theo waiting for him with one eyebrow arched. Harry nodded firmly. “Yeah, but I think that diary or whatever it is is eating more and more of Ginny Weasley. We need to act quickly to take it away from her.”

“All right. I did ask my father for a lead-lined casket as an excuse for sending the letter.”

“An excuse?”

“He would think less of me if I had only one motivation.”

Harry snorted and fell into step beside Theo as they headed back to the Tower. “Of course. He’s a Slytherin to the bone. You told me.”

Theo nodded but said nothing else. He was a little pale himself, his eyes unfocused and searching. Harry nudged him hard with an elbow, and Theo started and looked at him.

“What?”

“Thanks for doing this. Really, Theo, thanks.”

“It’s for you as much as for me.”

“And I can be grateful to you all the same.”

Theo’s smile, when it came, was slow and difficult, but it warmed Harry like sunshine after a storm.

*

Theo cocked his head a little when his father’s black eagle-owl, Nigel, swooped through the windows of the Great Hall with the morning post. He hadn’t really thought he would get a response so soon. With a sigh, he prepared himself to deal with Nigel’s temper, which was always terrible. Nigel really didn’t like anyone except Father.

But to his shock, Nigel flew straight past the Ravenclaw table without turning towards Theo. He was aiming at Snape, Theo saw a second later.

He—Father just did it? Without a discussion?

Theo leaned back against his chair a little as he thought about that. Harry’s hand touched his shoulder, and then Harry leaned back himself and picked up some bread and butter. There was a faint smile on his face.

Theo looked back at Snape in time to see him staring at the owl as it landed on the table. There was such a deep wrinkle on his forehead that Theo knew he must recognize the bird, but he must not have known why it was here.

I’m privileged to be here to watch this.

Snape undid the letter from Nigel’s foot, and unfolded it while picking up his teacup with the other hand. Then he went still, only the tightness of his fingers around the letter and the cup indicating his mood.

When he put down the parchment, his gaze fastened on the Ravenclaw table, and his eyes were terrible.

Harry was looking back in such a way that Theo had to suppress a chuckle. He had a feeling that Harry might have been a good fit for Gryffindor if he hadn’t valued learning slightly more.

Snape stood from the table and left in a snap of robes. At least he had the sense or the caution not to approach Harry and Theo in the middle of the Great Hall. Theo had to swallow some disappointment, though.

“Do you think he’ll stop?” Harry breathed.

“I think he’ll make an effort to show that he’s independent and doesn’t obey my father,” Theo said. “But Father’s hand isn’t light. If Snape doesn’t do what he’s told…” He shrugged and picked up his teacup.

“Yeah. We’ll see.”

*

For the first time since the first day of classes, Harry was sort of looking forward to Potions.

Snape gave him a narrow-eyed look when he stepped into the classroom, and then turned his head away and ignored him. Harry set up his cauldron with a light heart. If Snape just ignored him, that would be fine. That would be great.

As long as he kept from endangering Theo, too.

Harry watched from under his eyelashes as Snape cracked his wand at the board and the recipe appeared. He checked the book and nodded when he saw the words were the exact same as the ones on the board.

Theo got a hostile look when he started chopping ingredients beside Harry’s workstation, but Snape didn’t say a word to him.

Harry smiled. The way Snape treated them still wasn’t kind, but as long as it wasn’t actively dangerous and he wasn’t going to actually insult them, then Harry would let things play out.

And we did it ourselves, when Flitwick refused to help us and Snape refused to stop.

We’ll protect ourselves.

*

Theo had to admit that they’d delayed without much of a reason, except that Ginny Weasley was sometimes hard to find and neither of them had classes with her. Well, and they’d been handling the Snape situation and he’d been teaching Harry how to feel Dark objects, as well as the usual homework and classes and spending time with Granger and Weasley.

But they’d delayed too long, and now they stood staring at the wall where a cat hung paralyzed and large letters proclaimed the return of the Heir of Slytherin. And Malfoy, of course, proclaimed the death of all Muggleborns like an idiot.

Harry was tense with anger next to Theo. Theo was the one who put a hand on his shoulder this time, the way Harry had when Nigel carried the letter to Snape. Harry took a deep breath and nodded.

“It was you!”

Harry blinked and turned. Theo turned at the same time. A Gryffindor he didn’t know was pointing at Malfoy, who puffed up and started talking about how he didn’t know who the Heir of Slytherin was, but he would help them if he did.

Harry’s eyes met Theo’s. Theo nodded slightly.

They knew who the so-called Heir of Slytherin was. They were going to stop her.

*

“Hi, Ginny.”

Ginny immediately flushed and dropped her quill. She’d been scribbling in the little black diary as though it was an essay due for Snape in the next hour, but now she stared up at Harry with big, hero-worshipping eyes.

Harry held back a flinch. Since the first night in Ravenclaw, the hero-worship in his House had really died down, maybe because they had seen that he was just a normal child who didn’t know very much about the magical world. But Ginny looked as if he was all her heroic fantasies come to life.

This is to save her, Harry reminded himself. And far worse things will happen if those Petrifications go on and someone doesn’t intervene. He mustered a smile and sat down in the chair across from her. “Are you doing all right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Ron keeps telling me that you’re fighting with him. And the twins said something about you looking a bit peaky. Is it the Heir of Slytherin? I mean, that scares me, too.” Although talking to the Weasley twins about their little sister and having to make it clear that he had no threatening intentions towards her personally scared Harry more.

Ginny bit her lip. “Some of is it just them being overprotective older brothers,” she said, staring down at the diary. “But I was sick for a week or two a month ago.”

Harry nodded. “I always hate being sick.”

“Me, too!”

From the way she was beaming at him, she had just discovered that they were future husband and wife. Harry didn’t grimace, but it was close. He nodded again to Ginny and said, “Were you allergic to something? I thought I was allergic to some of the food when I first came here, but then I learned I just had to eat smaller portions.”

Ginny giggled with her hand over her mouth. Then she leaned closer and confessed in a whisper, “Ron can never do that.”

“I’m kind of glad that we don’t eat at the same House table.”

“I sit all the way down it so I can avoid him sometimes!”

“Who are your friends, Ginny? I don’t know many of the first-years, and I’m kind of sad about that. I do know one first-year named Luna Lovegood who’s in Ravenclaw with me. She has some interesting ideas.”

“Oh, yeah, we grew up together.”

“So you and Luna are friends?”

“I suppose, but we haven’t really spent time together since we got to Hogwarts. It’s hard when you’re Sorted into different Houses. I would say that my best friend right now is—Tom. Tom Riddle. That’s his name.”

Harry had watched Ginny carefully over the past few days, and he was pretty sure that he hadn’t noticed any of the Gryffindor first-year boys sitting with her. He made his voice light and casual. “I don’t think I know him. He’s not in Ravenclaw. Is he in Gryffindor?”

“No. No.” Ginny edged her chair a little nearer to the table. “Can you keep a secret, Harry?”

“Ravenclaws are great at keeping secrets.”

And so was Harry. He had kept the secret of how his relatives treated him for years until he came to Hogwarts and met Theo. Now he sometimes wondered why he had been so desperate to do that when the Muggles on their street and his primary school teachers already despised him, but Theo would probably say that there was no accounting for taste.

“Okay. Well.” Ginny took a deep breath. “Tom is—my friend. But he’s not human.”

“Oh, wow. Is he a goblin?”

“No!”

“A house-elf?”

“No!” Ginny was giggling now, and Harry felt a little bit of happiness to see that at least she could act more like a normal girl when she wasn’t writing in the diary. “He’s—he’s actually part of an enchanted object. He’s in here.” She reached out and dragged the diary closer to them.

Harry sometimes regretted that Theo had taught him how to sense Dark objects. Right now, it felt like he was being introduced to a pile of rotting flesh. He kept his face grave as he nodded. “Is he the person who wrote the book? I know sometimes I like books so much that the authors feel like my best friends.”

That was a lie, but bringing up Theo would be counterproductive at this point.

“No, not the author.” Ginny lowered her eyes, and for a moment, Harry wondered if the compulsion that the diary must be projecting at her to keep the secret would win. But maybe it had lost to Ginny’s crush on him, because Ginny abruptly pushed the book further towards him and held out her quill. “Here. You can write to him, and he’ll answer. It’s the most brilliant thing!”

Harry took a deep breath. He had promised Theo that he wouldn’t write in the diary, or read it, or even touch it with his bare skin if he didn’t have to. But he also knew that he couldn’t just snatch it and run. He didn’t have that much of Ginny’s trust yet, and she would make a fuss about the loss of her diary.

And probably get it back, too, because if any of the professors in the school were competent beyond their own immediate subject areas, Harry hadn’t seen it yet. They would probably just nod and hand the book back to Ginny without even feeling how Dark it was.

Harry picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink, and looked down at the page Ginny had been writing on. Or he thought she’d been writing on. It was blank now. “What am I supposed to say?” he asked, a little helplessly.

“Anything you like! Tom has been trapped in the book for decades. Maybe centuries. He’s really bored, and he’ll like anything you say! But maybe you could introduce yourself first? I told him about you.”

Harry stared at her. “What?”

“I mean—I just—he didn’t know who you were, of course, because he’s been trapped in the book for so long, but he’s interested in famous wizards and witches. He said something once about wishing he could have known the Founders. And you’re the most famous person I know!”

Harry just nodded and then lowered the quill and wrote in the book, Hello. I’m Harry Potter.

The ink lingered there for a moment, and Harry actually had time to wonder if he and Ginny and Theo had somehow all been mistaken, before the glittering black letters sank out of sight and a neat, looping hand replied, Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle.

*

“Give it here, Harry, quickly.”

Theo hadn’t watched the whole interaction Harry and Weasley had had in the library, which meant that he hadn’t been there when Harry had made the monumentally stupid choice of writing in the book. But Harry had talked to Weasley enough to get the book away, which was all that mattered.

Now Theo held out the lead-lined casket that his father had sent him and rattled it a little impatiently. Harry moved slowly as he took the diary out of his robe pocket and lowered it towards the casket.

“Theo, it’s—there’s someone trapped in it—do we have the right to imprison him more than he’s already been imprisoned—”

“Harry. Listen to me.”

Harry blinked and looked up at him. His eyes were wide and desperate, and Theo leaned forwards and pressed down on his wrist. Harry drew a shuddering breath and blinked for a moment.

“I need you to put the book in the casket,” Theo said, as gently as he could. He ignored the way that Dark ripples now seemed to travel through the air from the direction of Harry’s hands. He had worried about this, but the point was that he could spare Harry from some of the effects.

And if he had privately hoped to see a test of Harry’s trust in him that Harry would pass…

He would think that only to himself.

“Why?”

“We discussed this, Harry.”

“But it’s different, now that I’ve talked to Tom. That’s his name, Tom Riddle.”

It wasn’t a name that Theo recognized, but it was one that he promised himself to remember. And he stood there, gazing at Harry, until Harry uttered a loud, shuddering breath and leaned over to deposit the book in the casket.

Theo kept to himself the sensation of being an eagle soaring upwards, and only nodded gravely. “Thank you, Harry.”

“Theo?”

Yes, Harry’s voice was different now. Theo swung the lid of the casket shut, and Harry staggered backwards, finally sitting down hard on the couch near the fire that Corner usually occupied. But none of their roommates were here right now, meaning they were as private as they could reasonably get.

“Theo,” Harry whispered, and plastered his shaking hands over his face.

Theo slid the casket beneath his bed. It was locked with a drop of his blood, and it would take another drop of it, willingly shed, to make the bloody thing open. He wasn’t worried about one of their roommates getting into it. He draped his arm around Harry’s shoulders and held him as Harry shuddered and shook against him.

“I don’t—I wasn’t—”

“Was it a feeling like spiderwebs stretched across your mind?”

“Yes! Wait, how did you know?”

Theo smiled, and he knew it wasn’t his best smile, and he also knew, from the earnest way that Harry kept gazing at him, that his best friend wouldn’t care. “How do you think my father trained me to recognize them?” he asked softly. “I was exposed to an awful lot of them, over the years.”

Harry’s hands clamped down on Theo’s hands for a long moment, hard. Theo kept watching him, and Harry finally leaned back and nodded and shut his eyes.

“I know your dad helped us with Snape, and I’m grateful to him for that,” he whispered. “But I also really hate him for what he did to you.”

Theo swallowed, not knowing what to say. In the end, he shifted closer to Harry, who shifted closer in response. And they sat like that until they heard the footsteps on the stairs that signaled their roommates coming back.

Chapter Text

“Staying here for the holidays again, Harry?”

Harry smiled at Ron. “My family and I continue to think it’s better when we spend the holidays apart,” he said. “And I’ve only got to experience a real Hogwarts Christmas once, you know.”

Ron sighed. “I really did want to stay. Mum and Dad were talking about going on a holiday just by themselves this year. But Mum got worried about Filch’s cat being Petrified, and—well, Ginny’s had health problems.”

Harry nodded as though he hadn’t already heard and known all about those. Ginny had had to go into the hospital wing after Harry stole Tom away from her. No one there had really known what she was talking about, luckily; she had raved about Harry, but apparently she did that often, and since she wasn’t lucid, they didn’t take her seriously.

And after she came back to her senses and out of the hospital wing, she’d avoided Harry entirely. Harry was relieved. He had thought she might want to try and steal Tom back, but either she was embarrassed about ai all or didn’t know how to approach him.

Either was fine, as far as Harry was concerned.

Even if fear of future Petrifications had continued and made the professors and prefects patrol the school so harshly that Theo and Harry hadn’t been able to sneak out to the Forest and bury the diary. So they’d have to do something else with it.

“Well,” Ron said. “Think of me when you’re eating at a huge table with just a few other Ravenclaws and know that I’m at the Burrow fighting with everyone for the last slice of cake.”

Harry laughed and waved farewell to Ron while he turned and hurried back to Ravenclaw Tower. He’d told Ron the truth. He wasn’t going back to the Dursleys, and he had only got to experience a Hogwarts Christmas once.

But he wasn’t staying at Hogwarts this year. He was going to Theo’s house.

Nigel, the enormous owl that Harry thought was almost as beautiful as Hedwig, had delivered a letter to Theo last week, and had included the invitation for Harry. Theo had stared at Harry the whole time as Harry thought about it, apparently thinking Harry would run screaming from him.

I wonder how long it will take him to realize that I won’t run screaming from him, ever. No matter how much I hate his dad.

Apparently, Eustace Nott wanted to meet his son’s only friend. Or first friend. Harry wasn’t sure if Theo had told his dad about Hermione or not.

“Harry! There you are. May I speak with you a moment?”

Harry turned around and sighed. Professor Dumbledore stood behind him. Harry wondered what set of terribly stupid things the professor would think he should do now. “Sorry, sir, but the train leaves in just half an hour.”

“Oh. You are going with it?”

“Yes, sir. How else would I get to London?”

Dumbledore relaxed and smiled for some reason. “I was going to speak to you about your holiday arrangements, given that I know you refused Mr. Weasley’s invitation, but if you are going back to your relatives, of course I shall not interfere in your seeing your family.”

Harry smiled back. “Well, last year we thought it was better to spend it apart, you know. But anyone can change their minds.”

There. Harry had heard some of the older Ravenclaws discussing how Dumbledore always seemed to know when he was being lied to, but technically Harry hadn’t lied. Harry thought speaking the truth and slipping it past people’s noses was a very useful habit.

He planned to continue it. If nothing else, it exercised his mind the way the Arithmancy equations he and Theo were starting to study did.

“Indeed, indeed.” Dumbledore was nodding. “I am pleased that you understand the value of family, Harry. I hope you are never prepared to abandon them.”

“Well, I mean, I’ll move out when I’m of age, sir, of course.”

Dumbledore winked back at him. “You have five years until then, my boy. Do enjoy your childhood.” And he turned and strode back towards the Great Hall, humming under his breath and conducting an invisible orchestra with one hand.

Harry snorted and ran up the last few stairs to the Tower. Theo was standing up from his bed, where he would have slipped the bloody casket into a pack that was lined with Acromantula silk. He relaxed when he saw Harry.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.” Harry went to gather up his trunk. He had already told Hedwig to fly to Nott Manor.

Theo shot him little looks as they went down to the carriage, and rode it to the train. They didn’t stop until the train was already halfway back to London and Mr. Nott.

Harry sighed a little to himself. I wonder how long he’ll need to realize I’m not abandoning him, no matter who his dad is.

Well, it didn’t really matter. Harry would take as long as Theo needed. That was what friends were for.

*

“Welcome to my home, Mr. Potter.”

Theo held his breath. He had wondered how this first interaction between Harry and Father would go. And even though he had wanted Harry to come visit the Manor with him for the holidays, he had also wondered constantly if he was making the right choice.

It seemed he was. Harry smiled at Father with no sign that it was unusual for someone to stand at the bottom of the grand staircase in Nott Manor staring at him. Then again, maybe he really thought it wasn’t, given the stares that he’d dealt with from their fellow students. “Hello, Mr. Nott. Thank you for inviting me.”

Father nodded and came down another few steps. He wore heavy black robes that swirled constantly around him as he walked, and made his pale face and grey eyes stand out all the more. He held out a hand. Theo swallowed when he saw the heavy gold ring with the black stone on it. Father only wore that ring when he was welcoming guests he thought had serious potential power, magical or political. “You will come to no harm in this house, Harry Potter.”

Theo gasped as he felt the wards spring to life around them, hissing like a dozen snakes.

Father also wears that ring when he wants to make sure that the wards and Dark Arts objects know not to harm someone.

Of course he did. It was just that it had been so long since they’d had a guest like that, Theo had forgotten.

Harry gave a kind of bemused smile, but reached out to shake Father’s hand. “Thanks, Mr. Nott. I never assumed I would.”

Father completed the handshake and then folded his hands away. As much as Theo was used to the way Father looked, having grown up with him, he could see where some of the rumors of his being a vampire came from. He looked like it, with ghostly pale skin and hair that was dark but lank. “Because Theo is your friend?”

Harry’s lips curved, but it wasn’t really a smile. For an instant, Theo was looking at the version of his best friend who had suggested they use Father to blackmail Snape. “And because I think you’re smarter than to assume you would get away forever with the Boy-Who-Lived disappearing from your house, sir. I might not have told people where I was going, but they know Theo is my best friend.”

Father gave a soft laugh. “Indeed.” He turned to Theo and bowed his head to him, arms clenching a little in his sleeve. “Theodore. Welcome home. You said that you had the Dark object you wanted me to destroy?”

Theo nodded. He knew Father wouldn’t embrace him in front of Harry, and that was all right, what he had expected. “Yes, Father. It’s a book, and supposedly a boy is trapped inside it. He calls himself Tom Riddle—”

Father uttered a long, low hiss.

The wards of the manor closed in around them, whirling nets of darkness into the air. Theo saw Harry backing up, alarmed, and he stepped up beside Harry and grabbed his arm. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “Father is just—reacting to a threat.”

At least, that was the only way Theo knew how to say it. He had rarely even seen Father lose his temper. To know that he felt this way about a book…

What is that thing?

Or maybe it was the name that Father recognized, Theo thought. It seemed improbable that he would have encountered this specific object before, but he could have recognized the name of the person trapped inside it.

The person who made it?

Theo grimaced. He hadn’t interacted with the diary, just researched ways to destroy it, and in the end, he had decided that bringing it to Father was the best idea. Father would know how to obliterate it. Still, Theo shouldn’t have needed to interact with it to see that it was a stupid idea for someone to be just trapped there. Much more likely that this boy had made the diary and left an impression of himself behind.

For what reason?

“A trap,” Theo whispered.

“Yes.” Father opened his eyes, and Theo was startled by the way he looked. Before, he would have said Father was frightened, but right now, he looked on the edge of triumphant. “He always intended to trap people, did Tom.”

“You know him?” Harry asked in curiosity.

“Yes, Mr. Potter.” Father turned to Theo, his eyes still kindled with that odd emotion. If he was frightened of Riddle, Theo thought, it didn’t make sense. But the wards shouldn’t have reacted like that to anything but fear or anger. “I will take the book now, Theo.”

Theo gazed at his father for a long moment, debating demanding answers or asking to keep the book.

But he didn’t actually want the thing, and demanding answers in front of a guest wouldn’t go over well. It was rude, even if Harry wanted to know, too. Theo nodded and took the lead-lined casket from his trunk and then the pack it was in. “Yes, Father.”

Father took the casket and caressed the top of it for a long moment. Then he inclined his head and smiled. “Where are my manners? You are more than welcome in my house, Mr. Potter, for having been part of the effort to deliver this object to me. The house-elves will show you to your room, which is next to Theo’s. I have to speak with my son in private.”

Harry shot Theo a glance. Theo just nodded. Of course he would tell Harry all about it later, unless his father made him swear an oath not to.

Harry smiled. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

*

Harry gaped a little as he stepped into the large room that the house-elves had led him to. It was all done in shades of grey and green and blue and silver, with a huge window that was open and looked out on an enchanted seascape. Harry knew the view wasn’t real, of course, but it felt real, down to the spell that made a salt-scented breeze blow through the panes.

“Master Harry is liking it?”

Harry nodded and turned to the elf in front of him, who he hadn’t been introduced to. “I really do!” The bed was even bigger than the one at Hogwarts, and the sheets soft and thick and some indeterminate color between blue and grey. “Is that door over there the bathroom?”

The elf started to answer, but was interrupted by a loud pop. Harry spun around and then jumped harder than he had from just the sound. The new elf behind him was the crazy one who had stolen his post at the Dursleys’ during the summer.

“What is Master Harry Potter doing here?” Dobby said, in a wail that was pretending to be a whisper. “Master Harry Potter is nearer than ever to the dangerous thing! Master Harry Potter is saying that he did not get involved last year and he is not knowing about dangerous things and not wanting to be part of them!” The elf pointed an accusing finger at Harry. “Master Harry Potter was lying!”

“I was not! I stayed out of these things. And if you’re talking about that Dark book, I only touched it to make sure that I could take it away from the person it was hurting.”

“He touched it! He be touching it!” Dobby hopped up and down and wrung his ears.

“I know that I’m not cursed from just touching it,” Harry snapped. “Theo would have told me about that if it had happened.”

“Master Harry Potter is speaking of Theo Nott.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Seriously? Elves have prejudices against him too?”

“You are—Master Harry Potter cannot be knowing that Mr. Theo Nott’s father was one of his.”

“I know, and he swore that I wouldn’t come to harm in his house.” Harry folded his arms. “If you’re trying to guard me from this book or whatever, you’re not doing a great job. You didn’t tell me anything about it, and just said there was some kind of plot at Hogwarts, and I should stay away. Well, I ran into it anyway.”

“Dobby cannot be saying more,” the elf whispered miserably. “He is already disobeying his masters as it is. But if Master Harry Potter is in the presence of the book, then all is lost.” And he disappeared before Harry could demand that Dobby tell him what that meant.

“Dobby is being a bad elf,” said the Nott elf disapprovingly.

Harry shook his head and turned to face the other sane person in the room. “You know him?”

“Yes, Dobby is being one of the Malfoys’ elves. He is always coming on errands and messing them up.”

Harry blinked. He could well believe that the Malfoys would have a Dark Arts object like the book and be trying to use it on other people, but that didn’t explain how it had ended up at Hogwarts or in Ginny Weasley’s hands. He had heard the rumors that Malfoy’s dad was a Death Eater, though, and Mr. Nott had seemed to recognize the diary.

“Um, elf—what’s your name?”

“My name is being Heidi, sir.”

Harry nodded. “Do you know who Tom Riddle is, Heidi? We found something that belongs to him, but I’ve never heard of him.”

Heidi stared at Harry with such wide eyes that Harry felt sort of bad for having asked. But he’d had to ask, he thought. This way, at least he would know something about it when he got to talk with Theo.

“Mr. Tom Riddle is being one of Master Eustace’s dear friends,” Heidi whispered at last. “He came over to Nott Manor all the time when he was young. When Master Eustace was young. It was so very long ago.” She went into a staring trance at the wall, and Harry wanted as patiently as he could. Then she shook her head. “Mr. Riddle was so very—brilliant. Powerful. But not kind.”

“Was he a Death Eater?”

“No, he is not being so.”

Harry blinked. He would have assumed that any powerful Dark wizard around that time was drawn into Voldemort’s service. But he shrugged and asked after a moment, “And does he visit Mr. Nott now?”

“No. I is not seeing him since he went away. Many, many years.” Heidi sighed, and then turned and pointed to the bathroom. “Master Harry is asking if the bathroom is here. Yes, it is. It is being fully stocked, but ask for other things, and we are bringing them.”

And with that, Harry had to be content for the moment.

*

“What did your dad say?”

They were lounging in front of the little fire in Theo’s sitting room. Harry’s guest suite didn’t have a sitting room in it, but he didn’t act as if he resented that, just rolling over on his side and looking at Theo with bright, curious eyes.

Theo smiled back, but he knew it was tense. And he saw Harry notice, but he just raised his eyebrows and waited.

Theo stared into the crackling flames and sighed. Father hadn’t made him swear an oath not to discuss the diary or Tom Riddle, but he had warned Theo with unusual honesty how risky it could be for him to do that. Theo would just have to accept the risks, because not telling Harry might mean losing his trust.

“Tom Riddle is—is the Dark Lord’s true name,” he whispered at last.

“What?”

Theo nodded and turned back towards Harry. At least he looked suitably shocked. “Yeah. I didn’t know that my father ever knew him under a true name. I thought he’d come to serve after the Dark Lord began to rise to power. But he told me today that they were school friends, and Father knew him before he changed his name and left to study Dark Arts on the Continent.”

“That’s what the elf meant!”

“What elf?”

“Heidi, the elf your dad assigned to me. I mentioned Tom Riddle, and she reacted to the name, and I asked who he was. She told me that he was your dad’s friend and visited here. But I asked if he was a Death Eater, and she said no. She just said that he’d left a long time ago to go traveling.”

Theo swallowed. He’d never even thought to ask the elves about the Dark Lord.

Well. For most of the time, he’d been a child, and such concerns had flown over his head. And in the year before he left for Hogwarts, when Father had begun to educate him in the expectation that Theo would be a Slytherin, he never would have dreamed of asking too many questions about the Dark Lord.

“The book belonged to him,” Theo whispered. “And Father said—he said that he had no intention of returning the book to the Dark Lord.”

Harry rolled towards him. His eyes were wide and serious in the light of the fire, and maybe they were cold, too, the way they had been when he’d spoken to Father in the entrance hall.

“Why?” Harry breathed.

“He said—he said that the creation of and dependence on such artifacts indicated that the Dark Lord had crossed a line that my father couldn’t forgive him for.” Theo kept his voice calm and smooth with an effort. He had never seen Father look like he had today, his eyes wide and bright with a cold fire that made them shine like grey topaz. “Father had simply let things continue as they were because he saw no way out of service to the Dark Lord. But now—he does.”

Harry let his lips lift in a different smile. “And he might think that he owes it to us?”

“More to you.”

“He should attribute it to you, too.”

Theo shrugged. “I’ll get the benefits of Father turning away from the Dark Lord no matter what happens. But before this, Father was mainly doing as you asked, like blackmailing Snape, because he thought it might benefit me. Now…”

“He might do things that would benefit me.”

“Yes.”

Harry half-closed his eyes. Then he asked, “Did he speak any of those welcome words you told me about?”

“Welcoming words, Harry. You understand the difference.”

“You like definitions better than I do. I like what words can do more. I’m always the one saying that it’s a pity they don’t teach other languages at Hogwarts.”

“They used to teach Latin. I don’t know why they stopped.”

“Theo.”

Theo closed his eyes and nodded. Then he said, “I’m sure Father knew I would tell you everything he said. Yes, he spoke the welcoming words. You have a place in our house and the defense of every Nott wand for as long as you live.”

Harry gasped a little. Theo opened his eyes to see that Harry had leaned forwards with his hands braced on the couch.

“Then I’m going to ask for his protection when summer comes,” Harry said.

Theo reached out. Harry met him halfway, with a grip on his hand that made Theo wince with how strong it was. But he had meant what he’d said, and he knew that Father had meant the words he’d spoken. Harry was welcome here any time, and nothing short of death or Harry committing a massive betrayal of the Nott family would take him away.

Theo couldn’t imagine—not anymore—that it would be betrayal that parted them.

“You are most welcome,” Theo murmured.

*

“And are you looking forward most to Arithmancy or Ancient Runes, Mr. Potter?”

Harry turned around and smiled politely. Mr. Nott had come into the library behind him as silently as a ghost. Theo was buried in one of the corners—the library stretched up three floors and across nearly half of the lowest one—with a book that was frankly a tome too dusty and Dark for Harry.

“Ancient Runes, sir,” Harry said. “I think I’m more interested in languages than numbers, and Theo has talked to me about how runes have a stronger relationship to languages even if you can equate them to numbers.”

“He has told you? You haven’t sought out the information yourself?”

“I’ve read books about Runes, of course, sir, or I wouldn’t know that I wanted to take the class. But I trust Theo enough that I don’t need to look up everything he tells me out of mistrust.”

Harry spoke the words with his chin lifted high, and Mr. Nott kept staring at him, with eyes as bright as winter. Harry just watched him back. He knew that the welcoming words meant a lot. And Mr. Nott had spoken them to Harry’s face himself last night at dinner.

In a way, Mr. Nott was easier to approach and appreciate than a lot of other adults Harry knew. He had helped bring the man an object he valued, and that meant he would protect Harry and expect Harry to offer some protection in return, at least to Theo when they were at school.

It was a favor. Nothing more than that. They would walk away from each other if one of them betrayed the other. Harry could still hate him, knowing that.

But it was also a more secure kind of link than Harry had ever had with the Dursleys or his Head of House or any other adults who were supposed to look out for him.

Mr. Nott considered him for a moment longer, and then gave a smile that matched his eyes. He waved his wand, and a large book sailed off the top shelf and towards Harry. Harry caught it easily. The cover was made of white seemed to be wrinkled white-gold leather, and the title, in silver on the spine, said only Runes. There was no author.

“Begin here. There are runic sentences here that are no longer taught at Hogwarts and are probably beyond the knowledge of the current professor.”

Harry smiled. He’d heard of runic sentences, but only in one or two books. Most of the time, runes were arranged in circles or in matrices that went along with the Arithmantic equations they were paired with.

“Thanks, sir.”

Mr. Nott gave him another smile like fresh winter. “You are welcome.”

*

Theo was expecting another Christmas like the ones that he and his father had had since his mother died, with a small group of gifts that Theo would be expected to use well and ones that he would give his father which would say something Father might agree with. He didn’t expect the tree that was decorated with sparkling white fairy lights or the gigantic pile of presents underneath it.

“You didn’t tell me it was like this,” Harry breathed from behind Theo, where they were standing together in the entrance of the sitting room.

“It never has been.”

“Then I’m glad I could make it like this, for you.”

Theo turned his head. He would have expected the words to sound mocking from anyone else, but Harry just smiled at him and bustled forwards to greet Father, who was standing next to the fireplace with his hands folded behind his back.

“Father,” Theo said, following him and bowing a little. Father was very formal most of the time at Christmas. And Theo was also using the gesture to ask him for an explanation, because this was…

Theo didn’t know what this was.

“For years and years,” Father said, lifting the glass of what appeared to be mulled cider in his hand, “I have stayed in the Manor. Partially that was grief for the death of my wife. Partially that was the wariness of what might happen when the Dark Lord returned.”

Theo’s eyes darted to Father’s left arm before he could help himself, and he saw Harry trying not to look in the same direction.

“But now,” Father said, and lifted the glass higher, “I know that I can overcome any challenges. I can meet the Dark Lord on his own ground. And I can take a greater interest in the life of my son and the challenges he will face at Hogwarts than I have allowed myself since grief devoured me whole.”

He swallowed most of what was in the glass, and then snaped his fingers. Heidi and another elf called Nikolas appeared with glasses of cider for Theo and Harry and what appeared to be one with rather more alcohol content for Father.

“You have made the difference,” Father said, and lifted his glass again to Harry and to Theo. “By choosing not to be like me.”

Theo stared at him.

For as long as he could remember, there had been the unspoken expectation that he would be like Father. Nothing else was wise. Nothing else was politic. Nothing else was acceptable.

And now…

Things had changed, Theo knew that. He’d had no idea they’d changed that much.

“We are free now,” Father said, and turned his glass back and forth as though watching the sun sparkle on the amber-colored cider. “My thanks.” The words were simple enough that Theo barely had time to understand how profound they actually were before Father swallowed all the cider in his glass.

Theo took a complicated drink of his own, and saw that Harry waited until Theo had swallowed to try his own cider. It probably wasn’t distrust, though. Harry was just trying to figure out what it all meant.

Well, the same thing was true for Theo.

*

“This is where I got your dragon.”

“And the mirror that you gave me this year?” Harry grumbled as he ducked underneath an arching black net that seemed to be studded with iron fish. He didn’t mind touching it, because it didn’t seem Dark to his senses, but he disliked the brush of little hard metal fins through his hair.

Theo smiled back at him over his shoulder. “You needed that mirror.”

“I don’t need someone to tell me my hair is a mess.”

“Ah, but the mirror can suggest charms to fix it.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but he did feel a pulse of goodwill, as annoying as the mirror had already proven itself with its remarks on Harry’s scar and hair and robes. If he had grown up with his parents, he probably would have had enchanted mirrors like that. Or some kind of enchanted furniture, anyway.

Theo was giving him back some of what Harry had missed out on by not growing up with his parents.

Harry hoped that his own gift to Theo, a book on advanced Arithmancy that he’d heard some of the older Ravenclaws talking about and ordered from outside Britain, had pleased Theo just as much. He’d certainly smiled at it and at Harry hard enough when he opened it.

“And why are we down here again?”

“So you can see.”

Theo had been saying the same thing ever since they had ventured into the Nott cellars. Harry gave up asking anymore as a bad job, and followed Theo around a corner, past a large shrouded shape that might be another enchanted mirror. Harry was grateful that the one Theo had given him was of an easy size to carry around.

Theo stopped and stared at the carving in front of him. Harry considered it a bit skeptically. The carving seemed to be of a wave. Or maybe a vine? A twisting and sinuous shape that rose from the floor, anyway.

“I—you said something the other day, Harry, that made you think you should see this.”

Harry shot Theo a frown. Theo looked a little like he had when he’d got upset because Harry hadn’t told him that his scar hurt in Quirrell’s class. Harry turned back to the statue and stared at it, then opened his senses the way Theo had taught him to see if there was any Dark magic flowing from it.

There wasn’t. But there was a subtle vibration of power, as though the thing was sleeping and could wake up if the right person touched it. Harry didn’t touch it, but he did feel his curiosity burn to life like a flame.

“Say something.”

“It’s interesting?”

Theo caught his breath. Harry shook his head without looking away from the carving. He could almost feel as though—as though there was something familiar about it, the longer he looked. But there really wasn’t a rune carved on it or a sensation coming through his senses that he recognized.

“You did it.”

“I did what?”

“I can’t understand you, Harry.”

Harry blinked and turned away from the carving. “What are you on about, Theo?”

Theo’s eyes were wide, and there was something feral in them, as though he was about to reveal a secret about Harry’s parents or something. “When you were looking at the carving, you weren’t speaking in English, Harry.”

“That’s—ridiculous. It’s the only language I speak.” Harry did intend to study a few more when he and Theo found a good Latin book for beginners, and he would learn the runes, but he couldn’t spontaneously say anything in them.

“You were hissing. Speaking Parseltongue.” Harry blinked and knew he looked blank, but at least Theo spoke as if explaining something this time. “It’s the language of snakes. A magical language. Most of the time, no one speaks it except people who are descended from Salazar Slytherin. But you can.”

Harry felt his mouth fall open. It was true that he had spoken to that snake at the zoo, although it felt like a lifetime ago, and sometimes he had thought it was just accidental magic that made him feel like he understood. Or some sort of sympathy like the bond he had with Hedwig. He knew what she was thinking most of the time, but he wouldn’t say that she’d spoken to him.

Now, though…

“You’re serious,” he whispered.

“Absolutely.” Theo was smiling. “I thought at first you were keeping it a secret from me, but then I noticed that you didn’t seem to think you had switched languages. Remember? You were looking at that history book with the symbol of Slytherin on the cover, and you hissed, and when I asked you what you’d said, you looked annoyed and said I should have been able to hear.”

Harry shook his head in wonder. He remembered that, but he really hadn’t noticed anything different between the Parseltongue he’d been speaking at the time and the English he’d thought he was speaking.

He looked back at the huge carving in front of them. “And this thing?”

Theo laughed. “Parseltongue, Harry. But I think I can guess what you said. It’s a carving of a snake. It was supposed to reveal gifts related to snakes when things like that ran in the Nott family. Or so Father says. I think that more of my ancestors hoped they could talk to snakes than could actually do it.”

Harry smiled in wonder. Then he paused. “Was Vol—the Dark Lord a Parselmouth?”

“He was. It was one of the many things that bolstered his claim to be a descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself, and so entitled to the loyalty of people who had been Sorted into Slytherin House.”

“Then we can use this.”

“Parselmouths also have a bad reputation because of the Dark Lord, Harry.”

“I didn’t mean so openly. Just that we know he made at least one Dark artifact that can trap people. We can use this to make sure that we can escape those traps, and maybe set ourselves free completely at last.”

Theo’s smile blazed like a torch in the darkness.

Chapter Text

“I am disappointed that you lied to me, Mr. Potter.”

Dumbledore had come up to Harry and Theo as they were walking towards the library to study with Granger (and Goldstein, whom they’d decided to invite and see if he behaved himself). Harry turned around and stared at the Headmaster. Around them, other students were slowing down.

Theo normally disliked finding himself at the center of attention, although he’d had to get used to some staring, what with being Harry’s best friend. But he did have to wonder what Dumbledore thought he was doing, holding this confrontation in the middle of the public corridor.

“Sir,” Harry said calmly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never lied to you.”

“You let me believe that you were spending the holidays with your family, Harry. Instead, I learn that you’ve spent them at Nott Manor.”

Theo grimaced. He wondered if someone in Ravenclaw was a spy for Dumbledore. But it was probably more likely that someone had overheard them talking, gossiped themselves, and persuaded other people to treat the gossip as worthwhile because it was about the Boy-Who-Lived.

“I didn’t lie to you,” Harry repeated. “And I don’t see why I need to spend my holidays in any particular place, sir. I stayed at Hogwarts last year. Why should it matter so much where I stayed?”

“Do you feel safe in the home of a Death Eater?”

“You know, sir,” Harry said, staring up at Dumbledore with wide eyes that made Theo brace himself for the words that would be coming, “I walked all over Nott Manor, but somehow I missed people being sacrificed to a demon while their hearts were eaten. Mr. Nott must have hidden it really well. It was disappointing! I wanted to see it.”

A few people in the corridor either gasped or giggled. Theo resisted the urge to run a hand down his face. That was the kind of private gesture that only Harry and Father got to see, and he wouldn’t do it now.

Even though he really wanted to.

“What are you talking about, Mr. Potter?”

“I thought Death Eaters did that kind of thing. At least, it’s the only way I can make sense of people asking me if I feel safe around Theo or his dad all the time. Do you know where they hold the demon sacrifices? I’d really like to see it.”

Dumbledore looked tired and old, the first time Theo had ever seen him look like that. “Mr. Potter, you are logical and intelligent enough to know that people have reasons for their fear of Death Eaters that are not that literal.”

“And you’re logical and intelligent enough to understand that deciding the son is the same as the father, and that the father would be stupid enough to kidnap or kill me when people know where I went and Theo is my best friend, is pretty stupid. At least, I would assume so. Sir.”

Even more peopled gasped and giggled. Theo wanted to say many things, but none of them were appropriate for the ambience.

Dumbledore stood for a long moment gazing at Harry as if Harry were a puzzle that he lacked all the pieces to. Then he turned and walked away with a heavy step that made it seem as if he were carrying all the burdens of the world.

“You shouldn’t have said that, Harry.”

“He shouldn’t have said what he said.”

Theo couldn’t deny that, but he was afraid there would be consequences because of this that neither of them would ever see coming. It seemed he would have to write to Father for political advice again, and soon.

*

“How could you say that to the Headmaster, Harry? He really cares about you!”

Harry sighed. Hermione had been on the edge of the crowd in the corridor for Dumbledore’s speech, although he hadn’t seen her, and now it seemed she was intent on protecting Dumbledore’s reputation.

“You know that Mr. Nott was a Death Eater—”

“Yeah, and Dumbledore was the only one the Dark Lord ever feared, blah blah blah,” Harry interrupted her. “But he didn’t get off his arse and defeat Voldemort, did he? He sat there until Voldemort came up against me and I did it somehow. So if Dumbledore’s going to accuse me of becoming a Death Eater by visiting Nott Manor, then I’m going to accuse him of being a coward.”

Hermione stared at him for a long moment with her mouth slightly open. Harry looked back evenly. He liked Hermione, he really did, but her tendency to decide that Dumbledore just had to be right was irritating.

Goldstein snickered.

Harry glanced sideways at him. He didn’t feel like he really knew Goldstein. His obsession with Gobstones and Quidditch meant they still didn’t talk much, but he had asked about studying with Harry and Theo after the two of them had got the highest scores on the last Charms exam, and Harry hadn’t really seen a reason to object.

“Give it a rest, Granger,” Goldstein said lazily, picking up his quill and twisting it between his fingers. “If Dumbledore was really worried about Potter, he could have called him up to his office and asked him questions in private. Instead, he decided to force a public confrontation and act as though Potter is his grandson or something who’s playing with the naughty Death Eater boy. Potter didn’t have to go along with that.”

Harry was pretty sure he was the only one who noticed Theo’s shoulders relaxing. Harry leaned in and nudged him a bit with one foot under the table. Theo gave him a smile in response.

“Professor Dumbledore is the Headmaster.”

Harry shrugged. “And I haven’t ever talked to him except now, once before Christmas when he made weird remarks about my having a childhood, and once last term when he thought I should have gone with you to stop a professor who turned out to be possessed by You-Know-Who. If he has something he wants to explain to me or something he wants me to do, he’s doing a terrible job of persuasion.”

Hermione frowned down at the parchment in front of her, apparently daunted. Harry patted her on the shoulder and glanced at Goldstein. “You said you were having trouble with the Basic Banishing Charm?”

And the conversation moved on.

*

“It’s kind of strange that there haven’t been any other Petrifications, isn’t it?”

“I wish there were. I would have helped the Heir of Slytherin get rid of the Mudbloods.”

Theo drew his wand. He and Harry were walking behind Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson on their way to Herbology. Harry eyed his wand and then smiled.

Theo cast the Tongue-Lengthening Jinx on Malfoy with a murmur, and Malfoy wailed as his tongue grew out of his mouth and draped across the floor. Parkinson began to shriek for help and look around, probably for who had done it.

Harry and Theo were already gone halfway to the greenhouse, laughing breathlessly.

*

“A lion!”

Luna’s voice sounded small as she gave the answer to the riddle, but also happy. Harry patted her on the back and smiled a little, not particularly nicely, as the door to Ravenclaw Tower swung open and a boy standing on the other side stared at them with a round mouth.

“Why do you think you can bully her?” Harry asked the boy. He was a fourth-year, and Harry thought his name was Matthew Culler. He also thought that it didn’t matter, and that he would shame the bully in front of the common room regardless.

“She’s—look at her!”

Harry deliberately looked Luna over. She had flyaway hair at the moment, a necklace of corks around her throat, and bare feet. She looked harmless and startled, like someone had interrupted her while she was composing poetry.

“Yes? What about her?”

“She’s so—annoying!”

“Still doesn’t mean that you need to pick on a girl three years below you.”

Culler looked around as if for support, but even some of the other older Ravenclaws Harry had suspected of bullying Luna were looking at the floor and the ceiling and their textbooks as intently as if this had nothing to do with them. Culler flushed.

“Give her back her shoes,” Harry added softly. He and Theo had been studying the Summoning Charm enough that Harry thought he could probably find them unless they were locked in someone’s trunk, but he didn’t necessarily want to reveal that advantage.

“I—I don’t have them.”

“But you know who does.”

It was just a guess, but it was a good one, and Culler waved his wand and muttered the Summoning Charm a little shamefacedly. Luna’s small dragonhide shoes came drifting down the staircase that led to the fourth-year boys’ dormitory.

Harry took them from the air while maintaining eye contact with Culler. Culler spluttered, then shook his head and walked over to a game of Gobstones on the other side of the fireplace. Harry didn’t think it was his imagination that some of the people playing deliberately shifted to block Culler from sitting down.

No one wants to play with the fourth-year who got humiliated by a second-year.

Harry looked around with a bright smile, and that seemed to be a cue for conversations to start up again. Luna waved to him and skipped over to a corner, where she sat down and studied the shoes intently. Harry hoped it was just Luna being Luna and not because someone had cursed or jinxed her shoes, although he wouldn’t precisely put it past them.

Harry wandered over to the corner where Theo was watching Harry over his Potions textbook. Theo slowly shook his head. Harry smiled at him with a lot of teeth. “What?”

“You know they’ll resent you for shaming them. They may attack you.”

“And? Would you leave me to stand by myself?”

“Prat,” Theo said, and retreated behind the book.

Harry smiled, and reached for his own.

*

“Harry, wait up.”

Theo narrowed his eyes as Weasley hurried towards them, looking out of breath. It was close to the Easter holidays, and both he and Harry were set to spend them at Nott Manor. If Weasley was going to babble on about how Harry was visiting a Death Eater’s house again…

But Weasley came to a stop, looked at Theo, coughed, and then looked at Harry and said, “I asked Ginny about that diary she had, you know, the book she was writing in at the beginning of last term? She admitted that she thought you had something to do with it disappearing. So, can you tell me—did you take it?”

Theo tensed. He had no doubt the diary was the kind of object powerful enough to ensnare someone who had just seen it and not written in it.

At least, if they couldn’t feel how foul it was.

“What if I did?”

“Then just—I want to say thank you.” Weasley’s mouth was firm, and he stood up straight, not casting Theo a bunch of dark glances for the first time ever in his presence. “Ginny was so pale and acting so strange, and now she’s laughing with her friends and eating regular meals and talking about trying out for the Quidditch team next year. So. Thank you.”

Harry hesitated. Theo had the impression that he didn’t know what to do both because people didn’t thank him and because he’d never imagined being thanked for this.

But finally he just nodded and said, “You’re welcome.”

Weasley smiled at Harry and hurried off to whatever class the Gryffindors had next with what looked like no small relief. Harry watched him go, then cocked his head at Theo.

“Do you think she told him it was a Dark object?”

“I don’t think she ever knew herself. Although you would assume that anyone would know that something with such a powerful enchantment on it had to be Dark…”

“Aren’t you the one who wants people to stop making assumptions?”

They bickered comfortably as they went to the library to return the books they’d borrowed, and something in Theo that had been waiting for Ginny Weasley to confess and cause trouble for them relaxed.

*

“Why is Anthony Goldstein writing to you?”

“We decided he was all right, remember?”

“But why to you and not to me?”

“Maybe because you made up that story about your father’s plants strangling owls, Theo. Remember that one?”

Harry enjoyed Theo’s scowl through the rest of breakfast. He thought that Mr. Nott might be amused, too, but it was difficult to tell and Harry didn’t want to presume.

*

“Come in, Mr. Nott. May I ask if you know why you are here?”

Theo let the door of the Headmaster’s office fall slowly shut behind him. He could disguise some of his nervousness in gaping at the office’s contents, at least. The silver whirligigs and the phoenix on its perch were something.

He could also see four books on the shelves he would have immediately liked to borrow, not that he thought Dumbledore would ever let him.

“Please come in and sit down, Mr. Nott.”

Theo did, although he wondered why Dumbledore had given up on waiting for an answer to his question. Not enough time had passed for him to decide Theo wasn’t going to reply. Perhaps he didn’t care about the answer.

Yes, that would fit him.

Theo sat with his hands folded in his lap and stared at the floor. Dumbledore made some loud cheery noises about how busy he was, and Theo bit his tongue to avoid asking why he had the time to interview random Ravenclaws, in that case.

“Ah, well. I will come to the point, Mr. Nott.”

Thank Merlin.

“I do not like the influence that your father has on Mr. Potter. I believe you know enough of your father’s history and Mr. Potter’s to realize why it would be a bad thing to continue encouraging them to associate. May I count on your assistance in detaching them? It would mean the Headmaster’s goodwill.”

He might actually be trying to bribe me? Would that count?

“And I am sure that you would like to have your father all to yourself for the holidays, at least sometimes,” Dumbledore added. His eyes were probably twinkling, not that Theo intended to look up and confirm that. “And Harry would continue to know the love and comfort of his family.”

Theo looked up, then, although not far enough to meet Dumbledore’s eyes. “He always knows when he’s being lied to” screamed Legilimens to him, and Theo didn’t really know any Occlumency except a few breathing exercises Father had taught him, because Father didn’t believe one should always rely on Calming Draughts in case one was far away from potions.

“Do you know much about Harry’s childhood, sir?”

“I know that he grew up with his family, Mr. Nott.”

“Did you know how they treated him?”

There was a small pause, while the sound of the phoenix shifting on its perch and the ticking of what might have been a clock or another strange Dumbledore metallic object filled the room. Then Dumbledore sighed raggedly.

“What I know is that he is safe there, Mr. Nott.”

“So you do know how they treated him?”

Dumbledore sighed and pulled off his glasses to rub his eyes. Theo was still, watching him. There was something off here, but he looked down anyway when the Headmaster glanced at him. He wasn’t going to meet those eyes.

“Sometimes someone’s safety matters more than their happiness, Mr. Nott.”

“All right, sir. And now Harry’s chosen another way.”

“You do know that your father would kill him?”

“You do know that his family might have?”

“Muggles don’t kill wizards, Mr. Nott. I believe it is rather the other way around.”

Theo felt something in him move away and backwards from the conversation. This was a man who believed such different things that no way of engaging with him would help, Theo decided. He just looked down at his hands in his lap again.

“Mr. Nott?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you care about Harry’s safety?”

“More than you do, sir.”

A long, long pause. Theo might have trembled at his own daring, but he was past that now. He was in a quiet, cold realm, where he didn’t think that he feared anyone. He would attack anyone save his father or Harry who approached.

He hadn’t been there before. He thought he liked it.

“And you won’t persuade him to stop visiting your father’s house.”

“Just like you won’t remove him from the home of people who hate him and call him a freak all the time and made him sleep in a cupboard and swung frying pans at his head. No, sir.”

Theo spoke the words with calm deliberation. Harry might be angry at him for releasing that kind of information, but he would understand the need for it if Theo explained. And Theo was gambling that Dumbledore wouldn’t speak those actual words in a conversation with Harry.

He would be too ashamed. I suppose shame and guilt are good for some things.

“That is not the same thing as death or torture, Mr. Nott.”

Theo nodded remotely and stood up. The cold realm melted around him a little bit, but some of it was still there. He thought he might be interested in exploring it with Father’s help. “Then I suppose we’re done, sir.”

“I thought you Harry’s friend.”

“And I thought you would pretend to care about him.”

Another pause, but by now, Theo was walking out of the office. The last thing he heard before the door swung shut behind him was a long trill from the phoenix. It sounded surprised.

I suppose it’s something, to surprise an immortal creature.

*

“I have no choice, Mr. Potter.”

Harry said nothing. He just kept quiet as he stood beside Dumbledore and watched him knock gently on the Dursleys’ front door. He was seething with fury inside, but Theo had told him about Dumbledore’s Legilimency, and he didn’t want to look up at the man or just start yelling. It wouldn’t gain him anything.

Besides. He had done one more thing that Dumbledore didn’t know about, that even Theo didn’t know about. If no one knew about it, then Harry was the only one who could betray it, and he wasn’t fool enough to look into Dumbledore’s eyes.

Aunt Petunia opened the door. Her sneer was locked firmly in place, and she shook her head even before the door was fully open. “No. He said that he wasn’t coming back. He renounced it. And you said that was what he shouldn’t do.”

“What are you talking about, Petunia?”

“I sent them a letter, sir,” Harry said, and kept his voice polite and calm. He smiled straight at Aunt Petunia as Dumbledore swung around to stare at him. “I told them that I didn’t want to live with them if they didn’t want me to, but I didn’t know whether I could stop. And she was the one who told me that I just needed to say it wasn’t my home. That you sent her a letter last year about that.”

It had been the strangest thing in Harry’s world up until that point, stranger than magic, that Aunt Petunia had been willing to write a letter for Hedwig to carry back, explaining about how he could get free of the Dursleys and what Dumbledore had told them when they’d complained about Harry returning from Hogwarts after his first year. It spoke to how much she wanted to get rid of him.

Part of Harry still hurt when he thought about that. But he buried it and only spread his hands in fake surprise as Dumbledore made a sound of disgust.

“If Harry stays where his mother’s blood and love resides—”

“There’s no love,” Harry said. “I don’t know if there ever was, but they killed it over the years if there was.”

“There was none,” Aunt Petunia whispered. She was staring at him with the purest look of loathing that Harry had ever seen. “I hated my sister. She wanted to play at being perfect, but she was like all the rest of you freaks at the end, pitying me for being born without magic. No, I’m not going to let you ruin Dudders’s life that way, by drawing war down onto us and making him jealous of your magic. Never again, do you hear me?”

Her voice was steadily rising, and Harry could hear some of the doors opening up and down the street. He trusted that Dumbledore would cast the necessary Memory Charms if he had to—which had turned out to be what that fool Lockhart was using—and just stood and watched his aunt. The hatred burning in her eyes.

Theo had described the cold place his mind had flown away to when he was in the Headmaster’s office, and Harry had been jealous, because he’d thought he would never be able to do that. But he thought now that maybe he could, his eyes locked on Aunt Petunia’s twisted face.

Remember this. Not all Muggles are bad. But not all are as good as the Headmaster thinks, either.

“Where there is family, there must be love,” Dumbledore whispered.

Harry glanced at him and tilted his head thoughtfully. He suddenly thought he understood Dumbledore, or part of him. He had known a family in the past that didn’t have love, and it had been the worst thing in the world to him. Or maybe it had been his own family.

“There’s none here,” Petunia snapped, and slammed the door.

Dumbledore stood on the step, staring down at Harry. Harry looked at him and then across the street, where the neighbors were murmuring and peering and already gathering in little clumps. He smiled. He didn’t think it would be his worst memory of Privet Drive, if he left it with the Dursleys’ reputation stained.

“Where am I going to put you, Harry?”

Dumbledore’s voice was so weak a whisper that Harry could hardly hear it. He shrugged a little. “Let me stay at Hogwarts over the summer, sir?”

“Students cannot stay at Hogwarts during the summer.”

“Let me stay with Ron’s family?” Ron had reassured Harry that he’d hinted to his mum what Harry had done for Ginny, and although Mrs. Weasley didn’t know much about it, she had sent Harry a gift for Christmas again. Harry knew he could be sure of a warm welcome if he went there, although it wouldn’t be the same as saying at Nott Manor.

“There are no wards strong enough on the Burrow.”

Harry blinked. That really had been what he thought the Headmaster would suggest, and Harry would have simply compensated by sneaking off to Nott Manor whenever he could. Or even having Mr. Nott disguise himself as a “long-lost relative” of Harry’s and show up to whisk him off after a week.

“Have me stay in Diagon Alley at the Leaky Cauldron? Or with Hermione’s parents?” Maybe that would be the solution the Headmaster chose, if he thought Harry would only be safe in the Muggle world.

“No wards.”

Harry snorted. He couldn’t help himself. “It sounds like the only wards that would be strong enough are the ones at Hogwarts, sir. Or on an old house like Nott Manor,” he couldn’t help adding, because Dumbledore was staring at him with hopeless eyes, and Harry honestly didn’t know what the man expected him to do.

“Would you—would you promise, Harry?”

“Would I promise what? I’m not agreeing to anything without knowing what I’m agreeing to.”

Dumbledore abruptly reached out and grabbed his hands. His eyes were wide and desperate. But Harry realized abruptly that he was looking too much into the eyes of someone who could probably use Legilimency on him, and promptly dropped his gaze again.

“Would you promise that you would not become like Voldemort?” whispered Dumbledore. “That was what began it, Voldemort staying with the purebloods he convinced to follow him. And Eustace Nott was one of those people. You might say whatever you want about Mr. Nott being a Death Eater only in the past and your friendship with his son, but if you become corrupted, the world is doomed.”

“Why, sir?”

“Because of the way that people depend on you. The idea of the Boy-Who-Lived—you have no idea what it meant to signal the end of the darkest times we have ever known in Britain, Harry.”

“Well, no, sir, I don’t,” Harry felt compelled to say. “Because I grew up in the Muggle world.”

Dumbledore sounded weary as he said, “It was for your own safety.”

“But it means that I don’t know what you want me to know about history, or magic, or the importance of living with my family, or—well, anything, really.”

Harry wondered for a second if Dumbledore would tell him something important. It seemed he was on the verge of it. His mouth opened a little, and his eyes intently searched Harry’s face. Harry looked back as best as he could without meeting Dumbledore’s eyes and letting him use Legilimency.

He hoped it would be enough.

But then Dumbledore sighed and stepped back from whatever moment he’d been on the verge of. “That is indeed my fault, Harry. I thought I was protecting you from those who would use you for your fame and money. It seems that was no use, as you fell into their clutches the minute you came to Hogwarts.”

Harry had to laugh. “You think Theo and his dad want to use me for my fame and money, sir? That’s really funny. Theo hasn’t even mentioned how wealthy I supposedly am in all the time we’ve been friends. Maybe it’s because the Notts have their own wealth.” Or maybe because it really doesn’t matter to him, but I think Dumbledore would have trouble accepting that.

“They are waiting until you are older. Then they will begin to manipulate you, when you are a worthy political tool.”

Harry sighed. That was probably really the problem with Dumbledore. He didn’t look at the past and see it as any indication of good intentions on Theo’s part, or his dad’s. He would just always be sure that a horrible thing was around the next corner.

Right now, though, Harry was tired, and wanted to go home to Nott Manor the way he’d thought he would, before the Headmaster whisked him away at the train station and brought him to the Dursleys’ house.

“What do you want me to promise, sir?”

“It doesn’t really matter. If you’re unable to see that the Notts are going to use you and are merely waiting for the right moment—”

“Or maybe you’re wrong, the way you were about the Dursleys,” Harry snapped, unable to listen to this any longer. “You thought I should stay with family. You thought family had to love each other. You thought Aunt Petunia didn’t hate my mum. You were wrong. Maybe you’re wrong this time, too.”

Dumbledore blinked thoughtfully. Then he said, “But If you persuaded me otherwise and I were right in my initial suspicions, the cost would be too grave.”

“You’d have to fight Voldemort, then, the way that you fought Grindelwald,” Harry said. Dumbledore looked at him sharply, but Harry was plowing ahead. He was so tired of this. “You defeated one Dark Lord, sir. You can defeat another. You can’t seriously think a twelve-year-old who was raised in the Muggle world is any match for Voldemort. And you didn’t think the consequences were too grave when it was me being forced to sleep in a cupboard or beaten up by my cousin, did you? Even though that seems like it would have made me hate Muggles and turn into Voldemort faster than anything the Notts could do.”

Dumbledore caught his breath, staring at Harry. Harry had no idea what he was seeing. Voldemort again? Someone who could have been a Gryffindor?

“You—Mr. Nott wasn’t lying, then.’

“No. Of course he wasn’t. Because he’s my best friend.”

Dumbledore closed his eyes in anguish. “And what would happen if Lucius Malfoy or another Death Eater came to visit the Notts?” he whispered, although he sounded as if he were fighting with himself. “What is to prevent Eustace from simply handing you over to Malfoy and their killing you?”

“His swearing an oath.”

“What?”

Harry sighed and folded his arms. He would have to speak carefully, to make sure that Dumbledore couldn’t sense the lie hovering on his tongue.

So it was good that he’d got lots of practice at this with things like speaking the literal truth to Dumbledore and Ron and other people.

“If someone swore an oath not to hurt me,” Harry said carefully, “wouldn’t you trust him? Someone who swore an oath to protect me because he was afraid of disappointing his only child? Someone who’s already sworn an oath to never get married or never have another child because he misses his wife so much?”

“Mr. Nott swore this oath?”

“Yes,” Harry said with perfect truth, because Mr. Nott had sworn the oath to never have a child again.

“I—my boy, if I’d known this…it would have made a difference. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you seemed to think a second-year Ravenclaw was evil. I didn’t know it would convince you.”

Dumbledore looked off to the side. “You shame me, my boy,” he whispered. “You have grown into a nobility I had no right to expect, now that I know what your childhood was like.”

Harry could have said something sarcastic and cutting then, but he didn’t judge that it was the right time. He stood still instead, and Dumbledore nodded and sighed.

“I can trust you behind wards and oaths,” he said. “In a way that I clearly cannot trust you behind wards alone.” He gave the Dursleys’ house a long look.

“Yes, sir, you can.”

“And you will resist such temptations as do present themselves?”

“Except studying, sir, of course.”

After a long, silent moment, Dumbledore smiled at him. “I did hear that you had signed up for both Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, my boy. An ambitious and challenging set of classes, but you are a Ravenclaw.”

Harry smiled slowly back. It felt like Dumbledore acknowledging something, maybe finally dropping the idea that he’d had (and who knew where he’d got it?) that Harry should be different. “Yes, sir, I am.”

All the way to the Apparition point that they’d used to arrive in Little Whinging, Dumbledore chatted lightly about his own adventures in learning Arithmancy and Ancient Runes in his youth. Harry listened politely, never looking Dumbledore in the eye, and wondered if Mr. Nott would be quick enough to swear the oath protecting him if Dumbledore demanded he do so.

He spoke the welcoming words. He essentially already has.

Harry smiled to himself.

*

“And you think he really will let you stay here again? That he won’t check in on you from time to time?”

“He never did at Privet Drive.”

“Point. I—Harry—”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“So am I, Theo.”

Chapter Text

“Sirius Black is your godfather.”

Harry frowned as he studied the picture of the madman on the front of the Daily Prophet. The Notts got it, although Theo seemed to use it to make fun of the articles and headlines more than anything else. “And he betrayed my parents?”

“Yes. Friendships often burn in the fires of war.”

Mr. Nott was looking at Theo as he said that. Theo raised his eyebrows. “You can look at me all you want, Father, but that isn’t going to happen to Harry and me.”

“No one can predict the future, Theodore.”

“Then why do Divination and Arithmancy exist?”

Theo and his father started bickering, and Harry smiled absently as he continued to look at the picture of Black. It wasn’t the way Harry would have related to his parents if they were alive, he was certain. Theo and his father, though, seemed to enjoy having arguments about academic subjects constantly.

And if his parents had been alive, Harry wouldn’t have been sitting at the table in Nott Manor and listening to the Notts’ bickering.

I like the person I am now.

“And you think that Black might come after me?” Harry asked, as soon as there was a pause in the argument, caused by Theo drawing runes furiously on a piece of parchment Heidi had brought him.

“Yes, it seems that the Ministry is certain. Not that the Ministry’s consensus is always a good thing, but in this case, there would be no reason for him not to do so.”

Harry nodded. He had met Minister Fudge this summer, a bumbling fool if there ever was one. Harry would just have to put up with the man as leader of the magical world the way everyone else did.

“Then we need to focus more on Defensive spells this summer,” Theo said.

“I was just about to suggest the same, Theodore.”

Harry felt left out for a moment as Theo and his dad locked eyes across the table, but he took a deep breath and reminded himself again of Mr. Nott’s welcoming words. They would stand beside him.

And Harry having no parents was only a fact of life. It didn’t matter at all.

*

“Now this incantation. Gelo!”

Theo ducked beneath the spell. The flutter and flare of ice particles said well enough what it was meant to do. Harry dodged the other way, and Father nodded as the remnants of the spell settled to the floor.

“Well enough for a beginning. Now, Harry. There is another incantation that will accomplish this same effect, and with a little more power, Congelo corporem. Tell me why you would want to use the Gelo incantation most of the time instead.”

Harry frowned and cocked his head. Theo felt a little smug that he and Father were the only ones who usually got to see Harry in the middle of his intense thinking phases. Everyone else with sense would fear him if they could.

“Because most of the time, in battle, you’ll want to speak the shorter incantation,’ Harry said at last. “Or think it, I reckon, once you’ve got used to casting wordless spells.”

“Very good.” Father’s smile was like the dawning of winter. He turned to Theo. “Explain circumstances when you might want to use the longer incantation, Theo, even in the middle of a fight.”

“If you’re good at wordless spells, and if you know that the enemy coming at you is powerful and might be able to escape the weaker charm.”

“Correct, both of you.” Father clapped his hands. “Come. I want you to practice both, and get as good as you can at casting the Ice Heart Spell—Congelo corporem—fluidly and quickly. Stand across from each other.”

Harry’s eyes glowed as he stood across from Theo. Theo half-smiled back at him. At the moment, he was better at these duels, just because he had had more training, but Harry had a dedication and fervency that meant he would catch up soon.

That was fine. Theo would work to get better, too, and together they would push each other to heights that neither would ever achieve alone.

Theo had never thought he would care that much about academic excellence when he was preparing for Hogwarts. Of course he had always planned to do well, but Slytherin was also a House of survival, and Theo had expected to learn all sorts of spells he would never use in class just to protect his bed and belongings and back.

I’m glad that I’m in Ravenclaw.

*

“The wards picked up something interesting last night.”

Harry blinked and glanced up from his bowl of porridge, admittedly a little bleary-eyed. He had stayed up late last night reading a book on the use of Runes in Defense, and his head was still buzzing with potential applications and lack of sleep. “What, sir?”

Mr. Nott took a long, deliberate drink from his teacup before he put it down. “I told you to call me Eustace. Harry.”

Harry regarded him. He knew that Mr. Nott was trying to create intimacy between them, and from the uneasy way Theo shifted next to him, he thought Harry might take that wrong.

But Mr. Nott acted openly for his own self-interest and Theo’s, and all Harry had to do was make sure that he never forgot it—and that his own self-interest was now tied to the Notts’. He nodded. “All right, Eustace. What was it?”

“A large black dog. The ward impressions were confused. They recoded it as a Grim, then not a Grim. And it didn’t leave with the onset of sunlight, as I would have expected a Grim to do. It’s curled up on the edge of the grounds still. Sleeping.”

Harry blinked and sat up. That was unusual. He had begun to read about magical creatures on his own since he wasn’t going to take the class, and Grims were both rare and had an unmistakable magical impression that would wear on wards as strong as the Notts’. “As if it were a regular dog?”

“Yes. Or an Animagus.”

Theo was the one who blurted, his mind making one of those leaps Harry envied, “You think that the Animagus might be Sirius Black?”

“It would explain how he escaped from Azkaban when no one has managed that before. Animals are of no interest to Dementors, while they would note the passing of a wizard or a magical creature like a Grim. And an Animagus form reflects the inner core of one’s being in numerous ways. It would make sense for someone named after the Dog Star to have a dog as a form.”

Harry sighed a little. “Then why do you think that he’s just waiting instead of trying to attack the wards?”

“We don’t know that he’s insane, Harry. That’s just the Prophet’s speculation.”

Harry nodded. “Although it doesn’t explain why he betrayed my parents if he isn’t mad. I think it would take a certain kind of madness to plot betrayal for years on end.”

“Or a certain kind of Slytherin mindset, but Black was not a Slytherin, unlike the rest of his family, and hardly old enough to have developed his own cunning.” Eustace blotted at his mouth with a napkin and then put it down. “I shall be interested to see what our Animagus has to say for himself. Interested indeed.”

*

“We know it’s you, Black.”

Theo watched Harry’s face as they stood in front of the dangling net of wards that held the black dog. It was set like stone, and his voice flat and calm. Theo didn’t think he could have been that calm about the betrayal of his parents.

Or else Harry was in a rage so great that it just came out like this. Theo decided that made more sense.

The dog went from thrashing and snarling to a complete stillness that mirrored the way Harry was standing. For a long moment, it sat there with its eyes fixed on Harry. And then it uttered a long, shuddering sigh, and changed.

Theo had never seen an Animagus transform before. It was a whirl of magic and over a lot more quickly than he had heard a werewolf’s transformation would be. And there was the mad, lank-haired wizard from the newspaper photograph, although older.

“Harry,” he whispered.

He didn’t sound mad, Theo had to admit. Then again, he had only ever heard cackles and so on in his nightmares, not in real life.

“Why did you betray them?” Harry folded his arms. “That’s what I want to know. You were their best friend, they trusted you enough to make you my godfather—why did you betray them?”

“I didn’t! It was our friend, Peter Pettigrew, a rat Animagus.” Black’s eyes shone like the stars he was named after, and his hand, without dog nails now, tore at the wards. “Him! Him! He’s still alive, and I’m going to hunt him down!”

Theo stared at Black, and then at his father, who looked much older suddenly. Father gestured with one hand, and the wards bore in and twisted around Black, who yelped and fell silent.

“Where is your proof of this?”

“We switched Secret-Keepers!” Black gasped, his hands tearing at the strands of the wards as if he couldn’t help himself, more than as if he really thought he would break free. “I was practically James’s brother, I would be too obvious, but Peter was a coward and no one would think to look at him. Then he betrayed the secret, and he ran, and I confronted him, and he accused me and cut off his finger and blew up the street and turned into a rat to escape into the tunnels—”

A desolate howl rose from Black’s throat, basically the sound of a Grim for all that he was human at the moment. Harry swallowed and then swallowed again. He looked shaken. When he reached out a hand, Theo held it tight.

“Why did you only break out of Azkaban now?” Father asked.

“I saw a picture of Peter in the paper.” Flecks of white foam decorated the sides of Black’s jaws. “I was going to make him pay, and I had to keep Harry safe—Peter’s at Hogwarts—Harry, Harry—”

Before Theo could decide what he should do or whether Harry should ask a question next, Father flicked his wand and neatly Stunned Black. Black slumped in the twists of the wards, his mouth wide open and eyes staring. Theo shuddered. He hadn’t realized how loud Black’s voice was or how much quieter it would be without him speaking.

“Do you think,” Harry said, and then cut himself off with a long slow breath and a blink. Theo squeezed his hand. Harry found the strength to go on a minute later. “Do you think what he said is true?”

“I don’t know for certain.” Father’s voice was low, and Theo saw him stroking his left arm, a gesture he hadn’t done in a long time. “I don’t remember a Peter Pettigrew reporting to the Dark Lord, or a rat Animagus among our ranks.”

He turned around, and Theo stood taller. Harry echoed him a moment later. It would have been difficult not to. Father’s eyes blazed like torches.

“But I am going to find out.”

*

Harry hesitated before he stepped through the dungeon door and let it fall shut behind him. He had never been told specifically that he shouldn’t come down to the Nott dungeons, but he had the feeling he shouldn’t be here. Mr. Nott was still brewing the Veritaserum that they needed to interrogate Black.

Harry, though, just wanted the chance to talk to the man who should have been his godfather. And slipping down here in the middle of the night, when even the elves would probably be asleep, might be his only chance.

He padded down the stairs, torches on the walls flaring to life as he passed them, and paused at the bottom of the steps. Corridors of cells ran away from him like spokes in a wheel. He didn’t know which way to go.

But then a voice groaned from down one of the corridors, “Harry? Is that you?”

Harry swallowed, told himself sternly that Black had probably only known that because even in human form he would have an enhanced sense of smell, and marched towards the voice. “Yes,” he said, as he drifted to a stop in front of the cell.

Black lay on a small bed in the center of the cell, surrounded by a bubble of wards. The wards surrounded a loo and a soft rug and a chair, plus a tiny table where Harry reckoned the house-elves would probably put his meals. Mr. Nott wasn’t torturing him.

But.

“How can you stand being in that small cell?” Harry blurted out.

Black laughed, a little less madly than he had when he was caught in Mr. Nott’s ward net. “It’s an improvement over Azkaban. No Dementors.”

Harry nodded, and then stood there fidgeting from one foot to another. Black just lay still and watched him.

“Why did you go hunting Pettigrew instead of taking me and going somewhere safe?” Harry whispered. He and Theo had talked about this before Theo went to bed. Theo had destroyed all Harry’s fantasies of a godfather who cared about him with brutally honest logic, pointing out that Black could have just told somebody from the Ministry or Hogwarts about Pettigrew, and stayed with Harry.

Harry knew that. But he wanted to come and find out Black’s side of the story anyway.

“I couldn’t stand the thought of the rat getting away with it. And Hagrid had you. I knew Hagrid would never harm any living thing.”

Harry relaxed a little. It didn’t sound as though Black had just done it because he had cared more about killing Pettigrew than taking care of Harry. He couldn’t have anticipated the way everything had worked out. “You—don’t know where he took me?”

“No, the papers haven’t said anything about that,” Black said in a curious tone. “I wouldn’t have known you were with the Notts if I hadn’t made my way to Hogwarts already and heard Dumbledore discussing it with Hagrid. Why are you here? Where did you stay?”

“I grew up with my mum’s relatives, and they were terrible. Theo and his dad are a lot better.”

“Do you know that his father is—”

“Yeah, a Death Eater, I know. I heard about it the second week of my first term.”

“And—you’re here anyway?”

“He swore welcoming words not to hurt me, and to protect me,” Harry said simply. “And I meant it when I said my mum’s relatives were terrible.”

“You’re not a blood purist, are you?”

Harry snorted, and then bent over and laughed. Black had just sounded so wary of him! He laughed and laughed into his arms, while Black watched him with increasing bafflement.

“Sorry,” Harry gasped, just before he thought Black might have started asking him if he were all right. He straightened and wiped the helpless tears from his eyes. “No, of course not. I think blood purity is stupid. One of my best friends at Hogwarts is a Muggleborn girl.”

“But…”

“But my Muggle relatives made me sleep in a cupboard, and do chores, and let my cousin beat me up, and called me ‘freak.’” Harry shrugged. “It’s not your fault you went to Azkaban, but you weren’t there. And they were. And now Theo and his dad are.”

Black looked as though Harry had cut open his stomach. “They abused you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why—I—” Black stared at his hands. Then he whispered, “Who made the choice to take you to your Muggle relatives?”

“Dumbledore. And Hagrid would have done what Dumbledore told him to do.”

Black nodded slowly. “Yes, Hagrid was always very loyal to him.” He stared at the wall for a minute, and then turned and faced Harry again. “Someone said something about how you were in Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor. Is that true?”

“Someone?”

“My memory is foggy because of the Dementors.” Black grimaced and pushed his fingers through his thick hair. “I don’t always remember everything that happened to me. Even if it’s recent.”

Harry tucked that information away. It might mean that Black was lying about Pettigrew even if he thought he wasn’t, and that Veritaserum would be useless. “Yeah, I’m in Ravenclaw.”

“Why?”

“Because the Hat offered me Slytherin, and I didn’t want that, and then it said Ravenclaw, and that’s where I am.”

“I can’t think of any Potter for years who Sorted anywhere but Gryffindor.”

Harry shrugged, knowing his shoulders were a little stiff. “It’s not like I knew that. I don’t know anything about my father’s family, except a little about what he looked like, because people have told me I look like him.”

“You didn’t grow up with pictures…” Black trailed off and then shook his head like a dog. Harry was sort of surprised that no one had apparently figured out he was an Animagus before he went to prison. “You didn’t. Of course you didn’t. Petunia is a horrible bitch.”

Surprise made Harry laugh, and Black grinned at him. “Agreed,” Harry said. “And no. I didn’t know I was a wizard until I was eleven. Petunia just told me that both Mum and Dad were drunks who’d died in a car crash.”

“You thought you were a Muggle?”

“Yeah.” Harry shrugged again. “I knew strange things happened around me sometimes, but I didn’t have any reason to think it was me specifically. For all I knew, I was a freak exactly the way the Dursleys said I was.”

Black snarled. The sound bubbled through the cell bars, and Harry flinched. Black immediately lay back down on the bed and tried to look harmless. Harry eyed him and decided that Black was a bad liar.

“And so you just came into the magical world?”

“Yeah. Hagrid had to come get me because my relatives kept tearing my letters up and wouldn’t let me look at them. And then he took me to Diagon Alley, and he told me about how my parents really died and that I had this ridiculous fame because I’d supposedly killed the Dark Lord as a toddler.”

“You call him the Dark Lord!”

“You make factual statements.”

Black deflated a little, but he said, “That was what the Death Eaters called him. And the others, the blood purists who had some kind of sympathy for his cause even if they liked to pretend they didn’t.”

“That’s what Theo calls him,” Harry said. “I’m not going around calling him by his name because it would make Theo and Eustace flinch and be—”

“You call him Eustace!”

“Lots of factual statements.”

Black didn’t look beaten down this time, though. He jumped off the bed and paced back and forth in the bubble around the bed, rubbing his hands furiously through his hair. “I should have broken out sooner,” he whispered. “I have to find someone to believe me as soon as I can, so I can protect you from the Notts.”

“I’m not the Harry you knew.”

“What?”

Harry waited until Black stopped pacing and turned to look at him, because he had to be sure about this. He leaned forwards, as close as he could get to the bars without the charms worked on them stinging him. “I’m not the baby you abandoned to go running after Pettigrew,” he said, and the words cut into Black, but that was deliberate. Harry wanted him to think. “I’m my own person, and Theo is my best friend, and Eustace took me in when no one else would or could. Don’t think that I’m going to go along happily with you if you try to separate me from them.”

“They’re evil!”

“Until earlier today, I thought the same thing of you. And I suppose it could still be true. I don’t know if the Veritaserum will pull much truth out of you if you’re that damaged by the Dementors.”

Black recoiled. His eyes were wide and wounded. Harry just looked back at him some more, and waited until he saw Black’s chest heaving and a few tears crowding around the edges of his eyes.

“I’d like to get to know you as my godfather. But I’m not a Gryffindor, and I didn’t grow up the way you think a Potter should have, and I don’t know anything about you other than what you’ve said and what’s been reported in the paper. Just keep that in mind, all right?”

Black didn’t answer. Harry turned around and walked away, back to the stairs and up to his rooms, where he lay down on the bed and fell immediately asleep.

*

“You did it?”

Theo had been as tense as a unicorn around hunters since Harry had left earlier that day to visit the Weasleys, but it wouldn’t have made sense for him to go with. Harry gave him a small smile now and took a warded metal cage out of his robe pocket.

In it was a rat, asleep.

Theo felt his lips lift in what wasn’t a snarl, but was pretty close. It was also an expression that Father had once told him no one outside the family should see.

Well, Harry’s as close to family as someone can come when Father won’t marry again and all his cousins are dead.

“How did you get it away from him?”

“Just went up to Ron’s room and replaced Scabbers with an illusion spell the way we did with Hagrid’s egg that time.”

Theo snorted. “Good one.”

“Isn’t it? I’m glad that I kept up with studying that spell and improving on it, even though at the time I didn’t think we’d ever have to use it again.”

“Father always says that no knowledge is ever wasted.”

“I suppose not.”

Theo went back to staring at the rat in the cage. Harry stared with him. Theo knew that Father had agreed with Harry about the chance that Veritaserum wouldn’t work on Black’s damaged brain, which meant grabbing the rat and testing the Animagus reversal spell on him the best option to prove that Black was telling the truth.

If he was.

“What do you think?” Harry asked suddenly, his eyes still locked on the cage. “Is it him or isn’t it? Black could still be mad, and maybe Pettigrew is long dead and he just latched onto the picture of a rat that happened to look like his old friend’s Animagus form. He could do that if he was mad enough.”

“I think it’s him,” Theo whispered. “But we won’t know until you bring the cage to Father and let him perform the spell.”

“Then let’s do it.’

*

Harry stared down at the ward bubble that contained the whimpering and shivering Pettigrew and thought he had never known what the word hatred really meant until now, when it poured like blazing oil over his insides.

*

“You’re really letting me out of the cell?”

“Yes,” Theo said, and stepped carefully off to the side as the charms on the bars, reacting to the presence of a Nott, flared and settled. “But only if you wear this.” He held up the thick leather collar his father had designed for Black, which had a silver tag at the front of it. Father had thought it amusing to inscribe If found, return to Harry Potter on it.

“Like I’m a dog?”

“Aren’t you? If you spent more time in dog form than human over the past twelve years?”

Black scowled at him. “What does the collar do/”

“Prevent you from transforming into a dog without Father’s permission, and keep you from attacking any of us.” Theo shoved the collar at him as Black stepped slowly out of the ward bubble, which had collapsed into glowing embers when Theo opened the cell door. “And keeps you from casting magic if you get a wand.”

Black came to a stop with his nostrils flaring. “I’m not wearing that.”

“Then you’re not getting out of the cell.”

“Where’s Harry?”

“Safe.”

Black eyed Theo sullenly, but at least he seemed to be smarter than Dumbledore, and didn’t try to bribe Theo. He took the collar from Theo and clasped it around his neck, wincing as it shut. “I reckon you believe me now? Or the Veritaserum is ready?”

“Something like that,” Theo said vaguely. Father had told him sternly not to mention Pettigrew, and Theo agreed. He didn’t know that Black would come along quietly instead of ranting or something like that if he knew.

Black walked out of the cell behind Theo and towards the entrance from the dungeons onto the grounds, around another corner and near a cell large enough to hold two people. Then he said, “I don’t know why Harry trusts you.”

“That’s all right.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you don’t need to know.”

“I am Harry’s godfather. And I’ll be part of his life if Harry believes that I’m innocent.”

Theo paused and glanced over his shoulder at Black. Black glared at Theo with his hands randomly opening and clenching in midair, as if squeezing invisible necks. Yes, it was hard to believe that he was sane.

“And if Harry accepts you and trusts you, that’s his right,” Theo said simply. “But that doesn’t mean that he’ll trust me any less, or not be my friend because of you. Our friendship is separate from you being his godfather.”

Black gaped at him, then blinked and said, “I don’t understand you.”

Theo just smiled and turned around to lead the way out onto the grounds again.

*

Harry had been a little worried at first when Eustace had said that he wanted Black to wear the collar. It seemed to be putting Black in something worse than the cupboard the Dursleys had kept Harry in.

But he saw the wisdom of it when Black stepped out into the open and saw Pettigrew cowering in the floating cage, in human form. The charm that Eustace had performed to turn him back had indeed shown he was an Animagus.

“Peter!”

Black exploded into motion, straight towards the cage. Harry had to step out of the way. His heart twinged a little at the way Black was so focused on Pettigrew that he didn’t even notice Harry was there.

Then he pushed the thought away. He had already known that Black wasn’t very sane and would have to go through some extensive healing before he would be. He couldn’t blame Black for what had happened to him in Azkaban.

Just if he went on being stupid and focused on vengeance instead of taking a place in Harry’s life.

Black leaped into the air as he got near the cage, and obviously tried to transform into a dog. He ended up flopping into the long grass at the base of a flowerbed next to the cage.

Theo coughed, hiding a laugh. Harry grinned back at him, and Theo tilted his head towards Black.

He was worth looking at, Harry had to admit. He’d sat up and was clawing at the ward around the cage, not even paying attention to the way little flickers of lightning scorched his fingers. “Let me go! Let me go!”

“You are not going to kill him. No one will believe that you are innocent of you do,” said Eustace, his hands behind his back, watching Black with a blank face but burning eyes. It reminded Harry of the way he had looked when they gave him Riddle’s diary.

“I don’t care about that!”

Eustace gave a very long sigh before drawing his wand and aiming it at Black. Harry tensed in sudden alarm, but the only thing that happened was the leaping of a lightning-like flicker of Eustace’s own from his wand in Black’s direction. Black crashed to the ground again, this time with his hands clasped around his head.

“What did you do?” Harry asked, striving to keep his voice as neutral as possible. All the while, he remembered that the welcoming words Eustace had spoken for him didn’t include Black.

Of course not. We had no reason to believe that he was innocent at the time. I didn’t even know about him.

Black screamed. Harry shivered, but Theo pressed his hand against Harry’s back, and Harry nodded. Yes, all right. He could be still.

“Father isn’t torturing him,” Theo murmured, divining the source of Harry’s reluctance as always. “He’s forcing him back into sanity for a few moments. It’s painful because Black’s mind is so broken.”

Harry bit his lip and nodded again, although it was hard to watch Black writhe on the ground and howl. Still, when he sat up, although he was pale and shaking, he said, “You’re right. We need Peter for the alibi.”

“Of course we do,” Eustace said. He faced Pettigrew and smiled a little. “And for the truth of what happened the night he went with the Dark Lord to Godric’s Hollow. We still don’t know it. For all the convenience of an instant child hero, I do not believe that it was simply Harry’s innate goodness that reflected the Killing Curse.”

Harry wrinkled his nose. “People say that?”

“You really should read some of the books about you sometime,” Theo murmured.

“I have better books to read.”

Theo snickered.

“You want me to cause chaos for you in the Wizengamot,” Black said, staring at Eustace with clear eyes. “Your excuse to make a political power move.”

“And for that reason, you are alive and not dead for threatening my ward. And about to be proven innocent.” Eustace watched Black like an owl. “Still opposed to working with a Death Eater?”

Black swung his head to look at Pettigrew. Pettigrew squeaked and cowered.

Black bared his teeth, probably the closest he could come to being a dog right now. “Not when it’s to take down another one.”

And something in Harry woke up and cheered.

Chapter Text

“You really think that he’s ready?”

Theo was standing in the doorway of Father’s bedroom, watching him dress. The robes he was putting on weren’t that different from the black ones he usually wore, to Theo’s mind, but then Father moved and they shone like the hide of a black unicorn.

Theo had never been that interested in clothes, despite his father’s occasional attempts to teach him otherwise. He supposed he could see why these clothes would look interesting, though.

“I think that it will be good to show them someone still slightly mad, if not the raving madman himself.” Father smiled over his shoulder at Theo and turned so that his robes floated out and resettled around him in glittering drifts of ebony. “Otherwise, I might be accused of coaching him too much.”

Theo fidgeted a bit. “And you’re sure that Harry and I should watch from the audience?”

“I told you why I do not think it would be a good idea for you to speak from the floor, son.”

“I didn’t mean that! I mean that Harry is still so upset at Pettigrew that he might—shout, or something.”

“Then the Wizengamot will only see a thirteen-year-old child rightfully upset that justice for his godfather has been ignored for so long.” Father came over and clasped a hand on Theo’s shoulder that felt more supportive than all the gestures the professors at Hogwarts had ever made. “It will be all right, Theodore. You know that Harry would hardly tolerate staying in the manor. I might not have a house standing when I got back.”

Theo mustered a smile, and then studied Father. “You really believe that Harry is that powerful?”

“Yes. It was a good thing you did, Theo, requesting a Ravenclaw Sorting and befriending the most powerful wizard of your generation.”

“I did it for myself, Father. Not for you.”

“And that is what makes it perfect.” Father gave Theo another wintry smile and swept out.

Theo stared after him. There had been many times when he didn’t think he had understood Father, but this might be the most obscure.

“Theo!”

And Harry was shouting, which meant he might escalate to shaking the walls with his magic in a few seconds. Theo left the room with a faint smile of his own, to make his way to his best friend’s side.

*

“The Wizengamot comes together today to address a miscarriage of justice, as recommended by Eustace Nott, a member in good standing.”

Harry leaned forwards from his seat in the gallery that ran around the upper portion of the huge courtroom the Wizengamot was meeting in. He could see the floor because of a little lens attached to the railing in front of him that let him see Eustace and Sirius as small but perfect figures, the way he might on a Muggle telly. They still looked dwarfed by the deep blue stretch of flagstones around them.

Theo leaned on his shoulder. “It will be all right.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You don’t believe my father?”

“I don’t believe in the Ministry. Someone had to have at least suspected what happened with Sirius, but they still locked him away.”

“Yeah.”

Harry took Theo’s hand when he offered it, but didn’t remove his gaze from the floor. For now, Sirius was cloaked and hooded, or the Wizengamot would probably have already exploded into screams. Some of them were peering curiously at Sirius, though, and at the second cloaked figure slumped in a chair behind Eustace.

Harry had practiced Stunners more than any other spell in the past few weeks, until even Eustace was surprised at how good he had got with them. Harry had just smiled tightly at his praise.

He was going to make sure that Pettigrew never escaped again. Or transformed, although he was wearing an enchanted cuff around his wrist that should keep that from happening, the way Sirius was still wearing the collar.

“What have you brought for us, Eustace?”

That was Mr. Malfoy. Harry had only seen him on a trip to Diagon Alley, but would have known him anywhere from his resemblance to his son. Harry bit his lip in fury and felt Theo’s hand clench even tighter.

Both Mr. Malfoy and Eustace had been Death Eaters, Harry reminded himself, and Mr. Malfoy had never done anything to Harry personally. It made no sense to be so angry at one but work easily with the other.

Yes, it does, said a voice deeper than Ravenclaw logic, or maybe using a different kind of logic. You value the people who are your friends and do things for you more than the ones who do nothing. It’s simple.

Maybe it was, at that.

“Through a series of fortunate accidents, I discovered the presence of two strangers on my lands,” Eustace said. The lens managed to show Harry that his smile was as hard and glittering as the flagstones surrounding him. “And when I cast the spells to transform them back…well, I found myself intrigued.”

He flipped his wand, and Sirius’s and Pettigrew’s hoods flipped back at the same time.

There were screams and laughter and gasps and shouts and demands for answers. Eustace stood unmoved in the middle of it all, other than a slight smile. Harry felt as though his own heart would burst, and wondered if he would really be able to take his place at the head of any political effort to save Sirius or for any other reason.

He would really just prefer to be left alone with his friends and his books.

“What is the meaning of this, Eustace?” A tall woman with a monocle and grey hair was on her feet, using her wand to shoot bangs of light to either side of her. “You have brought Sirius Black into our midst—”

“Restrained. The collar he’s wearing wouldn’t allow hm to use a wand even if he had one, Amelia.” Eustace smiled at the woman, and Harry reckoned she must be Amelia Bones, the Head of the DMLE. He’d heard about her. “Or transform.”

“What do you mean, transform?”

“Didn’t I mention? Both Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew are unregistered Animagi. A black dog, in Black’s case. Appropriate. And a rat in Pettigrew’s.”

That made some other people start shouting. Harry’s eyes tracked from face to face. He noticed that a man Theo whispered was named Yaxley had gone white, and presumably Mr. Malfoy had, too, although it was more difficult to tell with his complexion.

Death Eaters. They’re wondering what Pettigrew might have noticed if he was spying on them in rat form and what he could tell people.

Harry smiled a little grimly. Good. They should be afraid.

“Peter Pettigrew is a war hero!”

“Who was granted war hero status after he died, and he apparently never died!”

“We can’t just take an accused Death Eater’s word for—”

“I was cleared, as you know very well,” Eustace said coolly, gathering dignity around him like his fine robes. “But at least I had a session before the Wizengamot to clear my name. I remember there also being a session to announce Pettigrew’s status as a war hero. But Black never had a session.”

“Impossible!”

“They couldn’t have put him in Azkaban if—”

“His cousin proclaimed her loyalty to You-Know-Who right in the middle of the courtroom! You know that he—”

Harry glanced back at Madam Bones in time to see her swish her wand down in a huge gesture, a no-nonsense disgusted expression on her face. A silvery lion exploded out of her wand, and reared up in the middle of the room, roaring. The roar was silent, but people fell silent themselves.

“Thank you,” Madam Bones said, and then turned and faced Eustace. “You claim that Black was never interrogated?”

“Yes.”

“What proof of this do you have? Beyond Black’s word?”

Harry held his breath. They hadn’t used Veritaserum in the end, because they’d had Pettigrew and it would have been easy to catch Black in a lie, but using it outside the Ministry was illegal, as Theo had told him.

“You know I am a registered Legilimens in good standing with the Ministry, Amelia.”

Harry relaxed. He hadn’t known that, actually, but it provided a good story. And it was probably true that Eustace had looked into both Black’s and Pettigrew’s minds at one point, simply to make sure that he knew the whole story.

Maybe Eustace had read Harry’s mind, too.

Harry pushed the thought impatiently away. Yes, it was entirely possible that Eustace had done that. And as long as he used the results for Harry’s good, what did it matter? Dumbledore could probably read minds, too, but he wasn’t Harry’s ally.

“Everyone knows that inmates’ minds are damaged in Azkaban!” someone called out. “Black’s memories might not be accurate—”

Madam Bones’s silver lion made another abrupt appearance and rushed at the speaker, who squeaked and flailed and nearly fell out of her chair. Theo laughed silently with his mouth open. Harry did the same thing. That was a really cool spell, and he wanted to learn it.

“The next person who speaks without permission might just be tossed into Azkaban on my authority,” Madam Bones snapped, and turned around to look at Eustace again. “Can the prisoners speak for themselves?”

“If you wish.” Eustace stepped back and removed what had to be a Silencing Charm from Black. Knowing him, Harry thought, he would have spoken up already otherwise.

“Hi, Amelia,” Black said, and flashed what he probably thought was a smile full of roguish charm.

She froze him with a look. “Why didn’t you tell the arresting Aurors that you hadn’t been interrogated?”

“When did I have a chance? I was taken from the scene straight to the Ministry, and then either Stunned or dosed with something. I don’t remember which. The next time I woke up, I was in Azkaban.”

“That can’t be right!”

Harry narrowed his eyes at the sweating, twitching man who had risen to his feet. He looked familiar, probably from pictures in the papers, but Harry couldn’t place him.

“Barty Crouch,” Theo whispered. “He used to hold the DMLE position before Madam Bones.”

And he would have been the one who would have issued the orders or not issued them for Black to be interrogated, Harry thought. Right. Or maybe he had issued the orders for him to be taken straight to Azkaban.

Either way, this should be good.

“Tell us what you think happened, then, Mr. Crouch,” Eustace said. His eyes glittered with malice, and Harry felt abruptly glad that Theo’s father seemed to like him. “When was Black’s interrogation? Or rather, why didn’t it happen?”

“It was—the chaos after the war—you know that we were arresting Death Eaters right and left—”

“I do rather remember my own interrogation, yes.” Eustace’s voice was dry enough to wither a desert. “And I also remember that I had one, and Mr. Malfoy had one, and even Bellatrix Lestrange had one, although she was already indicating that she was guilty to anyone who would listen. Why wouldn’t the Dark Lord’s supposed right hand be interrogated?”

“We—public sentiment—we knew he betrayed the Potters—”

“Based on nothing more than the accusation of a supposed dead man, yes. Who turns out not to be so dead after all.” Eustace turned to face Pettigrew.

Harry had thought Pettigrew would be too cowardly to speak up in front of the Wizengamot, but maybe the thought of being sent to Azkaban or asked in detail about where he’d been for the last twelve years spurred him on. “I’m innocent!” he squeaked. “It was Black, it was Black, it was all him!”

“One small problem with that,” Eustace said, and made a gesture with his wand. It turned out to be a wordless Cutting Charm, which sliced back the left sleeves on both Black’s and Pettigrew’s robes.

The sight of the Dark Mark on Pettigrew’s arm made enough people upset that Madam Bones had to call her lion and threaten to eat them again. Then she turned to Eustace with a world-weary sigh, but Harry could see how white her face had gone. He didn’t think it was for the same reason that a few Death Eaters in the crowd looked that way.

“No one even checked Black’s arm for the Mark? No one fucking checked?”

Theo gasped next to Harry. Harry did the same thing. He wouldn’t have been supposed if Black had sworn, but it seemed more impressive, somehow, coming from someone as restrained and severe as Madam Bones.

“Chaos of war,” Crouch whispered, like it was a spell that would get him out of this awkward situation.

“He didn’t always Mark his close inner circle!” someone offered from the Wizengamot. “Black could still be one!”

“But Pettigrew is definitely one,” Madam Bones said. “And I am still waiting for an explanation as to why even people loudly proclaiming their guilt received interrogations when Black didn’t. Why you tried your own son but not Black, Bartemius.”

Harry blinked and leaned over to whisper to Theo, “Does Crouch serve the Dark Lord? Did he know Black wasn’t a Death Eater?”

Theo shook his head. “I think he was high on power at the time and didn’t see any need to hold an interrogation when he believed Black was guilty. And no one would have cared, with the Dark Lord’s fall. They all wanted to see the person who betrayed their savior sentenced to Azkaban, and they would have just assumed the interrogation was private.”

Harry nodded and sat back to listen as the courtroom exploded in more shouting, with not even the silvery lion able to calm the situation.

*

“I asked to see Harry, Mr. Nott, not you.”

Theo smiled at Dumbledore and held up the book he was carrying. “This is my home, Headmaster, and I’m going to sit in the study reading a book while you interrogate Harry.”

“I would not refer to it as an interrogation.”

“I would.”

“Mr. Nott—”

“I want Theo here. Sir.”

Dumbledore stared at Harry with an expression of deep frustration. Maybe he knew disappointment wouldn’t make any impact, Theo thought, as he settled in a wingback chair near the fireplace.

Then Dumbledore shook his head and said, “Yes, why not? Perhaps we should invite Crouch and Mr. Nott and Sirius and the shades of your dead parents as well.”

“I wouldn’t mind, sir. It would give me a chance to ask Crouch what he was thinking, with not interrogating Black before he put him in prison.”

Dumbledore closed his eyes. Theo wondered if Dumbledore was counting down in a different language for patience, the way that Father had sometimes done when Theo was younger.

Well. Mostly when Theo was younger.

“Very well,” Dumbledore said heavily. “Harry, why did you not bring the issue of Sirius Black to me when you suspected he was an Animagus?”

“Why would I have?”

Dumbledore shot a quick look at Theo, who turned his book a little to look at an equation marching up the side of the page. Dumbledore cleared his throat. “Sirius fought under my leadership in the Order of the Phoenix. If I had known he was innocent, I could have helped him.”

“But you didn’t know, sir.” Harry’s voice and face were fresh and calm. “So you couldn’t have helped.”

“If you had told me—”

“If you knew that he was such a paragon of goodness and righteousness, why didn’t it surprise you that he betrayed my parents?”

“I did not know that they had switched Secret-Keepers. Please, Harry, believe that if you believe nothing else.’

“I do, sir. But that’s not an answer to my question.”

Silence. Theo thought equations were fascinating.

Dumbledore finally cleared his throat. “You must—I suppose that it was the chaos of the war, my boy. Knowing that James and Lily had died, and that all our efforts to protect them had been in vain, and that you were now an orphan? And knowing at the same time that Voldemort was gone?” Theo tightened his muscles in an effort not to flinch. Never show weakness to an enemy. “I have rarely felt such powerful joy and rage and grief all at once. And I was busy making arrangements for your care and then trying to make sure that the Death Eaters were identified in the wake of the war and not allowed to slink away.”

He probably meant those words as a strike at Father, but Harry ignored them. “Funny, sir, I’ve heard those words about the chaos of the war from someone else.’

“You have?”

“Barty Crouch. And he’s apparently under investigation by Madam Bones and will be lucky to keep his Ministry position. Do you think that she should investigate you, too? I didn’t think so, but I’ll tell her if you want me to.”

This time, Theo had to tighten his muscles to keep his shoulders from shaking.

“You know there is a difference between me and Barty Crouch, Harry.”

“Yes, sir. You have more power.”

Theo let out a muffled snort, because it was that or everything. Dumbledore shot him a sharp look, and Theo knew that without meeting his eyes, but his book was his shield. His highly interesting shield.

“I am disappointed that you did not think you could bring this matter to me, Harry.”

“You make mistakes, sir. The way you did with the Dursleys. The way you did by not asking Black why he betrayed my parents. Why would I trust that you wouldn’t make a mistake with this?”

“And yet, you trusted Eustace Nott.”

Dumbledore’s probably sorer about that than he is about anything else, Theo thought.

“He doesn’t make mistakes.”

“What was that brand on his arm?”

“The way he thought he could gain power at the time. And now he knows better, and so he’s doing this instead.”

Silence. Silence so strained that Theo felt as though the particles of it were whirling past his ears. Then Dumbledore gave a sigh so slow and heavy that it seemed as if he were breathing lead from the depth of his lungs, and stood up, shaking his head.

“I hoped that you would be reasonable, Harry. I see that you are not.”

“Why did you ask to talk to me instead of Sirius?”

“I hoped that you would be reasonable.”

Harry shrugged.

Theo knew when the conversation was done, and also that they should probably leave before Dumbledore said something he didn’t mean and which might make Harry shake the books off the shelves. Books were very important. He stood up and crossed the room to Harry, nodding gravely at him. “Father said that we would have anything we wanted for dinner tonight, in honor of Black being declared free and Pettigrew being condemned. Remember?”

“Yes, I remember.” Harry smiled at him and stood up, then said to Dumbledore without looking at him, “You should really talk to Sirius. We have protections set up so that he can’t attack me or any of the Notts, but I don’t know about you.”

Theo managed to hold in the temptation to laugh this time.

*

“Free.”

Sirius—as he’d asked Harry to call him—hadn’t said much more than that since they’d received the official pardon from the Ministry. He’d lain on his bed in the room Eustace had given him and stared at the ceiling. He’d stared at his hands a lot, too, for some reason.

“From everything except Mind-Healing,” Harry agreed cheerfully.

Sirius rolled over and stared at him. “No.”

“What do you mean?”

“It hurt a lot when that Death Eater bastard used that spell to force me into sanity. I asked him, and he said it was a variation of a spell that Mind-Healers used. It hurt a lot. I’m not going through that again.”

“Well, tell the Mind-Healer that, and they won’t use that one.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I don’t always want to practice magic instead of read, but I have to. I don’t want to have conversations with Dumbledore, but I think it’s better than telling him to go fuck himself since he could still make trouble.”

That caught Sirius’s attention fast. “Dumbledore was here?”

Harry nodded and shrugged. “He seemed to think that we should have brought your case to him, and then he could have done something about it. Or something.”

“Could he have?”

Harry stood there, uncertain if that was a rhetorical question, but then some silence went by, and he realized that Sirius seemed to expect him to actually answer. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. But he makes a lot of mistakes. Taking me to the Dursleys’ was a mistake. And I think that him trying to get you a Ministry interrogation would have been one.”

Sirius formed his hands into tight fists in the sheets, and then swore and rolled to the side. “I wish Nott would take this fucking collar off,” he muttered. “It’s hell not being able to transform or use magic.”

“Go to the Mind-Healer, and we can talk about it.”

“You’re a manipulative little shit, aren’t you?”

Sirius sounded admiring. Harry shrugged, but he smiled. “You need to see a Mind-Healer because Eustace isn’t going to let you out of the house unless you agree to go, and I’m leaving for Hogwarts soon. You want to be able to visit me during the school term, don’t you?”

“Manipulative little shit,” Sirius repeated, but he sighed and nodded. “All right. Nott and I will have a—talk about it, and I’ll ask him to make sure to choose a Mind-Healer who won’t use that fucking spell.”

“Good.”

*

Theo stepped off the last stair and blinked at his father, who was repairing a hole in the wall with a grim expression. It looked—Theo tilted his head. Yes, it really did look like a human being had attempted to jump through the wall, and had managed to shatter the wood before slamming into the stone and wards beneath.

“Father?”

“It’s not a matter of concern for you, Theodore.”

“But I want to know what happened.”

“You don’t need to.”

Father’s repressive tone once would have made Theo back away, shivering, but now he just frowned and went into the dining room. Harry cast him a speaking glance, and whispered, “Sirius said that he and Eustace were going to have a chat.”

“Oh,” Theo said, suddenly perfectly sure how the hole had happened when Black couldn’t use magic, and shook his head. He was glad that Black would see a Mind-Healer, but equally glad that they would be leaving for Hogwarts soon, and Black would only be able to visit on Hogsmeade weekends. He was irritating to be around.

*

“I still can’t believe that you didn’t write to us and tell us about Black being innocent!”

Harry smiled at Hermione as she took her seat beside him in Arithmancy. Theo had the one on Harry’s other side, of course. “Well, writing before we could pull that reveal in front of the Wizengamot would have given the game away. We had to make sure we presented the evidence in a way that the Ministry couldn’t ignore or hush up.”

“I would have kept it quiet.”

Harry looked at her steadily.

Hermione bit her lip and looked a little shame-faced. “All right. So I might have told my parents just because they were worried about the criminal who was on the Muggle news. And then they…might have told other people.”

Harry nodded. “It’s not your fault,” he added, when Hermione looked as though she might continue apologizing. “We just realized it would be a huge temptation to lots of people. So we kept it quiet.”

“Okay.”

Professor Septima Vector opened the door then and walked into the classroom. Harry studied her thoughtfully. He’d seen her from a distance at the professors’ table, but never spoken to her. She was tall, with dark skin and silvery hair in a braid so tight that it looked like it probably hurt. She carried a blue lens in one hand that she paused to screw into her left eye before she looked at them.

“Welcome to Arithmancy.”

Harry blinked. Her voice was low and harsh and sounded as though she were a Muggle who had smoked for years.

“In this class, we will use numbers to manipulate the very fabric of reality in a way that only the most powerful wizards and witches use their wands. If you are not interested and are only taking this class because you wanted to fill in a hole in your schedule, then I wish you the very best of luck choosing another class.”

Harry caught Theo smiling from the corner of his eye. Yes, it made sense that this was the kind of teacher that would appeal to Theo.

“Is there anyone who wishes to leave?”

Vector surveyed the class. Harry heard someone shuffling around and doing what sounded like picking up books near the back of the room, and Vector nodded without changing her expression. Harry didn’t turn around to look at who was leaving.

Vector glanced around the class one more time. Then she said, “Open your books to page 67.”

Harry did so, joyfully.

*

Theo leaned forwards a little when Bathsheda Babbling marched into the Ancient Runes classroom. He had been impressed by Vector, and now he was hoping, maybe foolishly, that the miracle would repeat and they would get a Runes professor worth listening to.

Trusting maybe, someday, if he and Harry truly encountered something in Hogwarts that they couldn’t handle on their own.

Granger was quivering in her seat near the middle of the first row. Babbling glanced at her and nodded, but then did the same thing with every other student, which eased Theo’s fears that she might favor Gryffindors or people who asked a lot of questions aloud. Babbling was the shortest professor Theo had seen at Hogwarts other than Flitwick, with extremely pale green eyes and skin that looked as if she were made of salt.

“This is the beginning of a partnership that will repeat throughout your years at Hogwarts, continuing even after the NEWT, I hope.” Babbling’s voice was light and faint, meaning that the two Hufflepuffs whispering in a corner had to shut up to hear her. “What do you already know about Runes?”

Harry put his hand up. Theo blinked. Harry always understood a lot more in classes tan he let on, but he didn’t volunteer it often. Maybe he was just doing it now because he liked Runes so much. Babbling nodded to him.

“I know that you can arrange them in arrays and matrices and sentences, Professor.”

Babbling’s eyes gleamed for a second. “Sentences?”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Then you will enjoy the content of this class,” Babbling said simply, and moved on to other people, nodding in response to most of their answers, sometimes correcting someone. She didn’t offer points. Theo had heard she didn’t.

When she looked at him, Theo murmured, “Using Runes in conjunction with Arithmancy strengthens both disciplines. But finding the places where they differ means that you can also exploit the holes.’

“Excellent analysis, Mr. Nott.”

Theo smiled. Yes, this was another breath of fresh air.

*

“What’s the matter, Ron?”

Ron leaned back in his seat in Charms and sighed. “It’s Scabbers,” he said. “I woke up one day during the summer, and saw him asleep on my pillow, and went back to sleep. And then when I woke up, he was gone. He—maybe he just ran away, but Percy said that some animals creep off to die by themselves when they’re sick. So maybe that’s what happened.”

Harry’s heart twinged. It was better for everyone, Ron included, if he never knew the truth about Scabbers, but he sounded desolate. Maybe it was because he missed having a pet in general, rather than because Pettigrew had been—ugh—a particularly good pet.

“Hey, Ron.”

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Nott? I stayed with him during the summer?”

Ron made an obvious show of looking over Harry. “Yeah, and you’re still in one piece. It’s amazing.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Well, he wanted to get me a pet, because he doesn’t think owls count. But I told him I really didn’t need one. He’d already bought the kitten, though. Now it’s roaming around the manor and driving Mr. Nott mad. I wasn’t going to ask you if you wanted him, because I knew you had a rat, but—”

“I’d love a cat!”

“Even one that’s part-Kneazle?” Harry knew that most of the cats sold in Diagon Alley were, like Hermione’s new cat, Crookshanks, and that would be the kind that Eustace would buy once Harry sent him the owl.

Or Sirius, come to that.

“Yeah. I don’t mind.” Ron was practically glowing. Then he hesitated and said, “You’re sure that you don’t want him, mate?”

“No. I really don’t want a cat. An owl is enough.”

Hedwig liked Nott Manor, and she had spent most of the summer swooping in circles around Harry’s head when he flew, or hunting, or asleep in the owlery. But when she did decide to visit Harry, she always preened his hair and checked him over as carefully as a chick. It was nice, in some ways, but also overwhelming.

Harry tried to imagine having another pet like that that fawned over him, and shuddered away from the mere thought of all the work it would take.

“Thanks, mate,” Ron said, and then smiled. “What’s his name? What does he look like?”

“I didn’t name him. He’s mostly black, but he has a few patches of other colors…”

The more detailed the lie Harry spun, the more he restricted the kind of kitten Sirius could buy, he knew. But that was all right. Sirius had a lot of years to make up for, and he would probably be delighted to buy a Kneazle kitten for someone who had accidentally had Pettigrew in rat form for a pet.

And seeing Ron’s delighted face made everything worth it.

Chapter Text

“One half-Kneazle kitten, delivered as promised,” Sirius said, holding out the squirming, hissing cat to Ron. He winked at Harry hugely over Ron’s head.

“Is something wrong with your face, Sirius?” Harry asked innocently.

By the time Ron glanced up, Sirius had smoothed out his expression again, except for a raised eyebrow. Harry turned back to Ron with a grin and found him holding up the kitten with an adoring look. He really was all black except for a few debs of white, and big enough that Harry might have thought he was older. Hermione’s half-Kneazle was pretty big, too, though.

“This is really great, Mr. Black,” Ron blurted. “Th-thank you for bringing him.”

Harry squinted at Ron, until he realized that Ron was still a little uneasy around someone who had spent time in Azkaban. Harry concealed his snort and nodded at Sirius. “Yeah, Sirius, thank you. Do you know what you’re going to name him, Ron?”

“Nightstrike! It sounds brilliant.”

Harry blinked. He would have expected Ron to take some more time, but… “Sure,” he said. “Nightstrike he is.”

“I should take him up to the castle.” Ron was stroking Nightstrike’s fur with an intent look, and the kitten sank his claws into Ron’s arm and then settled down and began to purr loudly. “You don’t mind, do you, Harry? If I abandon you part of the way into the Hogsmeade weekend?”

Harry laughed. “No, not at all. It’ll give me some time to spend with Sirius, and then Theo’s going to come out later. He prefers to sleep in until eleven when he has the chance.”

“Still don’t know what you see in that creepy Nott,” Ron muttered, but it was half-hearted. He grabbed Harry in a quick hug and then ran out of the small alley where they’d met between shops, clutching Nightstrike close.

“Ready to walk the street with your infamous godfather?”

“Sure. Do you enjoy it when they’re nervous around you?”

Sirius sighed. “Not really.” He ruffled Harry’s hair, and they stepped out of the alley. They got a few glances and gasps, but not as many as Harry had expected. Most of the people swarming the village were Hogwarts students far more intent on sweets or dates than recognizing someone who had been in Azkaban.

“I wish someone had paid attention years ago,” Sirius continued in a low, choked voice. “That’s what I really wish. That I’d never gone to prison at all, or I could have been out earlier and raising you.”

Harry patted Sirius’s back and then steered him towards Tome and Scrolls. A bookshop was the best remedy for everything, he had decided two years ago. Some of it was probably being influenced by his Ravenclaw Housemates, but a lot of it was just being able to choose what he did when he wasn’t around the Dursleys.

“This is your idea of a good time?” Sirius had halted in the door of the shop and was staring around.

Harry considered Sirius carefully. He didn’t sound upset, just disbelieving.

“Come on, let’s buy some of the ridiculous books they publish about my so-called adventures and then go make fun of them over butterbeer.”

It seemed that he knew how to distract his godfather with books. Sirius’s face cracked open in a wide grin that made Harry have a sudden glimpse of the handsome man he had been in the pre-Azkaban pictures he’d found to show Harry. “You do know how to show a bloke a good time.”

Harry smiled back, and led the way over to the stupid books about Harry Potter’s Adventures, which were barely saved by the label on the shelves that identified them as Children’s Fiction.

*

“You’re going to confront Lupin? Like a Gryffindor?”

“I want to know why he never tried to contact me after Sirius went to prison. He believed Sirius was guilty, sure, but I was innocent. Why didn’t he come and try to find me? And Sirius just growls and doesn’t say anything when I mention him. Anything we want to discover, we’ll have to do on our own.”

Theo had sighed loudly when Harry had explained his reasoning, but he also stood beside his best friend as Harry knocked on the Defense professor’s office door. Because what kind of best friend would he be otherwise?

Lupin opened the door with a pleasant expression that altered dramatically to a sickly one when he saw them. Then again, he looked kind of sickly at all times. His hair was greyer than it should have been for someone Black’s age, and his skin sallow with an underlying tone of yellow.

“Mr. Nott. Harry.” His eyes moved to Harry and lingered, and Theo suppressed a snort. If Lupin really wanted to hide that he had known Black and Harry’s parents, he shouldn’t address Harry by his first name all the time. “Do you need help with something?”

“We need to talk to you, Professor. Can we come in, please?”

Harry looked politely unstoppable, and that might have been the reason Lupin opened the door. Theo glanced around the office with his own version of polite interest. There were books on shelves, but not as many as Theo would have had if he were a professor. More of the space was taken up by a grindylow in a tank and what seemed to be dueling targets leaning against the wall.

Can’t he just conjure and Vanish his own? So far, everything pointed to Lupin being a somewhat competent teacher, but not a powerful wizard.

And that, of course, is absolutely who should be teaching something as vital as Defense, Theo thought in annoyance.

“I’m here because of Sirius Black,” Harry announced, and Lupin froze in the middle of walking towards a tea service in the corner. “He says that you were friends with him and my parents, but you haven’t written or come by since he was pardoned. And you never visited me when I was a kid, either, and living with my mum’s horrible Muggle family. Why not?”

Lupin turned around. His eyes were stricken and sad. Theo kept in a snort with difficulty. He thought Lupin probably felt those emotions more sincerely than Dumbledore would have, but the conversation would probably be just as hard for him.

Well, then he should have come to visit Harry and Black.

“I never meant to,” Lupin whispered. “I always meant to go to Azkaban and confront Sirius about why he did it. I always meant to check up on you and see that you really were being raised as well as Albus thought you were. But it never happened.”

“You mean you never did it?”

“It never happened.”

From Lupin’s averted gaze, Theo thought he might know what that meant, although Harry’s tightening mouth said he didn’t. Lupin was one of those people who liked to let the world wash past him and make no effort to keep up with it. If he went on like that, terrible things would happen, but they wouldn’t be his fault.

“Well, now Sirius is out of prison, and I know about the connection you had to him and my parents, and you might as well talk to me,” Harry said sharply. Theo couldn’t remember seeing him lose his temper like this with Black or Dumbledore. “Now you know that you can resume those relationships you should have done.”

“I—I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“There are things going on that you don’t understand!” Lupin spun towards them with speed that made Harry jump, although not Theo. He was too interested in studying Lupin, in seeing those things that Lupin probably wouldn’t have wanted him to notice. “I can’t possibly—there’s no way—”

He broke off, panting.

“You could, but you don’t want to.” Harry stood still, but he was hiding hurt. Theo could see it in the curl of his mouth, as well as feeling it in the tightness of his back when Theo touched him gently. “Fine. I suppose I should have known that when you didn’t approach me during the first two months of school. All right. I’ll leave you alone, Professor.”

Harry turned around. Lupin’s mouth moved helplessly, and he reached out, but he didn’t make a sound to call Harry back.

Theo sighed and did it for him.

“He doesn’t want to be close to you because he’s a werewolf,” Theo said, and ignored the way that Lupin gaped as if he would howl. “It all fits. The pallor and the way that he gets sick during certain periods of the month and the scars and the prematurely grey hair and the speed he just used to spin around. He thinks he’ll corrupt you, probably. Or disappoint you, that’s more likely. I don’t think he can really be afraid of infection, or he wouldn’t be working in a school.”

Lupin’s body shook as if Theo’s words had been so many curses hitting him. “You need to go,” he whispered, but so softly that Theo felt free to ignore the words, and Harry, who had turned back around and was staring at Lupin, might not have heard them.

“You thought I would care if you were a werewolf? If I had got to know a friend of my parents and you’d rescued me from that awful prison?”

“You—you weren’t in Azkaban.”

“Might as well have been,” Theo drawled, because Lupin wasn’t apologizing in the way he should have been, and he didn’t think Harry needed to bear all the burdens of that shit. “Do you know that his relatives made him sleep in a cupboard and do all the chores and never told him about magic? Did you know that?”

Lupin clapped his hands over his ears. Harry folded his arms. “I know very well that you can still hear us, and we don’t even need to speak very loud.”

“I could have done something wrong!” Lupin shouted, and there really was a distinct howl in the back of his voice that made Harry jump. Theo shifted closer to him, but Harry didn’t seem able to take his eyes from Lupin. “I could have lost control and injured someone! I could have done something that would get the Obliviators called out! I could have infected someone! I’ve nearly lost control more than once. I can only be here now that Wolfsbane’s been invented. And I could have—I could have—” He broke off and wrapped his arms around his head.

He’s so afraid of doing something wrong, he doesn’t do anything, Theo thought.

“I could have said the wrong thing to Sirius if I’d gone to see him,” Lupin whispered. “Or I could say something now and taint all the memories of our friendship. I don’t know what to say.”

“Sirius is still loyal to you,” Harry said flatly. “He still keeps your secrets. He didn’t say anything to me about your being a werewolf.” He took a deep breath, eyes half-closed, and shook his head. “And your friendship is already tainted by the memories of what Pettigrew did and that Sirius was imprisoned unjustly, I would have thought.”

“You don’t understand. We were closer than brothers.”

“I wouldn’t have any idea what a friendship of that magnitude is like, of course.”

Lupin glanced up. “No, you wouldn’t.”

Theo said nothing, because Harry would say it for him, but there was an odd quickness to his pulse as he thought, I think we’re closer than brothers, but I don’t want Harry to be just a brother.

It was an insight he had to put aside, because Harry made a noise of disgust. “If you ever get over staring into your own navel and obsessing about your evilness, then maybe we would welcome you back into our lives,” he said, and turned his back. “For right now, I’m going to spend my time with people who want to spend it with me.”

“Harry,” Lupin whispered.

Harry stopped walking. Theo knew that even now, Lupin could speak in such a way as to make Harry turn around. He was ridiculously forgiving towards everyone except Pettigrew and the Dark Lord—people who had done things that had resulted in years of torment for him.

Lupin hadn’t done anything, which was the problem. But because of that, he could still regain Harry’s care and attention.

Theo wrinkled his nose. He personally thought Harry shouldn’t be that forgiving. But it was his choice.

Lupin said nothing. He had one hand stretched out, but as Theo watched, it fell to his side.

Does he really require Harry to make every single move?

Apparently he did, and this time, the silence stretched too long. Harry walked to the classroom door, and Theo followed, keeping his hand in place on Harry’s back so that he would have all the support he needed.

They walked out of Lupin’s office, and down the corridor, and around the corner, and then Harry turned and practically flung himself at Theo, shaking with anguish and beginning to make a low sound that wasn’t sobbing.

Theo held him close, only taking his hand away to draw his wand and flick a Silencing Charm up around them. Harry shouldn’t have to worry about other people intruding on his privacy.

Then they stood there, and Harry mourned what could have been, and Theo held him close until he was ready to go on.

*

“Why do you have all those law books, Hermione?”

“Malfoy is trying to get one of Hagrid’s hippogriffs executed!”

Harry blinked at her, and then at the law books, which were spread across most of their usual table in the library. “Do you think that you’ll manage to keep it safe by looking up the relevant laws?”

“There has to be something here! Something about how if you provoke a magical creature, they have a right to bite you!”

“What happened?”

Hermine told a rambling, impassioned story that made Harry glad he hadn’t taken the Care of Magical Creatures class. Harry sighed as he listened. He liked Hagrid, but he was showing the same bad judgment with introducing magical creatures to third-years that he had when he’d kept a dragon egg in a wooden house.

From across the table, Theo looked like he was about to say the same thing, which would upset Hermione further. Harry caught his eye sternly and then said to Hermione, “Do you want some help?”

“Really, Harry? You would?”

Theo was giving him a disgruntled look, but Harry ignored that. He nodded. “A hippogriff doesn’t deserve to suffer because Malfoy’s a prick.”

“Harry Potter! Your language!”

But she looked happier now, and Theo not too upset, so Harry pushed aside his books and went to work with a will. More to make Hermione and Hagrid happy and get one over on Malfoy than because he cared about the hippogriff specifically, but what did that matter, when he could achieve so much?

*

“Ready?”

Harry gave Theo a hard smile as he stepped back from the array that was laid out on the floor. It was the one of his smiles that Theo liked the best, the one that meant Harry was determined to tackle the obstacle in front of him and find a way past it.

“Ready.”

Theo took a deep breath and stared down for a moment at the diagram carved into the floor in front of them. It showed a nine-square board, with an equation in each space. Surrounding the board was a Runic sentence, the runes flowing into each other, connected and almost dripping down in reach the board.

But not quite. It wouldn’t be a safe experiment the first time to have the equations and the runes actually touching.

Not the first time. Theo did look forward to other times.

“Then let’s begin.”

Theo took out a parchment and quill and began to write down the equations and the answers to them as fast as he could. Meanwhile, Harry concentrated on the runes, and someone seeing him from a distance might have thought he was relaxed. His breathing was slow and his hands hanging down at his sides.

But in reality, he was concentrating intently on the runes, willing them to fill with his magic.

Theo saw the first sign that they were succeeding when the Sowilo rune closest to the upper right-hand square begin to shine with subdued sunlight. He continued writing down his equations and answers, and saw the same subtle glow creep into the parchment.

He avoided cheering, mostly because it would distract Harry.

He finished the last equation and tossed the parchment into the air. If they had done this correctly, then it would grow—

It did. It grew to the exact size of the array carved into the floor, and then fluttered forwards and draped itself across the board. The equations lit with a dusky blue light that seemed to sparkle with white like stars, and caught up the light from the runes encircling them. Theo held his breath and watched as number after number and rune after rune took fire.

There was only the lower left-hand square still dark when Harry abruptly collapsed.

Theo didn’t even waste time calling out Harry’s name. He leaped straight over the array and the sentence, landing next to Harry, and raised his wand and called the strongest shield Father had taught them that summer.

As it was, he was barely in time to protect them from the explosion.

Splinters and shards of stone rained against the shield, and Theo heard something ping off the far wall. He winced as what sounded like part of that far wall of this unused dungeon classroom collapsed, but he continued to hold the shield steady.

Harry stirred a few minutes later. He looked up at the shield, blinked blearily around at the dust and stone fragments on the floor, and sighed. “I lost control of my magic on the last rune, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Theo said. “You know, I think we could ask Babbling and Vector for help with the combination of Arithmancy and Runes we’re trying to do. I think they would see the practical applications and even be excited to help us.”

“But you don’t believe that they would let us practice with the actual arrays yet.”

“Well, no. Probably not for years.”

Harry nodded and stood up. “Then we’re going to do everything we can on our own, until we’re forced to break down and go to them.”

Theo sighed, but nodded. He had been pretty sure it would come to that, and he hadn’t wanted it to.

But he would be loyal to Harry no matter what happened. And he believed they had the tools and self-discipline necessary to handle even dangerous magic like this. It would just take more practice than he’d originally reckoned on.

*

“Look, Harry, I got you a godfather for a gift!”

Harry laughed as Sirius stuffed a bow into his hair and rolled about under the Christmas tree. He seemed to have adapted well to staying in Nott Manor most of the time while Harry and Theo were at Hogwarts, but he had moved into his own house a few weeks ago. It was the house where he had grown up, and he had wrinkled his nose when Harry had asked him about it and said that he would take Harry one of these years when it was clean.

Now, though, they were all together, sitting around the tree with the scattered wrapping of gifts around them, and their stomachs full of warm chocolate.

“Why do I need a godfather for a gift when I already have one?”

“You can never have too many godfathers!”

“But I already have the best one!”

Sirius stared at Harry with his mouth open for a moment. Harry started to ask what was wrong, and Sirius suddenly turned into a giant black dog and sprang onto Harry with a woof, bowling him over and starting to lick his face.

“Sirius, gross—ew!” Sirius nearly got his tongue into Harry’s mouth while he was talking.

Harry thought he might have to reach for his wand and cast a Stinging Hex to get Sirius off him, but then Sirius yelped and sprang free, and Harry saw that Theo had got there first. Sirius was growling at Theo, who just tucked his wand away and said, “If you don’t want to be treated like an unruly dog, stop acting like one.”

“Dinner is served, gentlemen.”

Eustace was standing near the doorway of the sitting room, eyeing Sirius and pointedly not saying anything. He shook his head and focused on Harry and Theo when they turned towards him. “Although I believe there is one more gift for Harry.”

Harry swallowed, his heart pounding oddly. He half-wondered if Remus Lupin had come to visit, and what his own reaction would be if that was the case. He wasn’t sure, any more than he was sure what Sirius’s would be.

“Under the tree.”

Harry turned around and squinted. Now that he was looking, he realized that, yes, there was a huge package shoved back into the shadows around the base of the tree.

“Happy Christmas, Harry!”

Of course Sirius had got it for him. Harry had to admit that it was nice to be spoiled sometimes, just as it was nice to be able to depend on Eustace never to do that. He reached in under the tree’s branches and pulled the package out.

He blinked when he saw it in the light. There was absolutely no doubt that it was a broom now that he could see it.

“Sirius—”

“Nope!”

“What?”

“You’re not going to say that it’s too expensive or I shouldn’t have got it for you! Nope!”

“I was actually going to say that I don’t fly all too often,” Harry muttered, but he tore open the paper, and then gasped as it fluttered to the floor.

“Is that a Firebolt?” Theo demanded from his right shoulder.

“It is!” Sirius sang.

“Of all the irresponsible gifts,” Eustace began.

Harry didn’t listen. He caressed the broom gently, the handle gleaming with beeswax polish under his touch, and then looked up at his grinning godfather, who had told him stories of his dad being a Chaser again and again.

“Thank you,” Harry whispered.

“You’re welcome! You should try out for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team next year! Chaser! Or maybe Seeker.” Sirius squinted at Harry. “With as little as you are, you’ll never make a Beater.”

Eustace said something displeased about that, probably because Sirius was treating the evidence of Harry’s abuse at the Dursleys lightly. Sirius made a pert answer, and Harry ducked his head and smiled into his robe.

Theo’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. Harry looked up at him, ready to reassure Theo that of course he could have a turn at flying on the Firebolt, but his tongue dried up when he saw the light in Theo’s eyes.

Theo wasn’t even thinking of being jealous because Harry had a Firebolt and he didn’t, even though Theo was the one who had the most practice and interest in flying between them. He was just smiling because he was glad Harry had a broom like this.

“Happy Christmas, Harry,” he whispered.

Harry felt a strange, warm squirming in his stomach. He wasn’t sure what he could do with it yet, or if he wanted to do anything at all.

So he just smiled back and whispered, “Happy Christmas, Theo.”

Sirius and Eustace bickered in the background, and lights shone around them, and Theo smiled.

*

“You have been experimenting on your own, gentlemen?”

Professor Vector’s voice was calm and displeased. Theo had the urge to look at the floor, which was silly, because he’d never done that with shame in his life. Father had other means of getting Theo to feel repentant when he was displeased.

So he squared his shoulders and held his head up and said, “Yes, Professor.”

“That was irresponsible.” Vector, as was her way, didn’t say anything after that, but Theo flushed and felt as if the stone chips he had prevented from hitting him and Harry several times had cut into him after all. He still held his head up, though, while Vector bent over the parchment Theo had covered with equations. “Interesting, but irresponsible,” she added. “Do you know what this array might have done when combined with Runic sentences?”

“Did do, Septima.” Professor Babbling had looked up from the parchment that Harry had given her on the other side of her classroom, and she was shaking her head. “We’re lucky that they achieved nothing more than a few minor explosions.’

“Why did you go ahead and decide to experiment in advance of the class?”

Theo hesitated. He knew what he wanted to say—it was his own relentless academic curiosity that had driven them to this—but he couldn’t imagine that would go over well with the two professors, who had emphasized safety again and again, and ignoring curiosity if necessary.

“It was partially my fault, Professors.”

Harry spoke the words with his chin lifted. He was standing near one of the windows in Babbling’s tower classroom, and a stray shaft of March sunlight lit his hair and made his cheek blaze. Theo sneaked a look at him and then glanced away. Harry looked—

He looked too good for Theo’s peace of mind, was the truth.

“Why is that, Mr. Potter?” Professor Vector asked.

“Yes, why? And while I know that you two are best friends, I hardly think that you coerced Mr. Nott into going along.”

Professor Babbling sounded mild, but the tone of her voice made Theo flush hotter than ever and open his mouth to defend Harry. Harry said quickly, “We wanted to learn the best combination of Runes and Arithmancy to defend ourselves.”

“What do you need to defend yourself from, Mr. Potter?”

Harry blinked at Professor Babbling, and then moved his head a little so that his hair fell away from his scar. “What do you think, Professor?”

Theo almost thought Babbling would deny it, but she and Vector must know that the Dark Lord had been possessing Quirrell, because Babbling flushed a little. “My apologies, Mr. Potter,” she said quietly.

“It makes sense, why you were doing this,” Vector breaks in. “But I must tell you if that you keep on as you are, you will kill yourselves before you achieve the necessary speed and skill to use Arithmancy and Runes in battle.”

Harry sighed a little. “I was afraid of that. So what can we do to improve our success rate? Can you help us?”

“We would have helped you from the beginning, if you had come to us.”

“We haven’t had the best history of getting help from the professors in this school,” Theo said. “We’ve had to do a lot for ourselves.”

“I see,” said Professor Vector, and she and Babbling exchanged a long look that hinted at some history Theo didn’t know about. In the end, Vector nodded and focused on him. “But you have us now. And we shall be helping you.”

It was said as flatly as a pronouncement, but Harry smiled, and that let Theo do the same thing a second later.

Finally. Finally we have people here we can trust.

*

“So Buckbeak got completely away?”

“Um. Completely.”

Harry narrowed his eyes as he stared at Hermione. She had never been the best liar, and right now, she was blushing hard enough to make herself look like a firework. “Hermione, what did you do?”

“Why do you assume I did something?” Hermione’s ears turned bright red, although it was harder to see in the sunlight, and she spun around to face him. “Just because you think that I must have done something--!”

“Well, yeah, because you look guilty as hell.”

Hermione stopped walking towards Herbology. She had asked to talk to Harry alone, but now she scowled at him as if he was the one who had cornered her and started interrogating her. “I had nothing to do with it!”

“Li-ar,” Harry sang softly.

“And what about it, Harry Potter? Are you going to report me? Try to get Buckbeak back for the Ministry to execute him?”

“Execute, honestly,” Harry muttered. “The Ministry treats hippogriffs as they’re mindless beasts and worthy of being killed for one instance of hurting someone, but they also call it an execution, as if they were human criminals who should know very well what they’ve done. They can’t have it both ways.”

Hermione blinked. “What?”

“Never mind. I’m getting distracted by a theorical consideration in the middle of a practical discussion.” Harry ran a hand down his face. “All right, so you did what you did for the best and the greater good and everything. But are you going to tell me how you did it? Or are you just going to make me worry and wonder all day?”

Hermione blushed one more time, but then reached down and hooked a delicate golden chain from under her shirt to pull it into the light. “This.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called a Time-Turner…”

*

“A ¬Time-Turner, Theo! She had a Time-Turner!”

“Yes?”

“Think about what we could have done if we’d had that! We could have mastered Runes and Arithmancy by now! We would have been able to—”

“Blow ourselves up faster?”

“No! Put together those arrays and matrices that Vector and Babbling are showing us more quickly! Employ full sentences with—”

“You know that we weren’t going to make progress without our professors’ assistance, Harry. You know that we’d reached the point where theory didn’t do us any good anymore, but we didn’t have the practical experience we needed to keep things from exploding. You do know this, right?”

Stubborn silence.

“You do know it, Harry,” Theo said, gently, and leaned forwards to touch a hand to Harry’s cheek. Harry started and turned to look at him. Theo pulled his hand back hastily, even though no one else was in the third-year boys’ bedroom in Ravenclaw right now. “We’re smart, but we aren’t geniuses. And we’re thirteen. We don’t have the magic to do everything we want with Arithmancy and Runes yet.”

Harry sighed and slumped back against the pillows of his bed. “I know, but—we could have done it with a Time-Turner.”

Theo rolled his eyes and made a mental note to have a serious talk with Granger. She would have the Time-Turner until the end of the term, and he wanted to make sure that she understood she was not to lend it to Harry.

*

“So, mate.”

Harry looked up curiously. Ron had come to the compartment that Harry and Theo had been sharing for the ride home for the summer holidays, and had looked supremely uncomfortable and cleared his throat awkwardly until Harry had asked loudly if Theo needed to use the loo. Theo had rolled his eyes, but gone.

“Yeah, Ron?”

“You don’t like Hermione, do you?”

Harry narrowed his eyes. Ron and Hermione still bickered a lot, but this sounded like the beginning of some more of the nonsense that had driven Hermione to hide in the girls’ bathroom in first year. “Of course I do! She’s one of my best friends.”

“I didn’t mean like that.” Red was crawling up Ron’s face as if he were the one who had used the Time-Turner to free Buckbeak, and he had started to sweat. “I mean, would you want to date her?”

Harry stared at Ron with his mouth open.

“What?”

“What?’

“She’s—she’s my friend, Ron. Not someone I want to date.”

“Oh, good.” Ron smiled hugely, and the flush started disappearing from his face. “Because I thought I might ask her to go to Hogsmeade with me next year, but it would be bloody awkward if you’d already asked.”

“No, I…”

“Harry?”

Theo and Ron actually said that at the same time, since Theo had popped his head back in. Apparently, Ron only got five minutes alone with Harry at a time. Harry stared back and forth between them, and then cleared his throat, struck by his own awkward revelation.

“No, Ron, I don’t want to date Hermione. But someone else might. Anthony Goldstein studies with us sometimes, and I know he admires her intellect. Why don’t you go ask her now, so no one else will ask her on a date before you do?”

Ron bristled. “Right! That pillock? I’ll make sure to ask Hermione before he does!” And he turned around and ran away.

Theo snorted as he stepped back into the compartment and sat down on the seat across from Harry. “He thought you wanted to date Granger? He truly knows nothing worth knowing.”

“You know that you and Hermione are friends,” Harry said absently, studying Theo, while the revelation that had come to him when Ron asked if Harry wanted to date Hermione hammered sharp wings at his brain. “You could call her by her first name.”

“Someday I will.”

Theo, who had been stubborn enough to stay by Harry’s side and get along with Hermione but still resisted calling her by her first name. Theo, who had never asked Harry about his fame or whether he remembered the night Voldemort had killed his parents. Theo, who had shared his father and home with Harry without complaint.

Theo, who was as curious and driven and Ravenclaw as Harry was.

“Why are you looking at me like that, Harry?”

Theo, whose voice was a little deeper and whose cheeks had flushed a little as Harry stared at him. Harry decided that he could take a chance.

“Ron likes Hermine, so he thinks everyone does,” Harry murmured. “He couldn’t take into account that some of us like someone else.”

“What?”

Theo’s voice had gone all high and strained. Harry stood up, edged along the wall as the train bounced and jolted, and sat down on the same seat as Theo was sitting on.

Theo stared at him with silent, wide eyes, and said nothing.

“Theo,” Harry said, feeling as though his heart had left his chest, “will you come with me to Hogsmeade on the first weekend next year?”

There was a suspended moment when everything was made of crystal that might have broken.

Then Theo whispered, “Yes,” and reality came back, like always.

Except not always. Ten thousand times better.

*

He really does want to date me. He doesn’t—he’s not only attracted to witches, he doesn’t want a goody-goody Gryffindor, he wants…

“Yes,” Theo repeated, and leaned forwards a little.

Harry’s eyes were wide, bright, with the kind of focused, intense curiosity that he usually gave to Ancient Runes. When Theo’s lips brushed his, Harry sat still for a moment, and then he leaned forwards and kissed Theo back.

It was nothing more than a light brushing of lips, but it was real, and they both shivered as they parted.

“Good,” Harry said, and they stared at each other a little more before Harry leaned over and picked up his Ancient Runes book.

“The professors said we were getting pretty close to the perfect combination of sentences and arrays. Reckon that your dad will let us keep practicing this summer?”

Theo blinked at Harry for a moment, and then smiled, because some things had grown sharper and clearer. But not really changed. Their friendship had begun in what they studied together, and would grow and continue that way.

“Only if you promise not to explode the manor,” he said, reaching for his Arithmancy book.

“I never even managed to explode Hogwarts!”

“That sentence you chose the other day came near to exploding the classroom, and that was with Vector’s shielding.”

As they argued about it, and Harry’s eyes shone at him, Theo realized that he couldn’t wait for the years that lay ahead of them.

The End.