[July Celebration fics]: Shadow Magic, Harry/Theodore Nott, R, 4/7
Chapter Three.
Part One.
Title: Shadow Magic (4/7)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Theodore Nott, a few canon het pairings mentioned
Wordcount: This part 5100
Content Notes: Angst, AU, present tense, violence, minor character deaths, largely amoral Harry
Rating: R
Summary: AU. Harry was born with a power the Dark Lord knows not: the magic to see into shadows, to walk the shadows, and to send the shadows everywhere. This changes his life rather dramatically.
Author’s Notes: The last of my July Celebration fics; this will be split into seven parts, one to be posted each day for the rest of July.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Four-Shadows in His Eyes
The summer is wonderful. Harry has never lived in a house so large, or had the ability to wake up when he wants and do what he wants exactly then. Even staying in the Leaky Cauldron last summer, he had to wake up at certain times so he could get breakfast and lunch. Here, the Nott house-elves will serve him whenever he wants.
He soon explores all the shadowy corners in the manor, and finds a secret of Aethelred’s that makes him smile to hold onto. Then he can concentrate on spreading out into the shadows of the forest and finding the hiding places of the unicorns that live there. Wild beasts scatter before him when he pops up. He finds a patch of Potions ingredients that Aethelred has warned him to let alone and watches from shadows for a long time before he sees the fine webs of guardian spiders spun among the herbs.
Spending time with Theodore gets easier and easier. He’s happy to talk as much as Harry wants or as little as he asks. He’ll lean back with his eyes closed and his hand waving as if he’s conducting music while Harry talks about the Dursleys. He’ll come up with absurd ideas for revenge on Harry’s relatives and laugh about them with him.
And he buys Harry a birthday gift that has Harry giving him a long, narrow-eyed glance when he takes it out of the wrapping.
“What?” Theodore asks innocently.
“A historical book about Dark Lords was one thing, but this is a less than subtle hint,” Harry replies, turning the book over. It has a cover picture, not always the case with books in the wizarding world, and it depicts a woman holding a bat in one hand and a snake in the other. Take Over the World With Dark Arts! says the title. There’s no author listed.
Theodore doesn’t say anything. Harry looks over at him to see if he’s going to laugh, and finds him leaning towards Harry and staring, the way he did sometimes during the past year at school when he almost caught Harry using his shadow powers.
“You’re the likeliest candidate I know,” Theodore says softly.
“To take over the world?” Harry snorts and opens the book. There are a few spells listed, but most of the book seems to focus on manipulation techniques. That might be interesting. “I don’t care enough about most people to want to rule them. Thank you for the book, though,” he remembers to add.
“I think it’s a requirement that you not care much about most people, in order to take over the world,” Theodore says, smiling as he picks up the breakfast tray he and Harry have been eating from. “And you’re welcome.”
Harry rolls his eyes as he watches a house-elf pop up to take the tray from Theodore. “Why don’t you do it? You don’t care that much about most people, either.”
“I never had the power. You do.”
“You know I don’t care that much about being the Boy-Who-Lived.” And honestly, it seems that most people don’t care that much about it anymore, either. That’s something Harry is proud of. He acted like an ordinary or average student all year, at least on the surface, and so people have to treat him as ordinary and average.
“I wasn’t talking about that.”
Harry laughs a little uneasily. Theodore’s eyes are so piercing that he may actually see through shadows, both the kind Harry travels through and the kind Harry tries to throw. “I don’t have that much magical power, either.”
“You deflected the Bone-Breaking Curse with a fourth-year spell. Do you know I studied the Shield Charm after you started teaching it to me and Thomas? It shouldn’t be able to turn back that spell anyway, unless practiced by a wizard seventh year and up.”
“Quirrell was a horrible teacher and half our books for that class are wrong. You know that. And will you call him Dean? You gave him permission to call you Theodore.”
“He wanted to, and it puts him at ease. But I call him by the name that reflects the distance between us. I always call people exactly what I want to call them and what I think they should be called. It always makes a statement about what I feel.”
“Except with me.”
“Why not with you?”
“You joke about me being your lord, but you don’t mean that.”
Theodore smiles, and says nothing. Harry decides that he is going to change the subject, this time to one of the Dark spells that they learned from a book in Aethelred’s library. And Theodore is joking. Harry’s read about Dark Lords; they have so much more political power and caring than he does. Voldemort wanted to change the world, even if the way he did it was stupid.
Harry doesn’t want to change the world. He wants a few specific people to like him and the rest to leave him alone.
*
“You said something about hearing a voice in the walls. So I brought you someone else who people think hears voices.”
Harry blinks at Theodore and blinks at the young girl Theodore is holding by the wrist, to make sure that she doesn’t wander away. She has blonde hair and an expression so dreamy that Harry thinks it probably challenges his expression in Potions when he’s concentrating on his daydreams to get through the class without cursing Snape. She looks up at him, and her eyes widen a little.
“Theodore says you are my lord,” she says in a high, breathy voice. “Are you?”
“No, I’m no one’s lord, just Harry Potter,” Harry says, and gives Theodore a dirty look when he laughs. “What’s your name?”
“Luna Lovegood. I hear the Nargles when they talk, and the Blibbering Humdingers. I’ve never heard the Heliopaths yet, but I haven’t really concentrated. Do you hear those voices?”
“Not unless they’re in the walls and they’re always hungry and talking about wanting to rip and tear,” Harry tells her. He doesn’t understand why Theodore really brought Luna, but he supposes he has to deal with her now that she’s here. “Do you want to go the library-where are your shoes?”
“Oh, some of the Nargles took them. Or perhaps the Mistletoe Thieves. They’re very common and neglected, you know. They steal because they want people to pay attention to them, but they don’t take attention well.”
Harry narrows his eyes a little. “I see.” Luna may hear voices, but it’s just as likely that she’s speaking the way Harry used to, the way Longbottom did last year when Malfoy cornered him. Desperate words to make the situation better. “You wouldn’t be able to point out any of the Mistletoe Thieves to me?”
“I don’t know, my lord. They’re very secretive.”
Harry sighs. The last thing he needs is Theodore’s joke spreading to other people. “Well, can you tell me where your shoes were when you last saw them?”
He catches Theodore’s smile from over Luna’s shoulder, and rolls his eyes at him. He understands why Theodore actually brought the girl to him. She’s a distraction from voices and the fear of going crazy that Harry’s been dealing with all through his second year. And maybe Theodore knows enough to figure out that Harry will want to punish the people who bullied Luna.
It’s a bit creepy that someone knows him that well, Harry realizes when he thinks it through. But it’s gone too far for him to turn his back on Theodore now.
*
“Serpensortia!”
Just one simple word, and all his life has changed. Harry scowls at the floor as people around him whisper in the Slytherin common room. Some are avoiding him. Some stare at him the way people did last year when the Boy-Who-Lived nonsense was new. And everyone acts like speaking to snakes is remarkable, whether they think it’s a good or a bad thing.
Harry doesn’t think it is. In fact, he thinks it’s probably another side-effect of the Horcrux, one of the things he learned about from Secrets of the Darkest Art. If certain people get snake-like features from making a Horcrux, why wouldn’t you also be able to talk to snakes? And Voldemort can talk to snakes. People are telling Harry that now.
Harry sighs irritably. It’s not even the most remarkable thing he can do! Not that he wants to reveal his shadow magic to anyone, but for something that freaks everyone out...
“Are you all right?”
Harry glances up and blinks in surprise as Theodore sits down opposite him. Harry thought Theodore would either be happy that his ability to talk to serpents has been revealed or relieved that the mystery of the voice in the walls has been solved; of course Harry is hearing a snake. Instead, Theodore’s grey eyes are burning with a pale flame.
“Yes?” Harry asks, hating the way the common room falls silent to hear his voice. He scowls at them and stands up, retreating to the bedroom. Theodore follows him. Harry sits down on his bed and repeats, “Yes. It’s annoying, but it’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.”
“I don’t want bad things to happen to you, period,” Theodore says, in a voice deep enough to make Harry blink. “Should I curse someone to take the attention off you? Malfoy, perhaps?”
Harry does manage to smile then. “No, it’s all right. I’ll continue to keep my head down and not demonstrate Parseltongue in front of them, and eventually people will forget about it.”
*
So Harry hopes, but it turns out that someone is Petrifying people and leaving messages written in blood on the walls. Something about the Chamber of Secrets. People actually ask Binns and other professors about it, and Binns is the one who tells them: a secret chamber with a monster inside it that Salazar Slytherin and his heirs can unleash to drive “Mudbloods” from the school.
Harry thinks this is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard in his life. Muggleborns belong in the school as much as anyone. Harry can’t even tell the difference between Muggleborns and pure-bloods unless people tell him what they are. Dean picked up the Shield Charm as fast as Theodore last year. Why should anyone think blood has to do with power?
Why does anyone think he’s the Heir of Slytherin? He had a Muggleborn mother, for fuck’s sake! Most people don’t even think that he’s a proper Slytherin. And he’s not the kind of grandstanding idiot who would leave a secret chamber full of snakes in the school.
Theodore and Luna start shadowing him as he goes between classes. Harry tells them that they don’t have to, but that’s only until the first time that some Gryffindors think this is the perfect time to ambush him.
Dean isn’t with them, thank goodness, or Harry would have to question one of his few friends. But Weasley has his arms folded, and the sandy-haired Finnigan who questioned Harry last year is right behind him, and the bushy-haired Granger has a scowl on her face, and even Longbottom is lurking on the fringes of the crowd.
“So!” Weasley says, in what he probably assumes is an impressive voice. That only lasts until Harry gives him a flat stare, but his voice is only a little lower when he starts again. “You must be the Heir of Slytherin, Potter!”
“Why?”
“Because you can talk to snakes!”
Harry waits, and then snorts as silence fills the corridor. “I’m sorry, this was the part where I was waiting for your horrified gasps. But I think that even Gryffindors know by now that this isn’t really news.”
“Who else can it be?” Granger inches forwards, scowling at him. “You’ve got a Muggleborn Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff Petrified, but no Slytherins!”
“So am I exempting the Ravenclaws, too?” Harry rolls his eyes when they all hesitate. “Oh, look, a piece of evidence that doesn’t fit with your ‘theory.’ Now, slink back to your common room and clear the way.” He steps around the Gryffindors. He’s on his way to Astronomy, and he’s going to have to be up late enough tonight without dealing with any disappointment from Professor Sinistra.
“You have a Ravenclaw friend!” Weasley declares, pointing at Luna with one finger.
“Yes, and I have a Muggleborn Gryffindor friend, too,” Harry counters, irritated. “Dean hasn’t been Petrified. If you’re going to use the Petrifications as evidence, then you’re going to have to find better ones.”
The Gryffindors get out of the way, but there are confused looks and murmurs after him. Harry rolls his eyes. “They’re so desperate to find a hero or a villain, and they want to press me into that role,” he says in disgust.
“Some people just never heed their own brain-worms,” Luna says breathily.
Theodore doesn’t say anything, but he reaches forwards and grips Harry’s shoulder, hard, then lets his hand fall.
*
Harry has another chat with Professor Dumbledore after Granger is Petrified. Dumbledore calls him up to the office and sighs at him when Harry refuses tea and refuses lemon drops and refuses to look him straight in the eye. Harry knows some more about Legilimency now and how it works, and he is absolutely sure that Dumbledore is a Legilimens.
“Harry. I know that we didn’t get along much last year, and you weren’t able to tell me anything about who stole the Philosopher’s Stone. But surely you must see that the Petrifications have advanced to the point where you must share information with me.”
“What makes you think I have it, sir?”
“Your Head of House has hinted that you have your ways of knowing things, Mr. Potter.”
Harry wants to roll his eyes. Snape has largely left him alone this year, letting Harry dream through class and giving him Acceptables on everything, but of course he has to get in this petty strike when he talks to Dumbledore. “Well, I don’t know anything, sir. Just because I’m a Parselmouth doesn’t make me evil.”
“The last Heir of Slytherin was a boy called Tom Riddle, Jr. Which is the mortal name of Voldemort.”
Dumbledore says that casually, but his eyes are absolutely fixed on Harry. Harry sighs. “And, sir? I’m not the Heir of Slytherin.”
“Anything that you could report to me, Harry...if you know anything about where the entrance is or what the creature is that is causing these Petrifications...”
If I figured out that it was a basilisk, then you can do it, too. Harry sighs. “I don’t know anything. I certainly don’t know where the entrance is. Why would I do something that would endanger me and my friends? One of my friends is Muggleborn, you know. Why wouldn’t I tell you if I knew?”
Dumbledore hems and haws about it, but it’s very clear that of course he isn’t going to tell Harry that he knows he’s a Horcrux and that’s where his Parseltongue abilities come from, so in the end Harry leaves the office with nothing said between them except vague warnings to “pay attention, dear boy, pay attention.”
Harry is fairly sure that Dumbledore could figure out not just what is Petrifying the students but where it is if he cared. He’s so much more powerful than Harry will ever be. He’s had years more in the wizarding world to study all kinds of secrets and magic. It’s ridiculous that he has to ask children to spy for him.
Harry is unimpressed.
*
The Weasleys are crying. Apparently someone painted a message in blood on the walls about Ginny Weasley, the little first-year girl Harry hasn’t noticed much, and took her down into the Chamber to lie there forever.
Harry has other things to worry about. For example, it’s become clear that it’s other Ravenclaw children who are bullying Luna, not imaginary beasts. So Harry wraps the shadows around himself and remains near the entrance of Ravenclaw Tower until two of them come out, girls in Luna’s year.
Harry has been practicing with the shadows. As fun as it was to torment Malfoy last year with wolves and snakes, it was also fairly obvious, and someone might manage to realize that he practices shadow magic from that. Now, he breathes out, and a shadow below the torch at the bottom of the stairs blows out and engulfs the two Ravenclaws.
There’s screaming and clawing at their faces; they assume they’ve gone blind. Harry slides forwards, his steps soundless, and reaches out and grabs their arms when they’re about to try and find the stairs.
Twin screams echo as they feel his hand on their arms. Harry smiles and lowers his face. “I’m going to hurt you if you don’t leave Luna Lovegood alone,” he breathes out. He’s worked a charm to deepen his voice, since the shadows can’t affect the way he sounds, but he doesn’t think he would be recognized even if he spoke in his normal voice. They’re reeling and blinded right now.
And still, no one has any reason to suspect he will do this.
“Loony?” asks one of the girls, who seems to be startled out of her fear by the unexpectedness of the request.
Harry pinches her arm hard, making her shriek. “Her name is Luna. You’ll call her that from now on and return her shoes and anything else you took. If you don’t, then I’ll take you into the darkness.”
“What happens then?” demands the girl who spoke before, obviously the braver one.
“You won’t return.”
As Harry thought, the simpler threat frightens them far more than a more specific one; it gives their imaginations room to work. They scream and sob and promise, and Harry lets them go and vanishes into the shadows again.
The next day, Luna is wearing her shoes, and Ginny Weasley is back after all; apparently Dumbledore rescued her. Harry sits at dinner and smiles, ignoring the deep, dark looks that Dumbledore is sending him. He enjoys the way most of the first-year Ravenclaws hunch over their meals far more.
He knew people only needed a little encouragement.
*
This time, Dumbledore tries to have the Weasleys keep an eye on Harry on the train. He rolls his eyes and disappears early, remaining in the shadows as he sits in a corner and reads and watches people search frantically for him. Harry cheerfully reappears in a shadow in the corner of the station and joins Theodore and Aethelred on the way to their house.
Theodore insists on practicing more Dark Arts spells with Harry this summer, and being with him as much as possible. Aethelred seems to be writing lots of letters and doesn’t have as much time to teach Harry Potions, which is a little disappointing. Harry is seeing Potions now as something that can be fascinating in its own right, even if they will never matter to him as much as his shadows do.
Theodore is the one who comes into his bedroom one morning where Harry is barely awake and announces, “The Dark Lord is back.”
“Huh?” Harry sits up, yawns, and rubs his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“My father says that the Dark Lord has returned. With the help of the Philosopher’s Stone. And he might visit the house.”
Harry watches Theodore silently. He knows exactly what he is going to do if Voldemort tries to kill him. He’s going to melt through the shadows and never return to Hogwarts or Theodore’s house. He can make a living in Knockturn Alley with what he knows now, and his ability to brew some basic potions, cast some Dark spells, and find people’s secrets. He will miss Theodore and Luna and Dean, but he’s not going to stay here and be killed because some people want to grovel and kiss Voldemort’s robes.
Theodore reaches out, seeming to understand Harry’s thoughts, and grips his hands tightly. “I would never let him hurt you.”
“How could you stop him?” Harry asks.
Theodore’s lips tighten, which Harry assumes means that he wasn’t supposed to ask that question. “You can protect yourself, and I’ll support you,” he finally says instead.
Harry nods. “Do you think your father is going to take up the status of an active Death Eater again?”
“He’s been writing to the Dark Lord.” Theodore’s voice is low, and he looks off to the side and flushes. “I sneaked into his office and looked at his letters. He’s agreed to serve him. That’s one reason the Dark Lord might visit.”
Harry nods again, unsurprised. Aethelred is a lot like he would be, if Harry was melancholy and didn’t have shadow magic. He’ll go along with the dictates of a more powerful wizard because there’s a strong chance that doing so will see him left alone to practice his potions. Harry might be willing to do the same thing, but because of his name and supposed deeds, Voldemort is never going to leave him alone.
“Are you going to leave?”
Harry studies Theodore. His face is calm and shut-down, but his hands are clutching Harry’s so hard that they’re going numb. Harry tries to squeeze back, although his hands are numb, and he finally pulls them back and says, “I’m going to wait and see if he comes and tries to kill me. If he doesn’t, then I’ll stay.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
Harry rolls his eyes. The one good thing about Voldemort visiting, he thinks, the one good thing, is that Theodore will have to stop calling him that name because Voldemort might take offense.
*
Voldemort comes strolling up the gravel lane that leads to the front of the Nott house in a handsome dark-haired body. He does have red eyes, Harry notes dispassionately from near the apple tree he’s been reading under. He also has a lot of height Harry didn’t expect for some reason and a white face with ripples of scales under the skin.
Harry isn’t hiding invisibly under a shadow because he doesn’t want to test that magic in front of someone who might recognize it. Voldemort can see him. He stops and looks at Harry for a long time. Harry looks steadily back. He expected stinging or something in his scar, but there’s nothing except that steady gaze.
Voldemort finally nods and says, “So you are Harry Potter.”
“Yes, sir,” Harry says, aware that Theodore is hovering behind the door of the house. He told his father he wanted to greet Voldemort right away himself, but it’s an excuse to be nearby in case Harry needs him. Harry finds it good and exasperating at the same time. It’s not like Theodore can help him if Voldemort hurls a Dark curse.
“I understand that I have your help to thank for getting the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“I did tell Dumbledore that I had no idea who might have stolen it,” Harry says mildly. He’s cursing in the back of his mind, though. Did Theodore or his father tell Voldemort that Harry did something more active than that? Harry is going to kill them if so. But not before he terminally embarrasses Aethelred.
“I meant that you have decided not to fight against me. Not to be the hero that it seemed Dumbledore was trying to turn you into.”
That’s a better take on the situation than Harry hoped for, given that he couldn’t have known Voldemort was the one who was after the Stone. He slowly shakes his head. “I have no desire to fight you, sir.”
“But why not? I killed your parents.”
“I never really knew them. Maybe it helped to turn me into the person I became, even. And I like the person I am.”
Voldemort examines him narrowly for a time, then gives him an even narrower smile. “As long as you stay out of my way and continue not to oppose me, Harry Potter, I see no reason not to continue as we have been.” And he sweeps on so fast that Theodore barely has time to open the door for him.
Harry leans back against the apple tree and contemplates the summer sun, the warm sky, the soft shadow at his feet, all things he might lose if he fights Voldemort. Then he decisively shakes his head. Something huge would have to change for it to be worth it.
Voldemort might still try to kill him in a few years’ time. Or he might learn that Harry has a Horcrux in him and try to take the shadow magic away from him. But those are the only things Harry thinks could change his stance.
*
Going back to Hogwarts is the same as ever, except that Harry sits with both Theodore and Luna on the train and not just Theodore. Dean stopped by to stay hello and then went to play Exploding Snap with Finnigan. Harry honestly has no idea what Dean sees in the vast majority of Gryffindors, but then, he would hate to be judged as a typical Slytherin by people who hate Malfoy.
Theodore leaves briefly and comes back in looking pale. He sits down next to Harry and asks, “What do you know about Sirius Black?”
Harry blinks. He knows a little about the recent history of the war, but not a whole lot that doesn’t focus on his parents, him, and Voldemort. “That he betrayed my parents and got sentenced to life in Azkaban. That’s it.”
Theodore hesitates as if debating with himself, then says, “He was also your godfather,” and extends the Daily Prophet that he’s holding.
Harry gives him a dirty look. He hasn’t read the rag himself since last year when some bored writer ran a story on him being the next Dark Lord and interviewed several of the students who thought he was the Heir of Slytherin to do it.
Theodore shakes the paper at him, so Harry sighs and picks it up. And there on the front is the headline about Sirius Black’s escape from Azkaban.
Harry shakes his head as he reads. Honestly, he isn’t impressed with the wizarding world most of the time. Hogwarts is supposedly the safest place in Britain, and it’s had the Philosopher’s Stone stolen from it and a giant basilisk Petrifying people in just two years. Now the inescapable prison has been escaped from, and no one knows how Black did it.
Of course, the article also goes on to detail how Harry is going to be Black’s next victim because he was muttering something about “He’s at Hogwarts” and reminds readers helpfully that Harry is an orphan because of Black. Harry shakes his head again. No, he’s an orphan because of Voldemort. It’s really weird how no one even tries to remember these things.
“So what are you going to do?” Theodore asks as Harry surfaces from the (long) article.
“What do you mean?” Harry asks as he hands the paper back.
“You’ll have to stay inside when the other third-years go to Hogsmeade. You should probably have an escort around you every time you go outside the school, in fact. You never know where Black might try to-”
“I’m not going to do any of those things,” Harry interrupts. “First of all, I won’t be going to Hogsmeade anyway, since Dumbledore wrote to me that he refuses to honor your father’s signature on the permission slip. Second, I won’t live my life in fear. Third, I can just write to the person holding Black’s leash.”
Theodore blinks, once, twice, several times. Then he says weakly, “Oh,” and darts a glance at Luna.
Luna is apparently playing naughts and crosses with herself and losing. She glances up and says, “Did you imply something about my hair?”
“No,” Theodore says. “Only about your ears.”
“Oh, they close when I want them to,” Luna says airily, and turns back to her game.
Theodore looks at Harry. Harry nods. He folds up the paper and hands it back to Theodore, and that should really be that, at least until he can write a letter to Voldemort and tell him to reclaim his errant Death Eater.
*
That should be all. But it’s not.
Harry stalks into the Great Hall and takes a seat at the end of the Slytherin table. No one, not even Malfoy, who opens his mouth, says anything to him. Perhaps they’ll talk to him about fainting on the train later, but for now...
For now, Harry is enraged, and he can feel the shadows churning around him, ripping and trembling at the edges in a way that no one else will notice unless they’re used to looking. He calms himself down forcibly. He can’t reveal his magic in front of the Great Hall like this. It would be idiotic.
But the Dementors.
Harry pours himself a glass of milk and takes a long drink. He used to think he hated the Dursleys. He used to think he hated Snape, or at least people like Snape, given how well he handled his professor. He used to think he hated bullies.
He hates Dementors more than any of them.
They foul the shadows. They glide through them and wrap them around themselves and make them cold and useless. Harry tried to reach out and wrap himself in invisibility when he first sensed the Dementors coming towards him, but he couldn’t. Any shadow they touch might as well be as intangible to Harry as anyone else.
Harry wants to destroy them.
He is going to figure out a way.
Compared to his desire to wipe them from the face of the planet, the fact that he fainted on the train and heard his mother screaming as she died is nothing.
*
Harry waits to bang his head into the wall until he is back in the common room from the Owlery. At least people don’t stare at him this year since him being a Parselmouth is old news now. Now they just stare at him because they must know Black escaped and is hunting for him.
“Bad news?” Theodore asks, his eyes cool and curious.
Harry holds out the letter Voldemort sent back to him, a full week after his initial one about Black. It says only, Black was never one of my Death Eaters.
“Well,” Theodore says consolingly after a minute, “we have a new mystery to investigate, then.”
Harry can’t share his quest to destroy the Dementors with Theodore, since it would mean revealing his shadow magic. He can’t share his doubts about Voldemort when Theodore’s life probably depends on his father’s compliance.
But he can share this, and the “we” warms him into a wordless smile that Theodore returns.
Chapter Five.
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