[July Celebration fics]: Shadow Magic, R, Harry/Theodore Nott, 5/7
Chapter Four.
Part One.
Title: Shadow Magic (5/7)
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 7300
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 Five-Shadows Black and Grey
Harry first tries to deal with the problem of Black by looking up old newspaper articles. That’s how he learns exactly how many Muggles Black killed-or supposedly killed-and of the death of Peter Pettigrew. All they found of him was a finger.
Once again, Harry has to put his head down on one of the tables in the library for a while. Why would anyone assume someone is dead if all they find is a finger? For that matter, why would you assume your enemy is dead without a body?
(Harry does have to pause here to acknowledge that most people would not be as paranoid as he is, or think of the whole world as enemies).
The newspapers are accurate about Black’s lack of a trial. And with Voldemort’s denial, Harry’s suspicion turns inevitably towards Pettigrew. He sends Voldemort another letter, despite Theodore’s wince, asking if Pettigrew was one of his Death Eaters and if there is the chance that the man could have hidden his death by cutting off a finger.
This time, the letter is more helpful.
Peter was indeed mine, although I assumed him long dead. He was an unregistered Animagus whose form was a rat. The fact that he never approached any of my Death Eaters over the years, even the ones who escaped Azkaban, suggests that he died.
No, it doesn’t, Harry thinks as he crumples up this particular letter. It suggests that Pettigrew is a bloody coward who has some sense; Death Eaters like Theodore’s father would probably turn him in to the Ministry to prove their “loyalty.” But the idea of him being an unregistered Animagus and Black muttering about going to Hogwarts suggests he could be here.
Now Harry only has to find a rat in a gigantic castle. A rat that is probably missing a toe.
And Harry will have to study spells to keep an Animagus from transforming and to trap rodents, too. He doesn’t currently have any way to restrain Pettigrew if he captures him. Perhaps then he can arrange to deliver him to Black and Black will leave him in peace.
*
Luna showed up missing shoes after the first fortnight. So Harry has to wait at the bottom of the stairs up to Ravenclaw Tower again, interrupting his busy schedule of homework, dreaming through Snape’s class, ignoring Dumbledore and the pitying glances that people give him because of Black being his godfather, and studying rat-restraining traps. It’s annoying.
More than annoying, when the spell that he cast to identify someone in contact with Luna’s stolen belongings flashes on the same girls he terrified last year as they come down the stairs. For Ravenclaws, they aren’t that bright. Harry is kind of glad he wasn’t Sorted into that House now, for all he doesn’t feel he fits in Slytherin either.
He calls up the shadows and breathes out. Once again, the girls go blind. Once again, they scream and claw at their faces. It’s all so predictable.
But Harry does get to try out a new aspect of shadow magic this time, one that he didn’t know about last time. That makes him smile as he holds up a hand and shadow pools in his palm.
“I told you to leave Luna alone,” he says, and his voice booms from several directions, coming out of every point where there’s a shadow. The girls stop screaming and cower. “If you can’t do that, then I suppose I’ll have to punish you.”
“You-you can’t-we didn’t-”
“I know you touched something that belongs to her,” Harry continues implacably. “You cooperated in hiding it, too,” he adds, as another charm that tells him if the person was an active bully or just a passive one comes into play and highlights the girl who spoke with blue. “Such a pity. You probably had a life ahead of you where you did something other than bully little girls.”
He glides forwards.
The one he hasn’t targeted, who hasn’t spoken up until now, snaps and runs screaming up the stairs. Harry ignores her. She might have touched something belonging to Luna by accident or brushed against clothing in the bathroom. His goal is the other one.
The girl does fall to her knees, tears making their way down her cheeks. “Please, please, I’ll leave her alone, I promise!”
“That was what you said last time,” Harry murmurs, taking her arm. “And you didn’t learn.”
He flickers away through the shadows, taking the girl with him. At a point where two shadows turn and converge, joining together, he releases her. The girl tumbles away down the grey path into the darkness. For her, there is no path; with Harry’s blinding shadows stretched across her face, Harry doubts she could see it even if it does exist for her.
Harry smiles and jumps away to the Slytherin common room. The way that the girl will come out of the shadows, if he’s correct about it from his tests on Muggles this summer, means that she’ll be found, eventually, somewhere far from Ravenclaw Tower, wandering and raving and mad, unable to tell anyone anything coherent about what he did to her.
It’s all she deserves.
*
“Once again, Harry, I find myself asking you to help me. Will you please help me find out why one of the second-year Ravenclaws was found wandering and sobbing this morning? Her name is Amanda Serling. She suffered some accident that has left her-it has ruined her life. Will you tell me what you know?”
“What makes you think I know anything, Headmaster? I’m only friends with a few people who aren’t in my year. Why would I know anything about a second-year in a different House than mine?”
“I thought your friend Miss Lovegood might have mentioned her to you. I understand that she and Miss Lovegood have had some less than pleasant interactions.”
Harry lifts his head slowly and fixes his eyes on Dumbledore. His vision narrows the way it does when he’s walking through a shadow. For a moment, he’s filled with rage in the way that he’s got in the past when thinking of the Dursleys.
He assumed Dumbledore was unaware of Luna’s being bullied, since the man seemed so unaware of the basilisk in the school or who stole the Philosopher’s Stone. But now it seems as if the man knows all about it.
That entitles him to no mercy whatsoever.
Harry smiles, and if Dumbledore sees the width of it and not the edge to it, that’s his problem. “Luna never talks about names to me. It’s not her way. Now, if that will be all, Headmaster? I’m rather busy this term.”
*
“I found a spell that will charm the whole cage you use to contain Pettigrew, not just him,” Theodore whispers, sliding in beside Harry on the couch where Harry is studying for Ancient Runes.
“You did?” Harry grins at Theodore and lets his book fall shut. Ancient Runes and Arithmancy are both interesting, but tiring; Harry needs lots of short breaks in order to keep his brain matched to them. They were the only optional classes for third year that fascinated him. Harry doesn’t need Divination to spy out secrets, he has less than no interest in Muggle Studies, and the Care of Magical Creatures class looked interesting but limited. Harry thinks he knows more about creatures through spying on them in the shadows of the Forbidden Forest and the one behind the Nott house than he’ll ever know in a course.
Theodore nods, his black hair falling into his eyes for a moment. Harry finds himself following the motion of the hair with a glance, then shakes his head to break the spell. “Yes. The incantation is Caveam defendo. The wand motion is the same as the one for that warding spell you found the other day.”
Harry practices the spell on the small cage he’s already secured to trap Pettigrew when they find him. There’s a glow that settles into the bars. Harry puts a mouse he Transfigured from a teacup inside it and watches it run around, being bounced back from the bars every time it ventures near them, and unable to run out the door even when it’s open.
He leans back and grins at Theodore. “Thanks. You’re the best.”
“Anything to be of service to my lord.”
Harry sighs. He should have addressed this a long time ago, he thinks now, but it seemed like a harmless joke. Now, though, Theodore calls Harry his lord in front of the other Slytherins. It gets them some mutters and sidelong glances. Harry never wants his best friend to suffer from taking a joke too far. “Listen, Theodore. Can you please call me Harry?”
“Why?”
“It’s making other Slytherins think you’re weak, just like the Death Eaters who followed Voldemort were. I don’t want them to think that about you.”
Theodore looks long and intently into Harry’s eyes. Harry just waits. He trusts Theodore to make the right decision, and in this case, the right one is to stop making other people think he’s weak, when he’s just-Theodore.
“It’s not a joke,” Theodore says finally, softly. “And following someone in and of itself doesn’t make you weak. Only following someone unworthy does.”
Harry narrows his eyes. “That’s not true. I can’t think of any way that following someone would make me strong.”
“That’s because you’re a born leader, Harry, or a born loner. I suppose Thomas and Lovegood and I are the ones who make you a leader, since we won’t leave you alone.” Theodore leans back in his chair. “I won’t call you that in front of the others anymore if it makes you uncomfortable. But I chose you as my lord years ago. I told you once that what I call people is the truth and speaks about their distance from me. That’s true now, too.”
Harry stares at him. Then he shakes his head and asks, “But what about Voldemort?” He does keep his voice low, since not even many of the Slytherins know Voldemort has returned; Theodore told him it’s pretty much limited to Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and an upper-year Avery cousin.
“What about him?”
“Well, your father serves him. What are they going to do when it turns out you’re not going to serve him?”
“You’ll protect me.”
There’s utter faith shining in Theodore’s eyes. Harry stares back, overwhelmed, and then nods, because of course he will, just the way he protects Luna from being bullied. He never thought he’d see it like that on his best friend’s face, is all.
It makes him a little breathless. And although he still isn’t going to tell Theodore why, he gets out one of the massive tomes he’s smuggled out of the library and says, “I’m also working on a way to destroy Dementors forever. Do you want in?”
Theodore’s smile takes all his remaining breath away.
*
As it turns out, Black attacks Gryffindor Tower on Halloween, and scratches up the portrait. That narrows Harry’s search considerably. And when he overhears the twin Weasleys talking about how sick their little brother’s pet rat is, Harry smiles in victory.
He waits until Weasley is heading towards the infirmary with the rat to see if Madam Pomfrey can cure him, something he overheard would be happening by listening from the shadows. And then he steps smoothly out of a shadow behind Weasley, blinds him, and carries off his prize in triumph before Weasley can even let out a yell.
The rat is stiff with terror in Harry’s hands for a second before he begins struggling. Harry turns him over and smiles when he sees the missing toe. Then he Stuns him and takes him the quick way back to Slytherin, leaping in and out of shadows that fall between doorways and then into one that stretches across the seemingly blank wall where the door of the common room is.
Theodore is waiting up for him in a dark corner by the fire. Harry displays Pettigrew in silence and drops him into the warded cage. Theodore adds his own warding spell to the bars just in case, and they watch the rat in silence for a second.
“What are you going to do now?” Theodore finally asks. It’s a question he’s never asked before, despite Harry pursuing Pettigrew with a single-minded intensity for the last two months.
“Send him to Black. He can do whatever he likes with him. Maybe he’ll be smart enough to send him to the Ministry for a trial, but I doubt it. At least he’ll go away and the Dementors will go with him when they realize that he’s either innocent or gone.”
“You’re-not going to kill him for what he did to your parents?”
Harry blinks at Theodore. The thought of vengeance hasn’t occurred to him, any more than he really wants to go back and get revenge on the Dursleys. It’s just pointless. “No. Why?”
“I thought you would.”
Harry shakes his head. “I would still defend you if you ever needed it,” he reassures Theodore. “The same way I would Luna or Dean. I just-don’t care if it happened to me. If it happens to me, I’ll stop it. But what happened doesn’t matter very much.”
“I’m very glad that our friendship is a thing that happened that you still care about.”
Harry reaches out, squeezes Theodore’s hand tightly, and goes to the Owlery to send the rat to Black. He asks the owl, sternly, not to eat Pettigrew on the way.
*
“If it isn’t the master of the disappearing act!”
“The wizard of Apparition!”
“The doer of the impossible!”
“Mr. Harry Potter HIMSELF!”
Harry snorts as he leans against a wall. He deliberately allowed the Weasley twins to find him after watching them from the shadows for weeks. They kept staring at what looks like a piece of parchment in their hands as they tracked him, and that made Harry intrigued enough to confront them.
Besides, he tolerates them as well as he tolerates anyone who isn’t Theodore, Luna, or Dean. They play pranks that Harry likes to watch, and they keep secrets better than anyone except him. They particularly target Snape, which Harry particularly likes. He sometimes does them a good turn back by throwing an echo or a distracting shadow when one of the professors or prefects comes near them, giving them time to flee.
“We really want to know,” begins the twin on the left as he halts opposite Harry.
“How you get around Hogwarts without leaving a trace,” says the twin on the right.
“Using passages we don’t know about.”
“Which is almost impossible.”
“Almost, let’s leave a little window open for the impossible, Fred.”
“And popping up in distant places so fast.”
“We’ve even seen you in the Headmaster’s office.”
“Which really is impossible, just ask the gargoyle.”
“And so,” finishes the one who must be George, and they both look at Harry expectantly.
Harry snorts again. “First tell me how you were tracking me. Then maybe I’ll give you a hint and see if you can figure it out.” He’s no more frightened than he’s ever been of someone finding out about his shadow magic. Even if they did, the possibility of retreat is always open. Harry is a great collector of Galleons that other students think they’ve lost and rare books and Potions ingredients that they leave on the floor, and he’s amassed some tidy money sending the Galleons to Gringotts and selling the books and ingredients in Slytherin-sometimes even to their original owners.
Part of Harry still thinks he would enjoy living in Knockturn Alley and making his money by his wits. It’s the most shadowy place he’s ever visited, combined with the greatest number of people who avoid looking into the shadows.
The twins give each other significant looks and nods, and then George pulls out a piece of parchment that he extends. When Harry leans over it, he can see a moving map of the school, labeled with clusters of dots. Beside each dot is a name. They’re hard to read inside the places like Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Tower, where too many of the students are too close together, but easily clear in the corridors.
“I see,” Harry says, and shoots an admiring glance at Fred and George. “Did you make this map?”
“No, unfortunately we can’t claim that honor.” Fred puts his hand over his heart.
“The Marauders did,” George says in a hushed voice.
“Who are the Marauders? Or were,” Harry adds. He supposes the map might be old.
“Alas,” Fred says.
“Alas.” George shakes his head.
“We only know their nicknames.”
“Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.”
“No more than that.”
Harry nods, relaxing. As long as Fred and George didn’t make the map, he doesn’t need to worry about them as dangerous rivals. “Well, I could tell you about how I get around the school,” he says, and the twins lean forwards so much they almost fall. “But then I would have to kill you.”
The twins pout at him. Then they make loud, long protestations of allegiance. Then they promise to prank whoever Harry wants. Harry grins at them. “But you already prank a bunch of people I dislike, for free. Why give that up?”
“Snape and Malfoy?” George guesses.
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Harry says, and examines his fingernails.
The twins make some more outrageous claims, but in the end, they’ve got nothing to offer him. Harry grins at them and starts to walk away, only to hear more loud whispering behind him. He rolls his eyes and readies his shields. He wouldn’t put it past them to prank him for not revealing the secret.
Then Fred rushes around in front of him and kneels, which so startles Harry that he comes near to being strangled by a whip of shadow, not that he knows it. He holds up his hands and says, “We hear that Theodore Nott calls you lord. We know of binding lordship oaths that will keep anyone from betraying any secret. If we swore one of those to take you as our lord, would you tell us how you get around the school?”
“Please please please please please please,” adds George from behind Harry, where it turns out he’s kneeling as well.
Harry raises his eyebrows. “I’ve never heard of lordship oaths like that.”
“Why do you think most of You-Know-Who’s Death Eaters stayed faithful to him?” Fred asks. “I mean, sure, some of them claimed they were under the Imperius, but that was only after he was dead.”
“Dead and gone,” George adds, though he sends a sly look at Harry that puts him on his guard. He wouldn’t put it past Crabbe or Goyle to blab about Voldemort’s return in a place where the twins could hear them.
“You don’t want to swear to me as your lord for the cost of one secret,” Harry says. He knows that can’t be true. It’s far too high a price to pay anyone.
“Well, see, your Mighty Lordship, we’ve been watching you for a while, ever since we saw you leaping around the map-”
“Might say you caught our attention, like, Your Potterly Majesty.”
“And we’ve seen the way that you treat your friends, and how you don’t care about most other people and give them free rein as long as they don’t hurt your friends, Your Budding Dark Lordship.”
“And when someone does hurt your friends, we suspect it’s you getting even. Only suspect, of course, Your High Sneakiness.”
“So we think that you’d let us do most of what we want, with maybe a few targeted pranks or cover-ups when necessary.”
“With vicious protection if one of us got hurt.”
“Which is a lot like our family, only they don’t like us playing pranks.”
“Best of both worlds is what we’d get.”
“And thus, we beg you to accept us into your service-”
“Lord Harry,” both twins say at once, and prostrate themselves on the floor in front of him.
Harry thinks for a long time, during which the twins keep bowing, which is its own level of impressively ridiculous or ridiculously impressive; Harry hasn’t made up his mind yet. He’ll have to look over the lordship oaths, of course, to be sure that they actually do what the twins claim they do and don’t have any loopholes. And he’s reluctant to reveal his shadow magic even then. Perhaps he should give the twins clues and see what theories they come up with, the better to deploy such theories if someone else comes close to the truth.
But on the other hand, he’ll have two minions (the first official ones; Theodore is and always will be different). And targeted pranks is a good idea. And the twins are good enough at defending themselves that he won’t always have to be running interference for them the way he’s had to do with Luna and even sometimes Dean, when Gryffindors in the years below him objected to him having a Slytherin for a friend.
“I need to study the lordship oaths and make sure you’re telling the truth,” Harry finally says. “If I can find one that fits our needs, then I’ll cast it.”
The twins bounce to their feet and go into a series of more ridiculous bows.
“Thank you, thank you, Your Great Harry Pottership Sir.”
“Thank you, thank you, O Savior of Our Sanity.”
“Thank you, Master of Secret Passages Yet To Come!”
Harry finally cuts them off and rounds the corner, shaking his head. At least he’s got Pettigrew out of his system. He’ll have to take up the extra research project of lordship oaths now.
*
“The only counter to the Dementors is the Patronus Charm.”
It was Theodore who found that for him, as well as a description of how the Patronus Charm is performed. Harry has looked, but there’s not a whole lot of other useful information on Dementors in the Hogwarts library. Most of it is history, concerning how they came to be the guards of Azkaban, and some of it is descriptions of their breeding cycle, which Harry considers disgusting but read about anyway in case it could be a vulnerability someday. So Harry is in an abandoned classroom practicing the Patronus Charm when Professor Lupin finds him.
“Harry. What are you doing?”
Harry turns around casually. He has his wand, and there’s patches of shadow next to him and one behind Lupin. The new Defense professor is standing in the doorway behind him with an odd look on his face.
Harry despised Lockhart, the one they had last year, and had to dream his way through his classes the way he does with Potions. However, Lupin is a different kettle of staring eyes. He’s a good professor in the sense of teaching them about Dark creatures, although he did oddly prevent Harry from confronting a boggart during their first lesson. But he seems to be interested in Harry and distant from him at the same time. He acts like he expects some kind of connection with Harry as the Boy-Who-Lived, but differently from the little firsties who are still awestruck fans.
Harry doesn’t really like it, and he avoids Lupin as much as he can outside of class. He also wishes the man would call him “Mr. Potter” the way all the other professors do.
Now, though, there’s no reason to hide his practicing. The Patronus Charm is advanced magic but not illegal. “Studying how to repel Dementors,” Harry says, with a little shrug, and faces the back of the classroom again.
He casts, and this time a flicker of silver wisps from his wand. Harry smiles. Not bad for a third-year student without a lot of happy memories to call on.
Lupin clears his throat. Harry turns back towards him with a sigh. “Yes?”
“I know the Patronus Charm well,” Lupin says. “I could also provide a good facsimile of an actual Dementor if that would make things easier for you.”
“What do you want as a trade?”
“Trade? What-Harry, I’m not participating in some Slytherin bargain. I’m your professor. I’m supposed to help you.”
Harry eyes the man skeptically. No other professors call him by his first name. No other professors happen on a student practicing magic in a deserted classroom and offer advanced lessons instead of asking which rules they’re breaking. Lupin is up to something.
But since it seems he wants to be close to Harry, Harry decides to accept that as the price of lessons in the Patronus Charm. He dips his head. “Okay.”
*
“You didn’t tell me you were researching lordship oaths.”
Harry blinks and glances up. “I also didn’t hide the books,” he points out as Theodore takes a seat on the stool across from him and offers him a glare. It seems to be the most sincere glare Harry’s got from him in the three years of their friendship. “I thought you knew.”
Theodore lifts a privacy charm around them that Harry knows from experience will make their faces, gestures, and mouths blur to the rest of the Slytherins as well as mute their voices. “If someone is going to swear to you as their Lord, I want to be the first.”
“The Weasley twins were the ones who suggested this. They want to know secrets I have and promised they’d swear one if I could find one that works. You don’t need to swear one, Theodore. You’re already my best friend. I can trust you without an oath.”
“I chose you as my Lord first. I want official confirmation.”
“The strongest ones I’ve found demand a brand, like the Dark Mark. Do you really want that? Want to wear something on your arm for the rest of your life that you wouldn’t be able to get out of?”
Harry lowers his voice even with the privacy spell, and sees Theodore glaring steadily at him.
“It wouldn’t have to be on my arm.” Theodore’s voice is low and precise. “I started reading some of those books, too, when I saw you with them. It could be anywhere. And yes, I want the brand. I made my choices, my lord. I don’t back out of them.”
Harry hesitates, then breathes out slowly. “Okay. But that means I’ll have to research even more before I choose one of the oaths. I’m not going to brand my best friend with something that will hurt him.”
Theodore’s smile is long and slow and he reaches out and casually takes hold of Harry’s wrist. “Thank you, my lord.”
*
The Dementors are finally withdrawn from Hogwarts near the end of the school year, when the Ministry receives a “sighting” of Black in Surrey and decides that he’s nowhere near Hogwarts anymore. Harry shakes his head. He supposes Black probably killed the rat the instant he got hold of him. Either that or he turned him in to the Ministry and then the Ministry did nothing, as per usual.
Harry does manage a respectable Patronus, although Professor Lupin seems absolutely shocked at the silver Nundu that finally comes leaping out of Harry’s wand when he calls. He keeps giving Harry thoughtful glances through the end of the year. Harry is glad that the man won’t be back next year, having been called to “other duties.”
Harry gets more looks and sighs from Dumbledore when he passes Harry in the corridors, but no more direct interviews. Serling, the Ravenclaw who was bullying Luna, is apparently irretrievably mad and is being locked up in St. Mungo’s long-term care ward for the rest of her life. Harry is just happy that the other Ravenclaws can take a hint and have refrained from taking Luna’s possessions or taunting her. It leaves him freer to do the other things he wants.
He thinks he’s finally chosen the lordship oath he wants, if he must do this-and Theodore doesn’t let him forget-but he intends to practice it intensely first, and perhaps capture a Muggle and do it on them to see about side-effects and casting time. More, it can only be cast at the new moon, and the book recommends not doing more than three people at once. Harry tells Theodore that he intends to test it on the Weasley twins after the beginning of his fourth year and bind Theodore with it on the new moon after that, if it works.
“No. Me first.”
Harry groans and tosses an apple in the air. The herd of battle-trained Granians that are currently staying on the Nott property and are doubtless going to be used by Voldemort in some evil plot in the future fly after it, squabbling. “Why, Theodore? You don’t care about the twins. You don’t have a reason to protect their safety by volunteering to go first.”
“That book said the most intense connection between Lord and vassal comes from the first few times the oath is cast.”
“First few times. You’ll still get an intense one.”
“But some authors use ‘few’ when they mean several and some use ‘few’ to mean two. I’m not taking the chance that you’ll have the most intense connection with those ginger menaces.”
Harry stares at Theodore. Theodore is flushed and his eyes are gleaming. Harry’s never seen him so passionate about anything, even when he first brought up the lordship oath.
“You’re serious,” Harry whispers.
“Of course I am, my lord. What did I say back in April?”
Harry breathes out slowly. He still thought there was a chance this was a joke, that Theodore would change his mind at the last instant and admit he found this whole situation hilarious. But Harry is beginning to think now that he misunderstood Theodore’s sense of humor.
“All right,” he says. “If I can get it right soon, then the new moon in September. Otherwise, October.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Theodore says, and tilts his head down a little, and gives Harry a look that makes his breathing hoarse and his heart rapid.
This is a new problem, Harry thinks, but he’s intrigued. It seems like a good problem to have.
*
As it turns out, the lordship oath takes much more time to perfect than Harry thought it would. It requires a long incantation in Latin, followed by both the lord and the vassal exchanging oaths in their own wording, followed by a second incantation where the lord visualizes the mark he wants to create and the vassal bares the part of their body that will be marked, drinking a potion, and then a final incantation to seal the oath.
Harry does capture a Muggle to practice with for the new moon in July. Under the Imperius that Aethelred obligingly casts for him, the ritual proceeds perfectly, with the Muggle speaking the modified oath that the Weasley twins will take. Theodore watches intently, but he absolutely refuses to tell Harry what his own oath is so the Muggle can speak it.
“It’s going to be ours and ours alone,” he tells Harry.
The Muggle does writhe and scream, even under the curse, when Harry casts the mark he envisions for everyone other than Theodore, a lightning bolt with a small wolf crouched beside it, in memory of the wolf that bit Malfoy. Harry wanted to use something with a shadow, but he also doesn’t want to reveal what shadows mean to him.
Perhaps it will be...different...with Theodore’s mark.
Harry notes down that they’ll need silencing charms and a painkilling potion. The potion shouldn’t interact badly with the one that the oathtaker needs to drink.
The Muggle finishes the oath and then dies. Harry is extremely disconcerted until Theodore, who’s a natural at potions, points out that the regularly happens to Muggles who consume magical concoctions, no matter what their ingredients. They simply can’t tolerate the mixtures of crystals, poisonous herbs, magical creature body parts, and the like, while a wizard’s magic mixes with the potion to render it effective.
“We’re still doing this, my lord,” he tells Harry, and steps over the tall man’s body to gaze into Harry’s eyes. “Take all the precautions you need, but bind me before the Weasley twins.”
“I swear to you, it will be done.”
Theodore smiles for the rest of the day. Only later does Harry realize that he was probably talking like one of those historical Dark Lords in the books Theodore is always urging him to read.
Well, needs must.
*
“So.”
Harry blinks and looks up from a book on Dementors that he managed to order from Flourish and Blotts. Dean is standing in front of his table in the library, staring at him expectantly. Harry says, “Hi, Dean. I thought you were going to try out for the Quidditch team today and spend all your time abusing poor balls by hitting them at wooden heads?”
Dean sighs very patiently and sits down across from Harry. “Even you ought to be able to remember that all Quidditch is canceled this year thanks to the Tournament.”
“Right,” Harry says. The Tri-Wizard Tournament has occupied most of his Housemates for weeks, with the exception of Theodore. Malfoy is always declaring that he’s going to enter and get eternal glory. Harry took delight in telling him that it’s his one chance to do so, given that otherwise his hopes for glory will die with his father. It’s the only useful thing that Tournament has done for Harry. “So why are you here?”
“I want to join Theodore and Luna today, and they mentioned that you’re very involved with something specific. And I also overheard the Weasley twins talking about you. They’re a little careless, you know. They’re too used to a meter of space on either side of them in case they’re plotting pranks, so they don’t always notice when someone is eavesdropping.”
“Yes? And?” Harry won’t mark Fred and George at all if they can’t keep a damn secret.
Dean leans forwards. “I want in.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes I do.”
“Dean.” Harry stresses his name, and sees him sit back a little. Maybe this is what is needed to stop him from getting further involved. “It’s a combination research project and-having a deal with people, basically. Luna knows about it, but she’s not involved because it doesn’t appeal to her. The twins were so persistent I’m doing it to quiet them. Theodore is involved because he insists. But I don’t think you would be interested.”
And marking a Muggleborn Gryffindor is a bad, bad idea, Harry’s certain. The twins can pass it off as a joke, Theodore is so bloody committed he can’t back away, and Harry won’t mark Luna. But Dean is right in the middle of the risky “vulnerable because of his blood status” and “vulnerable because he has Housemates who think it’s hilarious to tease him about things like this” intersection. Harry thinks he would even be a little disgusted if he figured it out, thinking Harry’s like Voldemort.
Dean squints at him. “If Luna knows about it, then I can know about it, too. Even if I decide it’s not for me.”
Harry sighs and regrets the lack of a wall to bang his head against. “Oh, very well,” he says, taking out his wand. “But Luna had to swear a wand-vow to me, and you do, too, that you can’t run and tell anyone about what I’m going to say.”
Dean looks insulted as he takes out his own wand. “When have I ever told Seamus or Ron or that lot about anything you say?”
That’s right, the youngest Weasley’s name is Ron. Harry keeps forgetting.
Dean listens in silence as Harry tells him about the lordship oath and the mark and what the twins and Theodore are going to do. He stares at Harry for a while. “But-why do they want to take you as their lord instead of just swearing a vow like the one Luna and I did?”
“With the twins, it’s specifically because they want to know certain things a wand-vow isn’t enough to protect. With Theodore, it’s because he’s made his choice.”
“What if I want to know the secrets the twins know, too?”
“Dean, no.”
“Listen, Harry, I think you’re about the most awesome wizard I know, but I’m tired of the feeling that you’re hiding secrets all the time and Theodore gets to know them and I don’t. I put up with it because you’re in Slytherin together and it’s kind of natural, but if other Gryffindors get to know and I don’t...” Dean lets his words tail off.
Harry shakes his head. “It’s different for you because you’re Gryffindor and someone could find out, and you don’t have the excuse of playing jokes all the time and doing it for a lark that the twins are planning on using if someone finds their marks. Plus, you’re Muggleborn. It would look a lot worse for you to be the marked servant of a lord than it would a pure-blood. People kind of expect that of pure-bloods. Not Muggleborns.”
“Did you know that you’re not the only person who can read history?”
“Huh?”
“Blame yourself, you got me doing it so I can actually pass my History OWL.” Dean’s smile is fleeting. “There have been Muggleborn Dark Lords, Harry. And there have been lots of marked people in history. I suppose because it’s the strongest lordship oath, like you said. It’s only in recent history that people have associated it exclusively with pure-bloods because of Voldemort and Grindelwald. If I want to do this, I should damn well be able to do it.”
“But it’s not all brilliant secrets and awesomeness! The twins mostly wanted to join me because they’d get to know secrets, but they also know I’ll protect them and I’ll let them play pranks. What do you get out of it besides secrets?”
“Belonging. Loyalty. I know you’ve defended me from some of the other Gryffindors, Harry, I’m not blind. But this way I get even more of it. And personal teaching, too, right? Because you can’t let your minions go around with sub-standard learning. Moody’s too paranoid even to teach us Defense properly.”
Harry argues and argues and argues with him, but he leaves the library that night knowing he’s going to have at least four marked vassals by the end of the school year.
He catches the trend of his thoughts and shudders in horror.
There is no “at least!” There aren’t going to be anymore!
*
“I promise to serve my lord, Harry Potter, without wavering, without disloyalty, keeping his secrets from all save those whom he has given me permission to share them with. I promise to protect my lord from all threats I can. I promise to bear his mark in pride and wonder. I will keep these promises unless death claims him first, and if I break them, may death claim me.”
Harry wants to howl a protest as Theodore, kneeling in the trampled ring of grass under the darkness of November’s new moon, makes his oath. That is not the one they discussed! Theodore was supposed to promise to keep the secrets unless it was a matter of forfeiting his life, not to die before he betrayed them!
But from Theodore’s glittering smile and eyes, he’s done exactly as he wanted to do, and Harry can’t disrupt the ritual now. He glares at Theodore and carries on with his own oath.
“I promise to protect my vassal, Theodore Nott, without wavering, without disloyalty, keeping his secrets from all save those whom he has given me permission to share them with. I promise to teach him and lead him in all the ways that they can. I promise to respect his freedom and the weight of his soul. I will keep these promises unless death claims him first, and if I break them, may I lose my magic.”
Ha, Harry gloats to himself as he watches Theodore’s eyes widen. Take that. Harry can’t promise that he will die before betraying Theodore; that’s not in him. But the loss of his magic would cripple him and make his life not much worth living, and Theodore knows that.
Now comes the marking. Theodore turns without rising and kneels so that he’s facing away from Harry, but lifts his hair to show the nape of his neck. Harry crouches down and lays his wand against the back of Theodore’s neck, concentrating as hard as he can. Then he speaks the incantation.
Theodore only sighs a little as the mark forms, which is so weird that Harry nearly panics before he remembers what the book said. The mark is influenced by lots of things, but especially the lord’s attitude towards his future vassal. Harry was hostile and indifferent towards the Muggle at best, but he-cares deeply for Theodore.
Harry steps back and stares as the mark forms. It’s a green lightning bolt, and it has a shadow, visible in the form of a softer grey background to the mark. Harry swallows. Well, he knew there was a possibility that his love for shadows would make its way into it.
Theodore turns around, again on his knees, and extends his hand for the potion vial. Harry gives it to him and watches anxiously as he swallows it. Theodore brewed this himself, with Harry checking and rechecking, and even Aethelred checked it for them without knowing what they intended to use it for. (He thinks it’s a prank on a Muggleborn at school). But Harry is still anxious.
Theodore only shudders a little as the potion binds the oath to his soul. Then he holds out his hands. Harry clasps both of them in his left as he makes the necessary sweeps with his wand and chants the final incantation.
It was heavy when he practiced with the Muggle, but now the Latin words are light and flowing. Harry watches as Theodore bows his head, and feels the soft way the vow winds around his own soul. The lord doesn’t drink the potion as part of this ritual, so it’s the final incantation that closes it out and binds Harry to his promises as well.
When Theodore’s been kneeling there for some time without moving, Harry finally whispers, “Are you okay?”
“Never-better,” Theodore says, and opens his eyes.
The minute they meet Harry’s, Harry staggers back with a gasp. There’s a link between them, more than the chain that their mutual promises form. Suddenly Harry can feel Theodore’s magic, a soft grey cloud in the back of his mind that is attractively shadow-like. And he knows that he would be able to follow Theodore’s mark wherever it was, across continents or behind a ton of rock. His hand is shaking as he reaches out to touch Theodore’s neck and his mark.
Theodore shudders and looks up from his knees. “My lord,” he says, and his magic shifts around, and Harry knows his deepest desire without his having to speak it aloud.
Even a day ago, Harry would have hesitated. But now he has the link, and he knows that his own worry over whether the potion and the mark would hurt Theodore is more than he feels for the Weasley twins, or even Dean and Luna.
Harry bends down, and kisses his vassal.
Chapter Six.
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