[July Celebration fics]: Shadow Magic, R, Harry/Theodore Nott, 7.1/7

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Six.

Part One.

Title: Shadow Magic (7/7)
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 12,500 (split into two parts)
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! This is the end of the story. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it.

Chapter Seven-Lord of Shadows

“Did you see the headline, my lord?”

Harry snorts as he looks at the Daily Prophet that Theodore’s handed him. BOY-WHO-LIVED MISSING! it screams across the top of the page. He hands it back to Theodore. “Of course Dumbledore would do that. He doesn’t understand that I can move unseen. Or he probably thinks that I’m Apparating. He’ll try to hinder me as much as he can.”

“It won’t be a concern, my lord?”

Harry shakes his head as he digs into the breakfast the Patil house-elves have delivered for them. Honestly, he thought there might be a problem with the house-elves, but once a few of them saw Padma’s mark, they immediately assumed a mantle of faithful service to Harry and Theodore, too. “Of course we have to be cautious. But cautious isn’t the same as paranoid.”

“The way you think Voldemort is becoming.”

Harry grins. “Yes.”

The research that his Ravenclaws have done and that they’re owling him now-or, in Padma’s case, just coming to their rooms to tell him-is moving better than he ever thought it could. Terry was the one who had the bright idea to search for Slytherin artifacts, since after all Voldemort is supposed to be descended from Salazar Slytherin. It turns out that Slytherin didn’t leave a whole lot of relics. One of them is a golden locket with an emerald snake on the front that should prove recognizable. Another is a huge ring that passed into the Peverell family. Su is working now to trace what happened to the Peverell family after it stopped being called Peverell.

Hufflepuff’s relics seem to be limited, given Padma’s talks with the insufferable Zacharias Smith, to a single golden cup with a badger on the side and large handles. The Smith family once owned it, but it was apparently stolen long ago from one Hepzibah Smith who was accidentally poisoned by her house-elf.

Harry’s eyebrows went up when he heard that. Right. The old house-elf is dead now, so there’s no way to prove it, but Harry would be willing to bet his Parseltongue that Voldemort arranged for the murder and also for the house-elf to be blamed.

Which doesn’t tell them where the cup is now. But at least they know what they should be looking for.

Ravenclaw’s relics are supposedly more numerous, including a wand held by a Swedish family that claims to be her descendants, but Theodore is the one who points out that Voldemort would hardly be content to let someone else keep his Horcruxes.

“It has to be her diadem,” he tells Harry one lazy morning when Harry’s been refining Dementor-killing plans and Theodore has been reading through the owls that the other vassals have sent in. Wayne’s mother turned out to have a distant relation to the Peverells, too, which has made that part of the research a little easier. “That’s her most famous relic and the most long-lost. Lost almost a thousand years ago, in fact.”

“Then how would Voldemort find it?”

“You know how clever he was, my lord. Besides, he might have asked the Grey Lady.”

“The who?”

Theodore rolls over and gives him an amused look. “My lord, you are truly not that observant of things at Hogwarts that don’t relate to your own concerns. The Ravenclaw ghost, the Grey Lady. She was the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw in life,” he adds, when Harry just keeps frowning at him. “If she knows where her mother or Ravenclaw’s other descendants disposed of the diadem, she could have told Voldemort.”

Harry shakes his head a little. “How common is the knowledge that she’s Ravenclaw’s daughter? Surely Su and Terry and Padma would have bragged about something like that. And I’m surprised Luna never told me.”

“It’s known, but it’s considered an odd little fact by now.” Theodore shrugs. “She very rarely talks to anyone. I assume a wizard as powerful and as charming as Voldemort was reputed to be could have tricked her into revealing her secrets, however.”

Harry nods thoughtfully. “Then we have to think about places that Voldemort might have hidden the diadem, I suppose.”

*

By the time Harry and Theodore move to Pansy’s house, more research has been added to their pile of notes. Su has tracked the Peverell line to two endings, one in the Potter line and one in the Gaunt family line. The Gaunt family is also supposed to be extinct. But they used to live near a village called Little Hangleton.

One late summer evening-Harry’s birthday, in fact, when he had to repel several owls that contained tracking charms and gifts he doesn’t want-he and Theodore set out for Little Hangleton. They have to go slowly, by Muggle roads and signs, and leap from shadow to shadow like that. It takes almost until nightfall, but there are still enough lights around for Harry to feel confident as he and Theodore home in on the only feeling of magic towards the edge of the village.

The only feeling of magic for miles, Harry realizes, as he regards the small shack in front of him. He wonders if Voldemort chased off any other wizards who used to live here.

“Be careful, my lord,” Theodore murmurs from behind him.

Harry nods and fills the air in front of him with shadow-beasts, mostly snakes. It makes sense to assume that Voldemort might have guarded one of his Horcruxes, if it’s here, with Parseltongue magic.

The shack itself has few spells on it. Instead, they all concentrate into a corner where there’s a loose floorboard. Harry flings shadow-beasts at it and watches as the spells trigger, one by one, destroying his creatures. At least he can resurrect them, and the spells don’t foul the shadows the way Dementors do.

When Harry finally can use a shadow-lion to pry up the floorboard, he isn’t surprised to see a gleaming golden ring with a huge black stone lying there. What does surprise him is the immediate compulsion to put it on.

Harry shakes his head and steps back. He does send a shadow-snake down to retrieve the ring for him. When the snake lifts its head, Harry can make out the symbol scratched on the stone, the circle and line inside a triangle.

Harry frowns. He’s not sure if that symbol would be on all the Horcruxes-but no, his own lightning bolt doesn’t have anything to do with that. He has the snake bring the Horcrux out of the shack. He and Theodore will cooperate in taking off the spells that prevent someone from touching it directly or harming it.

Theodore’s eyes glaze the minute he sees the ring. He starts to step forwards.

“Theodore!” Harry snaps, and flexes his link to Theodore’s magic through his mark.

In a second, his boyfriend stumbles back from the ring, eyes wide and shocked. “I’ve never felt anything like that,” he whispers. “The compulsion that Voldemort put on the necklace was easy to break out of in comparison.”

Harry snarls, reminded of that. Suddenly he doesn’t care about breaking the curse on the ring, not when there’s a chance that the compulsion to put it on could snare Theodore again. He lashes out with his wand and chants the incantation for Fiendfyre.

At the same moment as the fire comes pouring out of his wand, he adds shadow to it. The flames writhe and turn grey, rising into the shapes of lions and leopards with long, jagged teeth and wings sprouting from their backs. Harry tests his control over them and finds them fighting it, but at a low level. For now, he can command them.

“Destroy it,” he says, nodding at the Horcrux.

The shadowfire turns its attention towards the ring. The nearest leopard scoops the ring up and tosses it into the air. Then a lion snatches it and nearly bounds away, but Harry limits its scope, and the lion reluctantly turns back towards the center of the fire. The beasts claw at the Horcrux, snap at it, and wrench at the glittering, etched stone, pulling it out of its golden setting. Harry hears a harsh scream in the distance.

He’s never heard a Horcrux die, but he manages to smile as he watches the ring begin to lose its golden gleam. At the same moment, Theodore relaxes against him, and Harry knows the compulsion to put the ring on must be gone. Harry strokes Theodore’s hair as he watches the first part of his revenge against Voldemort come to fruition.

In the end, the flames destroy everything except the stone. Harry keeps a wary eye on it as it falls to the earth and Harry banishes the Fiendfyre, sending the strength of the shadows that powered it back into the twilight falling around them. He doesn’t know why the stone didn’t melt and fade like the gold of the ring.

He isn’t sure he wants to find out.

Harry is magically exhausted from the shadowfire, so Theodore is the one who uses a simple digging charm to open a little pit in the earth near the shack, and tosses the stone into it. Then they pile dirt and stones on top of it and smooth out the ground so it looks like it was never disturbed, and go back to their (temporary) home.

*

Of all things, it’s a house-elf who brings them their next lead on a Horcrux.

Harry and Theodore lingered longer on the Parkinson estate than they meant to, but Pansy’s parents are at least sympathetic to Harry’s goals, and it’s pleasant to be out in the open, using the library brazenly, and eating meals with people who want to know what he’s going to do in the future rather than concentrating on what they think he should have done in the past. They are packing up, however, when a familiar-looking elf appears in front of them.

Harry puts Theodore behind him with an easy twist of motion, and then frowns as he realizes that he recognizes the elf. “Kreacher?”

The elf nods, eyes fixed on him. “Parkinson house-elves says that you be researching Dark Lord’s evil things.” His voice is low.

Harry stiffens his back for a second. He honestly never thought the house-elves could form a spy network, but of course they do. He and Theodore and the others are going to have to be especially careful not to leave letters lying around or discuss things without privacy wards.

But Kreacher is looking at him expectantly, not with hostility, so Harry says, “Yes. I’ve already destroyed one of them.”

Kreacher lets out a long, shaky breath, and says, “Then Kreacher can be delivering Master Regulus’s locket to you.” He reaches up and untangles a thick golden chain from around his neck.

“Locket?” Theodore asks, but his breathless voice tells Harry that he knows what’s happening as well as Harry does. It’s weird, but hey, this will work.

“Master Regulus gave it to Kreacher and told him to destroy it,” Kreacher murmurs as he extends the locket. With an effort, Harry remembers that Black talked at one point about a younger brother, a Death Eater, who was called Regulus. “Kreacher could not. He has carried it all these years and kept it safe from bad master Black, yes, yes, he has.”

There’s no question the locket is a Horcrux. For one thing, it perfectly matches the description of the Slytherin locket that Harry has already received. For another, the thick, choking aura of Dark magic fills the room. Harry wrinkles his nose with a slight snarl. The only thing he dislikes more is the sense of a Dementor advancing towards him.

“Thank you, Kreacher,” Harry says, and shields his hand with a wrap of shadow before he reaches out to grasp the locket’s chain. Kreacher’s eyes widen at that, and Harry narrows his eyes at him. “I can reach you any time I want, Kreacher. I can destroy you if you speak about this to anyone.”

“Kreacher wants to watch.”

Harry nods, and leads the elf and Theodore out onto a patch of grass that’s concealed from any windows the Parkinsons are likely to look out of. Then Theodore puts up containment spells he learned from his father while Harry lays the locket on the grass and prepares to cast the Fiendfyre spell.

This time, Harry glances at Kreacher before he infuses the flames with shadow. Kreacher just bows low. “Kreacher is being honored to serve Master Harry Potter,” he says. “Kreacher is not telling anyone else.”

Given that Kreacher has apparently kept the secret of the locket for decades, since Regulus’s death, Harry supposes he has to be content with that. He unleashes the shadow again. This time, it takes the form of twisted dragons, and snakes that look more like lizards without legs. Harry still instructs them to devour the locket, and they still resist, but succumb to his will in the end.

This time, the locket opens while it screams, and a figure tries to escape out of it. Harry watches critically. The figure looks a little like him. He supposes it’s part of the Horcrux’s defenses, to try and tempt the person who holds it to treasure it instead of destroy it.

Unluckily for the Horcrux, Harry has no emotional connection to Founders’ artifacts, and thinking of how Voldemort tried to poison and control Theodore would be more than enough to overcome any reluctance to get rid of them. He asks one of the dragons to swallow the figure, which it does happily, and the shriek dies away at the same time as the locket melts into a rush of metal.

Theodore buries the metal the same way they buried the stone from the ring. Harry turns to Kreacher, who has tears running down his face and tracing small clear paths through the grime there. “You can speak to no one of what you’ve seen,” he repeats.

Kreacher kisses Harry’s feet, which is an uncomfortable sensation. “Kreacher knows,” he whimpers. “Kreacher is so grateful to Master Harry Potter for fulfilling Master Regulus’s legacy.”

“Would you happen to know of any other artifacts like this? The Dark Lord has others. We’re trying to destroy them all.”

But Kreacher shakes his head so hard his ears flop. “Master Regulus was knowing only the one.”

Harry sighs a little. Well, it was worth a try. “Then you may go, Kreacher. And keep an eye on Black for me, would you? Tell me if he’s plotting anything against me.”

“Kreacher would do far more than that for Master Harry Potter,” the elf says, puffing out his chest, and vanishes.

Harry turns to Theodore. “Ready?”

Theodore smiles at him. “Ready. You are remarkable, my lord.” He extends his arm so Harry can bring him through the shadows to the Greengrass estate. “Although I hope that we don’t have to bury the remains of too many more of those.”

*

Theodore’s wish comes true, although in an irritating way. They return for their sixth year at Hogwarts not having found any more of the Horcruxes.

Harry did receive an Outstanding on his Potions OWL, which makes Snape glare at him as he comes into the classroom. Harry only raises his eyebrows at the git and says nothing. He is going to do something about Snape, too, now that Neville is one of his vassals. It will simply take a while to build. For now, the pranks that the twins regularly send to all of Harry’s marked ones are doing the job nicely.

Padma and Justin, as the ones with the most innocent faces and the ones who never played any pranks on Snape before, are particularly good at them.

Their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor turns out to be a (badly, in Harry’s opinion) disguised Sirius Black. He concentrates a lot on the theory behind Dark Arts and how Dark Arts are evil, and on countercurses and defense moves. Most people seem to love him. Granger and the Weasleys go around with smug smiles on their faces because they know something other people don’t.

Harry wants to shake his head, but doesn’t. Even Neville, by far the most obvious of his marked ones, doesn’t show that he has a secret like that.

He does have a problem that comes up in the third week of the new school year, when Harry is going back to the Slytherin common room from a late-night detention with Black. Black thinks detentions and haranguing him about his parents and offering Harry free Firewhisky is the best way to get Harry on his side. Harry takes the Firewhisky but doesn’t drink it. Instead, he sells it to seventh-year Gryffindors who want to get good and drunk.

It’s the only reason Harry keeps going to the detentions. Honestly, in some ways he’s grown beyond Hogwarts. The fact that so many of his vassals are here and that getting his NEWT’s will help him in the future are the only reasons he’s still attending classes.

Someone moves in the third-floor corridor ahead of him. Harry stops and coils the shadows in readiness to attack. Some of them have teeth and heads until he quiets them. Creating shadowfire from the Fiendfyre seems to have made the normal shadows all the more eager to defend him.

The person comes around the corner. Harry raises his eyebrows. “Weasley.”

“Harry.” It’s Ginny Weasley, her eyes big and hopeful. “Are you-I know you said that you were in a relationship with Nott two summers ago, but you aren’t right now, are you?”

Harry nods. “I still am.” It doesn’t surprise him that Weasley has been this unobservant. Gryffindors never do pay enough attention to Slytherins, unless they’re one of the few smart ones Harry has found.

(Although sometimes they aren’t so smart, either. Colin is pushing for his little brother Dennis to be marked. Harry tells him Dennis is too young, and Colin argued that he wants to and Colin wants him to and he’s going to be able to keep all their secrets once he’s under the lordship oath anyway. Harry hasn’t won the argument yet, but neither has Colin).

“Oh.” Weasley droops, looking devastated. Harry doesn’t feel sorry for her. After all, it’s her own lack of observation skills that’s the problem, not anything Harry did. “I-I really like you, Harry. And you know that I’ve spent a lot of time with Sirius and Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix, right? I could tell you everything you want to know.”

Harry holds back his guffaw. This is a weird bargain, kind of like the ones that his vassals made with him, but honestly, dating as a price? Harry doesn’t think he would ever have been interested in dating if he hadn’t found Theodore.

Harry shakes his head. “No, thanks, Weasley.”

She watches him go with the same huge eyes. Harry sighs to himself and decides that he has to keep an eye on her. She might try to hang around him and pry into what he and his vassals are doing.

When Theodore welcomes him back to the common room, it’s with firm hands on his shoulder and a desperate kiss. Harry runs his hands gently up and down Theodore’s arms, and asks when he finishes, “What is it?”

“I saw Weasley following you,” Theodore says, drawing him down to a couch. “And following you with her eyes earlier. My lord, you wouldn’t…”

“You’re the only one for me,” Harry says, and squeezes Theodore’s hand until he smiles.

*

“Psst, Potter.”

Harry wants to roll his eyes as he turns around. Malfoy thinks he’s subtle. He never is, but it suits Harry’s purposes for the moment to let him go on thinking it, so he tilts his head. “Yes, Malfoy?”

Malfoy glances around as if to make sure that they’re alone, although they are. They’re up in the sixth-year boys’ bedroom, and Crabbe and Goyle are Merlin knows where. Zabini is in the library with Theodore, being carefully felt out to see if he wants perhaps to join the vassals. It’s not because Harry wants more, but because it would be useful to have an equal number of people on their side in case their bedroom turns into a war zone.

Yes, Harry has his shadows, always. But he’s taking no chances with Theodore’s safety, now more than ever.

“You really should join the Dark Lord,” Malfoy says.

“Subtle, you aren’t,” Harry mutters before he can stop himself.

Malfoy flushes, but doesn’t burst out with the usual haughty language. Instead, keeping his eyes on Harry, he draws up his sleeve. There on his left arm is the blazing Dark Mark.

Harry resists the instinct to lash out. It’s interesting, because he’s sure Snape has the Dark Mark, but he’s never had that instinct around him. Maybe it’s seeing it. Maybe it’s because he’s a Lord himself with marked vassals now.

“Imagine how powerful the Dark Lord is,” Malfoy whispers. “I’m in Dumbledore’s school, bearing his brand, and still Dumbledore has no idea. You could have that power, too, if you only joined him, Potter.”

“He tried to kill my boyfriend. Why would I?”

“That’s a small sacrifice to pay for power. I would sacrifice Pansy in an instant if the Dark Lord asked me to.”

Harry smiles. Malfoy seems to see how big it is and not what it conceals, just like Dumbledore, because he smiles back. Malfoy is too stupid even to know that he and Pansy aren’t dating. Therefore, Harry expects to be able to dance rings around him.

“I don’t make the same sacrifices. I don’t play by the same rules. The Dark Lord would have to prove himself to me.”

“How could he do that?” Malfoy is almost dancing with glee.

“For example,” Harry says, “I’m interested in History, as you well know.” Malfoy nods; Harry’s Outstanding in History of Magic, the first a Slytherin student has earned in years, was talked up all over their House by Theodore. “I want to talk to the House ghosts about what they’ve seen and learned, but few of them will speak to me. I want to know if the Dark Lord knows charms or spells for making ghosts talk to me. That would be an initial investment.”

Malfoy stands tall. “I can tell you that right now, Potter.”

“The Dark Lord’s trusted you with such a charm?”

“Not a charm. Knowledge. He spoke to the House ghosts when he was-here.” Malfoy’s voice is hushed. Harry supposes that it’s almost blasphemy for him to think of the Dark Lord as a young Hogwarts student. “He gave me permission to invoke his name to get the Bloody Baron to help me if necessary.”

“Well, Slytherin’s house ghost.” Harry makes himself shrug. “If I wanted to talk to him, he probably would already just because I’m a student in his House. But what about the Grey Lady, for example?”

“He did speak to the Grey Lady, as it happens.” Malfoy couldn’t look more smug if the shadows around him were full of smugness, too.

“He did?” Harry makes his voice sound a little awed, and of course Malfoy falls for it.

“Yes. He said that he was the first person in over a hundred years to get more than a few words out of her. And you can imagine that she’s going to rejoice when she hears that you’re one of his followers.”

“Let’s not leap ahead, Malfoy. I want to try out of the validity of this information first and make sure that his name actually convinces the Grey Lady to speak to me.”

Malfoy looks disappointed, but nods. “Do let me know when you’ve spoken to her, Potter, so I can take word back to my Lord.”

“Oh, I will.” Harry gives Malfoy one more smile and watches him strut away, then goes to find Theodore and Zabini, dreaming all the while of what Theodore’s revenge on the pompous prat is going to be.

*

When Harry mentions Tom Riddle’s name, the Grey Lady swoops and shrieks at him.

Harry steps neatly out of the way and watches dispassionately as she flies past him and through a wall. He knows, logically, that she’s the most dangerous opponent he’s probably faced, because he can’t see her coming the way he can with most people, but he’s already tricking Dumbledore and Voldemort both and he’s destroyed two Horcruxes. He just can’t get upset the way he would have a few years ago.

The Grey Lady bursts out from the stone again almost right in his face. Harry deflects her with a shadow-dragon’s wing. She stops flying and immediately stares at him. “What are you?”

“Someone who has lots of magic,” Harry says. Before she can lose interest or retreat into silence again, he adds, “And someone who would like to rescue your mother’s diadem from the corruption that Tom Riddle steeped it in.”

“You know? You know? Then why did you talk to me?”

The Grey Lady looks like she’s about to cry. Harry puts out his hands. “I don’t know where the diadem is. And I only suspect what he did to it, I don’t know for sure. But if I’m right, then he made it into a Horcrux.” He watches as the ghost recoils even though she’s floating in midair, and nods. “You would want it to stop being one, right?”

“Of course I would! But the only thing I know is that Tom Riddle told me he would bring the diadem home. Then I never saw him again until he was corrupted into Lord Voldemort. He must have been lying.”

Harry blinks. Then he says, “Did you think he would restore it to your mother’s tomb?”

“Of course not. My mother is buried in the foundations of Hogwarts. I thought he would bring it here. But I never saw it again.”

“If he hid it…?”

“That’s impossible.” The Grey Lady holds out her hands. For a second, a shimmering blue and bronze glow surrounds them, the only color Harry has ever seen in a ghost. It dissipates almost immediately. “I still hold on to that much magic. I would have sensed the diadem if it was anywhere within Hogwarts.”

“There aren’t places that are hidden from any magic like that? House magic or ghost magic? Places like the Chamber of Secrets that was opened several years ago?”

The Grey Lady’s eyes widen. Then she murmurs, “I never thought-I would have thought of that myself, but I was sunken too deep in my own sorrow. But how can I help you in that case? My magic would still not sense them. And I have never known where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is. Salazar was too cautious.”

“It may not be there,” Harry reassures her. “It may be somewhere else. If you could give me a list of those places, then I may be able to search and find them.”

And he’s sure that whoever was opening the Chamber of Secrets in his second year must have had access to Parseltongue, which means that he can even open that. If he can find it.

*

That’s how Harry ends up opening the door of a room on the seventh floor that only springs into existence when you call it, and stepping into a sea of rubbish.

Coughing, Harry casts a charm that clears the dust away from his nose and mouth, and looks around in curiosity tinged with awe. Some of these things, like the fur-trimmed robe he can see with huge claw slashes through it or the broken chair it’s hanging from, are probably worthless. Others, like a giant mirror with runes carved into it, might be valuable.

But it will take a long time to search, and Harry doesn’t know any spells that can find a diadem or Horcrux specifically. He sighs and sets out to look for it.

As it turns out, he doesn’t need spells. His head snaps around after an hour when he feels the dark, greasy magic that surrounded the ring and the locket. There’s a cabinet ahead of him, and on the cabinet is a bust, and hanging from the bust’s ear is a diadem.

It’s slim and made of shining silver, and has a sapphire in the middle. When Harry steps close enough to it to read the inscription curling around it in delicate letters, he can see that it says, Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.

Harry sighs out and floats the diadem into the air. While there don’t seem to be protections around this one the way there were around the ring, he doesn’t want to take any chances. He takes himself and the diadem through shadow to the same dark corner of the grounds where he marked his vassals last year and unleashes shadowfire that this time takes the form of giant frogs with clapping mouths and fish without eyes.

And so he destroys his third Horcrux, a week before the Christmas holidays.

*

“Harry, wait up! I want to talk to you!”

Harry groans and turns around, leaning on the wall. Theodore bristles protectively beside him. They just went through the marking ritual for Dennis-Harry did indeed lose that battle-and for Susan Bones, whose willingness to participate shocked Harry. But it turns out that Susan is a total orphan now; Voldemort murdered her aunt Amelia Bones over the summer. Susan is willing to do whatever it takes to get vengeance on him.

Harry’s tired and would like to go to bed. But Black is hastening towards him, and at least he knows that Black isn’t one of the professors who will get after him for being out of bed after curfew. He nods to Theodore, and Theodore nods back once and continues on his way to the Slytherin common room.

Black comes to a stop in front of him, eyes wide and worried. “Harry, I want to know why you aren’t coming to Grimmauld Place for the holidays.”

Harry’s exhaustion makes him pause before he answers. He might give away too much of himself otherwise. “Because you and Lupin want to be my family, and that’s never going to happen.”

“But why, Harry?”

“Why did you never write to me once you broke out of Azkaban?”

Black flushes violently, but for once, he looks Harry in the eye and answers instead of turning away and being silent. “Because I thought you didn’t need an influence like me in your life. You know. Wild and a fugitive. But since then, I realized how much you do need someone like me, so you don’t go Dark.”

“Did it ever occur to you,” Harry says very slowly, “that going Dark, however you define it, isn’t the worst thing that could happen to me?”

“No,” Black says, face and voice both blank. Harry thinks it’s pure surprise, not that he’s hiding something.

“It isn’t,” Harry said. “As it happens, I do practice magic other than Dark Arts, and I do have friends other than the Slytherins. You’re just upset because they’re not all Gryffindors, and I don’t do all the things my parents did. But you’re too late to influence me into turning into a hero, Black. Just give it up.”

Black blinks at him. Then he says, “But you’re working with Dumbledore.”

“That doesn’t make me a hero or a Gryffindor. It doesn’t make me someone who’s going to date a red-haired woman like my father,” Harry adds, remembering the way that Ginny Weasley’s eyes continue to follow him across a room, and that Black often nods and smiles encouragingly to her. “You can’t relate to me unless you see me for me, not someone you want me to be like.”

Black just looks at him. Harry finally turns and walks away. He’s given Black all the chances he can.

*

He and Theodore end up going to the house that Susan is maintaining by herself, her aunt Amelia’s house, for the Christmas holidays. Susan turned seventeen on the second of December, and that ended the legal challenges that people were trying to gain custody of her, as she tells Harry and Theodore with fire in her eyes.

“I think the laws should all be changed,” she says, sitting in front of her fireplace with a glass of butterbeer in her hand. “The ones that say how children can be treated if their bloody family members all die out are barbaric.”

“What do the laws say about Muggle family members?” Harry asks, mildly interested. He has nothing to worry about, but if he didn’t have shadow magic, then he might have.

Susan looks at him as if he’s mad. “No one would ever leave a known magical child with Muggle family, no matter how closely related. It’s different for the Muggleborns, they have no choice, and usually only the Headmaster of Hogwarts and maybe some Obliviators know about them until they turn eleven. But if you’re known?” Susan shakes her head, making her long plait sway. “It doesn’t happen.”

Theodore looks at Harry with something hotter than Firewhisky burning in his eyes. Harry raises his glass in a toast that’s meant to quiet him as much as acknowledge him.

Harry already has plans for Dumbledore. Leaving him with the Dursleys is only one more point to the score.

*

The second half of Harry’s sixth year is quiet. Harry still searches for information on Hufflepuff’s cup, but that seems to have disappeared good and proper. He contents Malfoy with vague intimations that he’s considering joining Voldemort, which he “proves” by not having any more public confirmations that he believes Voldemort has returned. He accepts a scarf in green and silver from Black, and wonders.

He reads the news of Voldemort breaking some of his followers out of Azkaban without surprise. Harry only wonders why he didn’t do it before. He supposes Voldemort was simply lying low, given that the Ministry is still officially in denial of his return.

“Bellatrix Lestrange,” Neville says softly during an informal meeting that Harry’s taken to having with his vassals in a variation of the room where he found the diadem. It’s a huge place decorated in all four House colors and with large targets that Harry’s put up at the back of the room. “She was one of the people who tortured my parents into insanity.”

Harry stares at him. “What?”

Neville tells the story with his gaze fixed on the fire. Dean puts a supportive hand on his shoulder. The Hufflepuffs look shocked-except for Susan-and murmur their condolences. The Slytherins and Ravenclaws mostly look thoughtful.

Colin clenches his fists. “I wish I could do something to them, Neville,” he mutters, and Dennis nods emphatically beside him.

Harry touches Neville’s shoulder lightly to claim his attention. “I’ll let you have her,” he says.

Neville blinks at him. “I-I’m not really into killing, Harry.”

“Then you can be the one to duel her and put her back into prison.” Harry shrugs. He doesn’t care about bloody vengeance on people or if his vassals do exactly what he would do, only getting vengeance and giving his vassals what they want. “I don’t really care what you do. Just know that she’s yours.”

Neville smiles after a stunned second. “Thank you, my lord. I-I suppose I can think of something to do with her.” Then he frowns. “But I’m not good enough at dueling to put her back in prison if I meet her.”

“That’s something we’re here to correct,” Harry tells him as he stands up and draws his wand. He’s been teaching Shield Charms and some of the offensive curses he learned from the Black books to his vassals. He might as well get on with it. They’ve talked long enough. “If you want to learn some advanced dueling spells, come with me.”

All his vassals are eager to learn the spells, except Theodore, who already knows them and stays lounging in a chair near the fire, grinning at Harry. Harry grins back and turns to face the small crowd again.

Neville and Justin both have the looks of awe on their faces that makes Harry want to sigh. They think he’s doing something absolutely burdensome on him, absolutely for free.

Of course it’s not. The better they defend themselves, the less often Harry has to come roaring to the rescue. And he enjoys teaching. He would never do this if he didn’t enjoy it.

Briefly, he has cause to remember that he’s had to do several things he didn’t enjoy, including marking all these people who somehow keep showing up and asking him to do it. But he shakes that loose. He isn’t going to mark anyone else, thank Merlin. No one’s asked in months.

*

“No. Absolutely not.”

Susan’s gaze doesn’t waver. She’s kneeling on the floor in front of him, along with Hannah Abbott, whom Harry doesn’t know much about, except that she has a pure-blood last name and is Susan’s yearmate. “Please, my lord.”

Harry waves his hands vaguely in the air. They’re in the Hidden Room again, except that Susan asked to meet with him alone, and then showed up with Hannah. “What motive do you even have for this, anyway?” he asks Hannah. “You’re not bullied, I don’t think, and you don’t have vengeance to claim like Susan, right?”

“I can see where the power’s going as well as anyone.” Hannah sounds a little offended. “Did you think I couldn’t because I’m a Hufflepuff?”

“This has nothing to do with that! What I’m doing is supposed to be a secret.”

“At a certain point, that has to stop, my lord,” Susan offers. She shrugs when Harry glares at her. “It’s only true. It’s not because we’re running around betraying your secrets. It’s because other people see your magic, or see that we’re sneaking out of our rooms at night, and put pieces together.”

“But you don’t have to,” Harry says to Hannah, with his very best persuasive smile. “You can stay on the sidelines of the war.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to follow you?” Hannah looks stubborn and suspicious.

“Because I’m much more of a Dark Lord than Dumbledore,” Harry says flatly. “And I’m making my vassals more powerful, sure, but not necessarily to change the world like some of the Gryffindors or even the Death Eaters might try to do. You could swear to me and then just find your political career going nowhere.”

“I’m not interested in politics. I’m interested in keeping my friends and family safe. Susan says you’re the same, and I trust her.”

“You,” Harry tells Susan darkly, “have a lot to answer for.”

Susan only gives him a demure smile, and watches as Harry swears Hannah to a wand-vow. She also attends Hannah’s marking, held two new moons after that.

*

“Harry, my boy, I have lessons that I would like to impart to you…”

Harry leaves the first of Dumbledore’s “lessons,” showing a memory of a young Gaunt woman falling in love with a handsome Muggle, and laughs himself sick in the Slytherin common room. Dumbledore is trying to give him lessons on Horcruxes, of all things!

Of course, he couldn’t say that outright when Harry asked what the lesson were for. Instead, he said vaguely that they would help Harry “defeat Voldemort.” Harry shakes his head now and wipes a few tears from his eyes. Damn, Dumbledore is funny sometimes.

Harry also supposes he should be glad that one person other than he and Theodore knows about Horcruxes, so Voldemort can still be brought down if they both die. Harry just wishes that it was someone other than Dumbledore, who Harry wouldn’t like to survive beyond Voldemort’s death.

Dumbledore does tell him two interesting things as the “lessons” continue. He thinks that Voldemort was aiming to make six Horcruxes, to create seven pieces of soul total. He also tells Harry that he himself destroyed one Horcrux in Harry’s second year.

“A diary that was possessing poor Ginny Weasley, giving her the power to speak to a basilisk in Parseltongue and open the Chamber of Secrets. She should not be blamed, of course. She was young, and vulnerable to outside influences…”

Harry utterly ignores the implication that he should find someone who let herself be possessed attractive. Instead, he’s thinking.

Six Horcruxes-but Harry knows for sure that Voldemort doesn’t know about the one in his scar, or Voldemort would have done much more to collect Harry and lock him away somewhere safe. So. Seven altogether.

The diary is gone. So are the ring, locket, and diadem. Harry has no intention of letting anyone touch the Horcrux in him, so five are accounted for.

That leaves Hufflepuff’s cup-a suspicion confirmed when Dumbledore shows him the memories that he collected from Hokey about Hepzibah Smith-and a last one. Dumbledore tells him that he is virtually sure Nagini, the large snake that follows Voldemort around, is that one, which Harry has to admit makes sense. Voldemort would value a snake above other living beings that he might put a Horcrux inside.

So Harry needs to find the cup and find a way to kill Nagini. He has to assume that, even though she’s alive, basilisk venom and Fiendfyre are the only things that can touch her, just like a regular Horcrux.

He is still having no luck gaining any insight on the cup, so he decides to tackle the snake first.

*

Harry travels through shadows to the Nott house, leaving Theodore behind. Harry doesn’t want to chance his father seeing him, and Theodore would only protest at the danger that he would think Harry is putting himself in, even though Harry isn’t at all.

As he suspected, Voldemort has made the Nott house his headquarters, or at least a place that he spends a lot of time. Harry only waits two hours, hidden in the shadow of a tall vase, before Voldemort arrives. Following him is a large pit viper that looks as if she holds all the lethal qualities of his shadow-snakes.

Harry gathers up Fiendfyre on the tip of his wand. It dances and tries to edge around his will, but only until he clamps down on it and mixes shadow with it. Then it’s his, this time draping his wand in dark-burning phoenixes and birds of prey.

Voldemort leaves Nagini at one edge of the large receiving hall of the Nott house while he speaks with Aethelred at the far end. Harry briefly thinks about traveling through shadow to that end to spy on them, but Nagini is a more important goal.

Grey fire swarms out of the shadows around her, from Harry’s hands and wand and unmanifested body, and grabs hold of Nagini.

Her shriek is a terrible thing, but Harry thinks that only he and Voldemort can actually understand it, because Aethelred is staring blankly as Voldemort runs towards the snake. Voldemort chants a quick countercurse that would put ordinary Fiendfyre out, but what Harry’s conjured is beyond his reach.

A phoenix descends on Nagini’s head and tenderly rips it apart with its claws. A second later, a hawk is there, gulping up the pieces of her body and letting charred ash dribble out from under its tail.

Harry laughs silently to himself at the idea of Nagini becoming Horcrux-driven bird shit.

Voldemort screams in Parseltongue, first Nagini’s name, over and over, and then demands that the person who did this reveal themselves. Harry shakes his head. Has that ever worked, in the history of Dark wizards with enemies? He doesn’t think so.

He stays only long enough to make sure that Nagini really is a pile of ash and shit and Voldemort doesn’t manage to stop the burning somehow, and then leaps away. Voldemort is ranting at Aethelred about how the defenses on his house didn’t stop whoever did this, and by the sounds of it, he can probably go all night.

Part Two of Chapter Seven.