Chapter Thirteen of 'Wolf's Choice'- A Scolding
Chapter Twelve.
Title: Wolf’s Choice (13/60)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Main story is gen, a few GoF canon pairings mentioned
Content Notes: AU of GoF, angst, gore, violence, torture, present tense, minor character death
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU of GoF. Harry begins his summer with horrific visions that come true much faster than he was expecting. He’ll have to rely on his circle of friends, both his guardians, and all his allies to cope with the results.
Author’s Notes: This is a long fic that is a sequel to my fic Other People’s Choices. Make sure you read that first before you start this one.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirteen-A Scolding
“I know that protecting others is a part of you. I would not ask you to change that.”
Harry watches Snape warily out of the corner of his eye as they walk deeper into the dungeons. Technically it’s the path to the Slytherin common room, but Harry is all but convinced they’re going to end up in Snape’s office instead. He’s proven right when they halt in front of the door. Lion hisses a little, revealing Harry’s agitation.
Snape glances at Lion, but he has a blank face. He opens the office door, and they step inside. Harry sits down on the chair with his back very straight and his face being as blank as it can be, but he knows he’s not good at it.
“I will ask that you change your behavior, however,” Snape says as he locks the office door and takes a stance in front of Harry, staring at him with his hands clasped behind his back. He almost looks like he’s making a report. “That is under your control. You had no need to imprison your friends behind a Shield Charm when they could have helped you.”
“I didn’t know what spells the sixth-years were going to use.”
“Then you should have been equally concerned about your own safety,” Snape says in a soft voice that Harry can only compare to smoke. It gets into everything and makes you cough up things you never intended. “You didn’t know that you could safely face them and disarm them, either.”
Harry says nothing. Honestly, he just trusts himself more than he trusts Blaise or Theo or any of the others to keep themselves safe. He knows what his magic feels like to him: strong and thrumming and waiting to be used. He knows he’s good at wandless magic. He doesn’t know that much about any of the others’ abilities.
Snape sighs after a second and says, “I will assign you punishment for this, as your guardian.”
“Lines?” Or maybe Snape is going to make him stay in the Slytherin common room other than going to classes and meals. That would be pretty bad, because then only the Slytherins in his study group would be able to work with him, and Harry knows people will complain. There’s still some House rivalries in their group.
“No. We are going to talk about why you did what you did. And you are going to have two talks with Healer Lyndell this week instead of one.”
Harry winces. “But-that means that I’ll have to give up one afternoon of working with the study group.”
Snape’s face is merciless. “Then that’s the way it shall be.”
“Don’t you want my friends to be able to defend themselves?”
Now Snape’s face does twitch, but the expression that’s coming over it doesn’t look like it bodes good for Harry. “You are attempting to manipulate me?”
Harry opens his mouth, then shuts it. It’s not like admitting to it is going to make Snape happier with him.
“It’s not working very well,” Snape says dryly into the silence.
Harry grinds his teeth. Then he says, “Missing a study group session is more punishment for them than me.”
“Not if the look on your face is any indication. And it will do you good to speak to Healer Lyndell more often. She hasn’t heard all the stories of how you dash into battles and danger, has she?” Snape’s voice picks up a slicing edge.
Harry finds the strength to lift his head and glare one more time. “At least this way you’re acting like you believe me about me being the one who goes into danger and not my friends dragging me there. So you don’t need to send letters to anyone.”
“I will inform Healer Lyndell of the schedule change.”
The bad thing about having Snape as a guardian, Harry thinks gloomily while Snape goes to open the Floo, is that he doesn’t react to the things you most wish he would react to.
*
Theo catches Blaise’s eye when Harry walks into the common room. It’s the stalk of someone who expects to be scolded and is trying like hell to pretend that he doesn’t care. Lion is awake and hissing on his shoulder, though, which spoils the act.
Blaise nods. Although Draco is upstairs and Daphne tucked into a corner of the room, observing, as usual, they don’t fetch them. It was Theo and Blaise who were affected by Harry’s heroics earlier today, not everyone.
Harry catches sight of Theo and throws his head back defiantly. It reminds Theo of something he might have done when he was a child, before his father murdered his mother and put an end to his innocence. Theo only raises his eyebrows and slides off the couch to meet Harry from in front, while Blaise strolls up from behind.
“You have another private classroom other than the one where we study?” Theo asks him a nice, neutral voice.
Harry glances around at the eager eyes in the Slytherin common room that Theo knows are hoping for a permanent rupture or at least a fall from grace. Then he nods, jaw tense, and turns around and leads the way. Blaise follows them.
They end up walking much further than Theo thought they would; there are plenty of unused spaces in the dungeons, after all. But no, instead they go to the second floor and to a space that isn’t a classroom at all. Theo steps inside and stares at the soaked floor, the sinks, and the ghost that glares at him before diving into a loo.
“This isn’t a classroom.”
“Didn’t say it was.”
“Why is this place special?” Blaise asks, playing diplomat, before Theo can risk making Harry further angry.
“Because it contains the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets,” Harry says, and nods at one of the sinks.
Theo goes over, not believing, but there is a tiny carved snake on one faucet. He ends up shaking his head and saying, “Fine, it’s private. Now, why did you shut us behind a Shield Charm?”
“Because I wanted you safe and out of the way.”
Harry says those last words with a flippant tone that’s unlike him. Theo might still believe it, given that Harry is probably trying to get out of trouble for what he did during the battle, but then he looks away from them and focuses on the wall. Lion is opening and closing his wings.
“You’re lying.”
Harry jumps as though Theo has stuck a knife into his bottom, which is a rather satisfying response. He spins around. “What are you talking about? Of course I want you safe!”
“Not that. The other part,” Blaise says, because he’s figured it out at the same time. Theo relaxes. Honestly, sometimes it’s hard these days to remember how wary his friendship with Blaise used to be, that they considered each other and Draco rivals for the top of the Slytherin hierarchy. They work together too well now.
Harry looks as though he’s going to kick any second, like a rather disagreeable mule Theo’s father owned for all of a season before he sold it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb,” Theo says. He can see it now, opening out in front of him like a chess problem, or one of those spells that Harry demonstrates and shows him a simpler way to perform than the books do. “It was unconscious, wasn’t it? You cast a Shield Charm to protect us, and you didn’t really mean for it to fill up that doorway or take us out of the battle. That’s just what happened.” He tilts his head at Harry. “Well, stop it. You don’t get to act like that from now on. Blaise and I will teach you to lean on us.”
“No.”
“No, what?” Blaise asks. You could think his tone was pleasant if you were listening from five meters away and had the brains of Crabbe or Goyle.
“No, I’m not going to lean on you.” Harry crosses his arms. “I’ll do my best not to do things to you instead of asking you what you want. But I’m not going to let you be my danger shields, or whatever it is you’re suggesting.”
“Not danger shields,” Theo murmurs, and catches Blaise’s eye. Blaise nods. Well, to him belongs the honor of announcing how things are going to be, then. “Lieutenants.”
Harry stares at him. “We’re not an army.”
“Oh, I think we’ll be before the end,” Theo says lightly. Wizarding wars have been won with armies less than the size of the student body of Hogwarts. And if Harry doesn’t think their study group is going to get bigger, he’s mental. But Theo doesn’t want to confront him with all the facts at once. It’s going to be hard enough to get him to accept this one. “But I didn’t mean it in the sense of formal rank. Just that Blaise and I can be your seconds-in-command, and that means fighting beside you, not standing behind you.”
Harry closes his eyes and shakes his head as if Theo has cast a Stinging Fly Hex on him. “No.”
“It’s already there,” Blaise says, and Theo gladly hands this part of the conversation off to him. Blaise can probably be more subtle than Theo can right now. “The way that people think about us and you respond to us. Theo and I are the ones who handle problems. People who don’t understand something in the study group try to go to you, but sometimes you’re busy, so they come to us-”
“Who? I don’t want anyone to think I don’t have time for them.”
“You don’t have time for them,” Theo says, taking over again, and watching without pity as Harry winces. This is something he’s just going to have to get used to. “Not for everyone who wants your bloody help. And that’s the way it should be, Harry. The bigger our study group gets, the more people will have to help each other.”
Harry looks like he’s struggling with that for a second, and then nods. “Okay. But that would just mean everyone helping everyone, not-not people acting like I’m some kind of leader and you’re the ones they have to go through to get to me.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Blaise chimes in happily, ignoring Harry’s glare. “They have to go through us to get to you. That means we can defend you and help you and we’re exactly like your lieutenants. I mean, we don’t need a cute name or anything. But I’m glad you’re seeing sense!”
“I am not!”
“Right.”
“No-I didn’t mean it that way!” Harry flushes and spins around to face Theo. “You have to understand.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not-they could say that I’m proud, or stuck-up. I’m better at wandless magic than the rest of you, I can face things that would hurt me and walk away unscathed. You have to understand what I’m thinking. What I’m saying. I have to be able to protect you along with everyone else!”
Theo pauses. “And you think we’re making that harder.”
“All this stuff about standing in front of me and people going through you to get to me? Of course you are! It’s going to hurt the hell out of me if one of you gets hurt,” Harry says, and Lion slithers down his arm and raises his head to nudge Harry’s cheek. “Can’t you just-step back and not have this happen? I mean, I agree that everyone in the study group should help each other. Just. There shouldn’t be a special system where you have to do more work or people have to wait to get help from me.”
Theo exchanges glances with Blaise. Blaise nods and then shrugs. He agrees that Harry doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t know how they’re going to get him to.
Theo thinks he knows, but the best words are the ones that Harry isn’t going to want to hear. He tries them anyway. “You can’t be everywhere at once, so people are going to have to wait to get help from you. There should be a special system to protect you because you’re our leader-”
“I thought you didn’t believe in all the ‘Boy-Who-Lived’ nonsense.”
You could eat dinner off Harry’s bitterness, it’s so thick. Theo shakes his head. “I don’t. I do believe that you have natural leadership abilities. Maybe it’s because people keep looking at you and expecting you to have them, I don’t know, or because the situation and the pressure forced you to develop them. But leaders don’t do everything by themselves, Harry. Do you think a leader of an army deals with every single small thing someone comes up with? Does the Minister for Magic walk through the offices every day and ask how someone’s pet Kneazle is?”
Harry hesitates for the first time. Then he says, “Last year, I thought that I would need other people to help me.”
“Yes?” Theo replies, immediately, encouragingly. Lion is lying back down beside Harry’s neck, which Theo thinks is also a good sign.
“I want to do that. I want to let people help me.” Harry’s body is tense and still, set, his hands vibrating a little as if he wants to reach out and grasp someone’s neck. “But it seems that every time I do that, someone might get hurt. Even if it’s only getting their feelings hurt because I can’t help them. What do I do about that?”
“Trust that they can defend themselves,” Theo tells him quietly.
“But they can’t, yet.”
“Well, you never even gave us a chance against those sixth-years!” Blaise snaps.
Theo tries to glare at Blaise and tell him to shut up, but it seems that his words have reminded Harry of something else. “And it’s a bloody good thing that you didn’t get one,” Harry says, folding his arms. “Dumbledore is letting them stay in the castle with detentions and nothing else. I think he wants to make me feel paranoid and start distrusting other people in our House.”
Theo savors the quiet moment of warmth that our House gives him. “Why would it be good that we didn’t get to duel them, in that case? If we had, we’d stand a better chance of convincing them to leave you alone.”
“Because this way they’ll target me, not you.”
“Ah, so we can creep up behind them and stab them in the back!”
Harry looks as if he wants to beat his head against the wall in frustration. Or maybe he wants to beat Blaise’s head. “Look, will you accept-”
“You going into danger by yourself and leaving us behind?” Theo interrupts. “No, of course not.”
“I’m just trying to keep-”
“The focus on you at all times.” Blaise shakes his head sadly. “And I thought that you didn’t like the fame of being the Boy-Who-Lived.”
Harry stares at Blaise in such outrage that Theo loses it and laughs. It feels good. He didn’t have much to laugh about this summer, even when he watched the poisons that he fed his father taking effect. That’s a cold, quiet, private joy.
Harry spins around. “What is funny?”
“The way you have of admitting that you want help, and that you know you can’t do everything by yourself, and yet you insist on trying to do everything by yourself for some stupid, ridiculous reason.”
Harry sighs and slumps back against the wall, running his hand through his hair. “Logically, I know I can’t do everything by myself. Logically, I know the study group is going to get too big and I can’t teach everyone all the time. But emotionally…I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“But that has to include you,” Theo points out. “If you want to be around to teach the others and us and keep us safe and fight in more battles, then you can’t confront enemies like those sixth-years alone. Because what if you get hurt and have to spend a lot of time in the hospital wing, and we lose the chance to learn from you?”
Blaise catches his eye and grimaces at him. Theo shrugs. He knows Blaise wishes they didn’t have to use that tactic. But Theo is going to use what works. He leaves the lighter aspects of things like cracking jokes to Blaise.
Harry looks quietly struck. He reaches up and soothes Lion down from a hissing curl, and then nods. “All right,” he says. “I think-well, maybe you can make sure that those sixth-years don’t ambush me or anything? And you can teach the study group when I have to miss it on Tuesday.”
“Why do you have to miss it on Tuesday?” Theo asks, alert.
“Because Professor Snape’s making me have an extra session with a Healer as punishment.”
Theo thinks that Harry is the only person in all of Slytherin who would regard going to a Healer as punishment, but then, he’s still pretty Gryffindor in that. He nods. “Blaise and I can handle the group.” And we already have our own spy ring in the upper years, he thinks about saying, but he wants to prepare the ground for that revelation, instead of just announcing it like that.
Harry tilts his head at him, as if he thinks that maybe Theo is hiding something anyway. But he has learned not to ask certain questions of Slytherins that he doesn’t want answered, so he only nods and says, “All right. And-I’m sorry for trapping you behind that Shield Charm. I didn’t mean to do it, but I’m sorry all the same.”
“It’s all right,” Theo says, and Blaise nods. Blaise is quicker to forgive than Theo, truly, but Theo got the chance to watch the battle, and is confident that he made the right decision.
There’s no way that he’ll follow Voldemort, and not just because he hates bowing and wouldn’t look good in black and silver. He knows who’s going to ultimately win.
Chapter Fourteen.
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