[From Litha to Lammas]: Forget-Me-Not, Harry/Theodore Nott, R, 7.2/7
First part of chapter Seven.
“There he is.”
Theodore doesn’t respond. Harry glances back at him and sees him shuddering, his hands rising to cover his face. Then he lowers the right hand and gropes at his left forearm, fingers sliding over it.
“It’s all right,” Harry says, softly. “You’re safe. You’re behind the pentagram, the runic circle surrounding the cottage, and the rune I found for you.” He reaches out and closes his own hand on Theodore’s left forearm, the place where he would have been Marked if his father had driven him to it, and Theodore starts and turns his head to focus on Harry. “It’s all right, Theodore. I promise.”
Theodore still looks ill, but he manages a tremulous smile. Harry smiles back and walks out the front door of the cottage.
He can already feel the pentagram in the potions lab charging itself, spreading out around him. The image made of salt was only a representation of it, the way a map is of the land. Once Harry conquered the magic that made it up, he became capable of doing anything with it, and now it’s waiting around him, trembling with eagerness, like a hound on the leash.
If Voldemort decides to try and kill Harry with his favorite method of killing people. But Harry is virtually certain that he will.
Voldemort pauses when he sees Harry come to a stop on the other side of the runic circle. He looks like a pillar of salt has come to life and someone’s carved a partial snake face on it. “You are not Longbottom.”
“How stupid are you that you thought I was?” Harry asks in confusion. “Or do you just not listen to the reports that any of your Death Eaters give you?”
He thinks it’s a reasonable question, but Voldemort’s pale wand comes rippling into his hand, and he hisses something in Parseltongue Harry doesn’t, of course, understand. It would probably scare lots of people. Harry isn’t lots of people. He stares at Voldemort and waits for an answer to the question.
It never comes. Voldemort returns to English and says, “Those who defy me, die. And from what my followers tracking your magical signature have said, with you dies the protection that guards the Mudbloods.”
“Only stupid people say that word, but thanks for the extra confirmation, I reckon.”
He’s done it, Harry sees in an instant, sent Voldemort so far over the edge that he’s going to use his favorite curse. His wand whips through the air, and he snarls, “Avada Kedavra!”
Had Harry just wanted to resist the curse, it would have been enough to stay behind the runic circle as he did the other night when the blonde Death Eater cast it. But Harry folds his arms and bows his head, and the blue flames hiss up around him as the contingent magic goes to work.
If this, then this…
The Killing Curse streaking through the air, as it did towards Longbottom all those years ago.
If that, then that…
Someone standing in front of Voldemort without running and without moving, the way that Alice Longbottom did. That person filled with the protective impulse for someone else, as Harry focuses his mind on Theodore and how he doesn’t want Theodore to suffer.
If this, then that…
The notion of a sacrifice, of a body waiting to be felled by the Killing Curse, although here it’s Voldemort’s temporary one and not that of an adult who expects to die.
If that, then this…
With so many of Voldemort’s Horcruxes destroyed, his hold on life is far more fragile than it was when he confronted the Longbottoms. And the Killing Curse seeks a victim; it doesn’t care who that victim is. It doesn’t need to be deflected or resisted, the seemingly impossible thing that happened with Voldemort, if the likelihood in the moment is that it will strike someone who is a construct in any case, only barely alive, rather than someone who is shielded by protective runes and might be expected to be safer from any spell.
If this, then this and that and that.
The Killing Curse turns in midair, curving like a line of sunlight refracted by a mirror, and slams into Voldemort.
There’s a long shriek, a horrendous tearing noise that Harry hopes isn’t reality fracturing the way it sounds like, and then a dense silence. Harry opens his eyes.
Voldemort’s construct-body lies motionless on the ground, the light fled from its eyes.
And something else, Harry tracks the helpless flight of the wraith through the darkness, smiling as he notices how tattered it is. They’ll have to do some seeking rituals like the one he performed with the diary to be sure, but he’s pretty sure that the wraith is so weak it won’t be able to possess people, and will fade from the world with the destruction of the last two Horcruxes.
There are sharp pops as the Death Eaters who followed Voldemort-who Harry honestly paid no attention to-Apparate away. Harry can hear cut-off gasps, and he wonders whether others who weren’t here, but have Dark Marks, will feel that their Lord has died again.
He turns around, and Theodore slams into him from behind, arms wrapping around him. Harry laughs and gathers him in. He’s a little startled at the enthusiasm, but, well, it makes sense, given that Theodore really didn’t believe this could work.
But he followed Harry anyway, took the risk. That humbles Harry to the point that he’s amazed at Theodore’s loyalty.
He starts to ask if Theodore saw the wraith leave and if Harry was right about it being tattered, but Theodore kisses him hard enough to scramble Harry’s thoughts and focus them entirely on the bedroom, for once. Then Theodore pulls back and whispers, “What would you say about having a different kind of sex tonight?”
Harry’s breath quickens. Sex is brilliant, he can’t deny that, although he thinks it’s brilliant partially because it’s with Theodore and not just sex. “What did you have in mind?”
*
“And it’s really not going to hurt you?”
Theodore rolls his eyes from where he’s stroking his fingers in and out of his own arse. Harry can’t take his eyes away, but he also can’t stop thinking about how it’s someone’s arse, and things aren’t really supposed to go up it.
“Says the man who thought bursting his right side open and exposing his ribs to the air was a fine action.” Theodore touches something then that makes him gasp and roll onto his back. “Besides, in a little while I’m going to do this to you, and then you’ll be able to see how it feels for yourself.”
“Bursting my right side open was necessary,” Harry complains. He can’t take his eyes away from Theodore, though, and he’s rapidly losing track of the conversation. Theodore withdraws his hand at last and spreads his legs again, and Harry swallows. “I-if you’re sure.” He wants to, with a longing that spreads through him like the fire from the pentagram, but he doesn’t want to hurt Theodore, either.
“Yes. Come on, Harry.”
Theodore’s eyes are burning at him, and Harry can’t resist, after all. He gets on the bed and kneels between Theodore’s spread legs, taking the vial of lubricant from Theodore to spread it over himself. Now Theodore is the one who’s watching Harry’s hands move, his eyes wide and dark.
Harry puts the lubricant vial aside, and slowly slides into Theodore. His own eyes are probably fluttering and closing the way Theodore’s were a minute ago, he thinks vaguely. The squeeze is like nothing he ever imagined, and so is the heat. He ends up fully seated, but with his forehead leaning on Theodore’s forehead, his breath rushing in and out of his lungs.
Theodore touches him on the hipbone. Harry looks up, and feels two things: seen by the way Theodore’s eyes focus on him as if he’s the center of the world.
And all right with being seen.
“Move,” Theodore says.
It’s a hasty, clumsy thing, this first time of a new kind of sex than using hands or mouths or thighs, Harry shifting in and out and Theodore groaning and sometimes telling him to stop or shift the direction, and sweat slipping between them until Harry feels like one of them is going to slide right off the bed. But it’s also the most thrilling pleasure Harry’s ever felt, like lightning connecting them, and when he finally comes, he can see the same radiance reflected in Theodore’s face.
And maybe it’s just the relaxation that stems from having come himself, but it really doesn’t hurt that much when he pulls out and Theodore flips him over and gets him ready, with minimal help from Harry himself. Harry just wants to lie around and grin at the ceiling. Theodore is the one who prepares him, then, and that’s all right. Harry smiles up at him, and Theodore’s breath catches.
“What?” Harry asks.
“I can’t believe you’re mine.” Theodore’s hands are shaking a little as he slides his fingers into Harry’s arse.
Harry laughs. “I love you, too.”
“Do you-do you mean that?”
“Do I go around saying things I don’t mean?” Harry stretches and lets his legs fall open so that Theodore can reach his entrance more easily. “I thought you were always scolding me for keeping things to myself, instead. Although I still maintain that you would have had hysterics if I told you about the sun thing.”
Theodore mutters something that Harry doesn’t need to listen to, and then enters his body. Harry arches his back and purrs encouragement. Honestly, this is pretty great, too, having someone inside him who thrusts into him and withdraws, and sometimes nudges what must be the thing Theodore touched and sends flashes of heat through him. It’s so good Harry is half-hard again by the time Theodore comes.
After that, Theodore curls up around him, holding him as if he were the precious one. Harry holds him back, and falls asleep thinking that those tales he read where the conquering hero has great sex are more realistic than he thought.
*
Harry of course sends a letter to Longbottom about destroying Voldemort’s body. What he didn’t expect was for Longbottom to ask to come in person instead of sending a letter. Harry discusses it with Theodore.
Theodore smiles at him. He’s done that a lot more often ever since the evening when they confronted Voldemort. Harry thinks that it’s not so much the fact that Voldemort died-he might still be able to come back, even if Harry doesn’t think so-as that Theodore saw him flee. What happened once can happen again.
“Of course. Give him the Apparition coordinates I gave you for the first time you came here. I don’t really fear treachery from Longbottom.”
And Theodore gets up and walks away, stretching and saying something about Arithmancy under his breath. Harry watches him with his heart swelling in wonder. He thinks he knows why Theodore caught his breath last night at the sight of Harry’s smile.
Meeting Longbottom is only mildly uncomfortable. He promised to come by himself without Weasley and Granger, and he keeps his word. Harry blinks a little to see that he seems to have grown taller, and that his face is paler. But the thing that stands out the most to Harry is the pale nature of his scar when he gets closer.
“You destroyed the last two Horcruxes, didn’t you?”
Longbottom stares at him, then snorts. “You’re a bloody genius, so I shouldn’t be surprised that you know that. But how?”
“Your scar doesn’t look red the way it usually does. And since that was the visible symbol of your connection with That Bastard…”
Longbottom laughs aloud, shaking his hair back from the scar. “That’s a good way to refer to him. But yeah, we managed.” Longbottom abruptly pales and looks off to the side. “I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”
“It’s all right,” Harry says softly. “I can just imagine. Did you just want to meet to discuss the destruction of the Horcruxes?”
“No.” Longbottom’s eyes fasten on him. “I have something to give you. I can’t believe Professor Dumbledore never thought of it, but on the other hand, I think the spell he cast on you must have muted the memories of all the objects associated with you in his mind, too.”
“He cast on me?”
Longbottom grimaces. “You didn’t know, huh? Sorry about that. He mentioned to me during one lesson that he had cast a protective charm on someone who might have been in danger because of the prophecy. But he had the uneasy feeling that the charm had gone wrong, somehow. He couldn’t remember any more about it than that, and of course I forgot about the conversation.” Longbottom pauses. “Until your magic broke.”
“With my seventeenth birthday,” Harry mutters. He shakes his head. Well, he supposes he can’t really blame Dumbledore. He at least cared once, enough to give Harry an existence he loved at the time. And he was as affected by the magic as anyone else.
“What was it you wanted to give me?” he adds, because he can’t imagine that that conversation he must have missed between Dumbledore and Longbottom contained anything all that vital to him.
Longbottom reaches into his robe pocket and appears to bring out his own hand, severed bloodlessly at the wrist. Harry blinks and stares, and then Longbottom shakes the thing out and his hand appears. He’s holding a shimmering silvery piece of twisting air, made into cloth and starlight and delicate water, it seems.
“It’s an Invisibility Cloak that used to belong to the Potter family,” Longbottom says. “I never really got the story out of the Headmaster how he came by it. But he did mention the connection to the Potters, and that it was supposed to go to-someone.” He gives Harry a quick smile and hands the Cloak over. Harry can feel the magic radiating from it the minute it touches his hands.
He turns it over, and watches his own hands disappear for a minute before he glances up at Longbottom again. Longbottom’s face is full of a sympathy that’s almost painful.
“I know it must be hard to suddenly emerge from under magic that guarded you like that,” Longbottom says softly. “It won’t be the same, but now you can disappear whenever you want.”
Something in Harry that has been shrieking in discomfort ever since the loss of the protective magic suddenly shuts up. He sighs and drapes the Cloak over one shoulder, not caring if it makes him look a little odd to Longbottom. “Thank you. You don’t know how much.”
Longbottom smiles at him. “Maybe I do. There were plenty of times I wished I could disappear and make people stop staring at me.” He shakes his head. “One thing you ought to know is that many of the Death Eaters are starting to surrender or flee Britain. The news of V-Voldemort’s destruction went around them like wildfire. And I’m going to tell the Ministry that I’m not the one who did it.”
Harry stares at him. “No.”
“Yes,” Longbottom counters. His mouth twitches a little. “And people who didn’t wish Muggleborns harm have figured out some of what you did with that runic circle, although they can’t break it and don’t want to. I know it’ll endure until you decide that it’s time to let it go. But the people who know it exists have been asking me if I was the one who did it-”
“Are you interested in Runes, too?”
“Not that much. They just got used to attributing everything to me because I’m the Boy-Who-Lived.” Longbottom rolls his shoulders. “But I’m telling the truth about that, too.”
“But why?” Harry knows he sounds perilously close to whinging, but he doesn’t care. It’s not like Theodore is here to scold him for it. “Longbottom, you’re used to bearing up with the fame. Can’t you just-keep on?”
“Not when they’re asking me for the theory behind the circle and I’m not going to lie. Not when I think some other people ought to get the fame when it’s due.” Longbottom stands very straight. “And not when I’ve already had two people from the Department of Mysteries contact me offering me an apprenticeship based on the use of Runes that they know that circle had to have displayed.”
“The-Department of Mysteries?”
Longbottom nods emphatically. “I told them both who it really was, and they’ll probably send you messages soon. Not owls. They communicate by-” His tongue abruptly, and visibly, sticks to the roof of his mouth, and he scowls and waves his hand up and down in front of his lips. Then he sighs as his tongue comes unstuck. “Sorry, they literally make that part unspeakable, too, apparently. Gits.”
“But they wouldn’t want to apprentice me because of my knowledge of Runes. They probably approached you because you’re a celebrity.”
Longbottom shakes his head. “No. The Department of Mysteries doesn’t care about that sort of bollocks. Besides, they kind of hate me for what happened there at the end of fifth year. They’d never have reached out to me at all when they thought I did it if they weren’t really impressed. They were relieved to find out it wasn’t me, to tell you the truth.”
Harry blinks, and blinks again. The Department of Mysteries. He never considered that, mostly because he has no idea of the entrance requirements. But to be quiet, to work in the deep silent rooms under the Ministry that are rumored to exist, to just be able to smile and shake his head with a completely legitimate excuse when people want to ask too many personal questions about himself-
It sounds like it would suit him exactly.
He’s even thinking about talking with strangers in conversations where he might have to talk about himself personally. He is feeling a lot more comfortable.
“What about Hogwarts?” he asks.
“Snape’s stepped down as Headmaster, of course.” Longbottom abruptly swings away from Harry to stare at the horizon. Harry wonders why, but Longbottom doesn’t let him wonder for long. “It was a ruse, all of it,” he says tightly. “Snape only killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore’s orders. He was dying anyway from that ring Horcrux. Snape was supposed to gain a position of trust in the Death Eaters. Of course, that’s not necessary now.”
Harry sighs. “So he won’t be prosecuted or go to Azkaban.”
“No.”
“Pity.”
Longbottom grins abruptly at him over his shoulder. “So you didn’t like him even though he didn’t really notice you?”
Harry shakes his head. “He always scowled at me the first five minutes or so of a class. From something Mr. Lupin said to me, he probably hated my father. But he had no reason to behave like an arsehole to me because of it.” He stares at Longbottom. “And he had no reason to behave like an arsehole when he taught you Occlumency, either.”
Longbottom clears his throat, but a faint blush that looks almost pleased touches his cheeks. “He didn’t like that I kept blowing up my cauldron in Potions. He said that someone who was that weak in the basics of his art didn’t stand a chance of defeating V-Voldemort.”
“Then he is an arsehole, no matter what side he’s on,” Harry decides. He’s kind of glad to know that. At least he won’t have to deal with apologies or something from Snape.
“But he was right, wasn’t he?”
Harry frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t end up defeating him. You did.”
“You had to bear all that fame for years,” Harry says firmly. “Your lot destroyed four of the Horcruxes. We destroyed three and Voldemort’s body. We can either say that you come out ahead on the suffering scale, or we can say we’re even.”
Longbottom smiles brightly. “I’d like it if we could be friends, Harry.” He holds out his hand.
Harry clasps it and shakes it firmly. “See you at Hogwarts next year? Or maybe even this next term?”
“They don’t know when they’re going to open yet, since it’ll take a lot of chasing to round up the Death Eaters still, and probably to convince the Muggleborn kids to come back. But yeah, see you there.”
*
“You can do this.”
Harry frowns and doesn’t answer. He wouldn’t be in Diagon Alley at all if not for Theodore’s urging, and the Invisibility Cloak in his pocket. Theodore has promised that he can duck out of sight any time he gets overwhelmed.
It’s still skin-tightening to Apparate to the edge of the Alley and walk down the center, even with Theodore’s hand pressed against the middle of his back. Luckily, few people look at them, and the few who do seem to be focusing on Theodore, who they probably think is a Death Eater, instead of Harry.
Theodore’s father apparently killed himself a few days ago. Theodore hasn’t said much about it, but they’ve shared a bedroom for the last week, and Harry can hold him when he needs to curl up tightly.
“They ought to be looking at you,” Theodore says in a disgruntled tone, but at least under his breath. “With all your discoveries in Runes, and that apprenticeship you’re going to take up-”
“You know we can’t even talk about that without our tongues sticking to the roofs of our mouths,” Harry reminds him. That’s just fine with him.
Theodore looks about to comment, but then someone darts towards Harry. Harry charges the runic circle on his chest without thinking about it, but Ollivander grabs hold of his hand and pumps it up and down before he can cast anything.
“Mr. Potter! Mr. Potter!” Ollivander’s voice is low and hoarse, but still loud enough to attract some stares. “Didn’t I tell you that you’d be a great wizard? Didn’t I?”
“It’s still mostly Runes, not my wand,” Harry points out. He pulls his hand away from Ollivander and takes a deep breath through his nose to calm himself. People are talking about him, he’s sure, even though it’s in whispers and probably because Ollivander barely ever comes out of his shop or singles someone out personally.
“But the greatness honors you and your wand.” Ollivander steps back with a firm nod of his head. “I already have the wand that I’m sure your eldest daughter will carry. It’s also meant for a great spellcaster.”
Harry stares blankly at him. “I won’t have children. I can’t imagine leaving Theodore.” Theodore’s hand presses hard in the middle of his back.
“And do you think I’m that simple?” Ollivander scoffs. “If someone manages to come up with a way to create the children of two men through runic circles, Mr. Potter, I’m sure I’m looking at him. Besides, as great as the wand you carry now is, you may find you have even a greater one in a little while. One that would be happy to help you accomplish anything you desire.” He nods firmly and strides away.
Harry blinks after him, decides that last part doesn’t make sense and he’s not going to think about it, then looks at Theodore. “Would you want children?”
Theodore hesitates, then speaks in his smooth voice. “I wouldn’t be opposed.”
Harry smiles and steps closer to his side, using Theodore shamelessly to ward off some of the eyes. Honestly, don’t they have anything better to look at?
People are still weird. But with Theodore at his side, and maybe even more people in the future, then Harry thinks he can bear living in this world.
He belongs here after all.
The End.