[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Pythonicus, gen, PG-13, 4/5, sequel to Potens
Part Three.
Part One.
Title: Pythonicus (4/5)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Mentions of Lily/James and Lucius/Narcissa, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Time travel, AU, present tense, Unspeakable Harry Potter, violence, gore, brief torture
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 4900
Summary: Sequel to “Princeps” and “Potens.” Harry has gained the loyalty of many of the young Slytherins, and others he never expected. Now he attempts to find and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes and protect and teach his students while avoiding Time’s plans-and his followers’-to make him into a Lord.
Author’s Notes: This should have three parts, and is part of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” series of fics, as well as a sequel to the first two parts of the series, “Princeps,” and Potens. The title is a Latin word meaning “prophetic” or “magical.”
I’m sorry, but this story is going to have a fifth part. The characters all want to talk and fight and not end the fic.
Part Four
They land in an oddly-shaped cell, or rather, Voldemort lands on the lip of a ledge above him, and Harry crashes down into a capsule-shaped lower stone chamber. He groans as his head bounces off the wall. The stone is so tight around his body, made to fit him, that he can’t even move his arms to draw his wand or get a surprise out of his robes.
“Made to fit you, Professor Salvare.” Voldemort cackles at him and leans against the wall behind him. They appear to be at the bottom of a giant stone well, since Harry can see a glimpse of daylight far above him. “You did me more favors than you knew by taking Lucius Malfoy’s allegiance from me. I ripped all sorts of information out of his head, including detailed memories.”
Legilimency. Damn it. I thought Lucius’s Occlumency was strong enough, but it wouldn’t have been able to stand up to a determined assault from someone so strong.
Harry ignores Voldemort and concentrates on his bond to Lucius. It’s quiescent, which probably means Lucius is unconscious, but still there. He sighs. The muted jangling from earlier makes sense now. Voldemort probably learned about some of the effects of the oaths from Lucius’s memories, so he acted carefully to avoid putting Lucius in danger that would have alerted Harry.
At least that means that Lucius is probably wounded in a way he can recover from.
“Pay attention to me.”
“I don’t see a reason to,” Harry says honestly. “I know that you brought me here to kill me or torture me. Or kill me after torturing me. You’re not going to say anything interesting.”
Voldemort stares at him with his eyes widening further and further, and then he grips his wand and points it at him. Harry braces himself for the Cruciatus.
Instead, Voldemort lowers his wand. “I wish you to tell me where you learned Parseltongue.”
“No.”
Voldemort nods as if he expected the answer, and then turns and gestures with his wand towards the stone wall. Harry expects the alcove that opens to reveal some kind of gleaming torture instruments.
It doesn’t. Instead, it shows Lucius on a flat pallet, his arms and legs bound to the point that he won’t be able to move any more than Harry can and his hand bare of his ring. Harry tenses and instinctively lunges for him, but the press of the stone trap around his body holds him in place.
“Yes, I thought that would get you,” Voldemort says, in English this time. “Such a weakness, to be bound to the ones who follow you.” His eyes glint, and he smiles. “My way is a much better one of handling it.”
“When it makes your followers as eager to turn on you as Lucius was? When it makes people fight to swear to me instead of going to you?” Harry laughs. He doesn’t mind saying this, now that Voldemort definitely knows that Lucius is no longer a Death Eater. “No, I don’t see it as a weakness at all.”
Voldemort’s humor flees. He stalks forwards to the edge of the stone he stands on, and hisses threateningly, “You will tell me where you learned Parseltongue, or I will torture him.”
The oath leaps between Harry and Lucius like a living thing, anticipating pain. Harry bites his tongue to curb the words he wants to say to Voldemort, and instead simply says, “I’ve had Parseltongue ever since I can remember. I didn’t learn it. I can just speak it.” There, that’s all true, and will sound so to Voldemort’s Legilimency.
Voldemort stares at him in silence, eyes tracing back and forth as if thinks there’s a secret map to another answer behind Harry’s face. Harry, meanwhile, relaxes as much as he can and reaches out for his other followers.
It’s going to be hard, from a distance, and with so many of them asleep. But he has to. He has to rescue Lucius, and he has to get out of here, and he can’t use Lucius’s magic when he’s unconscious and can’t willingly open the bond from his side.
“Are you another descendant of Slytherin?”
Voldemort sounds uncertain, as if he hates having his claim to being “special” challenged. Harry gives him a faint smile. “If I am, it’s from a much less direct line than you are. Somewhere far back and tangled.” That’s also true.
Voldemort nods, and his arrogant smile comes back. “I want you to tell me what you did with my ring.”
Shit, he does know. Harry forces himself to return Voldemort’s gaze as calmly as he can, and keep reaching for the magic. Regulus is awake now, and feeding him magic, and Severus and Evan are coming awake. James is stirring. Sirius has snapped awake and is wondering what’s going on. Lily has lifted her head. She’ll probably figure it out in a minute, if only because drawing on the oath-link between them will make her remember the moment she swore to him, and that can begin opening it. “I destroyed it.”
Voldemort’s eyes flare with madness, and he turns and unleashes the Cruciatus Curse on Lucius without breaking stride.
Harry screams in fury, and a distant echo of Lucius’s pain, and recklessly seizes the magic coming from his followers. Five links are fully open now, between him and Regulus, Severus, Evan, Sirius, and Lily, and then there comes another flood of cool magic that seems to have just been waiting for him to access it. Narcissa, says a voice in his head like a sigh of her name.
And Lucius, incredibly, awake and screaming now, concentrates enough to open the link between him and Harry.
Seven is the most powerful magical number.
Harry grabs the power and lashes out with it as hard as he can, and the capsule-shaped tomb explodes around him. Voldemort lets Lucius go from the Cruciatus Curse in his shock, and Harry scrambles up and reaches for his wand.
It’s not there.
Voldemort levels his yew wand at Harry, but Harry doesn’t have time for a complicated game of duels and shields and the like. He clenches his fingers and yanks down, and the ledge beneath Voldemort crumbles and falls.
Lucius is forcing himself up on his elbows and knees, or trying to, but the ropes get in the way. Harry glances at him and flicks a single, precise blade of magic, composed mostly of Lucius’s power and Narcissa’s, and the ropes are severed. Lucius gasps and manages to stagger up, although he’s bracing himself with a hand on the side of the alcove Voldemort had him imprisoned in.
Voldemort, meanwhile, fell several feet when the ledge crumbled beneath him, but now he’s hovering in midair, the same way he flew when he came after Harry and other people disguised as him so long ago. He snarls at Harry and points his wand at the jagged shards of rock Harry is still standing among.
Harry lifts the shards before Voldemort can and spins them into a temporary, floating shield, then shouts, “Accio holly wand!”
The wand tears Voldemort’s robe pocket open as it flies towards him, and stings Harry’s palm when it smacks into it. But Harry can’t pay that much attention to the slight pain, not when Voldemort’s first curse is reverberating off the shards of stone and Harry knows he’s going to get another one any second.
He casts a Cushioning Charm beneath him and uses the warm magic flowing through his chest to make it flexible. As Voldemort again tries to curse him, Harry bends down and then leaps as high as he can.
He comes down and bounces off the flexible Cushioning Charm as if it’s a giant invisible trampoline, meaning Voldemort’s curse once again misses him. Harry lands on a broken piece in the rock wall beneath Lucius’s alcove, and lifts his glance to him.
Lucius understands what he wants, and scrambles to the edge of the alcove. Harry conjures a rope and flings it to him. Lucius grabs the other end as Harry touches the rope with his wand and begins the spell to make it into a Portkey.
Voldemort screams and flies straight towards them.
Harry spins to face him, but doesn’t take his wand off the rope. Instead, he uses the same invisible force of wild magic that broke the rock around him to raise a shield of ice, and Voldemort slams into it, going too fast to stop. That leave shards of ice all over the floor of the well, but it leaves a stunned Voldemort, too.
Just in case, Harry takes a chance and calls, “Accio Tom Riddle’s diary!” as he lifts his wand from the rope.
But nothing happens. It seems that Voldemort was smart enough not to bring a Horcrux with him to this confrontation.
Voldemort screams at him again. Harry decides that he and Lucius need to leave right now, and clenches his hand around the rope.
One more spell tears towards him as they Portkey away, and Harry grimaces as he feels it clip his shoulder. He would have to see a Healer anyway after being dropped on stone like that and draining people’s magic.
As they slump to the floor in his quarters and Lucius starts shaking beside him, however, Harry forces that thought away, and tamps down his pressure on the links with his oathsworn until he’s taking only a small bit of their magic. He needs to get Lucius to the infirmary, and he needs to make sure that he’s in a safe place before he falls apart. He’ll need a bit of power for that, but nothing like the enormous surge that got him out of trouble with Voldemort.
In the meantime, however, he sends thanks down the links as best as he can. He thinks he gets a few exhausted assents, before some of his people drop into sleep right where they stand.
They’ve escaped. They’ve survived.
And from now on, Harry is going to have to be more vigilant than ever that Voldemort can’t grab any of his people.
*
“I really do need your full report, Professor Salvare.”
“And I told you before that I don’t give reports, sir.”
Harry doesn’t look away from the Healer that a young Madam Pomfrey summoned from St. Mungo’s to attend to him. Apparently Lucius is going to be all right other than a few pulled muscles and bones. Voldemort didn’t hold him under the curse long enough to cause permanent damage. Still, he’ll need to rest in the infirmary.
And the Healer is for him. Harry tried to tell Madam Pomfrey that he would be all right, that it was mostly magical exhaustion and the like, but she pointed her wand at him and gave him a huge frown.
“I know that you’re barely on your feet, professor, and that mostly because of the way your vassals’ magic is cradling you. When you let it go, you’re going to collapse. And I wager that you’ll let it go sooner instead of later.”
Harry did. But at least with the Healer there, he got a Pepper-Up Potion and a pain-killing potion right away. Right now the Healer is casting general diagnostic spells and shaking his head as he watches the numbers and runes pile up in the air. He’s a young man with dark hair that’s pulled back into a tail and intense blue eyes, called Isaac Hawken.
“You’re lucky that you don’t have a concussion,” says Hawken, with a sharp glance Harry’s way. “If you’re right and he dropped you onto stone.”
“He did. But I didn’t fall that far, maybe a meter or so.”
“There is no good distance from which to fall onto stone. Professor Salvare.”
Harry grins. It’s kind of refreshing that Healer Hawken is showing so clearly that he’s unimpressed with him. He can just guess the response that he’s going to get from some of his oathsworn. Regulus, in particular, is going to be a combination of reverent and smug.
(Harry can just hear him now: “Didn’t I tell you it was a good idea to have Lucius Malfoy serve you? Didn’t I?”)
“But you should be all right with a few more pain potions and some rest and food.” Healer Hawken stresses the words as if he doesn’t think Harry knows what they mean, gives him one more deeply unimpressed look, and then closes the small book he’s been writing in and departs with a shake of his head. Harry lies back on the hospital bed and sighs as Madam Pomfrey waves her wand over him and goes to get some potions for his shoulder.
“I must insist.”
Harry rolls his eyes at Albus. “Voldemort thought that he could get to me by capturing and torturing one of my people. I broke free of the trap, and luckily rescued Mr. Malfoy before he could be hurt too badly.” He shoots Lucius a concerned look, but he’s deeply asleep and shows no sign, at the moment, of whether he’s in pain or not. Narcissa is sitting beside Lucius’s bed, her hand clasped around his and her other arm wrapped around her chest as if she’s trying to prevent her heart from escaping. She watches Harry and Albus with cool, curious eyes.
“But how did you break free?” Albus asks.
“Magic.”
Albus gives him a deeply disappointed look, but that kind of thing ceased to be effective on Harry some time ago. He stares back evenly, and Albus gets up and does the next thing to storming out of the hospital wing.
“Thank you for saving his life.”
Harry turns back to Narcissa. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry that he was caught up in this in the first place. You’re welcome to move to Decoy House, if you want to, to stay safe from Voldemort.”
Narcissa bites her lip. “Yes. We’re going to do that.” She turns to stare at Lucius, and her hand clenches until Harry can see her knuckles turning white. “I do not know what I can say to thank you enough.”
Harry shakes his head. “Without you and the others, I never would have escaped that trap. That’s enough thanks, or, if you like, you can say that people who swear oaths to each other and mutually save one another’s lives don’t owe each other debts.”
“I owe you for more than simply saving my fiancé, however,” Narcissa murmurs. “I owe you for saving the father of my child.”
Harry can’t help his mouth dropping open. He had no idea that Narcissa was pregnant. She certainly never had any child but Draco in the first timeline.
Or perhaps she had one and miscarried, or they died young. It’s not as though Harry would have been close enough to that version of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy to ask.
“I-see. I hope, then, that the magic I used from you didn’t endanger you or the child?” Harry isn’t going to apologize for using it at all, even though he would have preferred to call on someone else if he’d known that Narcissa was pregnant. She would probably get angry that he was apologizing for something she just said she owed him a debt for.
“No. We are well.” Narcissa smiles him and glances at Lucius. “And I am going to marry him as soon as he rises up from this bed.” She hesitates, and Harry waits through Madam Pomfrey coming back and casting some more diagnostic spells. Narcissa only continues once the matron’s office door continues. “We would like your name to be part of his, if it is a son. Or even if it is a daughter. I think Henrietta is a lovely name.”
Harry bites his lip fiercely to keep from bursting into hysterical laughter that might wake Lucius up. Instead, he nods. “I would be honored.” What else can he say?
Narcissa turns back to Lucius with a final, pallid smile in his direction, and Harry closes his eyes. He should rest, and not just because of the magical exhaustion that is going to fall on him like a mudslide soon. He can’t take any more surprises this evening, he really can’t.
*
He doesn’t much like walking into the Great Hall to a torrent of applause, either, but he knew he couldn’t count on his oathsworn to keep this quiet.
Harry bows the way he did when he gave his people their rings for Christmas, deliberately showy and comical to undercut what might be burgeoning hero-worship as much as he can, and walks towards the Head Table. A few people rise from the Slytherin table as if they’re going to either escort him or guard him in some absurd way, and Harry narrows his eyes. They sit down again, hastily.
But they’re all grinning, which he knows means they know the limits of his tolerance.
Harry shakes his head, snorts, and takes his seat at the Head Table. Professor Slughorn immediately leans over to him. He’s acted unsure about Harry before this, especially since Harry seems to have more influence among the students of his House than he does, but now he’s no doubt decided Harry is someone to be cultivated. Harry can welcome that. At least someone is acting the way he expects them to act.
“I would like to invite you to the next Slug Club party,” Slughorn burbles, his eyes bright. “Just a little gathering of eighty or so of my closest friends…”
Harry lets him go on and on, only nodding or making appropriate noises in the right places. He’s watching Sirius, who seems to be arguing with Remus about something. When Sirius jumps to his feet and stomps dramatically out of the Great Hall, Harry decides to investigate.
“Put me down as an attendee,” he says, and stands up, smiling at Slughorn. “But right now, I really must go and get some marking done before classes start.”
“You barely ate anything.” No one does a disapproving stare like Minerva McGonagall, no matter the timeline or how old Harry is.
Harry scoops up his plate, winks at her, and sets off after Sirius.
He runs him to ground on the staircase that leads up to the Defense classroom. Sirius whips around and then relaxes. “Oh, it’s you, Professor Salvare,” he says, running his hand through his hair and then staring at it as if he doesn’t know where it came from.
It’s not the warmest welcome ever, but Harry will take it. He gives Sirius a small smile. “Did you have an argument with Mr. Lupin, Mr. Black?” he asks, guiding both of them towards the classroom and taking a large bite of the eggs on his plate. He really is still hungry, just not enough to ignore someone in need.
“I-Remus was giving me a line of bollocks about why he has to join Dumbledore’s Order instead of you.”
“Well, he doesn’t have to join either,” Harry says judiciously as they get to the classroom and he motions Sirius inside. Sirius slumps miserably over his desk, and Harry sits down next to him instead of going to the front of the classroom. He doesn’t think it’s time for that right now. “I’d hate to see him pressured into doing either one.”
“He doesn’t think that the Slytherins will be happy if he joins you.”
Harry blinks. “If you and Mr. Potter can be on your best behavior, I don’t see why it would be impossible for Mr. Lupin. I would have the same rules for him as for the rest of you, no pranks or fights against-”
“No.” Sirius gives him an agonized look, then breathes in like someone jumping off a cliff. “He doesn’t think they’ll accept him because it might come out that he’s a werewolf. It would be harder to hide that he’s sick on the full moons if they were around him more.”
Now Sirius is imitating someone who doesn’t breathe at all. Harry just shakes his head and spears another bite of egg. “He should tell me if anyone has concerns about that. I’ll explain how it’s none of their business as long as Mr. Lupin isn’t loose in his transformed state around them.”
“You’re not worried.”
Sirius’s voice is a little faint. Harry winks at him. “No, I already trusted him.” He studies Sirius’s face and then calls a house-elf named Irry from the kitchens whose specialty is shoving food in people. Sirius jumps when she appears, and more so when the plate of scones and marmalade appears in front of him, despite having heard what Harry asked Irry for. “Now, you can tell him that, or I can talk to him if you think that would make it better.”
Sirius attacks the scones with the knife that appears next to his plate a second later. “I’ll talk to him. He’s intimidated by you.”
Harry frowns. “Really?” Remus is a quiet student in class, but from what Harry’s heard the other professors saying, he’s that way naturally.
“Yes.” Sirius swallows with an absurd smacking noise that makes Harry narrow his eyes at him, which makes Sirius just grin. “He says that he doesn’t understand you, that you smell older than you look, that you smell like James and you don’t, and that your magic is too complex.”
“Huh.” Harry shrugs. He supposes that his scent might confuse a werewolf, yes. He probably smells a little like James and a little like Lily and not enough like either. “Well, talk to him, but I want you to promise me that you won’t pressure him to swear an oath to me, either. He has to make his own choices.”
“Half the reason he wants to join the Order of the Phoenix is that he wants to make a difference and doesn’t know how else he can. But he thinks that even that depends on keeping his secret, and he’s terrified of doing something that’ll betray him.” Sirius gestures with his scone, and sends marmalade flipping onto another desk. “Um. Oops?”
“You have a wand, Mr. Black, clean it up,” Harry says in some amusement, and rises to go to his desk and start setting up for his first-year class.
“Professor Salvare?”
Harry glances over his shoulder, because Sirius sounds as grave as his name. “Yes, Mr. Black?”
“Thank you.”
Harry smiles at him. “And thank you, Mr. Black, for your timely assistance last night. That you responded so quickly and that your brother was also in the sharing made it more powerful.”
Sirius’s chest expands enough to make him look as if he’s about to float right off the floor. Harry snorts and watches him strut out the door. Sirius strutting isn’t a bad thing, as long as he doesn’t take his humor out on someone. And Harry really does think that having to refrain from pranks for a month last term has set him and James on a more adult, thoughtful path.
The first-years start to filter in, and give him awed looks. Harry sighs a little. That is one thing that could stand to calm down.
*
Harry settles back in his chair and scowls at the parchment with the blood splatters. It isn’t making sense. He can see the places where the Horcruxes ought to be, but nothing shows up in those empty spaces on the graph.
He drums his fingers on the desk and growls under his breath.
“Do you have a minute, my lord?”
Harry flips Severus off without looking up from the parchment, which makes Severus pause and stare at him. Harry knows that without meeting his eyes. “Always,” he says. “But not for people who call me lord.”
Severus audibly rolls his eyes, and takes a seat hesitantly at one of the desks. It’s late, later than Harry would usually stay in his office even if students needed him, but he can afford a little lingering now. He has been trying to patiently answer questions from students who seem to hold him in awe, and who he would prefer see him as just a regular person.
He might not be a regular person, but they shouldn’t feel awe towards him. That’s where Harry draws the line. Wanting to follow him, wanting his protection, wanting to know how to cast spells better in his class…sure, he can see all that. But awe and worship make a part of him spit like a cobra.
Harry tries to triangulate the position of the diary and the diadem again, and finally gives up, shaking his head in disgust. He sits back, throwing down his quill, and smiles wearily at Severus. “What can I do for you, Mr. Prince?”
“We want to help you.”
“I know you do,” Harry says. “But did you forget that you helped me a lot, not a fortnight past?”
Severus smiles, which seems to be against his will, considering the dark look he immediately tries to marshal after that. “I mean that we want to help you with whatever quest you’re on to defeat the Dark Lord. Lily told me that she thought it involved Arithmancy, and I can see it does.” He nods at the parchment spread across Harry’s desk.
“I would let you help if it wouldn’t involve you knowing things the Dark Lord would kill you for.”
“He wants to kill us anyway.”
Harry grimaces. That’s probably true, considering Voldemort’s frantic attacks on the followers Harry has outside of school. Andromeda and her family have moved to Decoy House to join Narcissa and Lucius, and a few people who haven’t sworn oaths to Harry but have spoken up in his favor are sheltering behind wards somewhere.
Honestly, Harry is expecting Voldemort to work up the nerve for an attack on Hogwarts sooner or later, probably before this school year is over.
Time hums at him from the walls, soft and yearning. Harry gives them a dark look. If Time intends to repeat the Battle of Hogwarts, then Harry intends to kick Time’s arse.
“Are you all right, sir? Only…I don’t see what the walls have done to deserve the way you look at them.”
Harry chuckles reluctantly and turns back to Severus. “It’s all right, Mr. Prince. One of my peculiarities.”
Severus clenches his fists. “Please let us help.”
“Is this your idea, or everyone’s?”
“They asked me to come and speak to you, but I was already thinking about it.” Severus’s eyes have a sharp, impatient spark in them that reminds Harry, a little, of the way that he once looked at Potions students, in a world that is no more. “I’m good at Arithmancy. Lily is a genius at it. And even Lucius wasn’t bad in his day. There are a few other Slytherins who could help, too. If you need us to contribute magical strength, or just research time, we can do that.”
“On top of your studies?”
“It’s not our NEWT year,” Severus says, as if that really makes a difference. “Regulus hasn’t done as much as he did last term because of his OWLS, but you have a whole host of people who want to follow you, sir.”
“Is this just because you fear Voldemort? Or for some other reason?”
“Maybe some people are blinded by their hero-worship of you, but I have eyes,” Severus says sharply. “I know damn well how close to exhaustion you were when you came into the Great Hall after rescuing Lucius. And you haven’t cast your spells as strongly since. And you rub your head and legs sometimes when you think someone isn’t looking.”
Harry grimaces. It’s true that he didn’t have a concussion, but Healer Hawken came back a week ago because Harry had what amounted to a magical concussion, a disturbance in his power that’s localized in his brain. It shows up as headaches whenever he concentrates too intently on casting. And the same thing has spread to his knees, for some reason, but those were already creaky.
“He nearly took you from us,” Severus whispers. “Please, sir, aren’t you the one who always says that no one can stand alone and we have to be ready to help each other in teams if we fight a real battle? Let us help.”
Harry considers it for long moments, weighing various memories and bits of knowledge against each other. How he felt when he saw Lucius arching against the Cruciatus against the desperation in Severus’s eyes now. How much he can accomplish with his students’ magic against how drained he felt the morning after.
How much he needs to find the stupid Horcruxes against his utter inability to make any headway in the last two weeks, and the undeniable fact that the diadem of Ravenclaw isn’t in the hiding place Harry was sure it was in. He put off dealing with it because he was so sure he could deal with it any time he wanted.
Maybe someone like Lily or Evan or Severus will have fresh ideas.
“All right,” Harry says at last, and raises his hand when he sees Severus’s fierce grin. “But I want you to consider the fact that anyone who gets recruited to this thing should be willing. I can’t overstate the danger that Voldemort poses to anyone who joins in this particular effort, as opposed to in general.”
“I don’t set out to persuade people, my lord. I’m not Black.”
“Which one?’
“Either one.”
“And no calling me ‘my lord,’ either.”
This time, Severus only smirks as if he’s won a concession.
Part Five.