Chapter Fourteen of 'Leopard's Choice'- Detention With a Shadow
Chapter Thirteen.
Chapter One.
Title: Leopard’s Choice (14/60)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Mentions of canon background pairings, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Angst, AU (Harry Sorted into Slytherin at the end of second year), violence, gore, torture, present tense
Rating: R (for violence)
Summary: Sequel to Wolf’s Choice. Harry enters his fifth year with the Ministry demanding he retract his stories of Voldemort’s return, his allies demanding sacrifices he may not want to make, and the world becoming sharper with every breath.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to Other People’s Choices and Wolf’s Choice, and the third part of the Choices series. Seriously, don’t try to read this without having read the other stories first. I anticipate this being 60 chapters, like the others in the series. Also, please take the violence warning seriously. Like OoTP, this fic will get considerably darker than the others.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Fourteen-Detention With a Shadow
Harry studies Severus in silence. For some reason, Severus insisted that Harry come down to his office before he went to detention with Umbridge. But he didn’t say why at the time, and he hasn’t said why now. He’s standing there with his arms crossed and his gaze drilling into Harry as if he assumes that Harry should just know.
“Why am I here?” Harry asks.
Severus does some more of his staring act. Harry shakes his head. Lion is coiling on his shoulder and hissing in delicate, questioning ways that Harry doesn’t know how to answer. “I’m just going to go now,” he says, and turns around.
“No, you’re not,” Severus says, at the same moment as the knob clicks uselessly beneath Harry’s hand instead of turning.
Harry holds back a harsh noise. His heart is thudding as though he’s underwater without any air in his lungs. He can’t help twisting the knob again, the way he often did with the knob on his cupboard’s door, as useless as that always was. Then he makes himself drop it and turn around.
“Why are you doing this?” he demands. “We aren’t ready to move openly against Umbridge. Giving ammunition to the Ministry, saying that I’m a spoiled brat who’s not being treated the same as the other students-”
“I don’t care.”
Harry falls silent, staring. He’s never seen Severus like this, even during times when he was frantic for Harry’s safety. He’s dropped his folded arms, but his eyes look cavernous as he stares at Harry, his hands opening and closing spasmodically. He takes a step forwards and then stops, as if he doesn’t trust himself near Harry.
That’s stupid, of course, but at the moment, Harry thinks he knows how Severus feels. He bites his lip and stares at him. Severus stares back.
“I don’t care,” Severus finally repeats, just when Harry has decided he won’t say anything and he’ll have to burst out of the room with spells or some of the magic the Speakers taught him. “You are more precious than any alliances or what the Ministry will think of us.” For a moment, his eyes flash. “Black would let you go to the detention. I will not.”
“You have no idea what Sirius would do.” Harry wants to bury his face in his hands, but he manages to resist that impulse. Lion is agitated enough by now that he might actually fly at Severus if Harry seemed more distressed. “This isn’t a competition about keeping me safe.”
“You’re right. It’s only about keeping you safe, no competition involved.”
Harry suppresses the impulse to wave a hand in front of Severus’s eyes. He probably won’t think it’s very funny. “Listen, Severus, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it’s-”
“I think I am keeping you safe.”
“I think that we have to go along with this for now,” Harry retorts sharply. “Or don’t you remember those accusations that were flying around last year? About how it wasn’t fair that you were my guardian and I was in your House? They didn’t build up once some people saw you assigning me detentions, but they’re going to start again if you keep me from detentions with another professor.”
“Then you are serving a detention that you previously forgot about.” Severus smiles at him, a dazzling smile that scares Harry as nothing he’s ever done has. “That is all. I will inform Professor Umbridge that hers with you is canceled.”
Harry takes a deep breath and touches Lion’s wing to calm him down. Then he gathers up some of the magic that Lyassa taught him, but which he never practiced except at home. He hopes it’ll work here, too, and that there aren’t wards on the door that will prevent it. “I can’t let you do this.”
“You need not make any decisions. I have done so.”
“She’ll make you a target, too, and at this point we don’t know what she’s capable of. I can’t-”
Severus is leaning forwards as if he finds Harry’s words fascinating, but he’s not close enough to stop Harry as he bounds into light, a wavering, floating feeling like being turned into mist and spun around a central point, and then appears on the other side of the door.
Harry swears, bending over so that his hands rest on his knees and his head is bowed. His mind is swimming the way he did when he was mist. Holy Merlin, that’s uncomfortable.
The door of Severus’s office comes flying open, and he storms out as if he’s about to set off in search of Harry, his wand clutched in his hand. Then he stops and stares at him. Harry straightens up and stares back, hoping some sanity has worked its way into Severus’s brain.
“We aren’t ready for an open confrontation,” Harry says, as calmly as he can. “At least let me go to the detention and figure out what she wants and why she looked so gleeful when she assigned it to me.”
Severus closes his eyes and stands there. Harry watches him struggle, and assumes he’s beating back his own overprotective instincts.
But when he speaks again, it’s on another topic entirely. “You felt caged when you were in my office,” he whispers.
Harry slowly nods, his eyes fastened on Severus. He has his arms folded, but someone who knows him as well as Harry does can see the way they tremble. Harry swallows. “Yes.”
“Enough to use Parseltongue magic to escape.”
“Yes.”
Severus breathes out slowly, a sound like bubbling water. “I would never wish to cage you,” he whispers. “Go to the detention. I will bind up your wounds afterwards.”
Harry wishes he could say something wise and comforting, but Severus turns around and shuts the door behind him, and then Harry is standing in the corridor with Lion and is almost late to his detention with Umbridge.
*
Severus raises his shaking hands to his face. Then he lowers them again, and manages to ignore the lure of the cabinet in the corner that holds a hidden bottle of Firewhisky. He hasn’t always managed to resist that bottle, but he will now.
He has to be alert and clear-headed when Harry comes back.
If Harry comes back.
But no, he will not allow himself to think that way. It does no good. Severus takes a seat behind his desk and reaches for the top essay of a neglected set of them that he has put off marking.
He should have been alert and clear-headed enough to realize that Harry felt trapped in his office. And he should have ended the locking spell on the door the moment Harry became aware of it.
Severus breathed out slowly, and manages to banish the thoughts from his mind as he begins to work on the marking. Occlumency is good for something, if not for figuring out how to chase away all traces of nightmares from Harry’s mind.
*
“You are late, Mr. Potter.”
“I’m sorry, Professor Umbridge,” Harry says, because he knows already that arguing with her does no good. He looks cautiously around the office. It’s full of plates of mewing kittens, including some above the mantel of the fireplace and some on the walls, and a portrait of a large white cat that stares at Harry with its tail flicking in disdain. Harry blinks, but mainly because he’s never seen a magical portrait of just an animal before.
“Sit down, Mr. Potter.”
Umbridge sounds a little impatient. Harry glances away from the kitten plates and at her as he moves towards the desk in the center of the room. Then he pauses as the firelight catches on something silver on the floor-too big to be a Sickle, which is what he automatically thinks at first.
“Sit down, Mr. Potter.”
When an enemy is this impatient to have you do what they say, it is always a trap, Lyassa’s voice whispers in Harry’s head, although he thinks he could have figured that out on his own. He glances at Umbridge and sees the way she’s leaning forwards across her own desk, her hand clasped around the shaft of a quill. No parchment is anywhere in sight, though. Harry thinks fleetingly of what Severus would say about his observation skills, and then forces himself to forget that.
“What will I be doing for my detention, Professor Umbridge?” he asks. The student desk, in the middle of what he can see now is a silver circle set into the floor, is absolutely bare of any kind of equipment.
“Writing lines.” Umbridge is squinting at him as if she suspects him of trying to trick her. “I’ve already told you to sit down, haven’t I, Potter? I shall not be happy if I have to repeat myself.”
Harry told Severus himself that they couldn’t risk an open confrontation with her or the Ministry at the moment, and Minister Fudge is probably aware of everything she’s doing here. On the other hand, Harry isn’t stupid enough to step into what looks like a ritual containment circle, either.
He compromises. He glances at the desk and starts. “Professor Umbridge, what is that?” he says, whipping out his wand and pointing it directly at the foot of the desk.
“What?” Umbridge is blinking and staring in a way that makes Harry think she must be nearsighted. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s some kind of huge spider or something! I just saw it run across the floor-ugh, there it goes again!”’ Harry waves his wand and floats the desk out of the middle of the silver circle and towards the fireplace, settling it there and shivering a little while he peers at the floor. “I think it’s gone now. But ugh. I didn’t want to leave the desk in the same place if it comes back,” he explains earnestly, and sits down in the chair.
Umbridge stares at him as if she’s not sure what to make of him. Then she shakes her head and reaches for the quill on the desk. “You will write lines, as I said, Mr. Potter,” she says, her mouth already pursing in an unpleasant way that reminds Harry of Marietta Edgecombe. “And you will do it with this quill.”
Harry watches as she brings the quill across to him. Lion, who is curled around his neck and shoulder, abruptly leans forwards and lets out a rattling hiss when Umbridge lays the quill and the parchment on the desk.
Umbridge jumps back with a shriek. “What is that thing?”
“My winged snake, Professor.” Harry picks up the quill, and half-smiles when he sees the sharp tip. He thinks he probably would have even without Lion’s warning, but that did help him to be more on his guard. “Remember, I had him in class, too? He goes everywhere with me.”
“He will leave, Mr. Potter.”
“I’ll try to get him to go, but I don’t know if he will, Professor.” Harry turns his head and hisses to Lion. “Please leave the room and wait outside the door. If you’re close enough, then you can come back when I call.”
Umbridge has uttered another muffled shriek at the sound of the Parseltongue, but when Harry looks back at her, she’s standing with her hands clasped over her mouth and big eyes. The silence, except for the crackling of the fire and the soft mewing of the pictured kittens, is enough to let Harry clearly hear Lion’s reply. “No. I will not leave.”
Harry shrugs as he turns back to Umbridge. “Sorry, Professor. He’s refusing to leave, and I don’t think I can really force him. He would bite even me if I tried to make him do something he doesn’t want to do.”
“It sounds, Mr. Potter, as if you have an extremely dangerous pet.”
“Really, if you think about it, Professor, all the animals in the school can be dangerous. A post-owl could attack your eyes if it was properly motivated-”
“You will get rid of it!”
Harry just shakes his head a little. “I’m sorry, Professor, but he won’t go. Do you want to try?” He turns and holds out his shoulder towards her, and Lion obligingly hisses and rears up with his wings spreading out so that he looks twice as big as he really is.
Umbridge backs away for a moment, and then draws her wand. Harry keeps his eyes on her hand rather than her face. He knows that some people can cast magic wordlessly, so he might not see her lips move, but he’ll see her wand do it.
“Mr. Potter,” she says, her voice a girlish coo now. “I have given you the chance to behave, and you seem to resist me time and time again. It is probably the result of being spoiled by your guardians. But you will not be spoiled by me in the same way that you have, lamentably, been by them. You will get rid of the snake now, or I will kill it.”
Despite the gentleness of her tone, Harry believes her, and the thought of losing Lion, when he’s already lost Chaos, makes a sick anger spread through him. He wants to hurt her, but he knows that won’t do anything good. And all his words to Severus about wanting to avoid the kind of confrontation they aren’t ready for play through his head.
“Time to go, Lion,” he says. And he ignores the way Lion hisses a protest, and gets up, holding his friend firmly around the neck, to take him to the door. Despite what he said, Lion wouldn’t bite him unless he thought Harry was possessed by Voldemort or something, so Harry finally does get him to leave through the office door, although only by ignoring his hisses and pleas.
He turns around, and-
*
“Are you all right, Mr. Potter? My detention isn’t too boring for you, is it now?”
Harry bristles at Umbridge’s tone and glances down at the parchment he’s written the lines on. “I will not disobey my professor.” A perfectly boring detention, so boring that he dozed off in the middle of it.
But he already knows that saying anything of the sort to Umbridge probably would get him tortured, and he gives her the kind of sickly sweet smile that she seems to favor and hands over the parchment. “Of course not, Professor. Here’s the one hundred lines you requested.”
Umbridge turns the parchment around and scans it for a second as though expecting to find an insult buried somewhere in the lines. Harry wouldn’t do that. He has no desire to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary. Besides, it amuses him more to frustrate Umbridge by apparently obeying perfectly and doing things like dragging the desk out of the ritual circle by pretending to see a spider.
“Hmmmph.” Umbridge finally nods and puts down the sheaf of papers next to her. “Back to your common room, Mr. Potter.”
Harry gives her another sickly smile, and opens the door. Lion immediately wraps himself around Harry’s neck again, squeezing almost enough to make Harry tell him to let go, ducking his head down and weaving it in intricate patterns. Harry thinks he’s trying to get a look at Harry’s neck and hands from all sides.
“I’m all right,” Harry tells him.
“Then why did you put me outside in the corridor?”
It takes most of the walk back to the Slytherin common room to explain to Lion why he did it. Lion doesn’t really understand Umbridge’s threat at first, and when he does, he just thinks he should bite her and get it over with. Harry is still arguing with his stubborn snake in Parseltongue when he steps through the door into the common room.
Blaise is the only one in sight, but Theo comes down the steps a second later, and Millicent peers around the corner from the door at the top of the girls’ stairs. Harry gives them a tired smile. “I’m all right.”
“I felt something strange.”
Harry stares at Theo for a second before he remembers that Theo is linked to his mind and dreams. He sighs. “I’m fine,” he says. “All she had me do was write lines.”
“Lines.” Theo repeats, his brow wrinkling as if he assumes that Harry would deliberately lie to him.
“Yes,” Harry snaps. His head has started to ache all of a sudden, and he thinks that he must be more tired than he thought, anyway, because he dozed off during detention. “Can one of you tell Professor Snape that I survived the detention with the horrible monster who made me write lines?” He starts walking up the stairs towards their bedroom.
“Harry, I think you ought to tell him yourself,” Blaise begins.
Harry makes a rude gesture and keeps walking. His head does hurt. He wants to lie down for at least a little while before Severus forces some foul-tasting potion down his throat.
*
Dolores shudders a little as she offers the blood-stained quill to the great one crouching in shadowy form on the wall. That was closer than she liked. She was able to successfully use the Blood Quill, the healing spell, and the Memory Charm, and the boy never noticed, or didn’t seem to notice.
Healing the wounds on his hand was actually the hardest of the three. It goes against Dolores’s nature. But it would never do to have the suspicious boy who can speak Parseltongue walk away smelling of blood, which his disgusting snake would certainly tell him about.
I can taste it.
The voice echoes in Dolores’s ears and bones. She shudders with delight and dares to look at the shadow. For a moment, she thinks she can see a gleam of green eyes in the great head, which reminds her of Potter’s.
There’s a long pause. And then the being laughs, a sound like claws dragging her spine from her back.
Ah, this will be fun. Too long since I have hunted one of his kind. And you are to be commended for providing it.
Dolores bows her head again, and nods, and tries not to feel anything like regret. She made this deal for power. She will keep it now.
And, perhaps, be even more powerful than the leopard-creature in the end.
Chapter Fifteen.