Chapter Fifteen of 'Leopard's Choice'- Growing
Chapter Fourteen.
Chapter One.
Title: Leopard’s Choice (15/60)
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 Fifteen-Growing
Blaise grimaces as he listens to the Ravenclaws who are laughing behind him. Sometimes the temptation to use his Gift is enormous. He could turn around and smile at them and ask them politely to stop, with just a touch of compulsion behind it, and they would not only shut up, but grovel before him.
Harry doesn’t want you to.
Blaise sighs a little and glances towards the doorway, but Professor McGonagall isn’t there yet. It’s not just Harry’s injunction that keeps him from using the Gift. If that was all, Blaise would do it and just make sure Harry never found out.
It’s because Blaise doesn’t want to be like his mother, marrying and killing people, discarding them as if they’re wrappers from sweets. And starting to use the Gift indiscriminately would lead him down that path.
Whether or not he ever sees her again, his mother is the monster of his worst nightmares.
Professor McGonagall swoops into the room at last, effectively silencing the Ravenclaws-all except one person braying with laughter who doesn’t notice her and gets five points taken from the House as a result. Blaise smiles slightly as the others glare at that one. Ravenclaw takes the competition for the House Cup seriously, particularly since they consider it an academic one, much more than the Quidditch Cup.
Blaise turns back to the front of the class and sharpens his quill for a moment. There are many reasons not to use his Gift, but one of the most satisfying ones is that he’s found the universe tends to take vengeance for him, if he only waits.
*
“I’m not saying I believe it. I’m saying I could believe it.”
Minerva holds back an irritated sigh. She’s only teaching two sets of students this year, the OWL classes and the NEWT ones, but the marking and the paperwork to deal with as Headmistress are driving her mad, without the fussy reluctance of someone who ought to be grateful that they thought to involve her at all.
Molly clears her throat. Minerva leans back behind the desk and nods gratefully to her partner in crime. Molly has proven to be invaluable at dealing with all the people Minerva gets too irritated to handle.
Molly nods to Pomona and says, “I know it’s hard to believe. You-Know-Who as some kind of mortal, silly schoolboy, making up a name that all of us came to fear.”
Minerva feels herself relax. As usual, Molly saw to the heart of the issue, and Pomona is already relaxing herself from her tense perch on the edge of the chair in front of Minerva’s desk. Minerva thinks of knowledge as a weapon, and the more one has of it, the better. (There’s a reason the Hat almost put her in Ravenclaw). But other people resist the idea that Voldemort is less of a menace than they’ve always believed. It’s a variation of the same problem that Augusta had with it.
“Yes. And such a brilliant schoolboy, if the records are to be believed.” Pomona lets her eyes flit back and forth between Minerva and Molly, as if she expects a reprimand for looking You-Know-Who up in the school archives after learning his real name. She doesn’t seem to understand the brilliant smile she gets from Minerva instead.
Maybe there’s hope for her yet.
“Brilliant, but even when he was here, he was already heading down dark paths.” Molly shakes her head and reaches out to fill Pomona’s teacup up again, the very picture of a grieving mother. “Did Albus ever tell you about how he was the one to reach out to the boy when he lived in a Muggle orphanage?”
“No!” Pomona says, fascinated.
Minerva lets Molly tell the story. She tells it better, anyway, with the lingering pain and conviction of someone who really believed in Albus. Minerva is increasingly uncertain that she ever did.
It’s a painful thing, to look back and want to scold your younger self for being so vulnerable and conflicted, wanting to believe in Albus but not doing so, not believing in him and yet not breaking free from his thrall. It was more comfortable to just go along with what the Headmaster of the school wanted, and after all, what harm did it do? Surely Albus had been right and Harry Potter was growing up safe and happy.
Minerva closes her eyes in a slow blink, and hopes that Pomona doesn’t notice, or else just attributes it to Minerva’s Animagus nature.
You knew what sort of Muggles they were. And you chose to ignore it and pretend that Albus was right.
Minerva locks her hands in her lap as Molly’s story of the boy You-Know-Who used to be finishes and Pomona turns to blink at her in turn. It’s time for her to explain what they want to do with this knowledge.
“He may not be mortal now, but he was, once,” Minerva says, softly, intensely. “He has weaknesses. He can be defeated.”
“Not mortal?”
Pomona’s color is draining from her face so rapidly that Molly takes over again. “He has to be immortal in some fashion, to survive the blow that little Harry dealt him on that Halloween night and still come back,” Molly says firmly. “But he was defeated once. And that means he can be again.”
“What would his weaknesses be, though? If he’s immortal?”
“The same as they were when he was mortal,” Minerva says. “Pride. Arrogance. The conviction that he knows better than anyone and can always triumph.”
“He was right,” Pomona begins, and then stops and looks thoughtfully at both of them. “No, he wasn’t right, was he? If he lost once, he can do it again.”
Minerva smiles, along with Molly. It’s the same idea they’ve been trying to pound into Pomona’s stubborn head for the last half-hour, but it’s always good when someone can come to that conclusion on their own. It reminds Minerva of the pride she feels when she sees her students master a spell they’ve been struggling with.
“We can take advantage of how proud he is, and how desperate he is for people not to find out the truth about him,” Molly begins, leading this time. Minerva is glad that she chose to share the knowledge about Tom Riddle’s true name and nature with her, first. “Spread the fact that he’s this silly little schoolboy who made up a pseudonym for himself around, for starters…”
*
Severus doesn’t give Harry a choice, hauling him to the front of the classroom after Potions and ignoring the mixed group of Gryffindors and Slytherins that tries to linger behind. His glare is sufficient to make most of them leave.
All except young Mr. Nott, who eyes Severus before he saunters away with a leopard’s flowing grace in his movements. Severus hides his frown. Mr. Nott becomes more of a problem every day, it seems.
“Take this,” Severus snaps as he turns back to Harry, who is pale and swaying on his feet. He shoves the headache remedy at him.
“I have Charms after this,” Harry protests, in a voice that’s slurring with sleepiness. “I’ll go to sleep if I take a potion.” He tries to push it back at Severus.
“I will make your excuses to Flitwick,” Severus says, and closes Harry’s fingers around the neck of the vial. Lion is watching him in silence, but not hissing, which is an excellent sign that even the snake feels his master needs the potion. “You should have come to see me when you got out of the detention last night, idiot boy.”
“Needed to go to bed,” Harry protests even as he does down the potion with a few gulps. “I dozed off in the middle of the detention. That says I was pretty tired. Trying to do the responsible thing and sleep.”
“Dozed off in the middle of the detention?”
Severus’s voice is deep, but the problem is that it’s also apparently lulling, and Harry’s head drops forwards, and he goes to sleep. Severus curses, and reaches out to catch him.
Severus stares down at the limp body in his arms and shakes his head. He wishes now that he’d looked into Harry’s mind with Legilimency-something he can only do when his ward is conscious.
But there will be time for that later. Severus waits a moment for Lion to fly off Harry’s shoulder, and then casts a Lightening Charm and shifts Harry into his arms. Two years of proper meals and careful watching mean that Harry is taller and heavier than he used to be.
Lion hisses at him, but Severus shakes his head. “I cannot understand you, but you are welcome to accompany me.”
They leave the classroom, and Severus stops briefly by the Charms one to catch Flitwick’s eye and shift Harry a little so the other professor can see him. Flitwick nods, his brow furrowing briefly, but not enough to catch the attention of any of the students piling into the classroom.
Severus’s luck does not hold. He runs into a group of Gryffindors heading for Transfiguration as he turns the corner, and among them are some who are part of Harry’s “study group” (the name he uses, Severus thinks, because it sounds better than “revolutionary cabal.”)
“Professor! What’s wrong with Harry?”
That’s one of the Weasley twins, and they look ready to take out their fury on him, hands twitching towards their robe pockets instead of their wands. Severus meets their eyes and jerks his head towards a side corridor, depending on the twins’ love of a secret and their desire to guard Harry to make them follow him.
One of them does right away, while Severus can hear the other one making jokes to urge the rest of the Gyffindors to leave. Severus leans back with a sigh against the wall and shifts Harry so that he can study him. His face is the normal amount of pale that comes from the sleeping draught, and his pulse is steady.
“Did someone attack him?”
Both of the twins have joined him now, and there’s a shimmering curtain of light covering the entrance to the corridor that Severus doesn’t want to know the origin of and so doesn’t ask about. He nods. “Perhaps. You know that he had a detention with Umbridge last night?”
“Yes, some people were saying something about that.” The nearer twin peers into Harry’s face. Severus has never been able to tell them apart and doesn’t intend to start trying now. “That he annoyed her and she gave him detention and he said it was only lines?”
Severus wishes he knew how the two kept so well-informed, even though that is the kind of thing that would probably be discussed only among Slytherins. He nods again. “I do not know what happened in that detention, and I did not use Legilimency on him before I sent him to sleep.”
“You sent him to sleep?”
Severus does not mistake the friendly grins he’s getting for friendliness. “He was nearly falling asleep in the middle of class. I judged that he needed rest more than Charms.”
The twin who’s standing nearer the wall of light over the corridor makes a thoughtful clucking sound with his tongue. “Yeah, maybe he did. What do you think, Forge?”
“I think that there’s something here an inspired pair of pranksters could help with, Gred.”
Severus feels his eyebrow twitch at the ridiculous nicknames, but he forces himself to ignore them. “Then I need you to keep an eye on Umbridge from a distance.”
“From a distance only? But, Professor Snape-”
“That doesn’t make use of our skills in getting-”
“Detention! You know how good we are at that!”
“And I have no idea what she did to Harry.” Severus shakes Harry’s limp body at them for emphasis. “How would I know what she would do to you two?”
“We would-”
“Be more careful. The advantage of-”
“Being warned.”
Severus manages to avoid scowling at them, but he comes close. He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to actually earn detention with the hag. I want you to spy on her, and figure out what she did to Harry. I don’t think he actually noticed what happened, at least not consciously, or he would have come and told me.”
Lion hisses again in agitation, but again, Severus is forced to ignore him. He does wish that there was a potion that could give him the understanding of Parseltongue. Potions brewers have tried to create such a brew for centuries, however, and have never had any success. Perhaps he should undertake the long course Albus did, and learn at least a few more words than he sometimes recognizes now.
“We can do spying.” The nearer twin is grinning in the way that makes half the professors and most of the students terrified of him and his brother.
“Yes, we can, Forge.” The other twin purses his lips. “Maybe start with the-”
“Your thoughts are exactly mine, Gred.” The one who was talking first links his arm with his twin’s, and nods to Severus. “We’ll do it, sir. And we’ll make sure that no rumor spreads that you poisoned Harry and are carrying him off to conduct terrible experiments with his liver.”
Severus holds back his headshake as they take down the curtain of light and disappear in the direction of the Transfiguration classroom. He hopes that he won’t regret enlisting their assistance, given all the things that could go wrong.
But a part of him also wonders why it’s always the liver that people think he would extract, when the heart is infinitely more useful.
*
Dolores steps out of her office with a small smile on her face. The process of collecting Potter’s blood wasn’t easy, and neither was making sure that he didn’t remember it, but so far, no one has come baying for her blood, the way they would if Potter’s loyal little entourage suspected her. That means she got away with it.
And soon, now, she will have her share of power from the leopard-creature, and she will be able to punish those who have scorned her.
She locks her office door and then pauses as she hears what sounds like an indrawn breath. She shakes her wand briskly into her hand and turns to face the corner around which it sounded like it came. “Hominem Revelio!”
The charm shows nothing. Dolores pauses, and then shrugs. She’s perhaps growing paranoid simply because she is so close to success, and that means that someone might be more likely to find her out.
Or she might be more likely to grow careless. But she won’t do that.
She marches down the corridor towards her second class of the day, head held high, already considering what to teach the dear children.
*
Theo half-closes his eyes and smiles to himself. He knows the reason that he was able to hide from Umbridge, although he’s sure that Black and probably even Professor Snape would dispute it. He didn’t manage to transform all the way into a leopard, but he managed to change his mind, soothing and blanking his thoughts, and filling his brain with nothing but predatory intent.
And that meant Umbridge’s spell went astray, and she couldn’t sense him acting like a human, because he wasn’t acting like one.
Theo stands in a leisurely fashion and proceeds towards her office. He knows she’ll have locked the door, but that doesn’t matter to someone trained as he has been in the various spells for finding secrets. Only some of that training came from his father; the rest came from interesting books in his father’s library, and even some from Black and Professor Snape.
Theo examines the knob of the door. It appears to be frozen in place with a powerful charm, but detection spells reveal no poison or trapped lock that will curse whoever tries to open it. Theo nods and reaches for it.
Then he pauses.
Among the skills that he gained from being his father’s son is one that he wouldn’t be able to define if most people asked him, although if Harry asked, he’d do his best. It’s an awareness of threat, or potential threat. He sensed it for the first time when he was staring down at his mother’s broken body, and knew that reacting suddenly or sharply or angrily would get him punished by his father, perhaps fatally.
Now and then he’s felt it since, such as when he was about to confront one
of the seventh-year Slytherins and suddenly decided that they were really deadly instead of only pretending to be, or when he met Lucius Malfoy in Diagon Alley with what he knows now had to be the diary Harry defeated.
And he feels it now.
It is very simple: his death waits behind that door.
Theo takes a careful step back. He glances over his shoulder, but Umbridge isn’t coming back up the stairs, and neither is anyone else. The threat is coming from behind the door, and it is turning into trembling eagerness, the kind of intent that Theo felt when he was watching Umbridge with the mindset of a leopard.
This thing is as much stronger than me as I am than her.
Theo slides his wand back into his pocket, and keeps walking, normally, until he gets to the Charms classroom. He slides into a seat, making Blaise start and glance at him, and attracting a little attention from Professor Flitwick in the form of a shaking head.
“Ten points from Slytherin for your lateness, Mr. Nott.”
“I’m sorry, Professor,” Theo murmurs, his eyes down, and watches Flitwick nod and forget about it the way their professors almost always forget about Theo. He’s been able to conceal his own skills and the sense of danger he could present to them so successfully that most of them look right past him.
“Where the hell were you?” Blaise whispers, leaning over to tap him on the arm.
Theo shrugs. “Around. Where’s Harry?”
“Professor Snape held him back after Potions and probably fed him a sleeping draught.”
Theo nods, satisfied with that answer, and settles back into his chair to take notes. His mind can’t help lingering on what he sensed behind Umbridge’s door, though.
What is it?
Theo wouldn’t call himself skilled with Divination, either, but he doesn’t have to be to know that he and the thing behind the door will probably meet in the future. Theo has no intention of backing away from making Umbridge pay, and the creature, whatever it is-that patient, waiting intelligence was not human-has no intention of stopping its protection of her.
That’s all right. Theo is willing to work on his projects for years if necessary, the way he worked to make sure that his father would pay for his mother’s death. He will accomplish this, too.
Chapter Sixteen.