Chapter Twenty-Seven of 'Other People's Choices'- Mr. Black, I Presume
Chapter Twenty-Six.
Title: Other People’s Choices (27/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: None; this is a gen story
Content Notes: AU of CoS, angst, present tense, violence
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. The Sorting Hat doesn’t just let the Sword go when it falls on Harry’s head in the Chamber, but also Sorts him again, this time into Slytherin. Harry is furious and terrified, and the adults aren’t helping much.
Author’s Notes: This began life as another of my Advent fics in response to an anonymous request for Harry being re-Sorted into Slytherin when the Sorting Hat hits his head in CoS. The title is based on Dumbledore’s quote: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Seven-Mr. Black, I Presume
Harry opens his eyes with a gasp. There’s so much darkness in the room that he honestly can’t tell where he is for a second. But then he shakes his head and sits up. Of course he’s in his bedroom in Slytherin. Where else would he be?
The dream images of trees rushing past him fade as he looks around. The others are all asleep, he thinks as he recognizes five other snoring voices. He does spend some time watching and listening, though. Theo tricked him more than once during the summer when Harry thought he was asleep in the library.
Eventually he satisfies himself that Theo’s deep breaths are because of real sleep, and he slips out of bed. He takes his Invisibility Cloak out of his trunk and walks down the stairs to the common room. The only other person here is a seventh-year who’s dozed off over what looks like a NEWT essay. Harry carefully moves the essay and the book he’s holding further away from the fire.
Then he looks towards the door of the common room.
It seems like forever since he’s been alone. He’s grateful that his friends are getting along better and happier since he got to spend time in Gryffindor Tower, but that’s not the same as time alone. He doesn’t want to get in trouble or fly or anything like that. He just wants to walk by himself and clear his head.
His footsteps are silent after he casts a charm he’s learned in their study group over himself. And he seems to float through the corridors and down the stairs, even past the trick ones. Once Harry hears Mrs. Norris coming, but he just pauses and waits, and she scurries past him, apparently hot on the trail of a mouse. Harry moves off after that.
He finds himself at the door to the entrance hall not long after. Harry leans on it and stares longingly outside. He promised he wouldn’t go out there and get in trouble.
But the moon is nearly full, not completely, and Harry knows Remus won’t be running around in his werewolf form. And he remembers how the black dog just watched him the other day, instead of attacking.
He moves off, and skirts the lakeside and the trees of the Forbidden Forest all the way to Hagrid’s hut. He realizes he has a shadow halfway there. Harry stiffens a little, but he keeps his attention focused ahead as though he hasn’t noticed the black dog.
He probably found me by smelling me. Harry grimaces a little. If he wants to sneak around effectively, then he has to learn some charms that cover that.
But he still acts as though he doesn’t notice, and walks up almost to the Quidditch shed. The black dog steps into the moonlight there, whining a little. Harry freezes and turns around, then pulls the Cloak’s hood off his head.
He sighs and says, “Wow, boy, you scared me!”
Black takes that as some kind of permission to come romping up to him and sniff around him. Harry snorts at him and strokes the thick fur on the back of his neck. “You’re not as smart as you look, if you’re running around the grounds at night,” he scolds in a whisper. “Don’t you know there are horrible creatures in the Forbidden Forest?”
Black makes a bark that is surprisingly like a scoff, and nestles his nose into the crook of Harry’s arm. Harry laughs before he can stop himself. Then he goes back to stroking Black’s neck. It’s surprisingly soothing.
But all good things have to end.
There’s a noise from the direction of Hagrid’s hut that has Black jerking his head up and growling a little. Harry looks, too, wondering if Remus is out searching for the black dog the way he said he might be. But although no one comes out into the moonlight, Black is tensing, and Harry knows he’ll probably run any second.
And who knows when Harry will see him again, or get to tell him what he knows?
“Look, I know you’re Mr. Black,” Harry whispers as quickly as he can. The dog’s mouth literally drops open as he whips his head back, and Harry has to smile. “Look, it’s-I don’t know why you spared me the other day if you’re a Death Eater, but I want to talk to you. They just almost never let me out of the school. Can you come back here the night after the full moon? I’ll have my Cloak.”
Black wags his tail once, although he’s still staring at Harry like Harry started to drown him and then stopped. A second later, he’s slipping back into the shadows. Harry strains his eyes, but it’s surprisingly hard to make him out. Harry supposes it isn’t only black panthers who can blend with the darkness like that.
Now someone is coming, stalking in that way that means it’s Snape. Harry hastily flings the hood of the Cloak over his head. Snape walks past him, although he glares at the ground as if he thinks he’ll find footprints.
But it hasn’t rained in almost a week, and that means the grass and dirt is too hard to reflect Harry’s weight.
Snape swirls past. Harry turns and sneaks back to the school as soon as he’s sure that Snape won’t turn back around and come towards him again.
Even when he’s back inside Hogwarts, he can’t stop grinning or almost swaggering through the corridors, as though he’s outside and has the wind blowing in his face. He’s finally accomplished something. He’s taken a thing that made no sense and done his best to force it to make sense.
And he’s taken a risk and nothing bad happened. He didn’t realize until now how caged and stifled he was feeling. He knows his friends and even Snape want to keep him safe, but there’s a difference between safe and motionless.
For the first time in weeks, Harry sleeps soundly.
*
Draco stiffens his spine when he sees Potter sitting at the breakfast table by himself for once, hastily stuffing toast into his mouth before he heads for Potions. Blaise and Theo have already eaten and departed. Potter slept late this morning.
Draco wishes he could have practiced his words in front of a mirror, but unfortunately, all the mirrors in Slytherin are enchanted and would have just mocked him for it. He’ll have to speak it unpracticed and hope this goes better than last time.
“Potter,” he says, and sits down at the table long enough to take a scoop of sliced apples to tuck into a napkin. He’ll eat it quickly on the way, and it’ll function to fill him better than Potter’s toast.
“Malfoy,” Potter says, not in a hostile tone, but also as if he can’t imagine Draco being important.
Draco shivers, but tells himself not to succumb to idiocy, and lifts his head as high as he can. “I really do want you to play Quidditch for Slytherin. The first game is coming up, and you’re the best we’ve got.”
Potter leans back and studies him thoughtfully. Draco doesn’t lower his chin or look away. This is the way it has to be. He’s making the appropriate sacrifice, he’s doing things for the good of his House, he’s doing things that should earn him Potter’s friendship. If this doesn’t get him back into the good graces of some of his House members and close to the top of the power structure again, nothing will.
“It’s more than just skill, you know that,” Potter says gently. Draco immediately bristles, hating the gentleness for obvious reasons. “I haven’t been attending any practices. I don’t know how to work with the Slytherin team the way I did with the Gryffindor one.” He shakes his head. “It’s good of you to offer this, Draco, but it’s not an offer I can take.”
“You have a natural talent,” Draco says, and lowers his voice. There’s a few too-interested eyes watching from the Gryffindor table. “You don’t need that much practice. And you know the others can fit in around a skilled Seeker. They’ve done it with me.”
“We do have different styles of play. And I really don’t have the time or consideration for Quidditch right now.” Potter stands up and dusts off a few toast crumbs from his shirt. “No, thanks.” He heads for the entrance hall.
Draco snatches a few more apple slices, hastily eats one, and runs after Potter while trying to make it seem like he isn’t running. “You have to at least try it, Potter! Don’t you miss Quidditch?” Draco would go mad if he’d ever avoided playing for as long as Potter has now.
“I miss what I thought Quidditch was,” Potter says, and suddenly his eyes are distant and all philosophical. Draco frowns warily, not sure he likes the tone in Potter’s voice. “The freedom and the thrill of it. But I don’t miss the game itself. And I don’t miss the kind of politics that get attached to Quidditch.” He gives Draco an unexpectedly bright half-smile. “Do you really think it’s a good idea for me to play Quidditch, when my new Housemates can’t even decide if they like me half the time?”
Draco thinks of being in the air with Beaters and Bludgers who didn’t like him, and he shudders without meaning to.
Potter pats his shoulder. “You see? Slytherin might win even without me, you know. I don’t know who they’ve got to replace me as Seeker in Gryffindor, but it’s probably not someone as good as you.”
And he goes off, trotting to class exactly as if he hasn’t completely flipped Draco’s world around by giving him a compliment. Draco gulps air, then gulps another apple slice and races after him. Professor Snape won’t tolerate lateness even from members of Slytherin, not since he’s decided that they have to-set Harry a good example or something.
And he’s Harry, just like that, in Draco’s head, too. Draco sits behind Harry and stares at him blankly, and ignores the way that Blaise and Theo both give him harsh looks and then move a little closer to Harry.
I don’t understand. We’re not friends. What kind of person compliments someone they’re not friends with and even refuses to take favors from them?
Draco actually messes up his potion that day, earning a stare from Professor Snape. Draco ducks his head and flushes. He hopes that Snape won’t write home to his father about this. Draco will, he decides. He’ll spin it and make it sound less impressive an error than it really is.
Something’s changed, but I knew that. I knew Harry was changing how Slytherin works. I even volunteered to get close to him for that reason.
But what the hell is this, then? As long as he treats me like a friend, what does it matter if we’re not really friends?
*
Harry takes a deep breath and grins. The air is soft and moist with rain that fell this morning, and it’s crisp enough outside that it feels like September instead of November. The full moon is past, and he knows Remus isn’t out hunting Black tonight. He’ll be sleeping off the effects of the full moon.
It’s the perfect night to meet a fugitive godfather.
Harry takes his Cloak again, and moves softly across the grounds, looking out frequently over his shoulder. Tonight he does leave footprints that Snape can find. But he doesn’t seem to be out patrolling around the castle now. Harry reckons the professors have different shifts just like the prefects do.
He settles against the side of Hagrid’s hut, and smiles when he hears a low whine and a sniff in front of him. The black dog jumps when Harry whips the hood of the Cloak off, but wags his tail hard and leaps up on Harry. Harry has to laugh and push him away.
“Look, I know your name is Sirius Black, and you’re my godfather, and you were my dad’s friend, and you’re an Animagus, but that’s all I really know. Can you shift back and tell me something? Why don’t you want to kill me?”
Black stops jumping up and drops down on his haunches to pant up at Harry. His eyes are so wide that Harry snorts. “Honestly, you’re not that hard to figure out. You just sit there and stare at me all the time. And you were friendly the other night. You’re not here for me, are you?”
There’s a long pause while Black seems to consider the virtues of telling the truth, and then he bows his head and a shimmer of magic works its way up his spine. Harry falls back with a gasp when he surges up into a tall, gaunt man. He looks as though he hasn’t had a proper bath in weeks, and his eyes are dark and hollow.
“You are James’s son,” Black says, and grins at Harry. “I had some doubts when I heard you were Sorted Slytherin, you know? But you’re his.”
Harry feels his own smile waver. He didn’t think that Black would have the same attitudes about Gryffindors and Slytherins that Remus would, but of course he would. And he doesn’t even have the excuse of spending lots of time out in the real world that Remus does. He’s been in prison for a decade.
Harry takes a deep breath and says, “Well, I was a Gryffindor for years. But I got Sorted Slytherin because I’m cunning enough to take care of myself.” It’s as good an explanation as any. He stares at Black demandingly. “Who did you come here for?”
“Peter.” Black’s face twists with hatred as he says it, and Harry flinches away before he can stop himself. Black quickly gives a laugh that sounds like a woof and shakes his head. “No, don’t worry, Harry. You had nothing to do with it. He’s a rat Animagus, that’s all, and I saw his picture in the paper.”
It doesn’t take Harry long to fit the puzzle together. “Scabbers? You mean that Peter Pettigrew is Ron’s rat?”
“That’s right, you’re best friends with a Weasley.” Black yawns and gives a long stretch. “Yes. He framed me and then escaped in his rat form. He was the real traitor, but he made it look like I was.” He growls, Harry swears he does, and rubs his hands together for a second. “I can’t wait to get my hands around his scrawny little neck.”
“But if you kill him,” Harry says, his mind already working away at the problem in a way that’s probably Slytherin, “then that means that you can’t be proved innocent.”
Black clenches his hands into fists and his face writhes again. “Like anyone would believe I was innocent! They didn’t even give me a trial! No, Harry. I’m going to kill Peter, and let the rest take care of itself.”
“What about me, though?”
“What about you? I mean, you’re here, and I’m grateful that you took the chance to come and talk with me, but-”
“I was living with Muggle relatives,” Harry interrupts. There’s a bump in his chest that aches a little, a bump in the rhythm of his heart. He thought maybe Black broke out because of him. But no, it was just Pettigrew.
I will not let it hurt. I will not.
Harry throws the thought away as hard as he can, and goes on. “But they’re dead now. Killed in some magical attack they can’t trace. That means I don’t really have any place to go right now. You’re my godfather. Couldn’t you get custody of me or something?”
Black blinks. “Not as a fugitive.”
Then don’t kill Pettigrew. Honestly. For the first time ever, Harry feels sympathy for Snape’s rants about the cluelessness of Gryffindors.
But he reminds himself again that Black has been through prison and Dementors-which sound awful-and he calmly answers, “Then bring in the rat and get a trial. And they can use Veritaserum on him, right? So they could figure out that he was really the guilty one and you could get free. And I’d have a place to live. It would all work out.”
Black blinks, and blinks again. Then he grins. “I told James once that Lily’s blood would make you smarter than either of us!” he says happily. Harry feels another little bump in his chest, but this time, it’s something he didn’t know about his parents, something that has nothing to do with pranks on Slytherins. “Looks like I was right!” He grabs Harry up and spins him around. Harry laughs aloud, not knowing what else to do.
“We’ll do it!” Black practically howls, dancing up and down in the wet grass and making squishing sounds that just make Harry happier. “We’ll catch Peter, and then we’ll take him to the Ministry, and we’ll find someone who’ll believe us, and talk to them, and-”
“BLACK!”
Harry stiffens. He feels Black drop him at the same second that a red curse streaks past them. Harry isn’t sure what it is, but after training with Tarquinius, he knows it’s no Stunner.
Black transforms into a dog in the space of a hot second and goes springing and running away towards the Forbidden Forest. Harry drapes his Invisibility Cloak over himself and gets ready to disappear.
This time, the spell that Snape flings is a Body-Bind, and Harry tips over, only half-invisible. Snape stalks up and stands over him, tugging the Cloak all the way off so he can see Harry’s body. His eyes and nostrils are both equally wide and red.
“Harry Potter,” he hisses.
He doesn’t need to say anything else. Harry knows what deep shit he’s in.
Chapter Twenty-Eight.
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