[Children of the Sun series]: Silver Shadow Snake, gen, PG-13, 9/?
Part Eight.
Part One.
Title: Silver Shadow Snake (9/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Gen other than background Lucius/Narcissa
Content Notes: For this part, mild angst
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Harry wasn’t sure when he first started noticing the odd doubleness of Professor Quirrell’s familiar, but he had no doubt it was there. And since no one else was doing anything about it, he thought it was probably up to him.
Author’s Notes: This is the beginning of a longer story arc, which will be updated every Saturday. You should read the other fics in the series first: Children of the Sun series.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Part Nine
“Welcome, Mr. Potter. I hope that you’ll benefit from what I have to say to you today.”
Harry blinked. It wasn’t how he’d expected Cormac’s relative to begin. “Hi,” he said, watching the man as he stepped forwards. He was a tall man, but he had a big belly, and he was wearing dark blue robes with silver edging on the bottom and the sleeves. Harry didn’t know what that meant. Another thing he had to look up. On his shoulder, rubbing her head against his cheek, was a small bronze monkey. “What’s your full name, sir?”
The man laughed gently. “You don’t have to call me that. Just call me Julian. My full name’s Julian Kindle. And this is Sara.” He gently flicked his familiar’s back, and she sat up and clasped her hands in front of her and bowed to Golden. “And I assume that you don’t want me to bow to you and call you ‘my lord’?”
Harry stared at him in disgust. “Who does that?”
“Traditional people.” Julian gestured him towards one of the only two chairs in the room. It actually hadn’t been hard to find a room in Hogwarts that they could meet in. Harry had gone exploring a lot, and sent Golden to explore, and there were dozens of empty rooms. It was kind of sad that there weren’t that many people in Hogwarts. “It’s one of the reasons that Voldemort displeased so many people and didn’t have as many Death Eaters as he might have. He claimed the title ‘Lord’ even though he didn’t have a golden familiar.”
Harry immediately sat up. “You said his name.”
“I see more terrifying things every day than his war,” said Julian, and his face was sad and heavy suddenly. He sat down and flicked his dark hair back out of the way. Sara ran up onto the back of his chair and sat there watching Harry and Golden, turning her head back and forth. “Wounds to minds and souls. You must not be afraid of speaking freely to me, Mr. Potter.”
Harry swallowed. Golden nudged up beside him and rubbed his snout against Harry’s arm. “It’s not as bad as it would have been if Golden wasn’t there.”
“That’s like saying that a broken arm isn’t as bad as a broken leg.” Julian put his chin on his fist and stared at him. “Isn’t it?”
Harry looked away. “Yes.” He felt memories seeping back. Times he’d been lonely because the Dursleys didn’t speak to him for days. Times that he would have had broken bones, but Golden had cushioned him. Times the Dursleys muttered about him being a freak but shut up when he and Golden came into the room.
“You’re tensing, Mr. Potter. Is there something you want to tell me about?”
Harry sighed and admitted, “They hurt me. I just-I don’t like saying it because it could have been worse. And I’ve done some reading,” he added, because he had once Cormac said Julian would be coming to talk to him. “I know that a lot of laws about abuse are for things a lot worse.”
“Most abused children do not have golden familiars, that’s true.”
“But they were still abused! I don’t want you to say that I’m special because I have Golden-”
Julian raised a hand. “I’m not saying that, Mr. Potter. I’m saying that you will be an unusual case no matter what. And people will be outraged. And the person-people?-who put you with the Dursleys in the first place may be more outraged still.”
“I don’t have proof about that.”
“You could get proof, though. Can’t you? Have you thought of questioning the adults in the castle?”
Harry blinked. “How do I know for sure that one of them put me there?”
Julian studied him, then sighed and said, “At the conclusion of the war with Voldemort, there was a group of wizards and witches who opposed him. I only knew three facts about them for certain, other than the fact that several of their members died to oppose Voldemort and his Dark magic. They were called the Order of the Phoenix, your parents were members, and they were led by Albus Dumbledore.”
Harry closed his eyes. “Familiars don’t manifest until you’re eighteen months old or two years, right?”
“That is the usual age, yes.”
“And I was fifteen months old when I went to the Dursleys. So-he wouldn’t have known I’d have Golden.”
“You think Dumbledore put you there, I take it.”
“It makes sense. And I have people who are telling me that he’s jealous of me because I have a golden familiar and he does, too.” Harry licked his lips and suddenly told the truth that he couldn’t tell to Professor Snape and Hermione, because they were so insistent all the time. “But that’s stupid! He’s older and he’s famous and he’s powerful and he has all these things I don’t! What does he have to be jealous of?”
“The first three things you named apply to you as well, Mr. Potter. I don’t know for certain what he would covet that you have, but he has been the only wizard with a golden familiar in Britain for more than a century. I can see him being-uneasy at sharing the top of the hierarchy.”
“Why do you keep calling me Mr. Potter when you told me to call you Julian?”
“Because you haven’t invited me to use your first name, and I would not be impolite. My lord.”
Harry scowled at him. Julian smiled back. “Fine. Please call me Harry.”
“Thank you, Harry. Now. It is true that we can’t know for certain yet whether Albus Dumbledore placed you with your Muggles, but there are professors in the castle that I suspect were members of the Order of the Phoenix-”
“You said you only know-”
“I only know those four facts for certain. I suspect much. I would not be surprised if Minerva McGonagall was a member of the Order. She has worked with Dumbledore a long time and was his best student in Transfiguration. Shared magical specialties can create strong bonds between wizards. Now, you might ask her what she knows, and portray yourself as a confused child. She would not willingly help to get Dumbledore in trouble.”
“Is he going to be in trouble?”
“That depends. You still haven’t been clear with me about how bad it was at the Dursleys’.”
Harry grimaced and nodded. “Okay. They didn’t like feeding me. A lot of the time, I got food anyway, because Golden brought it to me. But they didn’t want to give it to me.
“I lived in a cupboard part of the time I was there. My cousin Dudley did this thing called Harry Hunting. Golden kept him from doing that most of the time, too, but he was so stupid that he kept doing it. Well, he couldn’t see Golden, so I reckon that was part of it. They tried to push me down the stairs. They dragged me around by the arm. I did a lot of chores. They called me ‘freak’ all the time…”
Julian listened to him intently, eyes so unwavering that Harry was starting to wonder if he could use Legilimency like he’d read about. Well, if he did, then Harry was convinced he would just use it to get Harry away from the Dursleys. He was pretty unwavering about that, too.
And Harry trusted Julian. He’d already told him about the Order of the Phoenix and the “lord” thing about Voldemort that he hadn’t known.
Julian sagged back into his chair when he finished, and glanced at Sara. She bobbed her head.
“Sara will remember this conversation for me, Harry,” Julian said quietly. “She remembers every word and nuance. A familiar has to be specially trained to do that, and you can’t do it if you have a tin familiar. In most cases, it will be my memory that goes into the Pensieve for the other Ministry officials. Did Cormac explain what a Pensive does to you?”
“My friend Hermione did. She read about it. But what do you mean that it’s in most cases?”
“There have been cases when someone tried to use what’s called the Memory Charm on a wizard from my department investigating an abuse case, to make them forget what they saw and heard from the victim. Sometimes the abusers themselves. But no one can Obliviate a familiar. Sara holds the memory for me.”
Harry swallowed. “You’re worried Dumbledore might do that.”
“Smart lad. Yes, I am. You may think this is not as bad as some other cases, but it is bad enough. And…I do have a certain kind of intuition, as one must to work with children like you, Harry. That intuition is telling me that he will be displeased when he finds out about this conversation.”
“I understand. Um, Julian, why don’t you call him Lord Dumbledore? Did he tell you that you could call him by his last name?”
“No, of course not. I just don’t have any respect for him.”
“Why?”
“If what Cormac has told me is true, you have grander ambitions as a child than he has shown in decades, Harry. Wizards with golden familiars are supposed to receive respect because of their power, but if they do nothing with that power, what are we supposed to assume? Dumbledore has done little to change the classes taught at Hogwarts, or laws, or defend anyone but people he knows personally. He fought Voldemort, but not alone. And Voldemort’s snake was silver, no matter how terrifying he was. It should have been easy for Dumbledore to defeat him.”
Harry had to frown, thinking about Professor Quirrell and the way Voldemort was possessing him. That had to be weird. “Maybe Voldemort knew magic that Professor Dumbledore didn’t.”
“Possible, I suppose.” Julian’s voice was flat. “But I will be happy to help you change our world, Harry. It’s needed it for a long, long time. Someone who has the power to do it should be ambitious around here.”
“You were a Slytherin, right?”
Julian smiled wryly. “I was. But I hear that you’re not hostile to Slytherins.”
“I have friends in all the Houses. My friend Neville is in Hufflepuff, and Hermione is in Ravenclaw, and my friend Draco in Slytherin, and I know Cormac and Ron Weasley in Gryffindor.”
Julian nodded slowly. “Then you have already begun to build from a broader base than Dumbledore managed to. Almost all the members of the Order of the Phoenix who I know or suspect were Gryffindors in school.”
“But not all of them.”
“I don’t know for certain about all of them. Your parents were in Gryffindor, and Minerva McGonagall.”
Harry nodded back. “Okay. Then I’ll ask her. And you’ll take the memories to the Ministry and give them to someone so I can get away from the Dursleys for the summer?” He held his breath as he waited for Julian to reply. He wanted so much to get away from the Dursleys when he thought about it. He hadn’t suffered there all that much, but he’d suffered some, and he knew that people worried about him. He didn’t want them to worry. So he had to get away.
“Yes. It’ll take a few days, but not as long as it normally would. The investigation will go fast because it’s you.”
Julian spoke like he thought Harry would be upset. Harry was, a little, but he knew that this had to happen first before he could change things. He bit his lips and nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Julian.”
“Thank you for the amount of hope you have returned to my life. The things I was taught in my youth about people with golden familiars have a chance of coming true after all.” Julian paused. “Would you mind if I did one more thing?”
“What?”
Julian bowed to him. “Just once. My lord.”
Harry could feel his cheeks turning red, although Golden was coiling around and around in a circle that meant he thought it was funny. “Um. Okay.”
Julian smiled at him and left, with Sara waving her curly tail goodbye to him. Harry stood there and just breathed for a second.
He would do this. He would make it so that people wouldn’t want to bow to him, and people wouldn’t want to get all scornful of people with tin familiars, and he would do that over time. This was just the first step.
He calmed down when he thought about that. Then he went to talk to Professor Snape. There were things he’d thought of, and he wanted to see how the ritual to help Professor Quirrell was going.
Part Ten.
This entry was originally posted at https://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/962945.html. Comment wherever you like.