Chapter Fifty-Three of 'Other People's Choices'- Playing the Game
Chapter Fifty-Two.
Title: Other People’s Choices (53/?)
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 Fifty-Three--Playing the Game
"Nice to see you out of bed, Potter."
"I heard that you want to be left alone. Is that true? Something the papers said about you'd only give one interview, and later?"
"How did you get that burn above your eyebrow, Potter?"
The days when Harry can finally leave the hospital wing are filled with those questions and more. He smiles back, the empty smile that he thinks he's finally learned, and deals with them. He answers some and ignores others and gives an even more mysterious smile when he thinks he can get away with it. He doesn't really want to live with nosy Slytherins and nosier Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, but he does it. The Hufflepuffs ask a few questions, too, but Ernie seems to keep them quiet most of the time.
There's one Hufflepuff who comes up to Harry in the library when he's researching frantically for a Transfiguration essay that he only has one more day of grace on. He glances up at the bloke and smiles a little, but this one already looks like he wants to talk a lot and Harry just doesn't have time for that. "Do you need this book? I'll be done with it in half an hour."
"Oh, no. I just wanted to introduce myself formally. I know we've faced each other on the Quidditch pitch, but that doesn't really mean the same thing, does it? Cedric Diggory."
Harry recognizes him now. The Hufflepuff Seeker. He honestly didn't remember him that well since he hasn't played Quidditch in almost a year. He smiles and shakes Diggory's hand. "Yeah, Harry Potter. As you know."
"I wanted to talk about your study group that Smith and Macmillan are a part of."
Harry blinks. "Do you want to join?" Cedric is two years above them, and the oldest one in the group right now is Cho.
"No. Just want to say that whatever you're training so hard to avoid...I reckon it has something to do with you not playing Quidditch this year. I just want you to know that you can count on me to defend you if it comes down to it. The Hufflepuffs already know that, because I'm a prefect in their House, but it's for all Houses."
Diggory is being earnest and forthright and kind, and Harry feels a little creeped out. He ends up nodding. "Thanks, Diggory. I'll keep that in mind." Even though he doesn't think Diggory would stand a chance against Voldemort.
"Call me Cedric. I insist."
"Er, thanks, Cedric."
Harry watches Diggory leave for a second, and then shakes his head and turns back to his homework. He supposes that Hufflepuffs are less likely to have ulterior motives than Slytherins, but being around Zach and Ernie has taught him not to underestimate them, and he wonders what Cedric's game is.
*
It takes Remus a long, long time before he can raise his hand and knock on the door to the Headmaster's office.
"Come in, Remus."
That used to comfort him, how Albus knew everything and would always be able to tell him what he needs to think before he realized it himself. Now Remus shivers as he steps into the whirling, sunlit office. Fawkes chirps at him and flies over to sit on his shoulder. Remus manages a small smile as he strokes the phoenix's back. At least the comfort of having a beautiful creature recognize him and not be afraid of him hasn't changed.
"What do you need, my boy?"
"I need you to tell me that I haven't done something horribly wrong by agreeing to spy on Harry and Sirius for you."
"It isn't spying, Remus," Albus says earnestly. He has bright eyes when he wants to, and usually Remus gets comforted by looking into them, but now he remembers Legilimency and turns away. "It's only updates. I know that I can't keep Harry and Sirius caged, and they must do what seems good to them, but I can't help them if they keep me at a distance, either."
"Didn't you already harm them?"
Those are bold words for Remus, and he wilts when he feels Albus's soundless sigh. "My boy, they may think so, but I swear that I only want what's best for them. Harry will never be taught enough if he stays so separate from me, and Sirius won't recover if he goes to a Mind-Healer other than the one I chose for him."
That last part seems strangest to Remus. "Why, though? I mean, I did look up the Mind-Healer you were going to recommend in old issues of the Daily Prophet, and she was disgraced. Couldn't you find a former Gryffindor Mind-Healer who wasn't?"
"She was a Gryffindor, and she was 'disgraced,' as you put it, for having the same irrepressible high spirits as Sirius. Everyone else he could see will try their best to repress him. They won't understand Sirius. They'll tell him that he needs to grow up, as if that's the best advice for a man damaged by a decade of Azkaban! You wouldn't tell him that, would you?"
"I mean...I never want Sirius to change."
"Exactly! He was artificially frozen in time when he went to prison. The Dementors won't contribute to anyone's growth and happiness. Now he must have all the freedom and joy that he lacked in the past decade."
Remus hesitates for a long moment. He wants to say something, but the mere thought makes his palms sweat and his head whirl. He owes everything to this man. He thought for sure that news of his lycanthropy would become public after he attacked Severus as a student, but somehow Albus made Severus be quiet. And of course he offered Remus the chance to attend Hogwarts in the first place. It seems...disloyal to go against him.
"Speak your mind, my boy."
"Sirius was twenty-one when he went to prison. You're saying that he needs time to grow to be thirty-three?"
"Exactly. You understand so well, Remus. You would be an insightful professor, you know."
Remus bites his lip. That's another thing Albus has offered him, a job that means more than doing a day's labor or scrounging in bins. Next year, he might be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and live in the castle, and keep an eye on Harry in the way that Sirius might not be able to.
"But what happens if Sirius doesn't grow up fast enough? If he hurts Harry again the way he already did?"
"You may be assured that it would be an accident. The same way this one was."
"But this one could have killed him!"
"Who told you that? Severus?"
Remus hesitates. He's honestly unsure who did, whether it was Sirius or Severus or maybe even Madam Pomfrey. "I think so."
"Severus is wrong." Albus says it with so much dignity that Remus feels his doubts melting away. He pets Fawkes again. "The burns could have disfigured Harry, and we should all be grateful that that did not happen. But they would not have killed him. Sirius would never be that careless."
"Isn't disfiguration bad enough?" Remus's voice goes bitter without him meaning to, and his fingers wander to his werewolf scar. "People have shunned me all my life because I'm disfigured."
"People shun you because they are ignorant and afraid. Just as they are ignorant and afraid for what it means that an innocent man survived Azkaban. Don't give in to that ignorance, Remus. Stand tall and proud."
Remus blinks. He thinks the subject changed, somehow, but he doesn't know how. "But Sirius is still going to see another Mind-Healer than the one you picked out."
Albus sighs. "I know. I only hope that it doesn't damage him beyond repair. That is one reason I need to rely on your updates, Remus, for times when neither of them would welcome any communication from me. I know I can trust you to tell me if Sirius seems to be going downhill again."
Remus hesitates one more time. But that does sound like a good reason to report to Albus. And he could even tell him if Severus starts to harm Harry, the way Remus half-fears he will. "All right," he says slowly.
"Good man." Albus gives him another one of those smiles that make Remus able to walk tall and proud, and changes the subject. "What do you think of this message that I received from Alastor the other day? He says that the Death Eaters in Azkaban are more restless than ever. I fear we may have to contend with Voldemort's resurrection soon..."
*
"This is perfect."
Severus relaxes. He didn't realize how much he had dreaded to hear condemning words out of Harry's mouth until they didn't come. "I am glad that you like it, but you should examine it more closely before speaking such praise."
"I don't need to."
But Harry is walking towards the house as he speaks, and Severus is glad enough to follow him. He watches as Harry walks up the three steps to the front door of the house, which is set in a facade of white and gold. Harry runs his hand around the doorknob three times before he opens it and steps inside. He seems to know the door will be unlocked.
Severus follows him, trying his best to see the grand front hall the way a child will instead of the way he does.
Harry might like the old stained glass in the windows, forming images of lions rampant and rearing unicorns; he might not notice the old spells humming in them. He might enjoy the sunlight slanting through those widows without thinking, as Severus does, how they make the house brighter and harder to hide in. He runs up the old staircase that spreads down from the first floor like a trailing robe, and laughs.
He doesn't see how easy it will be to string wards to follow the steps and naturally defend the place.
Severus walks up the staircase, made of brown wood where almost everything else is made of pale. Harry is opening doors on the first floor, making faces as some of the large dusty rooms but stopping short when he comes to the one that Severus thought might be his bedroom. There are illusions there of the furniture Severus might buy--Harry might buy, given that it is Harry's money. Severus only cast them to see what furniture would look like in the space and different arrangements, not because he thinks he can dictate what Harry would choose.
But it seems that a four-poster bed without a canopy and with bright blue sheets, a desk, bookshelves made of the same pale wood as the walls, an open armoire filled with child's robes, and an enormous seat tumbled with bright blue cushions are the things Harry could choose.
"You were thinking about this?"
Severus rapidly revises his opinions as he sees Harry's blinking eyes fastened on his face. It's not the particular colors or furniture that make this place special for Harry. It's the thought Severus put into it.
"Yes." Severus clear his throat. "This bedroom looks out over the grounds and has the largest windows, but it's also under one of the biggest wards in the house, one that would be easy to expand. You could have light while also being protected."
Harry brushes his hand over the illusion of the bed, his fingers turning sky-colored for a second as they go through the glamour of the sheets. His head is bowed. He might be rapidly blinking. Severus won't try to invade his privacy enough to be sure.
"It's perfect. Thank you." Harry turns around and clears his throat in return. "Do you think we could give that interview I have to give standing on the grand staircase? That might impress some of the reporters."
Severus responds in light jest, and the moment passes. But Harry walks close beside him as they go to explore the rest of the house.
*
"Yes, what Madam Macmillan said is true. I'm going to have two guardians."
Harry smiles and keeps smiling as the cameras flash. Honestly, he hates this. He doesn't want to have pictures taken of him, he doesn't want to stand on the steps of the grand staircase in Snape's house with the reporters in front of him, and he doesn't want to be next to Snape. Snape is tense and unhappy. Harry prefers to be away from adults who are feeling like that.
But they have to do it, and Madam Macmillan, watching them from the far corner of the entrance hall, is nodding a little at him.
"I just don't understand, Mr. Potter, why you couldn't be content with the godfather your parents chose for you. Surely they made the best decision they could. Or are you saying that you know more than Lily and James Potter?"
Harry doesn't like the woman who asked the question. She has smooth blonde hair and green glasses and a way of simpering that reminds him of Pansy in Slytherin, someone who still isn't his friend even though he knows Daphne has talked to her. He doesn't think this woman is his friend, either.
"That question was not on the approved list, Miss Skeeter," Madam Macmillan says.
"I was only--"
"It was not on the approved list," Madam Macmillan repeats, her voice as heavy as iron. For a minute Harry thinks Skeeter is going to object, but then she looks away and pouts at the floor. That leaves someone else free to ask a question that Harry knows was on the approved list.
"How do you feel about living with two guardians?"
"Excited," Harry says. They discussed possible answers, so he could sound like he was being honest and sneaky at the same time. "I get to live with two wizards who can teach me all about my parents and the wizarding world."
"Wouldn't the Gryffindor Head of House be more appropriate?"
Harry is about to answer that they must have missed he was Sorted Slytherin last year, but Madam Macmillan says, "Not on the list," and this reporter wilts like one of Aunt Petunia's flowers. Harry wants to snort. This isn't easy, but it's a lot easier when you have someone with a frown like Madam Macmillan's following you around.
"Is it true you lived with Muggles?"
"That question has already been answered."
And it has. Harry explained, briefly, that he lived with his Muggle aunt and uncle, but they tragically died last summer, and his cousin is being cared for in the Muggle world since he has no magic. It's all facts that anyone could verify if they looked things up. It doesn't really say anything very important, but Harry is coming to appreciate the fact that that is important.
They can't verify how Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon died or how Harry felt about them. That's the important thing.
"Would you be open to answering one more question about the Muggles?" That comes from the youngest reporter there, a nervous woman with a twitching nose that reminds Harry of a rabbit, or Remus. He feels sorry for her. He thinks she was sent to cover this and she didn't realize how many other people would be there or how big it would be.
Madam Macmillan turns to him. This is the kind of decision she thinks Harry should make on his own, then. Harry swallows. "That depends on what it is."
"Why were you living with Muggles at all? Why didn't you grow up in the magical world? Why didn't you know that you were famous from the time that you were very small?" Maybe the reporter is just excited, not nervous.
"He didn't know he was famous because he lived with Muggles," Madam Macmillan says firmly.
Harry smiles at her and turns back to the reporter. "I lived with my aunt and uncle because they were my only remaining relatives left and my godfather was in prison. That really is the truth."
"But there were magical families that could have taken you!"
"Oh, I know that now." Madam Macmillan advised him that he should be careful to emphasize how much more he was learning and how much better he was getting at knowing things. "But I didn't know it at the time. I didn't even know magic was real or how my parents died or about Voldemort until I was eleven."
Harry thinks at first the gasps are just because he said Voldemort's name, the way they always have been before, but then Snape's hand grips his shoulder. Harry glances up at him. Snape only shakes his head a little, in the way that means things are bad but not as bad as they could be.
"How--how can that be?"
"My aunt and uncle were Muggles. They weren't comfortable telling me about the wizarding world or my place in it because they were pretty sure they would get it wrong."
This time, Harry knows Snape's squeeze on his shoulder is for a different reason. The answer is all right, but Snape doesn't think he should have spared Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon from looking bad.
Harry keeps quiet. Maybe he's stubborn, but his abuse is his to talk about or not. And he's not going to talk about it here.
"We must know who placed you in the Muggle world, Mr. Potter! Who didn't let someone else take care of you!"
Harry feels temptation for a second, but he knows from the way both Snape and Madam Macmillan stand there that this is too uncontrolled a situation. He can't tell them about Dumbledore because of the way they would spin it. He nods slightly and says, "I can understand that," and then refuses to say anything more.
Madam Macmillan shuts the house's door behind them with a thoughtful expression when they finally leave. "I wasn't sure how inviting many reporters rather than one would work out, Mr. Potter, but your instinct was correct. This way, there are many slightly different versions of the truth available instead of only one."
"Yes," Harry says, and yawns. He's tired.
Snape immediately says, "Dinner and then bed."
Harry wants to open his mouth to object, but from the way Snape looks right now, it would be wasted effort. He tells Madam Macmillan good-bye and goes into the kitchen to eat the sandwiches that Snape made earlier. Snape watches him intently all the while, as if he thinks Harry is suddenly going to leap to his feet and dash around the kitchen and say he wasn't really tired.
But he is, and as he snuggles into the real bed that they bought yesterday at the beginning of the Easter hols and which looks like Snape's illusion, Harry thinks that having a guardian isn't so bad.
Chapter Fifty-Four.
This entry was originally posted at https://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/974093.html. Comment wherever you like.