No Fortress Is So Strong, Chapter 05
Title: No Fortress Is So Strong
Summary: In 1981, the two Potter sons had their fates switched, and Nicolas Potter became a famous face. But there are those that know the truth, that the real Chosen One was the younger child. The Slytherin. Now, two brothers share a destiny.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Brothers. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes & Caveats: See chapter one.
Many, many thanks go to my intrepid team of beta readers: Micah and Salazire, who are thorough and clever and absolutely fabulous.
“When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life.” ~Antisthenes
Chapter Five: On Silent Feet
From the very moment Nick left the Gryffindor common room the next day, whispers followed him wherever he went, to his own intense dismay. He really wished they’d leave him alone, because he’d already gotten lost twice and he really didn’t want to do it again.
Magic was astonishingly complicated, Nick thought rather desperately. At first, he hadn’t quite understood just how much, until he discovered that he was supposed to find his classes amongst the eight floors, numerous sub-floors, towers, and the one-hundred and forty-two staircases that Hogwarts contained.
And then there were the classes themselves, if and when you managed to find them. There was Transfiguration taught by Professor McGonagall herself, Charms taught by the tiny, white-haired Professor Flitwick, History of Magic, which was the only class at Hogwarts that was really truly taught by a ghost, and numerous other classes he couldn’t remember unless he had his nose in his schedule.
But there was one he would never forget, and that was Potions. At the feast, Nick had gotten the feeling that the Potions Professor, Severus Snape, didn’t like him. He was quite right, although didn’t like was like saying being crushed by a falling boulder might hurt a bit.
Snape didn’t dislike Nick, he hated him.
From the first time Nick stepped into Snape’s class, the Professor seemed out to get him. Like little Professor Flitwick, he started his class with a roll call.
He paused when he reached Nick’s name.
“Nicolas Potter,” he murmured, eyes lifting to stare into Nick’s own. “Our new…celebrity.”
The Gryffindors were taking this class with the Slytherins, who tittered quietly at the comment from the other side of the dungeon room.
“Here, sir,” Nick said uncertainly. Snape looked at him for a long moment from deadened black eyes, then turned back to his parchment to finish calling names.
When he was done, he began to speak.
“You are here,” he murmured softly, “to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death-if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”
The class was silent, holding its breath.
“Potter!” Snape snapped, and Nick jumped at the suddenly loud voice. “What would I get if I mixed powdered porcupine quills with thickened armadillo bile?”
Nick froze up, wide-eyed. He’d read much of his course books, but he hadn’t memorized them by any means.
“I don’t know, sir,” he said warily.
“No? Let’s try again then, shall we? What would happen if one were to add mandrake blood to the Basic Boil Remover?”
Nick hurriedly scanned his mind, desperately trying to come up with an answer.
“I don’t know, sir,” he again said, helplessly.
“Tut tut, Potter. Fame clearly isn’t everything, is it?” It was phrased as a question, but it seemed more like a statement to Nick. “Once more, Potter,” Snape whispered, his black eyes boring into Nick’s own. “What is the easiest way to identify Atropa Belladonna? Surely you can answer that?”
Nick hazarded a wild guess.
“By their leaves?”
Snape straightened. “Is that a question or an answer, Potter?”
“An answer,” Nick replied bravely.
“It was not a correct one,” Snape said, and Nick slumped a little. “For your information, Potter, powdered porcupine quills and thickened armadillo bile make a remarkably powerful thickening agent. If ingested, such a mixture would render the stomach acids quite solid. The Basic Boil Remover is a very stable and inert potion. If one were to add mandrake blood, it would do nothing aside from making an expensive mud. And lastly, Atropa Belladonna is most easily identified by its dark berries, but when young and out of season it can also be identified by its distinctive bell-like leaves. It is also known as Deadly Nightshade.”
The class was silent.
“Well?” Snape demanded. “Why aren’t you writing that down?”
There was a mad scramble for parchment and quills.
The remainder of the week was full of busy work and ended in exhaustion, so it was Sunday before Nick got a chance to send a letter to his brother.
Harry spent the week obediently remaining near the house. On Sunday, his restriction was lifted slightly enough for him to take a walk around the block again, as long as he was back at a certain time. Relieved at the freedom, Harry left at a run.
He had never thrived as other kids his age did, but perhaps that worked in his favour. He was small and thin, but he was also a very fast runner.
Where the last time it had taken him quite a while to reach the burned out husk of a lot, today it took him mere minutes, and sure enough, the boy was there. Harry had suspected he would be, since he’d been expelled too.
“Hi,” Harry said, walking straight up to him and plopping down on the other wooden beam.
“What do you want?” the boy said rudely.
“I just got off restriction,” Harry explained breezily. “Thought I’d stop by.”
“How’d you know where I live?” the boy asked suspiciously.
“Seen you around,” Harry said. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
“None of your business,” was the hard reply.
“I’m Harry, then,” Harry said.
“Alex.”
“Short for Alexander?”
“Alessandro, actually,” Alex said. “Not that it’s your business. Short for Harold?”
“Just Harry, actually,” Harry informed him, grinning wickedly. “Not that it’s your business.”
Alex looked at him with grudging respect.
“Yeah,” he said, and frowned maybe a little less.
Dear Harry,
I’m sorry I couldn’t write earlier this week. I had so much to do! You wouldn’t believe the school, it’s in a magic castle and the staircases move and the paintings move and I think the suits of armour can walk too. Classes are fun but some of them are bad. There’s one teacher called Snape who just hates me. He’s horrible, asking me questions I certainly couldn’t answer on my very first day.
History of Magic is taught by Professor Binns, a ghost! He’s deadly dull, hardly talks at all about anything but goblin wars and makes even those dead boring.
I don’t have very much time, so I have to go, but write back, all right?
Sorry again,
Nick
Hey Nick,
You won’t believe it. First day of school I decked another kid and got expelled. I’m in huge trouble.
I can’t wait to go to Hogwarts. A castle, you say? Unbelievable.
Don’t let Snape get you down, he sounds like a right bear. Don’t worry about the late letter.
Harry
“Let’s do it,” Harry mumbled, and Alex knelt on the icy ground. Harry stepped gingerly on Alex’s supporting hand and knee, balancing carefully as he worked a penknife into the seam between window and frame.
It was the work of a moment to crack open the window and carefully slide it fully open. He glanced down at Alex, kneeling in the dark, and nodded. Alex boosted him carefully up through the window, and Harry folded himself up and twisted through, landing lightly on his stocking-clad feet in the downstairs bathroom. Harry glanced around, noting a pretty soap holder and a painting on the wall of a seascape.
He eased gingerly through the downstairs rooms, investigating the silverware drawers and china cabinets. He picked up what looked like a silver - or at least silver-coated - candlestick holder, and some very heavy fancy bookends from the shelves. He snagged a few ornaments from the mantle and a particularly pretty statue of a tiny rearing horse, which looked like it was carved from ivory. These things went directly into his pack and he left as silently as he’d come. Alex held him up while he closed the window as best he could, and then the two young boys fled into the night, flushed with success.
“Let me see,” Alex demanded when they were far enough away, and Harry willingly gave over the pack. It wasn’t as if he could keep any of it, anyway. “Good bit,” Alex mumbled, examining the ivory horse closely.
“Thanks,” he said wryly, shoving his hands in his pockets. It was quite cold. “All right?”
“Yeah. Here,” Alex said, upending the back. The candle holder, bookends, ornaments, and ivory horse all clattered onto the ground. Harry winced a bit and accepted the pack that Alex offered him.
“Night then,” Harry sighed, and Alex nodded, stuffing the stolen objects into his pockets, and then slid away into the cold darkness.
Harry made his long, lonely way home.
In October, Nick tried out for the Gryffindor Quidditch team despite being only a first year. The only spots open were the two Beater positions, and although the positions went to a pair of redheaded twins related to the Captain and Seeker, Nick held his own on a broom. The seventh year Captain, Charlie Weasley, encouraged Nick to try out for Chaser and Seeker the next year, when the spots would open up again.
In the meantime, Nick delightedly started owling Gringotts for his monthly allowance, so when he returned to Diagon Alley for his next school year he’d be able to afford his own broom.
For Christmas, Harry bought Nicolas a model of Big Ben made of chocolate, and used stolen money to do it.
Nick bought Harry a coin purse by owl order from Every Bag, with a note that told his younger brother of his embarrassing story from when he himself got money for the first time. He explained how it worked, how you could put in much more than it appeared, when looking at it from the outside, and Harry thought that would be a very neat thing for his less-than-legal activities.
He didn’t tell his brother that, of course.
The coin purse was brown leather and beaded and feathered, like something from a Native American tribe. It had a pair of loops on the back that slid onto a belt, so the purse pressed against Harry’s hip, almost like a hip flask. It was flat but very soft and had a neat flap that shut with a bone fragment.
Harry bought a belt to use it on, and also used stolen money to do it.
Nick’s year passed uneventfully, with the brothers exchanging short but heartfelt notes when Nick had a chance to send Rocky over the long distance. Until June when Nick returned to the Dursleys.
On London’s outskirts, Harry had become an adept thief. He had to be careful with what he kept and bought with his stolen goods and money, but he was able to keep the occasional small item. In accordance with the Native American style coin purse Nick had bought him, he’d found and kept a similarly styled fanged necklace. It was too uncomfortable to actually wear beneath his clothes, but he kept it neatly folded inside the coin purse itself as a keepsake.
In May, Harry was nearly suspended for painting the inside of the boys’ bathroom, and got away on a mere technicality, since the unseen witness hadn’t been able to prove it was him. And although he’d only used cheap paints, the elaborate artwork Harry had graffitied on the inside of the bathroom never faded, and the strings of foul language remained in elaborate letters on David Anthony’s Secondary School - even when they painted over it - until they gave in and replaced the bathroom wall entirely.
The school had told Pat and Donna their suspicions, of course, and so that was the end of that. Michael had been livid when he’d come to pick him up, and for the first time that Harry could remember, there wasn’t another foster family to take him in. Instead, Michael took him back to St. Colonus’s Children’s Home, where he’d been left on the doorstep all those years ago.
Chapter Six