Chapter Sixty of 'Other People's Choices'- Dreams and Visions
Chapter Fifty-Nine.
Title: Other People’s Choices (60/60)
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! This is the last chapter of Other People’s Choices, but this story will have a sequel, Wolf’s Choice, which should start posting next week.
Chapter Sixty-Dreams and Visions
Harry pulls the book off the library shelf and blows dust off it. He’s a little surprised that it’s that dusty. It’s a history of Dark Lords in Europe. You’d think that more people would want to read it when there’s Grindelwald and Voldemort, he thinks, and takes the book back to the library table. He tries to ignore the group of Slytherins sitting really obviously at the next table.
His friends think he needs protection from everything. Just walking to the Great Hall or going to the Quidditch Pitch for some flying to relax him or to Snape’s office for an Occlumency lesson becomes this guarded trip.
Harry is getting more than a little tired of it.
He opens the book and flips through the pages. Just like a lot of old wizarding books, it doesn’t have a table of contents. It seems to start with a chapter about Herpo the Foul, and then keep going from there, starting a new chapter wherever the author wants to.
Harry smiles a little at the thought of how much Hermione would disapprove of that method of organization, and pulls out his parchment to take notes. He doesn’t know how much Herpo the Foul will help him, and it doesn’t look like this book goes all the way up to Voldemort, but there might be some other good ideas about what Dark Lords have in common.
He finds a list of exactly those characteristics, stuck in the middle of the chapter about a Dark Lady called Shadow Annis.
Dark Lords and Ladies are often named such on the basis of the following traits: a desire to conquer a certain portion of territory that they see as belonging to them “by right,” wielding one or more rare kinds of magic that other wizards will be impressed by and follow them for, a thorough knowledge of the Dark Arts, a willingness to hurt others to get what they want, and a close coterie of loyal followers that will defend them to the death.
Harry freezes for a second. Then he reads the list again. And again.
He doesn’t want to conquer territory, he knows a little about Dark Arts from the books he borrowed from Tarquinius’s library but not much, and he doesn’t want to hurt other people. But the other two things-well, he can do two rare kinds of magic, Parseltongue and wandless magic, and his friends…
Could they turn into followers? Do they see themselves as followers?
Harry swallows. He looks over at the table where the Slytherins are. Daphne is frowning into her book and doesn’t notice him, but Theo and Blaise glance up at once from their low-voiced conversation, and Draco realizes they’re looking up after a second and looks up, too.
Harry gives them an embarrassed smile and turns back to the book, and copies down the list, even though he suspects he doesn’t need to, because its words are going to ring in his head for an awfully long time.
No. I’m not going to make them do what they don’t want to, but I’m not going to let them become followers, either. That’s sick.
*
Tarquinius stares intently at the Healer in front of him. She’s a slight blonde woman with hazel eyes who gulps when she looks at him, but she nods. “I’m absolutely certain in my diagnosis, Mr. Nott.”
Tarquinius closes his eyes and lets the noises of St. Mungo’s settle around him, the distant voices and sounds of incantations and clanking noises that might be someone he saw on the way up here with chains apparently welded to his ankles.
Poison. Specifically, the Joykiller, a poison that will produce symptoms of illness, such as vomiting up blood, when he feels the most happy or triumphant.
And the poison has sunk into his system, and will stay there no matter the attempts to remove it. If he can find the vector through which the poison is being served to him and remove it, it won’t matter. The Joykiller will create more of itself, over years, and build up into his body to the point that he will die of it in the end.
He knows exactly who must have given this to him, the only person, although he’s still caught in a state of blank amazement that Theo had enough skill to brew the poison.
I did him a favor. I showed him how to conquer weakness. Astrid was weak, and I showed him how to strip someone like that from his life. That he could watch his mother, the paragon of weakness, die and seek to murder me in revenge…
Tarquinius clenches his fists. Looked at it from a certain direction, Theo has won, no matter what. Tarquinius could kill him today, and the poison would still carry out his vengeance. Tarquinius has, at the most, ten years. Not long for a wizard.
No. He can’t move right now. He can’t afford to give Theo any warning at all. Theo could well have another kind of poison or spell poised to trigger on his death. Besides, Theo is his only child.
I have only one choice. I will have to marry again and make sure that I have at least one other child. But this time, I will not choose a weak woman like Astrid.
Tarquinius sneers to himself. He should have suspected Theo’s devotion to his mother long ago. Theodore, he was named, but no one but his mother called him that, and since her expiration, he has refused to answer to that name from anyone else.
Well, it was my fault for not being alert to that kind of weakness in my son, for not thinking that someone I sired could be that fragile.
I will make a better decision next time.
“Mr. Nott?”
He has almost forgotten that he had an audience. Tarquinius blinks his eyes open and gives the young woman a thin smile. “Forgive me. I was surprised, and considering my options.”
“Oh.” The Healer fidgets for a moment, the way weak people always do when they have to give someone bad news. “Do you know what you’re going to do about the poison?”
“Oh,” Tarquinius says softly, “I have some ideas.”
*
Remus stares at the letter in front of him, and wonders if he should really send it.
He closes his eyes. He can still hear Sirius’s angry words as he describes the Speakers and how they only talked to Harry in Parseltongue and how he might not get to spend any Friday evenings with Harry during the summer.
Snake-people, Remus! It’s one thing for him to be a Slytherin, but he wants to surround himself with snakes night and day! I’m just waiting for him to ask me for a pet snake. I already know what I’m going to say.
Remus swallows and stands up, folding the letter while he stares at it. He’s already written down the news of the Speakers, and he agreed to do this spying for Albus, the man who did so much for him. Remus wouldn’t have an education if not for Albus. He wouldn’t have any friends. He wouldn’t have the life he has now if the man hadn’t forced Snape to keep quiet instead of spreading the news that Remus was a werewolf.
He knows where his loyalties should lie.
But yesterday he looked at Sirius and saw how clear and bright his eyes were. He speaks without the same kinds of delusions that he did, too. And Remus knows that comes from the trained Mind-Healer that he’s visiting now.
The kind of Mind-Healer that Albus didn’t want Sirius to visit.
Remus hesitates. Then he turns and tucks the letter into a drawer of the desk in his room. He has a room in the cleaned and renovated Grimmauld Place now, his own room. He can do what he likes with it. Sirius, for all that he’s terrible about some things, respects his friend’s privacy and won’t come snooping in here.
He can put off sending the letter for a few days. It won’t make much of a difference in the end. After all, there were lots of people at that meeting of Harry and Sirius and Snape and the Speakers. It’s just as likely that Albus will overhear some of the children talking and learn about it that way, or Sirius will tell him directly.
Putting off the letter for a few days won’t make any difference.
*
Harry snuggles down into a chair in the Slytherin common room and ignores the way that some of the older Slytherins are watching him. He suspects one of them is going to approach him soon to ask about playing for the Quidditch team next year. It doesn’t matter. He’ll refuse the same as ever, and in the meantime, he deserves a holiday to rest his hands after the writing he had to do on his exams today.
He knows that he did better on his Potions exam than last year; Professor Snape won’t take anything less. Harry thinks maybe he made an Acceptable, which is fine with him. The Ancient Runes exam was the hardest other than Potions, but it’s okay if he got an Acceptable on that, too.
Hermione wouldn’t think so, Harry thinks then, recalling the chat that he had with Blaise the other day.
Harry shrugs to himself. Living through the war with Voldemort is still more important to him than getting Outstanding marks. He hopes their study group has helped some of his friends get good marks, since those are important to more people than just Hermione, but that’s not why he’s working so hard on his magic.
School doesn’t matter to him as much as it used to, when he was a little kid. The Dursleys basically made it so it couldn’t matter to him, and it’s too late to change now.
“Potter?”
Harry looks up. Here it is, the offer to play on the Quidditch team. Harry knows this boy a little bit. His name’s Lucian Bole, and he’s one of the Beaters. He’s standing with his arms folded so that his muscles stand out. Harry supposes it’s impressive if you like that sort of thing.
“Yeah?” Harry asks, when the silence just goes on and he realizes that a lot of people in the common room have stopped to watch them. He rolls his eyes. Even living in their House all years doesn’t seem to have convinced most people that he’s just not that interesting. Harry idly wonders what would.
“Look, if we didn’t ask you to play, if we just asked you to be a reserve Seeker and come up with strategies for the team, would you do that?” Bole’s voice is just on the edge of begging, which makes Harry sigh.
“No.”
“But you wouldn’t be really playing against your old House. I mean, they would never have to know, and I don’t think Malfoy would mind if you just talked strategies with him and practiced with him.”
Harry doesn’t have to look in Draco’s direction to know that he’s wearing a hopeful expression, and he would do anything Harry asked of him as far as practicing or strategies went. It curdles Harry’s stomach. He wants to be left alone and do things he wants to, but he can’t because of Voldemort and Dumbledore and fame and things like Sirius and Snape fighting over him. Other people, though. They should have all the free will they want. They shouldn’t do things because someone orders them to.
“I don’t want to,” Harry says. “I really don’t have time for Quidditch now. And I don’t want to play against my new House or my old one. So I have to say no.” He turns and looks into the fire, hoping Bole will get the hint.
“Please, Potter.”
And the begging curdles Harry’s stomach, too. “No,” he bites out, without looking at Bole. “I mean, you won the Quidditch Cup just fine on your own without me. Why do you think I would make such a big difference?”
Bole doesn’t seem to know how to answer that, which means someone put him up to this. Maybe Flint, who has probably finally passed his exams and knows Harry won’t listen to him. Well, that’s fine. Harry will continue to say no no matter who it is, and maybe next time Bole or the other people on the team next year will grow a backbone.
Bole finally goes away. Harry grabs the book of spells Blaise gave him and leaves the common room, because everyone is still too engaged in staring at him, and he’s sick of it. He is not that special. He hasn’t even flown in a game in a year! Why do they think he would be so good?
He hears footsteps behind him, and something in him breaks. He turns around and glares at Blaise and Theo, who’ve followed him. “No,” he says. “For once, let me have something by myself. Go back to the common room.”
They glance at each other, talking in that silent way that makes Harry wonder if they’ve got better at Legilimency than the rest of their group and they can exchange thoughts now. Then Theo says peacefully, “I’ll go.” He turns around and walks away, which leaves Blaise to come up and stand next to Harry.
“I don’t need to be fucking guarded,” Harry snarls at him. He can feel his magic snapping and crackling around him. He wants to be alone. He doesn’t see why they think the corridors will be so dangerous now, anyway. Everyone knows about Daphne’s pendant and what it guards him against, which means other students can’t try to poison him the way some of them did earlier in the year, and he has defenses like Snape’s Christmas gift against anything else.
“I want to spend time with you as your friend,” Blaise says quietly. He swallows. “I-I got a strange letter from my mother yesterday.”
Harry immediately relaxes. As long as Blaise is going to treat him like a friend and not a leader, this might work. “What did she say?” he asks, and starts walking towards their group’s classroom, so that no one else will overhear them.
Blaise doesn’t speak until they’re safely in the classroom and Harry has raised some of the defensive spells he read about from the book behind them. “She says that she thinks I’ve inherited her Gift. She-she ‘can’t wait for me to come home.’”
Harry blinks. “What’s her Gift? And how would she know when you’ve been in Britain for months?”
“It’s making people listen to her. Fall under her sway. It’s both why she’s been able to convince so many people to marry her and why she’s able to get away with their murders.” Blaise seems to be tensing, bracing himself. “And I have inherited it, but I don’t know how she knows.”
Harry feels his eyes widen a second before the numb shock hits him. “The Speakers. You convinced them to change their minds.”
“Yes.”
Harry puts his hands in his robe pockets and looks away. He says nothing. Blaise is the one who rushes to fill the silence. “I wanted you to learn serpent magic, and you said the Speakers didn’t want to compromise, but I saw this as a way that you could have everything you wanted and everything I want.”
Harry breathes in and out. He doesn’t like the sound of Blaise’s Gift much, and he especially wishes he hadn’t used it on the Speakers. They’re either going to find out or they already know, probably, and then Harry is going to be the one stuck paying that price.
But he can’t let Blaise go back to his mother when she’ll probably try to hurt him. Blaise is almost grey, and Harry reaches out and puts a hand on his arm, holding him steady.
“You can stay with me and Professor Snape.”
Blaise closes his eyes and sways on his feet. Harry moves forwards to support him some more. Blaise whispers, “Thank you. I wanted to ask, but-I didn’t want to tell you about what I did to the Speakers, but I knew I had to before I could ask you to shelter me.”
“You could have waited,” Harry has to say. “I would have kept you safe just because you’re my friend. But thank you for telling me. Please don’t use that Gift for me again.” He’s not going to say anything else because Blaise might have to use it to save his own life, but Harry doesn’t want to benefit from it. Ever again.
Blaise nods and sits down beside him, letting him read his book in peace while he writes a letter to Professor Snape that explains the situation and asks for shelter. Harry is sure Snape will grant it when he asks, but he respects that Blaise wants it do his own way.
Harry, meanwhile, starts to read more about curses.
*
A howl fills his nightmares, and then screams as someone falls down and is ripped to pieces. Harry sees the flash of a werewolf’s face before he bites through the person’s throat and begins to pull. The skin of the person he killed starts peeling off them.
A cold voice says, “Not so slowly, Greyback.”
And Harry wakes with a gasp and pain in his scar.
He sits up in his bed in the Slytherin third-year boys’ bedroom, cradling his head in his hands and feeling the blood drip down his fingers. At least no one else woke up this time, and they don’t wake up when he goes to the bathroom and washes his forehead while he stares into the mirror, either.
That was Voldemort. Harry knows it.
He stops washing his hands eventually, and straightens up and stares at himself again. His scar is red and twice as big as normal. His eyes are haunted and the dark green color of seaweed. Harry clenches his fists and watches his knuckles turn white.
He’s going to work harder on his Occlumency. He’ll tell Snape about the dreams in the morning, before he leaves to go with Sirius to Grimmauld Place. And he’ll work harder on defeating Voldemort.
He is going to survive. And so are his friends.
The End.
As noted above, this is not the end of the series, only of this particular fic. The next one will be called Wolf’s Choice.
Wolf's Choice.
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