Chapter Thirty-Three of 'The Art of Self-Fashioning'- Parts
Chapter Thirty-Two.
Title: The Art of Self-Fashioning (33/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Warnings/Content notes: Angst, canonical child abuse, animal harm in the first chapter, AU, violence, gore, torture, gen (no pairings)
Rating: R (for violence)
Subject: In a world where Neville is the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry still grows up with the Dursleys, but he learns to be more private about what matters to him. When McGonagall comes to give him his letter, she also unwittingly gives Harry both a new quest and a new passion: Transfiguration. But while Harry deliberately hides his growing skills, Minerva worries more and more about the mysterious, brilliant student writing to her who may be venturing into dangerous magical territory. Ravenclaw!Harry, Mentor!Minerva.
Author’s Notes: This is going to be a fairly long story that will update every Thursday. The first few chapters will take place in Harry’s childhood and first year; then it will skip ahead to his fifth year. It’s heavy on the angst and gore, but heavier on the magical theory.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Three-Parts
“You’re sure that he’s convinced?” Harry heard Black mutter behind him.
He was speaking to Professor McGonagall, not Harry, and so Harry felt free to continue leaning forwards, looking through the concealed window into the room that held Snape. The window looked like part of the wall to those inside, and it was recent anyway; Black had only added it after Professor McGonagall spoke with Snape.
Snape sat with his hands chained behind him, to a stake in the floor, and with his head bowed. His breathing was noisy.
“Yes, he is. I hated to do it, in a way. I’ve known Severus a long time. But what he wanted to do…”
“We are agreed that any threat to Harry is unacceptable.”
“Yes.” Harry felt Professor McGonagall staring at him, and Spellmaker, on his shoulder, arched her back and made a complicated sound between a growl and a purr. “So yes, I think he’s convinced that Harry is going to use him for parts and we’re going to let him.”
“Good.” Black sounded maliciously satisfied. He came up beside Harry, looked in at Snape himself, and then nodded to Harry. “You know the part you have to play.”
Harry nodded, and lifted Spellmaker down from his shoulder to the floor, although she cried about it with protesting noises. For a cat he hadn’t created to be loyal to him, and for one made from an enemy’s wand, she was surprisingly affectionate. But Harry needed another of his animals for this.
When he raised his arm, Yar flew down and gripped it, shifting. Harry had hardened all the skin along it, though, down to his fingers and up to his shoulder, and she would have to work harder than she was inclined to do if she wanted to inflict damage.
Harry turned and studied Black and Professor McGonagall. “Ready?” Black asked.
Harry nodded. Black reached out and snapped his fingers in his face, which would have made Harry jump if Yar’s weight hadn’t been holding him, in part, to earth. “None of that, now,” said Black sternly. “You know what you have to do. Verbal answers, and only act the part of the scary feral monster after we get in there.”
Harry rolled his eyes. For all his positive feelings about Black, and the way he managed to work together with Professor McGonagall, Harry still came close to hating him sometimes. “Yes,” he said. “I’m ready.”
“Good.” Black opened the door of the room-which had been a sitting room at one point, but the furniture had all been taken out-and strode in. Professor McGonagall followed him with a delicate scamper that reminded Harry of her Animagus form. Harry marched in after her with Yar, and shut the door just in time to keep Spellmaker out.
Luckily, the door was thick enough to muffle her protests.
Snape turned his head without raising it to look at them when they came in. Harry was a little puzzled for a second, and then saw the thick chain around his neck, linking back to the stake and his arm-chains. He hadn’t been able to see it from his position at the window.
Black was grinning. Harry prowled carefully around to the side, heaving his arm a little. Yar spread her wings and clattered them in response.
Snape had been trying to look just at Harry, but he did jerk his head to the side and stare at Yar before he could help himself. Harry held back a snigger. It wouldn’t fit with the silent menace he had to play.
“So,” said Black, lounging against the door. Professor McGonagall had taken up a position between him and the wall, and was looking around with wide eyes, as if she wanted to say something but didn’t quite dare. “This is the way it is, Snape. Harry’s asked to have you for parts for his spells. Or maybe he wants your whole body for his experiments. It’s not really clear.” He paused and glanced at Harry. “It’s hard to discuss much with dear Harry, right now.”
Harry, on cue, uttered the growl he’d been practicing. Professor McGonagall had helped him with the Transfiguration of his throat, which was something he found it hard to see even with a mirror. And she had made sure it was only partial and they could turn it back when they were done here.
Snape gave him an absolutely horrified look. Harry smiled at him and moved forwards, raising his arm as if he was going to launch Yar at Snape. Snape promptly ducked and covered his face with his shoulder.
They’d mended his hand, with the help of some healing spells Black knew that Harry highly suspected were illegal. But Harry could still see new wrinkles along Snape’s fingers and twists in the bones that hadn’t been there before.
“She could do worse to your other hand,” said Black, on cue. “Or this time, I could let her do it and leave you unhealed. We didn’t bother with healing Macnair.”
Yar needed no encouragement to crouch and spread her wings. She always wanted to hunt, except when she was actually doing it. Harry watched in fascination as the man he’d hated and feared scooted backwards as much as his staked chains allowed, all composure utterly destroyed.
“Minerva,” Snape whispered hoarsely. “Will you let them do this?”
“After hearing what you wanted to do to dear Harry,” said Professor McGonagall, and looked down her nose in a way Harry loved and immediately wanted to learn how to imitate, “I’m not sure that I care enough to stop them, Severus.”
Snape turned slowly back to Harry. And Yar. Harry noticed the way he couldn’t stop looking at Yar, and he had to admit, he was delighted. He raised his arm higher and advanced slowly.
“How are you going to explain my absence to Albus?” Snape’s voice was low, and he didn’t turn away from Harry and Yar at all, even though Harry was sure he was talking to Professor McGonagall.
“Oh, that’s done,” said Professor McGonagall, with a coolness Harry also wanted to learn. “I told him that I saw you leaving and tried to follow you, but you Apparated and I couldn’t trace you. That I’m afraid you’ve run afoul of the Death Eaters. I told him I wanted to stay away from the school for a while to try and find you-that I felt it was my fault I didn’t stop you when I had a bad feeling about what I saw you do.”
“Ingenious,” said Snape, and flinched and bowed his head when Yar stared at him with bright eyes and mantled.
“Of course,” said Black, his voice soft and still managing to make Snape start, “there might be an alternative. I said an alternative, Harry,” he added sharply, when Harry took another step forwards.
This was all part of the plan, but Harry was startled to feel how intensely he wanted to keep moving. To threaten Snape. To tear out at least one of his eyes, the way Professor McGonagall had done to the other Death Eater, and maybe crush both his hands. Then he would have paid for his crimes.
Perhaps. He had tried to set an ambush outside Harry’s parents’ room, after all.
“Do listen to me, Harry,” Black appealed, and moved forwards, into his path. Harry touched Yar on the breast when she would have screamed. They would lose part of their power over Snape if he thought Yar would act like that with everyone. “What you want to do-there might be a potion we could use to accomplish it instead. Of course, there’s only one person here with the skill to tell us if that’s so, and actually brew the potion.”
Harry growled again. Snape had tossed his head back and was looking between them with piercing eyes. Black had told Harry in even more detail about Snape’s Legilimency, so Harry tilted his head to the side and made sure not to meet Snape’s gaze head-on.
“Tell me what you want, Black.”
“Harry wants to use people for experiments, since he’s finally tired of Transfiguring himself,” said Black, and reached out to squeeze Harry’s shoulder. It was a bold gesture with Yar so near, but although she quivered, Harry touched her breast feathers again, and she didn’t attack. “But we might be able to do much the same things with a potion that we can apply to a dummy and which models nerve pain.”
“There is-there are a few such potions,” said Snape, and now he was alert and straining against his bonds without seeming to realize what he was doing. “But why should I brew them?”
“I have the ingredients,” said Black.
“I have the ability to hold Harry back if you agree to do this,” Professor McGonagall said.
Harry thrust his arm out in silence, flashing his claws, to show what he had.
Snape lowered his head. “There is no choice,” he whispered. “There never was. Without my agreement, you will not stand in Potter’s way, will you?”
“I have to admit that I see no reason to,” said Black, mildly.
Professor McGonagall didn’t speak, but she was twirling her wand between her fingers. Her face was blank, but still threatening. Harry really wanted to spend a little more time with her. All these gestures were ones he could make with a human face, and probably hands and other body parts, too.
Snape looked up again, and Harry, still being careful not to stare directly into his eyes, saw that they must have convinced him. He didn’t look as though he was planning to break free, or hurt them, or reserve judgment. He looked as though they believed that Harry would torture him to death, or slice him up for his organs, if he refused.
“Then I agree.”
Harry watched Snape in silence as Professor McGonagall and Black started telling him what they wanted. Honestly, he didn’t think that Snape’s conviction was a bad thing. And not only because it would give them the potion they wanted, which would mean Harry didn’t have to experiment on anyone.
Because, without them there? Harry would have experimented. He was mostly not doing it because it seemed to upset Professor McGonagall when he talked about it.
On his own, as long as he was doing it carefully and not exposing himself to danger (which also distressed her, and Black), then Harry didn’t see the problem with doing it on a known enemy like Snape.
*
I do not understand how the boy has corrupted and changed her. But he has.
Severus had given up on any attempt to read Regulus Black. He had never known the Death Eater boy that one had been well, and then, after his brother’s death, Black seemed to have assimilated a Marauder spirit to his own. Trying to guess what he would do next was an exercise in futility.
Severus also carefully turned his brain away from any attempt to comprehend Potter. It was true that he had underestimated him criminally. The next time they came to blows, Severus would be prepared for what a dangerous creature he was dealing with.
But Minerva…
Black and Potter had finally left her alone with Severus while they went to prepare for whatever conditions they needed to set up the potion. Ingredients, and probably placing defensive spells around the lab so he couldn’t send any messages, too, Severus imagined. But Minerva remained, watching him with a still face.
Severus cleared his throat. “A drink of water?”
Even then, she didn’t come near him, instead conjuring a glass and then casting Aguamenti into it before floating it over to his lips. Severus sipped from it, narrowing his eyes further as he watched Minerva’s face stay the same. He had wondered if she would relax with Black and Potter gone, and tell him what plan she had under the surface to free him when he’d complied with their demands.
“Why did you do this?” Severus finally asked. Sometimes Gryffindors responded to blunt honesty, and Minerva was a product of her House.
“I already told you that,” Minerva said calmly. “You threatened Harry, and made it clear that you blame him for the way Lily and James-although I suppose you don’t care about James-ended up. It’s frankly insane, Severus. I’m doing what I need to to protect him from you.”
Severus shook his head slowly. Now Minerva was acting as if she was more than a product of her House, as he had never seen her act. “I would not have killed the boy.”
“I never thought you would have. But tortured him? I can believe that of you, Severus.”
“Then why are you plotting to help him do the same thing to me?”
Minerva shifted a little. The sunset light coming through the window caught and flared in her eyes, making them golden and inhuman, feline. Severus shivered and glanced away. As much as he hated to admit it-indeed, he could only do it now because Potter wasn’t in the room-she frightened him, too.
“I prevented that, didn’t I?” Minerva said, so quietly that Severus wouldn’t have heard her if his senses hadn’t got hyper-sensitive the way they always did around danger. “I don’t enjoy seeing people in pain, Severus. But some of the pain that you suffer, I can do nothing about.” She paused. “And I suspect Lily couldn’t, either.”
She swept out, and Severus glared at her back. Then he went about calming and focusing on his mind, thinking of some of the exercises that he had learned when he was first beginning to practice Occlumency.
He would do as they asked. He would brew the potion and hope this would lead to freedom, eventually. He couldn’t imagine how they would let him go when they couldn’t risk him going to Dumbledore or the Dark Lord and he could resist an Obliviate, but he would not give up in despair yet.
However.
The list of people I want vengeance on is growing depressingly long.
*
“Go, Mr. Potter!”
Minerva watched intently as Harry exhaled and opened his eyes, focusing on the collection of tins and coins she’d assembled on the floor of this bare room. She hadn’t allowed Harry to choose them, only briefly handle them. She wanted to see how well he did Transfiguring objects into animals when he hadn’t gathered the ingredients himself.
“Commuto abundantiam felinam sparsam!”
Minerva caught her breath. She hadn’t told Harry what to create, and she had told him not to tell her, either. She had expected a more precise spell from him, however. Perhaps a cat, but these words were for “speckled cat,” which might be-
The collection of metal stirred and rattled. Minerva watched two Galleons soar up and open as golden eyes, high on a head that was spinning into being from tin and other common metals. It was remarkable, watching the golden fur blossom to sheathe skeleton-like legs and a straight spine turn flexible. The Knuts darkened in color and transformed into the black spots, spinning into place on the gold like the coins they no longer were.
The cheetah looked around the room, sniffing with arched whiskers and a lashing tail. Harry had even got the black stripes around its nose and eyes, and the blob of white fur on the edge of the tail, right. Minerva let out a shaky sigh.
“Banish it before it becomes dangerous, Harry,” she whispered, as she watched the cheetah pace towards the door and then turn around and look at them. Its throat bubbled with a growl that reminded her of Harry’s.
Harry flicked his wand. He said no “Finite Incantatem,” no incantation that would return the cheetah to its former state as a pile of metal, but one moment the burning, glorious creature was there, and the next it was not.
Minerva pressed her hand to her chest and looked at Harry. “That was remarkable,” she said. “But why did you use such an imprecise expression? ‘Speckled cat’ could have produced almost anything.”
Harry blinked at her. “Because I couldn’t find a Latin word for cheetah, Professor.”
Minerva was silent, thinking, both about that and about the shivers and stirs of the Wild she’d experienced in the air while Harry did his Transfiguration. Only when she thought she was ready with her theory did she speak. Harry waited her out, stroking the black cat on his shoulder.
“You have incredible control of your imagination,” she said at last. “Your Will and Wild are one. The problem with a spell like the one you chose is that you might have ended up with a leopard, or an ordinary spotted housecat, or a jaguar, instead of a cheetah. Most people trying this spell at your level would either not have studied the differences between the animals enough to end up with the right one, or would not have the skill and control you do. Their creatures would be half-formed, not what they wanted, or actively dangerous.”
Harry inclined his head, his eyes sparkling. But they dimmed as Minerva went on. “However, you have almost no use of Wand or Word. Even though you chose a good incantation and I saw you make the wand movement,” she added, because she suspected that was what Harry was opening his mouth to protest about.
“How can you say that I’m not using Wand or Word, Professor?” Harry demanded. “I am using them.”
Minerva had to smile despite his tone, because this was what she had wanted: a more normal student who would challenge her and stand up for himself. “I mean that you’re not relying on them,” she said. “Will and Wild are creating your animals. That probably explains why they’re so loyal to you most of the time, as well. The Wild resonates with your emotions, and makes them into what you want them to be. And with Will…of course they do what you want them to do.”
Harry looked down with a blank face. “And you can tell because my wand movements are small and I used imprecise words.”
“Yes.” Minerva bent down in front of him when he wouldn’t look up at her. “Listen to me, Harry. What you can do is remarkable.”
“But limited in scope,” Harry finished, so astutely that Minerva blinked and cleared her throat a little uncomfortably.
“Yes, that was going to be my objection,” she said. “Without using more Wand and Word, I don’t see you ever being able to Transfigure one object into another. Objects don’t have emotions or a will for you to command. What you need to do is shape them via your wand movements and your incantations. Like sculpting the wood or other material that you’re making them into.”
Harry remained still for a few moments. Minerva wondered idly if that was part of his feral nature, too. Pacing back and forth or moving as if he had a tail seemed more natural to her, but she had seen prey who froze in front of her when they realized she was close to them.
Harry wasn’t prey, though. His stillness would always be dangerous.
“Do I have to learn to do that, though?” Harry finally asked. He had a quiet voice, but not a whisper. He was looking through her, and a few mice popped their heads out of his pockets as Minerva watched. They seemed to be asking what he needed. “I mean, if I don’t want to? I can do remarkable things, you said.”
“And I think that you have a gift for Transfiguration,” Minerva said. “The whole art, not this limited subset of it.” She conjured a chair and sat on it, mostly because that brought her face low enough that Harry couldn’t avoid meeting her gaze. “I think you can become more than I have.”
Harry jumped as if she’d pricked him with a claw. “But you’re a great teacher, Professor. I don’t-I don’t want you to think I’m arrogant and planning on taking your place.”
Minerva laughed, if a little sadly. “It’s hard to imagine you returning to the halls of Hogwarts, Harry. No, I was thinking that you might become a magical researcher, or someone who takes on private students, or someone who actually creates an entire new field of Transfiguration. We haven’t had one since the last research into Animagus forms in the 1700s.”
Harry blinked, and blinked again. Minerva paused, then added, “You told me that you were going to look beyond the immediate future and try to find something else for yourself, Harry. That you wouldn’t restrict yourself to only thinking about your parents.”
“I know that. I wasn’t planning to stop looking. Only to get better at the kinds of Transfiguration I already know.”
Harry was playing with his wand and stroking his cat, not looking at her. “Do you feel disloyal to your parents because you’re no longer concentrating just on helping them?” Minerva asked him gently. Her chest ached.
“A bit.” Harry’s voice was a whisper. “But-more-I could do this. I know I’m good at this. I don’t want to fail.”
Minerva nodded. “That is a very human emotion, Harry.” He jerked a little and looked at her with eyes that Minerva highly suspected were less wild than they’d been when she came to Grimmauld Place. “It took me a long time to overcome my fear of failure and try aspects of the art I wasn’t good at. But you won’t get better without trying. You’ll only spiral deeper and deeper into a small set of skills, achieving things that will become harder and harder for anyone besides you to use or understand.”
Harry still looked unconvinced, so Minerva added, “Think about the ways that you might be able to ease your parents’ lives if you could Transfigure objects, even if you couldn’t cure them yet. More comfortable beds, more elaborate gifts than you’ve given them so far, rests for their heads…”
Harry perked up, and Minerva held back a sigh as she began to outline the kinds of spells she wanted him to try. She hated that she still had to make Harry interested in his future by appealing to his love for his parents.
But it was a beginning. He was listening to her, doing things that didn’t directly connect to helping Lily and James. He listened to Black and sometimes even joked with him. He had stopped talking as if torturing people was simply something that had to be done.
Although I’m not sure that he agrees with our objections, or if he’s doing this because he knows we would disagree and he wants to please us…
Minerva dismissed the thought firmly from her mind. For now, she would simply concentrate on the chance to work with an extraordinary student.
Chapter Thirty-Four.
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