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The Art of Self-Fashioning	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 26077 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
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Chapter Twelve—Meeting Himself
            “I won’t keep you long, Mr. Potter.”
            Harry leaned back in the chair in Professor McGonagall’s office and nodded shortly. He knew he should feel less impatient than he did. He still had months and months of the school year left. He could research all sorts of things in the Hogwarts library. He could do almost anything he wanted. He had some ingredients for the human Transfiguration he would do on the way.
            He wasn’t losing much by accepting Professor McGonagall’s invitation to tea. He would still have the chance to rescue his parents.
            “But I will keep you as long as I need to,” Professor McGonagall said suddenly, and that startled Harry enough to make him really look at her for the first time since he’d entered.
            She sat with her teacup on her knee, and her eyes on him were bright and kind. Harry squirmed. He thought he knew what she looked like. She looked like Mrs. Jute, the primary school teacher who had briefly believed him about the Dursleys’ abuse.
            “What did you want to talk about, Professor?” Harry asked. Perhaps he could hurry this along.
            “Your behavior is beginning to concern me, Mr. Potter,” Professor McGonagall answered. “You still don’t spend much time with your friends, and Professor Flitwick has told me you never went to him for Charms tutoring.”
            “I did,” Harry said, confused. “Last year.”
            “But not more recently?” Professor McGonagall sighed into his silence. “Mr. Potter, you must do well in more subjects than only Transfiguration—and you are no longer as much of a prodigy in that as you once were.”
            Harry sat still, because both frowning and smiling would seem suspicious. It was true that he’d never got better at the object-to-object Transfigurations that Professor McGonagall had assigned him. And what he was good at was starting to be highly illegal.
            “You must have other things in your life besides your schoolwork, Harry.” Harry’s senses went on full alert. When Professor McGonagall started to drop the formality, something bad was about to happen. “And Professor Lupin is concerned about you, as well. His expertise in Defense makes him sensitive to Dark Arts. He told me you have the reek of Dark magic about you.”
            “I haven’t used Dark Arts, Professor,” Harry said quietly. That was true. Only certain Transfiguration spells were classified as Dark, mostly the ones that did something like change the shape of someone’s throat so they would suffocate. They could test his wand until it snapped and find nothing incriminating.
            “There are ways and ways of being Dark, Mr. Potter. Which is to say that I believe you, but I also believe Professor Lupin.”
            Harry felt as though someone had slammed his face into the pavement. For a moment.
            Then he shrugged to himself. Adults always believed other adults, in the end. He had thought Professor McGonagall was different, but he shouldn’t have started thinking that. It only made him weaker, more vulnerable to pains like this.
            “I wonder what you really care about,” said Professor McGonagall then. “You’ve been my student for two years, Harry, and yet I feel I don’t really know you at all.”
            Harry looked up at her. She had that same stern, kindly look in her eyes she got when she watched Padma putting too much power behind a spell.
            “I don’t know what you think of your friends,” Professor McGonagall continued, “or your professors, bar a few entirely justified comments on the incompetence of Professor Lockhart.” She obviously wanted him to smile, so Harry did that. Professor McGonagall relaxed in a way that Terry probably wouldn’t have noticed. “I don’t know what you like to do to relax.”
            “Transfiguration, Professor. And reading.” Harry thought the last answer was probably a safe one. So did Ravenclaws.
            “Novels? Poetry? History?”
            “Transfiguration textbooks.” She should know. She’d lent him most of them.
            Professor McGonagall’s relaxation faded again. “But you must have other interests, Harry.”
            Why must? Harry thought, but he did begin to understand then. This was the opposite of the kind of masks he’d had to learn with the Dursleys. There, people wanted him to look normal when they thought he was really strange and freakish. Here, people wanted to think he was normal to reassure themselves that he wasn’t strange and freakish.
            Harry hadn’t used his acting skills as often at Hogwarts, but that didn’t mean he’d lost them.
            He relaxed a little and stared past Professor McGonagall’s shoulder at the wall. “I like animals a lot, Professor,” he said softly. “My—family didn’t encourage that. I wish I could feed birds and watch insects, but they wouldn’t let me put up a birdfeeder or anything like that.”
            “You could do something about that interest while you’re at school,” said Professor McGonagall at once. “I know that you’re taking Professor Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures class. Why not spend time helping him tend the animals? I think he’d be grateful for the help.”
            Harry gave Professor McGonagall a restrained smile. He enjoyed magical creatures, but he had already seen that Hagrid really had no ability to teach him about them. The only interesting thing that had happened so far in Hagrid’s classes was Malfoy insulting a hippogriff that had nearly trampled him.
            Hagrid had managed to drag Malfoy out of the way in time. Harry had been more disappointed than he’d wanted to show.
            “I have a rat and a cat, Professor,” said Harry. “I spend a lot of time with them.”
            “What about an owl? Would you like to have one that would carry letters to your friends for you?”
            Harry was about to remind her that his only friends were ones he didn’t really need to write letters to, since he saw them all the time, but then he remembered how important the acting was. He smiled. “That might be interesting, Professor.”
            This time, her smile and her relaxation lasted longer. “Do you want me to order one for you?”
            Harry felt as though someone had plunged lightning into his chest. It was so strange to remember that Professor McGonagall was like this, committed to doing nice things for him if she could.
            “Um, no thank you, Professor. I would rather pick out my own.”
            And apparently that was exactly the right thing to say, because Professor McGonagall stood up and crossed the room and gave him a small hug.
            “I’ve been so worried,” she whispered into his hair. “But you’re going to be okay after all, Harry. If you can want something, if you can make your own decisions and your own desires felt, then you’re not Dark in the way I thought.”
            Or you’re just easier to fool, Harry thought, as he hugged her back, remembering the way he’d seen Dudley do it with Aunt Petunia. You’re nice, and I feel sorry for you, but you are easy to fool.
*

            “These are some of the ingredients you wanted, Harry.”
            Harry blinked at the petals and leaves Longbottom was holding towards him. “Wait, you got them?” he asked, cupping his hand to receive them. “I thought for sure I would have to order them.”
            Longbottom smiled and leaned against the wall of the greenhouse. The red lightning bolt on his forehead was so bright it made Harry squint sometimes when he looked at him. “No, some of them grow fine in enchanted conditions. It’s just that outside Hogwarts Herbology classes, those conditions are hard to replicate.”
            “Thanks,” said Harry, and peered at the ingredients again. Longbottom had even got him the broken black rose. He smiled and looked up. “What can I do to repay you?”
            Longbottom shifted around, and swallowed, and shuffled his feet. Harry studied him in curiosity. He thought Longbottom wanted to ask him something specific, but seconds went past and he kept on not saying it.
            “I just want to know what you’re doing with those ingredients.”
            “I’m using them in a Transfiguration ritual,” Harry said. “Didn’t I tell you that?” He was getting better at letting the faint surprise show up in his voice, and at blinking, but not too fast. “I thought I had.”
            Longbottom hesitated once. Harry thought he was going to get away with it. But then he turned around and stared at Harry with eyes that shone as brightly as his scar.
            “You told me that, but you never told me what kind of ritual it was.”
            Harry tilted his head back and let his eyes harden slightly. “I don’t see why that concerns you.”
            Longbottom closed his eyes, and his bottom lip quivered. Any second now, Harry thought, he would run away. That was what he did with Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall and some of the creatures in Hagrid’s class and just about anything that was a little bit frightening.
            But Longbottom surprised him. He said, “I got you those ingredients. They’re pretty rare. Th-they could be used for lots of different things. I’m responsible for making sure you don’t do something Dark with them, since I’m the one who found them.”
            Harry stared at Longbottom. He cared about things like that? Harry had thought he only cared about Herbology and shrinking away from his fame.
            Longbottom stood there and bit his lip some more. He didn’t move away, and he didn’t attack Harry, and he didn’t laugh and say that he’d always thought Harry was Dark. Since those were the only reactions Harry had ever imagined someone having if they even started to know what he was doing, it shook him profoundly.
            Then Longbottom said, “Can’t you just—you can tell me the truth? Who else am I going to tell? No one else would listen to me about something like that. They just always want to know about V-Voldemort and whether I’m like my parents.”
            Harry heard how much courage it took him to say Voldemort’s name. Even though he would probably have to say it all the time. Although maybe not hear it all the time. Harry thought Dumbledore was the only one who said it on a regular basis.
            And still he stood there, afraid and knowing that Harry might get upset with him, but needing answers.
            Why?
            Harry blinked once. Then he said, “It’s like you feel that the whole world is your responsibility, right? That you can’t help someone do something bad even by accident, because that would be wrong for you. For your responsibility,” he added, when Longbottom only stared and blinked some more.
            “I—I don’t think it’s my responsibility to save the whole world. That would be silly.”
            “But you can think something’s silly and still go on thinking it.” Harry ought to know that. He had believed for most of his childhood that he would get away from the Dursleys even though it was a stupid thing to think, and there was no one else who could help him, and his own attempts always failed. But he had gone on believing it.
            “I can.” Longbottom shut his eyes. “Can you just tell me?”
            “I want to help heal people,” said Harry. Which was perfectly true and made him feel better about the strange ringing in his ears that had started when he realized Longbottom wanted to help people.
            “Oh. Well, that’s good.” Longbottom opened his eyes and gave him a happy smile. “I like healing. I kind of wish I could be a Healer, but I think my grandmother’s going to make me be an Auror. Like Dad,” he added, before Harry could ask why.
            Harry wondered if there were people who would think that he should be an Auror like his father. But that would require more people knowing who his parents were, and caring more about them. He knew Snape hated his parents as much as he loved them, but two people out of thousands, or millions, weren’t much.
            I’m free, in a way, because I can do whatever I want to heal my parents. But poor Longbottom has to live up to all these other people’s expectations.
            Harry put a hand on his chest. There was a strange burning sensation there, like indigestion. It was one he’d only learned at Hogwarts, because there was never enough food at the Dursleys’ to cause it.
            What is that? Harry hadn’t even had food recently. You’d think that the indigestion would leave him alone until then.
            “Are you okay, Potter?”
            Harry looked up, and met Longbottom’s eyes, and nodded. He hesitated once, then added, “You know, if you want some tutoring in Transfiguration, then I could help you. I know you could do better in that class.”
            Longbottom shuffled in place again. “Well, I’ve already got some tutoring from Professor McGonagall, and honestly it didn’t seem to help,” he murmured. “I’m just not that good at Transfiguration. I was thinking about concentrating more on P-Potions and Herbology…”
            The burning in Harry’s chest intensified. Absently wondering if one of the Slytherins had cast a curse on him when he wasn’t looking, he leaned forwards and tried to look as persuasive as he could. “But it might be different with a fellow student helping you, right? I mean, I really like Professor McGonagall, but she is intimidating.”
            Longbottom stood upright and stared at him with his mouth a little open. “I didn’t know anyone else thought that,” he said. “I mean, Hermione’s always talking about how she’s a great Head of House, and Ron acts a little sheepish when she catches him out in class, but he doesn’t say it like that.”
            Harry snorted. “Maybe they all think that Professor Snape is so bad it messes up their standards.” He also privately thought Longbottom needed to spend some time with someone besides Weasley and Granger. Plenty of Ravenclaws respected McGonagall and thought she was intimidating at the same time. “I’d be happy to tutor you.”
            “Just for helping with your ingredients?” Longbottom looked at the plants and petals in Harry’s hand again.
            “Because I want to help you.”
            The burning sensation seemed to dim. Harry blinked. That was it? That was the only thing he had to say to get the curse taken off?
            But when he thought about it, that was ridiculous, really. There wouldn’t be a curse on him to say nice things to Longbottom. If anything, one of the Slytherins would have cursed him to say nasty things to Longbottom, because that was the only thing they’d value.
            “I—that’s awfully nice of you, Harry.” Longbottom paused shyly for a second. “Can I call you Harry?”
            “Of course you can.” Harry decided being nice to Longbottom was probably easier than being nice to most other people, because he expected so little that he was overwhelmed by whatever you wanted to say.
            “Good.” Longbottom waited for something Harry couldn’t sense again, and then added, “You can call me Neville.”
            Harry reached out with one hand, not the one that held the ingredients Longbottom had given him. Longbottom shook it firmly.
            “Neville,” Harry repeated, and thought he would have to get used to it, just like he had with Terry.
*
            Severus stepped slowly back from the Retrocognition Potion, keeping his eyes locked on it. This was the trickiest moment of the brewing. He would have to use all his skill and concentration to make sure it proceeded as it was supposed to.
            The potion bubbled, golden smoke-rings drifting up from it, and Severus tensed a little. This would be harder to handle the moment the smoke-rings turned from golden to yellow.
            And he could not act a second too soon or too late, or the potion would be ruined. Any number of brewers Severus knew would not have been able to say where the line between golden and yellow lay.
            But he was watching, with every sense tensed and flickering out from him, sweeping over the rings, and he knew.
            It was…now.
            Severus’s wand flicked out, and he snapped the proper Latin incantation. “Apprehendo!”
            The moment ticked and slid over. And the smoke-rings remained motionless, not drifting up towards the ceiling on the journey that the rest of them had taken, would naturally take.
            The potion did not explode and drench Severus in liquid that would have proven harder to get rid of than burning hot tar, either.
            Severus half-closed his eyes for a moment, and let himself drift in almost pleasant exhaustion. As long as he had done this right, then the next step would not be impossible—would be merely challenging, in fact.
            When he opened his eyes, the smoke-rings remained in place, a perfect ladder that ran the gamut from gold down into the subtler shades of yellow. Severus walked closer to them, around them, and considered them for a long moment before he cast the spell that would bind them to the cauldron. The smoke swayed a little as he did it, but didn’t change the shape of the rings or their colors.
            I have done it right, yes.
            Severus didn’t ride the crest of his triumph as he might have been able to do with another, less complicated potion. He still had several steps ahead of him before he could declare the potion mastered and force it to release the vision he wanted to see.
            But he knew, now, that he would see his enemy.
            For that level of gladness, he was willing to wait.
*
            “It’s not my imagination that he’s getting better, is it?” Remus asked, leaning over to whisper to her at the Head Table.
            Minerva didn’t look away from Harry among his Ravenclaw friends—and one Gryffindor—not wanting to answer until she thought she had an answer. Longbottom was talking softly, intently, to Harry, about a book spread out in front of both of them. Minerva knew only that it wasn’t a Transfiguration book; none of them that Harry had borrowed from her or used in class had colors or pages like that.
            Harry had a surprised expression on his face. He flipped the page, appeared to read something, and then nodded to Longbottom.
            Longbottom sat back with such a triumphant expression on his face that a few of the Ravenclaws stopped eating to tease him or congratulate him or maybe both; Minerva couldn’t tell from this distance. But Longbottom’s triumph stayed, even through the teasing, if that was what it was.
            And Harry was smiling.
            Minerva breathed out slowly. She didn’t know what had made Harry want to spend time with Longbottom, if it was a purely practical matter of receiving help in Herbology or pity. She found it hard to imagine other motivations, as self-possessed as Harry was. But there they were.
            A friend, outside his House. A friend whom even now, after the debacle with the Heir of Slytherin had been resolved last year, some people stayed far away from.
            “He is getting better,” Minerva said, with a nod to Remus, who was sniffing as if he could actually pick up on Harry’s scent from this far away. “He has to be. There’s no other explanation.”
*
            Things had changed. Harry knew they had. He just wasn’t entirely sure how or why.
            On the surface, he knew Neville was the one responsible for most of the changes. He visited Harry all the time now in the library, and even came back with him to Ravenclaw Tower on the weekends. Harry had tensed up the first time he did that, but other than a few curious glances, no one seemed to notice.
            Well, one person did.
            “Off to spend time with Neville again?” Terry would ask, and the question gradually became more and more hostile. Harry finally turned around about the sixth time he asked it and stared at him.
            “And if I am,” he asked, “what’s it to you?”
            Terry turned as red as Neville’s tie. He spluttered a little. Harry stood and listened to him doing it, while he stroked Amicus in his pocket. Amicus was getting restless now that they didn’t spend as much time in the dungeon workroom. Cross seemed to have adapted better. He slept on Harry’s pillow and ate the treats that Neville fed him.
            “I—I want to know because you were my friend first.” Terry squared up his shoulders. “And I spent all this time telling people you were my best friend,” he added in a muffled voice. “It makes them doubt me when you go off and spend all your time with someone else.”
            Harry blinked. “I thought Anthony was your best friend,” was all he could think of to say.
            Terry turned his head to the side. And sulked.
            Harry ran a hand through his hair. He knew that made it stand on end, and Aunt Petunia hated it. Even Snape seemed to sneer at him more often when he did that. Not until he looked more closely at some old school photographs of his parents that Professor McGonagall had got hold of from “somewhere” did Harry see that his dad had had hair exactly like this when it was ruffled.
            He tried to run his hand through his hair all the time in Potions class now.
            “I didn’t know you felt that way,” he told Terry. “But you can come with us if you want. No one said you couldn’t. You just never asked, so I assumed you didn’t want to.”
            Terry turned back, his eyes intent. “I don’t think we should only study for Transfiguration and read about Herbology.”
            “We don’t. We also study Potions.” Neville was getting a little better at them, although Harry heard that it didn’t show much in Snape’s classes. Apparently Snape didn’t snap at Neville as much during his private training, though.
            Terry rolled his eyes. “I want to go flying.”
            “Neville hates flying. He’s scared of heights.”
            “Which means you are choosing him over me. I knew it.” Terry turned his back and wrapped his arms around his legs.
            Harry stared at him. He had that burning feeling in his chest again. He rubbed it. Last time, he had helped Neville and that had got rid of it, but this time, he had no idea what would work. He couldn’t stay here and leave Neville by himself; he couldn’t go flying with Terry because it wouldn’t be fair to Neville.
            Amicus popped his head out of Harry’s pocket and stared at him with his whiskers twitching. He was used to Harry solving problems easily, Harry thought absently, and probably didn’t understand why Harry couldn’t solve this one.
            And it was simple, when Harry thought about it. “All right,” he said. “Neville and I will take our books to the Quidditch pitch. Come with us. You can fly, and we’ll watch you. Neville might even have some comments on your technique.” Harry never did, since he hadn’t grown up with Quidditch and wasn’t interested enough to learn about it.
            Terry turned around and perked up. “Really?”
            “Sure.” Harry shrugged. “It’s the only thing I can think of that will make everyone happy, and I want both you and Neville to be happy.”
            Terry came flying off his bed. For the merest second, Harry thought there was someone behind him Terry was attacking, and he tensed, but then Terry simply grabbed him and swung him back and forth, muttering nonsense words that only came clear a second later.
            “You do care, you do care.”
            Harry patted Terry’s back. And Terry let go of him and stepped away a second later, coughing and looking around even though they’d been alone in their bedroom all afternoon.
            “Right,” said Harry cautiously. Terry had his own broom, unlike all but a few of the students in Ravenclaw. “Come on, then.”
            Terry made no sense, Harry thought as he turned around. Harry understood Neville because Neville had a responsibility to the rest of the world the way that Harry had a responsibility to his parents. But as far as Harry could tell, Terry didn’t have a burden like that. He just liked to go to classes and make jokes and groan about their homework and read.
            And fly.
            But the important part was that the burning sensation in his chest had gone.
*
            “You think there’s that much of a relationship between plants and the potions they’re used in all the time?” Neville stared at the book in awe.
            Harry smiled at him. It was nice to be able to teach people things. Nice to be smart and not punished for it, the way he would have been at the Dursleys’. And Neville wasn’t stupid. He just needed a lot of encouragement.
            “Not all the time. This is a special case.” Harry tapped the page with one finger, which listed the number of chopped-up nettles that one needed to use for a Skin-Stinging Potion. “But you can probably come up with a way to memorize how the potions relate to the plants. You know lots of things about plants I don’t.”
            Neville nodded, but not arrogantly. It was just the way he was, Harry thought, so used to being told Herbology was his best class that he accepted it. Then, abruptly, he looked up and shook his head. “You’d never catch the Snitch like that, Terry!” he called.
            Harry looked up, too. Terry was weaving all over the pitch, leaning to the side. Harry supposed he was practicing looking for the Snitch. Terry had bragged about wanting to be the Ravenclaw Seeker, although as far as Harry knew, Davies had no intention of replacing Chang.
            Terry flipped back up and flew down, landing in front of them and plowing a long furrow in the dirt. “You’re probably right,” he panted, and tossed his hair out of his eyes. “Why don’t you show them how it’s done?”
            Harry would have got upset, except he realized Terry was holding the broom out to him and not Neville, which meant he wasn’t making fun of Neville.
            He shrugged. “I don’t know how to catch the Snitch because I don’t know how to play Quidditch,” he said, and turned back to the book.
            “Harry.” Terry bounced the broom at him. “I just meant I want you to get up and show me how you can fly. Unless you’re scared.” He lowered his voice.
            Neville turned scarlet. Harry narrowed his eyes. Amicus stirred in his pocket, and Harry took him gently out and put him on the ground so he could run instead of join the flight with Harry.
            “I don’t want you to make fun of him,” Harry said back, as he took the broom.
            “I won’t.” Although Terry might have meant he only wouldn’t because he was getting his own way, Harry thought sourly, as he watched Terry move back and fold his arms, staring at Harry expectantly.
            Harry shrugged and slung his leg over the broom. He knew he would disappoint Terry because he didn’t know any of the fancy maneuvers and techniques for playing the game that you had to in Quidditch. He flew like himself, and that wasn’t like anyone else.
            Still, with the sky above him and the thick snow they’d got since Christmas only drifting down in tiny flakes now…
            I could invent a game of my own.
            Harry kicked off from the ground without a coherent plan in his head, only that he wanted to soar. He twisted and turned, bucking around the snowflakes, taking points from himself when he felt them touch his skin. Then he drew his wand, cast a Color-Changing Charm on one particularly large snowflake, and aimed after it.
            He was diving then, the air all around him charged with excitement and streaming past his ears. His cheeks stung. He held out his hand and turned to the side just as the colored snowflake swirled on a stray breeze and almost escaped.
            It didn’t escape. Instead, it came to rest in Harry’s palm. He whooped and tossed it up, then blew on it. It was already half-melted from the warmth of his hand; it melted the rest of the way in his breath as he watched.
            “Bloody hell, Potter.”
            Harry turned swiftly around where he was hovering a few meters above the pitch. That didn’t sound like Neville’s or Terry’s voice.
            Nor was it. Roger Davies stood behind him, his own broom gripped in his hand, his jaw dropped. Behind him stood the rest of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, wrapped in thick practice robes. Harry blinked. Now he remembered that there was practice today. Terry had said he’d only fly a little while because of that.
            “Sorry for taking up the pitch when you wanted it, Davies,” Harry said, and hoped it was smooth, the way his acting needed to be, to fool people. He flew down, hopped neatly off the broom, and took it back to Terry.
            Terry refused to take it. He mouthed something Harry couldn’t make out and pointed excitedly at Davies. Harry stared stonily back. He wasn’t interested in being on any teams.
            “That was some hard flying,” said one of the Chasers, his voice almost hushed. Harry thought his name was Jeremy Stretton. “I don’t think my brother could do something like that, and he was a good enough Seeker that he thought about playing professional Quidditch!”
            Cho Chang smiled at Harry when he caught her eye. “I think you were really good,” she said quietly. “Where did you learn to fly like that?”
            And there it is again, Harry thought, in an agony of bitterness and frustration. They all wanted to know how he could do this, the way Terry used to wonder how he was so good at Transfiguration. And if he even tried to explain, that it just came naturally to him, they wouldn’t believe him. And it was so annoying to hear that again and again. As annoying as it used to be to hear the word “freak” from the Dursleys. This was another kind of freakishness.
            “I just do,” Harry said. “And I don’t know the rules of Quidditch, and I don’t want to be on the team.” Terry still wouldn’t take his broom, so Harry dropped it on the ground at his feet and turned towards the school.
            “I didn’t say you had to be on the team.” Davies was jogging to keep up with him. “We have a Seeker.”
            “Good.” A few of Harry’s muscles unclenched. Neville had followed him and now trotted behind Davies, looking anxiously back and forth between Harry and the Captain.
            “But I do think it’s strange that you never tried out.” Davies looked at him again, and Harry had the unnerving feeling Davies was seeing into his muscles and bones, the way that Harry tried to when he imagined animals he could Transfigure objects into. “Didn’t you want to? We don’t always take second-years, but you could have done it when your third year started for sure.”
            Harry shook his head. “I don’t like the game. I just like flying.”
            “Really?”
            And now Davies was staring at him as if he was, yes, strange and a freak, and Harry couldn’t stand it. He broke into a run, and Davies was at least kind enough not to follow. Harry thought he heard Terry trying to explain something when he was most of the way up to the school. He couldn’t clearly hear the words and didn’t bother trying, though.
            “Harry. Harry! Wait up.”
            That was Neville. Harry was moving too fast for him. He slowed down, but continued walking with his head turned away. Neville panted up on the other side of him, and didn’t stop panting for a while, even though they were shuffling along now compared to the earlier pace.
            “Do you always do that?” Neville asked finally.
            “Do what? I don’t think there’s anything wonderful about being offered a position on a Quidditch team that I don’t want. I told Terry last year and the year before that I don’t want to play, and--”
            “I didn’t mean that,” Neville said. His voice was almost back to normal now. “I mean, do you always run away when someone says something nice to you?”
            Harry stopped and stared at him. “No,” he said plainly. “Or I could never have become friends with you.”
            Neville flushed. “I learned to stop saying how good you were in Transfiguration and Potions, though,” he said. “And how unfair it is that Snape takes so many points from you just because of who your dad was--”
            “Is.”
            Neville paused, then said, “It’s really all about your parents, isn’t it? Today was the first time I saw you look embarrassed, but you also say you don’t really enjoy Quidditch and I think you mean it. You only act angry or upset or interested when someone’s talking about your parents, though.”
            It hit Harry like a wall, the remembrance that he had barely spent any time in his workroom the last few months. All the hours in the library with Neville and Terry, and helping Anthony with Defense Against the Dark Arts, and getting kidnapped by Finnigan so he could ramble at Harry in the Gryffindor common room, and doing homework, and lying on his bed with Cross purring on his stomach. He’d done all that. He’d also gathered some ingredients for the human Transfiguration he was going to do.
            But he hadn’t thought hard enough about healing his parents’ brains. He hadn’t practiced on his own brain. He hadn’t started the human Transfiguration, even though by now he had enough ingredients that he could do a partial one.
            It’s like you never cared about us at all, said his mum’s voice in the back of his head.
            Harry turned and ran, and this time he ignored Neville’s shouting behind him. Neville was part of the problem.
*
            Harry panted as he bolted into the dungeon workroom and locked the door behind him, finally. He’d had to wait a few increasingly desperate minutes for the Slytherins who’d been standing outside their common room, laughing, to actually move and let him find the door.
            Amicus had come running to him when he entered the school, and now he hopped out and leaned his nose against Harry’s cheek, without even squeaking. Harry fell to his knees and gasped a few times. His chest was tight. It felt as if he didn’t have enough room for his lungs.
            Then he stood up and moved determinedly towards the pile of ingredients he had in the corner. He was going to make a human. He even had the carved marble block for the head now. He would do what he had to do.
            He was going to make a human and experiment on its brain. Because nothing mattered except his parents.
            He drew his wand and stood there. He knew the incantation; he had practiced the words until they literally came to him in the middle of his dreams. Commuto abundantiam hominem. He knew them the way he knew the shine his mum’s eyes would have when she was healed and she could see him—
            But long moments passed, and he couldn’t move.
            Then Harry made a soft noise and fell to his knees. Amicus raced around him in a circle, squeaking. Harry stared at the collection of objects and didn’t cry, because he had left crying behind him a long time ago.
            The tight feeling in his chest grew worse and worse, until he actually thought someone had his organs in a fist and was squeezing them.
            The burning feeling hadn’t been a Slytherin casting a curse at him. Harry didn’t think this was a curse, either. Only something he should be able to conquer and hadn’t so far. He sagged back and laid a shaking hand over his heart.
            He should be stronger. He shouldn’t have wanted to spend time around Neville and Terry so much. He shouldn’t have felt, for even a second, hurt at Neville’s words.
            He should be stronger than this. If he cared about something other than his parents, then what was he?
            Someone who didn’t even do the experiments on himself that he promised he would. Experiments you could have done a long time before you stated gathering the ingredients you would need to Transfigure a human.
            Harry lifted his wand and aimed it at his temple. There was a little pause while his hand shook and his lungs shook from the force of his breath. He could do the spell. He had looked up those incantations, too, although he didn’t know them as well as the spell that would change objects into a human.
            He closed his eyes. He opened his mouth.
            Small teeth grabbed the wand and wrestled with him for it. Harry opened his eyes and found himself staring at Amicus, who stared back and tugged fiercely at his wand.
            Harry let it go. Amicus ran off into a corner with the wand and crouched over it, staring at him.
            Harry shook his head a little. He had cast spells on Amicus, so he wasn’t simply an ordinary Transfigured rat, like the ones they had made in Professor McGonagall’s class. He was loyal to Harry. He served Harry’s goals. He was smart enough to do lots of things that even a trained rat couldn’t do. And Harry had added to the spells as he got older and found more that could improve Amicus and make him smarter.
            Why would he take the wand from me? I know I cast spells that would make him loyal to my ultimate goal. He shouldn’t even be able to do that!
            Harry took a step towards Amicus. Amicus chattered at him in warning, then bent down and opened his teeth above the wand.
            Harry froze. He could bite through it. Maybe not completely, but certainly enough to make the wand malfunction. Harry had seen what happened when Weasley’s wand wasn’t working right last year.
            And Harry couldn’t afford that. He needed his wand whole.
            He and Amicus stood there and traded frozen glares until a new thought squirmed to life in Harry’s head. Amicus served his ultimate goals. That meant he could stop Harry in small actions along the way that might seem profitable but wouldn’t serve him in the end. He had herded Harry off to bed before instead of letting him study all night, because getting ill wouldn’t help Harry heal his parents.
            Could it be—
            That trying to Transfigure his own brain wouldn’t help? Or maybe even trying to Transfigure objects like these into a human before he was ready?
            Harry shuddered. As if they had only been waiting for that barrier of acknowledgment to fall, objections were piling up thick and fast in his head now.
            Neville already knew some of the ingredients. He might not be suspicious now, but he could get to be, and he could give that information to someone else. And Professor McGonagall was already concerned. And Terry was jealous and suspicious about where Harry went when he wasn’t with him. He might follow Harry down here.
            Both Neville and Corwin, the centaur, knew about Harry’s goals. It wouldn’t take much for them to tell, after all, or for Neville to add some of the evidence together and come up with the right answer.
            Harry had to be careful. He couldn’t do whatever he wanted and take risks, because healing his parents was more important than anything—more important than the qualms he suffered along the way or the shortcuts he wanted to take or the impatience he felt.
            Harry fell to his knees. He distrusted the answer building in his head, because it felt too much like giving in to his weakness, like saying it was okay to spend time with these “friends” after all and even fly, which was the greatest distraction he’d found.
            But it was the answer. Harry knew it by the way that Amicus immediately ran back to him with his wand when Harry bowed his head, and pushed the wand into his hand, and then nuzzled his palm with whiskers that tickled.
            Harry wasn’t good enough to practice human Transfiguration yet. If he let himself get distracted and thwarted this easily, and if he was about to rush ahead and do the spell without enough preparation, he really wasn’t ready.
            Harry opened his eyes. Amicus sat upright on the floor in front of him, forepaws resting on Harry’s fingers and eyes peering anxiously at him.
            “You think that’s right?” Harry whispered. “You think it’s all right to wait a while and even act—normal?”
            Amicus made a sound that he usually only made when he saw cheese and leaped, landing on Harry’s shoulder beside his cheek, where he rolled his fur over and over against Harry’s nose and the corner of his eye.
            Harry closed his eyes and slowly raised his hand, stroking Amicus’s back. His friend had saved him from making a shameful mistake. He would have to wait. He would have to accept being weak for a time until he was stronger.
            The tide of relief he felt made him kneel there and ask another question. Was it—maybe—all right to have some friends and some flying for himself? Some time when he didn’t work on healing his parents?
            I suppose, if Mum and Dad love me, they would want that for me.
            It was a difficult thought, and Harry sat there on the floor of the workroom until he had time to get used to it. Then he stood, slowly, and made sure that no one was in the corridor outside the workroom before he left.
            He would go upstairs, and study. He would find Terry and Neville, and apologize. He would take some time to think and discover and do what he could to make sure that he was ready for this, and not distracted, and didn’t long so much to do something else that he would make mistakes.
            All the way out of the dungeons, Amicus never stopped rubbing against his cheek.
*
     eh: Well, I think you have the answer to your question. And Minerva and Remus are concerned about Harry; Remus just thinks that he’ll make Harry’s life worse in every way that matters.
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The Art of Self-Fashioning