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Children of the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 12412 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Part Seven
“All right. I spoke to my relatives who work in the Ministry. They said they would be able to do something for Quirrell if you could figure out what was wrong with him for sure. Their investigation hasn’t turned up anything.”
Harry smiled and curled his arm around Golden’s neck. They were meeting in an alcove on the third floor that McLaggen had said was private, and both Golden and Antonio were keeping watch. “I can do that. What do I need to do for your relatives?”
“An interview. They need an interview where you tell the truth about what happened with your Muggles.”
“I don’t think I can leave the school, though. Is someone going to come here and interview me?”
McLaggen nodded, a piece of his hair falling into his eyes. “But we’ll have to either keep it quiet and without the Headmaster’s knowledge, or you need to invite them. Which would you rather do?”
Harry hesitated. There was one thing he actually hadn’t tried, and until he had, he supposed he didn’t have the right to sneak around Headmaster Dumbledore. “Let me invite them. Who’s going to interview me? Someone from the Prophet?”
McLaggen was relaxed and grinning now. It seemed he really wanted to help Harry that much. Harry smiled again. “Not that kind of interview, Harry. With my cousin Julian who works for Children’s Services. He’ll bring a list of questions they use in these kinds of interviews, but he might ask other ones, too. Would that be okay?”
“Is it special treatment?”
“It has to be. Most of the time, they would only do this kind of interview with an adult present. They respect that your guardians are abusive and most of the professors in the school wouldn’t go against Dumbledore. So they’ll do it alone. And they’re agreeing to do it in the first place—”
“Because I have a golden familiar.”
“Yes.”
McLaggen said it without a trace of shame. Harry sighed, but he remembered how much hard work it was going to take to change things. He could go slowly, or he could try and go fast, but he didn’t think anyone would listen to him if he did that. And he could try to use only Light magic, or he could use Dark magic, too, like the ritual that would free Quirrell from Voldemort’s spirit. He had to do what worked.
He had to let people do special things right now because he had a golden familiar. But soon things would change, and then he would be more equal and people would calm down. He just had to get there first.
He nodded to McLaggen and said, “First I’m going to talk to Dumbledore and figure out if he knows about Quirrell being possessed. It just seems like he has to.” He thought about mentioning that Professor Snape thought Dumbledore did, but then he decided not to. McLaggen was like most Gryffindors. He hated Professor Snape. “But if he doesn’t say anything, then we’ll go ahead and do what we have to do.”
“Are you sure the Hat didn’t want to put you in Gryffindor, Potter? You’ve got the rule-breaking aspect down pat.”
“Hufflepuffs break rules, too. We just don’t get caught.”
McLaggen snorted, shook his hand, and went away, saying he was going to send an owl to his cousin about a time when he could come to Hogwarts and interview Harry. Harry took Golden’s head between his hands and looked him solemnly in the eye.
“Can you go and find Fawkes? Just tell him that I’d like to speak Headmaster Dumbledore. I don’t know the password for his office.”
Golden flicked his tongue out to touch Harry’s hand briefly, and then turned and slid up the corridor. Harry watched him go. He hoped things would work out. Headmaster Dumbledore just seemed like a really strange person if he knew about Professor Quirrell being possessed but wouldn’t try to help him.
*
“Wow, this is brilliant.”
“I’m glad it meets with your approval, dear boy.” Albus settled back behind his desk and watched Harry stare around in awe. And unabashed fascination. He smiled. It had been a long time since he’d been eleven, but Harry’s bright eyes reminded him in the best possible way. “Now. Did you want to tell me why you sent Golden to seek out Fawkes?”
“Oh! Yeah.” The boy jogged over and sat in the chair in front of the desk. His snake followed him, sliding along the floor. Albus watched him. Golden seemed fat and lazy and more prone to curling around Harry’s feet and falling asleep than helping him wield powerful magic, but Fawkes had seemed like a harmless downy hatchling when Albus first entered Hogwarts, too.
Albus was not sure what he regretted more: that Golden was, well, golden, or that he was a snake. One of them might have been livable, despite the shock of seeing the boy show up with such a familiar. Both of them together were not.
“Are you going to help Professor Quirrell, sir?”
Albus blinked and looked up to find the boy studying him with those startling green eyes. They hadn’t been equally startling in Lily Evans’s face, he remembered. Then again, the silver dolphin swimming through the air beside her, while remarkable, hadn’t been a challenge to everything he believed in.
“In time, my dear boy, in time.”
“But he’s suffering right now! And his familiar must be suffering all the time, with that horrible snake inside her! I mean, I like snakes. I’m glad I have Golden. And Professor Snape’s is really handsome. But Professor Quirrell is supposed to have a rabbit. Not a snake.”
“I assure you that I am working on it, Harry.”
Albus put a little sternness in his tone, but the boy didn’t seem impressed by it. That made Albus grieve. He knew Harry, growing up in the Muggle world as he had done, couldn’t have really understood what it meant to stand at the top of the wizarding hierarchy when Hagrid had first taken him shopping in Diagon Alley. Was this a sign that he had indeed adapted, too fast, and would disdain the people around him as being beneath him?
“But he needs help.”
“Any solution would take time, even something drastic. I think you probably know that, Harry, with the amount of research I suspect you have had your friends do on possession.”
“I know. But—it would really help, sir, to know that you’re moving forwards and you’re going to do something about it. Are you? Could you just tell me what it is and when you’re going to do it?”
Albus’s heart did melt at seeing the compassion in that small face. No, he was sure the boy hadn’t lost the lessons of pity and humility he would have learned in the Muggle world. He simply wasn’t the best at expressing himself, but then, what eleven-year-old was? Albus must remember not to judge him too harshly.
“I’m afraid that I can’t tell you what it is, Harry, because if Professor Quirrell is possessed by the spirit I think he is possessed by, then he would read the truth out of your mind. But I can tell you that it will be solved by the end of term.”
Harry blinked. “Oh. By the Christmas hols, sir?”
“Oh, possibly. By the end of the year, at least, in June.”
Harry sat up as though someone had jerked him up like a puppet. “Please, sir, that’s not enough. Please move faster.”
“But these things cannot be rushed at all.” Albus linked his fingers together, and nodded at Fawkes, sitting on his perch a few feet away. Fawkes obediently sang a trill of notes. “It’s like Fawkes maturing from a chick to an adult and then rebirthing himself in fire. Rushing it would mean that he wouldn’t be a mature phoenix, only a firebird.”
He’d hoped to make Harry smile, but Harry was too intent. “Could you speed it up so it is by the Christmas holidays? Sir.”
“No, Harry, I do not think I can.” Albus had hoped at one point that things would be solved faster than they looked to be moving, but now, he assumed that he would need until the end of the year for Quirinus to either find a way past the traps and find himself confounded, or ask for help. He couldn’t perform any ritual or spell that would affect the possession without free consent from the victim. The other ways were all intolerably Dark magic.
“Okay.” Harry hung his head. Albus stood up and came around the desk to hug his shoulders with one arm. He remembered being downcast like that himself, especially after he realized that nothing he did would bring Ariana back or fix his own mistakes.
He could only do better going forwards in the future. And one of the things he had learned was how not to make the same mistakes. He wouldn’t move too fast. He wouldn’t fire spells impulsively. He wouldn’t just assume that someone would do what he wanted, the way he had assumed Aberforth would stay home from Hogwarts and take care of Ariana. He would ask, and consider things from many angles, and wait for permission.
“I assure you that things are under control, Harry, probably better than you think. And you are a child, in any case. A child should not have to concern himself with adult problems.”
“Even if I have a golden familiar, sir?”
Albus blinked and shook his head. “No. Has someone been telling you that you should?” Severus was the most likely candidate. He did seem to be much more bothered about Harry having a golden familiar than he should be.
“Just—people expect a lot of me. And I want to help them.”
“Professor Quirrell is going to be helped, Harry. I promise. When he asks for help, then I can conduct the proper spell to banish the spirit that possesses him.”
“So there’s a spell you can only do with permission, sir?”
“Just so, Harry. You have to have the consent of the victim, if it is to remain Light magic.”
Harry was looking a little calmer now, and he nodded, as if satisfied that Albus’s explanation made sense. Then he leaped off the chair and asked, “Can I go now, sir? I’ve got some homework that I have to do.”
Albus chuckled indulgently. The boy seemed to be taking less on his shoulders when he knew adults would handle it. He could relax back into being a child now—as he still was, no matter the implications of the golden snake at his heels. “Of course, my boy. But remember to eat dinner and take some time for yourself! I think you deserve a relaxing evening.”
Harry smiled at him and then turned and left. Albus reached out to stroke Fawkes. His phoenix leaned into his touch with a worried little croon.
“Yes, his sense of responsibility is rather overdeveloped,” Albus told Fawkes. “But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, as long as he can relax and play sometimes. And it’s probably part of what got him into Hufflepuff. He’ll start making some friends in his own House soon. They can teach him how to relax.”
*
“He’s not going to help Professor Quirrell, Golden.”
Golden reared up against Harry’s legs. They were in the Hufflepuff common room, but it was late, and almost everyone was in bed by now, if they weren’t out serving detention. Cedric kept coming down the stairs to give him chiding looks, but Harry had said he would be up by curfew. Cedric was probably asleep by now. He hadn’t come down the stairs in the past half-hour.
Golden studied him seriously, and then he nodded.
“And he wants to stick with Light magic.”
Another nod.
“So we can’t rely on him. But Professor Snape can’t do this all alone and with just us. We need another adult. What do you think about…”
Harry tapped his fingers on the chair for a minute before Golden got his head underneath them and hovered there, extremely satisfied to have Harry petting him instead. Harry smiled gently at him and stroked his scales with little motions.
“All right. We’ll ask Draco about speaking to his mum tomorrow.”
*
Jabsher12: Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it.
Jan: Don't worry, Severus will never do that again.
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Children of the Sun