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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
- 13
- 14
- 15
Thank you again for all the reviews!
*The quote near the end of this chapter is from Stephen Bodio’s A Rage for Falcons.
Chapter Fourteen—Yar (Part One)
            “…And so Professor Lupin has decided that he cannot continue teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.”
            A groan rose from almost every throat. Harry ignored that, and the way that Terry and Anthony were furiously whispering about where they would find a good Defense professor to replace Lupin. He kept his attention on Lupin’s face instead, the way he swept up a goblet to return Dumbledore’s toast when he made it, and how he sat there through the praise the rest of the staff heaped on him.
            Lupin only looked at Harry once, and it was such a miserable and guilty expression that Harry knew he didn’t have to worry about Lupin telling his secret.
            Snape had been the one to present Lupin in his cage and chains to the Headmaster, filling in the blanks the Memory Charm had left with some claim about how he had been hurrying to tell Lupin about the delay in the Wolfsbane Potion when Lupin transformed and attacked him. The only thing Harry had had to watch for the next morning was some sign of returning comprehension on Snape’s part or some sign that Lupin would break and tell the truth.
            But Snape hadn’t shown anything. And Lupin had tracked Harry down in the library later that day, invited him to his office, and proposed all the terms Harry could want on his own. He was leaving. He wouldn’t tell anyone the nightmarish memories he had—which he seemed to think were partially made up by his werewolf mind anyway—because he felt so guilty.
            Harry had nodded and said, “I forgive you, Professor Lupin.”
            It was the perfect thing, the way that Lupin looked after that. He was ashamed and guilty and afraid.
            Harry had no problem with people being those things, especially when it meant they would stay out of his way.
            Now, Lupin looked away from him and drank his goblet of water again. Harry smiled and turned around when Terry nudged him.
            “Can we have you over this summer, Harry?”
            “I don’t think so. My relatives really don’t like to be reminded that the wizarding world exists…”
*
            “I must insist that you do something about Harry’s situation this summer, Albus. I won’t leave it like it is for any longer.”
            Albus put down his cup of tea and folded his hands on his stomach, staring into the fire. Minerva automatically looked with him, but could see nothing that would engage his attention so strongly. She concentrated on his face.
            Albus looked tired. Then again, he often did when she saw him in private moments these days. Minerva was determined not to let that stop her. Neville Longbottom was not the only child deserving of special care and attention.
            “What alternative is there?” Albus whispered. “I talked to Remus. I thought that, after what you told me of Harry learning from you about his connection to Lily and James, his heart would soften and he would agree to take him. But he didn’t.”
            “Why not?” Minerva demanded. She knew Harry had planned to use the knowledge and confront Remus, at the very least. The flare of light in his eyes when she’d told him about Remus’s friendship with James was too bright to be anything else.
            “This is to be kept secret, Minerva.”
            Minerva bristled in silent offense. If she couldn’t keep secrets, Albus would never have trusted her in the Deputy Headmistress’s position for this long.
            Albus looked at her with a faint smile. “I know, my dear friend. But Remus came to me the night before the Leaving Feast. He said that he had changed into a werewolf because Severus was late with his Wolfsbane Potion, and he did it while Harry was still in his quarters.”
            “But Harry didn’t—”
            “No,” Albus reassured her at once. “That couldn’t have been kept silent. Apparently, what happened was that Harry managed to run away, and then Severus came in and managed to subdue Remus after a battle that destroyed a few of Remus’s personal possessions. But Remus, understandably, doesn’t trust himself around Harry anymore. Nor is he certain that Harry would want to be adopted by him.”
            “Remus used that same excuse already. He thought he would lose control around Harry and he said that werewolves couldn’t be trusted with children. But I thought it was more of his refusal to see that he’s a perfectly reasonable person, certainly more reasonable than those Muggles Harry lives with.”
            Minerva spoke the words through numb lips, though. It was incredibly different to think that Remus might do something than learning he already had.
            Albus bent a gentle gaze on her. “Would it be better for Harry, to live with someone who already lost control around him once? Who could make his life worse than any Muggle ever could if Remus managed to bite him? Who concealed his connection to Harry’s parents almost all year, and only talked about it because you revealed the truth to Harry?”
            Minerva looked away. She wanted to say that it would, to protest that Remus couldn’t know everything and Harry would at least be with someone who would never starve him or prevent him from learning about magic.
            But he would be with someone who had attacked him once. Maybe that meant Harry would never feel safe.
            And someone who had lied to him. Even though Minerva didn’t know as much about the Dursleys’ abuse of Harry as she felt she should, she had the feeling that once someone lost his trust, they lost it forever.
            “We have to do something, Albus,” she insisted, while her stomach sank. “We can’t leave Harry there.”
            Gently, he took her hand. “I am more than willing to do something, Minerva, but there is no legal or moral alternative I can find. Harry seems close with a few people, you told me, but no one who would be willing to shelter him over the summers. They have their own lives and their own duties.”
            Minerva stood up so fast that she ripped her hand away from Albus’s and he leaned back to stare at her in surprise. “So everyone is going to ignore him because he’s just not convenient?” she hissed at him. “I’ll take Harry myself before I let him go back there!”
            Albus simply sat still, gazing at her. Then he said, “My dear, if you think Harry will go with you, you are welcome to try.”
*
            “No, thank you, Professor McGonagall.”
            Harry had to work to keep from sounding puzzled. He knew Professor McGonagall meant well. But it was just strange for her to come up to Ravenclaw Tower right before they were getting ready to get on the Hogwarts Express and tell him she wanted to adopt him.
            He could imagine, years ago, before he knew about his parents, jumping at the chance. But only his real parents had the right to be parents to him.
            “Mr. Potter.” Professor McGonagall took a step towards him. Her face was agonized. Harry blinked. His first thought was that Professor Lupin had told the truth after all, but he really didn’t think so.
            With a little wave of her wand, Professor McGonagall cast a spell that prevented anyone else from hearing anything, although Harry noticed Michael, the only other one still up in their bedroom, casting them glances as he packed. Then the professor bent down towards him.
            Harry blinked. He could see compassion in her eyes that he thought was sincere, and dark, and blazing. It was the sort of emotion he would have hoped to see in Lupin’s face.
            “I know your relatives mistreat you,” Professor McGonagall whispered, as if imparting a great secret. “I want to spare you that. I want to let you spend a summer in the wizarding world, and become the wizard you should become.”
            Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing and stared for a moment at the floor. Cross sat on his shoulder, flicking his tail a little, and Amicus was in his pocket. There were mice layered all along his robes.
            They’d proved themselves in battle. Well, not Cross. But he’d scared Vernon, which was all Harry wanted.
            “They don’t mistreat me now,” Harry said, and he looked up. “They’re too afraid of magic. They didn’t try to take away the books that you sent me by owl, and they don’t starve me.”
            Professor McGonagall paused, staring at him. Then she said, “People like that don’t change, Harry. They may be acting like they’re frightened at the end of the summer, but now that you’ve been gone a year, they might decide that they can hurt you again.”
            Harry shook his head firmly. “Really, Professor McGonagall. That’s not it. They were afraid of me when I was younger, too. I just never saw it. But it got a lot worse when they saw I had a wand. And animals,” he added, because he doubted Professor McGonagall would miss the major difference of Cross and Amicus being with him. “Now that they’re so afraid, they won’t dare lay a hand on me.”
            Professor McGonagall obviously brooded. Harry waited patiently for the next part of this. His main comfort was knowing it couldn’t last long, since they had to get on the Hogwarts Express soon.
            He saw the moment when Professor McGonagall decided to throw caution away. Harry felt a little pang for her. It was like the moments when he was a child and had tried to make someone understand about the Dursleys.
            Just like him, though, she wasn’t going to succeed.
            “I know they’ve done worse than mistreat you physically,” Professor McGonagall said. “They’ve made you think that you can’t trust and rely on adults for help, that we’ll only turn you away and hurt you. I’ve tried to find someone else to adopt you, Harry. I’m sorry my efforts have come to nothing. I hoped Professor Lupin would do it, especially after he came here for a year and met you, but—well. He has his reasons that make it difficult for him to do that.”
            Lupin is a disgusting coward. I would never consent to go with him anyway.
            But Harry knew he wasn’t supposed to be too upset Lupin was a werewolf, so he kept his face sober and just nodded, and Professor McGonagall went on like a soldier. “I’ve left it shamefully long. I was trying to find a legal method that would let the person who took you in keep you and not just send you right back to the Dursleys if the Wizengamot got involved. But now I’m near the end of my patience.
            “I’m ashamed of myself. I should have offered to take you right away.” Professor McGonagall looked him in the eyes. “But I’m doing the best I can to make up for that mistake. Please let me do it.”
            Harry felt a sharp aching in his heart. She did want to make up for it. He thought Professor McGonagall was one of the few sincere and trustworthy adults he’d ever met in his life.
            And she’d taught him so much about Transfiguration. Maybe if it had been right after his first year, Harry would have considered it.
            But even if he stayed at Hogwarts with her for the summer, Harry knew she would have a much closer eye on him, and he wouldn’t be able to do what he needed to. And she might not even stay at Hogwarts for the summer. Harry had heard rumors, and in some cases facts, about most professors having houses elsewhere. He didn’t want to be confined in a little house with Professor McGonagall clucking over him.
            “It’s better now,” he said, and looked at her as firmly as he could. “Better. I know it’s not ideal that they’re afraid of me, but—”
            “I think it’s ideal.”
            Harry blinked, then grinned. Yes, it was too bad that he couldn’t make a real ally of Professor McGonagall.
            “I mean, ideal under the circumstances, which are very far from so.” Professor McGonagall stared at him again, then sighed. “I don’t want to force your choice, Harry. I think enough people have already done so.”
            Harry nodded slightly. “Thank you.”
            “But please send one of your—friends—to contact me as soon as you can,” said Professor McGonagall. “If something happens that you want help with. If they hurt you. If anything changes.”
“Thanks, Professor McGonagall. I will.”
            Professor McGonagall wavered for a moment as if she hadn’t used up all her questions. Then she surprisingly hugged Harry, as tightly as she could, before she turned and hurried out of Ravenclaw Tower.
            “Harry? The train’s almost ready to leave.”
            Harry nodded to Michael and went to pick up his trunk, still staring after Professor McGonagall. She really had wanted to rescue him. She really had wanted to do something other than just leave him with the Dursleys.
            No one else in his life had ever wanted to do so much.
            But Harry smoothly turned his thoughts aside before it could become a distraction. It was like flying: a nice thing that couldn’t be allowed to matter that much, because it wasn’t his parents.
            Long before the Express reached London and Terry and Anthony and Neville had stopped saying good-bye to him for the summer, Harry had come up with an idea that he knew should handle the thoughts of flying, focus him some more on helping his parents, and help him get a little revenge. At the very least, it should be interesting.
*
            Dear Harry, please tell me if you can come for a visit. Gran said you could, and I’d like to have you over…
            Harry smiled and shook his head over Neville’s letter. It was wonderful of Neville to want to invite him. Harry could imagine a time when he would have given the world to have a friend like this, to spend a night over at their house.
            Mostly in primary school, though. When he was years away from magic and even knowing his parents were alive, years away from the person he was now.
            Harry wrote his polite refusal quickly, glancing at the patiently waiting owl. He didn’t want to keep it waiting, but it was nice to study its talons and golden eyes from this close. This bird made less of a fuss about it than the ones in the Owlery had when Harry had gone up to watch them.
            Sorry, Neville, I don’t think I can convince my relatives to let me go to a wizard’s house during the summer. You know how they are…
            Neville did indeed have some hint of how they were, thanks to Terry. And this time it was an advantage, Harry thought cheerfully, as he watched Neville’s owl fly away again and studied the curve its wings made against the air. Harry didn’t have to lie and pretend everything was fine. His relatives could be his excuse in another way.
            I do enjoy having friends, Harry thought, as he fell back on the bed and picked up his book on birds, pausing to pet Cross. Cross was full-grown now, an adult black cat with the white cross on his chest looking almost like a gallows. He purred absently at Harry and went back to sleep. I like working around them and helping them.
            The book was about raptors. Harry was devouring all sorts of information on hawks and eagles, owls and falcons. The local library had plenty of books like that, and none of the librarians thought it was an odd interest for someone his age.
            Harry had decided he wanted a bird. It would serve several purposes. Harry didn’t have any flying animals, and this one could be a spy and perhaps protect him from surprise attacks like the one Snape had managed to make on him. It could help him take revenge. It could help him in battle in unexpected ways. If Harry chose an owl, he would have a messenger, too.
            And he would be able to fly with it.
            Harry had decided. He’d found himself thinking more and more about brooms since that day when Neville and Terry had seen him fly. They weren’t pushy about getting him on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, but the way they talked made Harry actually wake up from dreams of flight.
            The distraction had to be handled somehow.
            A bird would do that for Harry. Terry would probably even approve of the notion that Harry could fly with it because he would think it might get Harry noticed some more by the Quidditch team. And Harry could pass off a lot of the training he wanted to do with the bird as healthy exercise.
            Harry would still have to study, partially because he didn’t know what kind of bird he wanted yet and because a bird’s brain was different from the brains of all the animals he’d looked at so far. They had different kinds of intelligence and different places it was in the brain, as far as Harry could tell. Harry wasn’t yet as skilled as Professor McGonagall, to be able to transform whatever he wanted into whatever animal he wanted. He still needed to spend lots of time imagining it, and then transform some kind of specific collection of objects.
            But that would come. The Dursleys left Harry alone except for scared glances when he came out of his room to eat or drink or use the loo or walk to the library. Harry sometimes wished people at school would do the same thing.
            Well, not his friends. And the Gryffindors who sometimes asked him for help with homework were welcome, too. Harry had never forgotten that he really should have been in Gryffindor.
            But if the Slytherins could go away forever, that would be brilliant. Since the Memory Charm, Snape had spent more time scowling at Harry, but they’d only had one exam and one class left, so he hadn’t had much time to yell.
            Harry knew that Snape didn’t remember, though. Otherwise, he would already have wreaked some revenge on Harry, subtle or not.
            “It doesn’t pay for people to get on the wrong side of me, does it?” Harry whispered to Amicus as he turned pages. “All sorts of people are learning that. Although only some of them remember it.”
            Amicus curled his tail around Harry’s wrist and went back to dozing. He slept a lot when they were in Privet Drive and he didn’t have Hogwarts to run around in. Harry smiled and turned back to reading about a bird’s amygdala.
*

            “The Triwizard Tournament!” Terry’s eyes were glowing, and he practically hopped around the Ravenclaw boys’ bedroom. Then he gave up even pretending to unpack, and just sprawled on his bed and sighed dreamily. “Can you imagine? How people would look at you if you won that?”
            Harry just shook his head and went on putting his books back on the shelves. He thought he could imagine from the way people looked at Neville, and it seemed pretty unpleasant.
            “I know!” Apparently Anthony felt the same way as Terry. “And what you could do with all that prize money?”
            “I don’t think it sounds worth the danger,” Michael muttered. He was on his bed, cuddling his rat. His rat seemed to be sleeping a lot, like Amicus, Harry noticed. He would have to make sure Michael’s rat wasn’t sick. He didn’t want Amicus to catch anything, and since Harry had made him a normal rat in a lot of ways even if he was magically loyal and intelligent, he could still get sick.
            “But it would be once you won!”
            “What if you didn’t win?”
            Harry settled into his bed with Amicus and Cross and a book on raptors. He had almost decided what kind of bird he wanted, or at least narrowed it to a few choices. At the moment, he had to make a choice between how noticeable he wanted it to be and how strong he wanted it to be. A bigger bird was going to be stronger and able to do more for him, but also more visible to his enemies.
            “Harry?”
            “Hmmm?” Harry stuck his head out from behind the book.
            “You haven’t told us what you think of the Triwizard Tournament.” That was Anthony, surprisingly, turned towards him and nodding a little as if they all hung breathlessly on Harry’s every word, not Terry this time. But Terry was staring dreamily off into the distance, probably still contemplating the prize money. “Don’t you want to win? Aren’t you going to try to enter? You’re probably the best of us. You could Transfigure that age line they’re setting up into something else.”
            Harry snorted. “No. I don’t want the attention or the money or eternal glory or whatever it is.”
            “But why not?”
            “Because it’s not worth it,” said Michael again. He had a book out himself, his Potions text. Harry sighed a little when he saw that. Snape didn’t pick on Michael as much as he did Neville or Harry, but he saw some of the lack of self-confidence in Michael that he did in Neville, so Michael was his third favorite target.
            Someone ought to do something about Snape as a teacher, Harry thought vaguely, as he tried to go back to reading about peregrine falcons.
            “I asked Harry, not you.”
            Harry stuck his head around the book. “And you don’t need to sound like that when you do it, Anthony.”
            Anthony flushed. “Sorry. I just—how can you not want this?”
            “Because some people want different things,” Harry said coolly. “I want a family that doesn’t make me feel like coming back to Hogwarts all the time, and I want a home. And Michael wants a good mark in Potions for once and to study tonight. Leave him alone, why don’t you?”
            Anthony fell silent for a second. Then he turned and started discussing the Tournament with Terry. Harry shook his head. At least they wouldn’t chatter at him about something so stupid as risking their lives for a bag of gold. There were better things to risk your life for.
            “Thanks.”
            Harry could barely hear Michael across the space between their beds, but he nodded to him. “You’re welcome.” He paused. Now that Michael felt better-disposed towards him, Harry could ask the question. “Is your rat sick? I noticed he was sleeping a lot.”
            Michael smiled, maybe because someone had noticed. “No. But he always sleeps a lot when we come back to school. I think the train ride overwhelms him.” He turned back to his book, and so did Harry, and they read in companionable silence.
            Well, silence except for the dreams of glory going on over on the other side of the room.
            Glory. Was there ever a stupider motivation?
*
            “…And we appear to have a fourth Champion. Neville Longbottom!”
            Albus’s voice was choked. Minerva found herself starting to her feet. That was impossible, she thought. Neville didn’t have either the motivation or the magical strength to trick the age line and try to get into the Tournament!
            “That can’t be right,” she said in an undertone to Albus, even as Neville wobbled to his feet and towards the side-room. “You know Neville didn’t try to get past the age line!”
            “It appears we are all destined to be surprised by our Mr. Longbottom.” Severus was leaning back in his chair, a pair of dark creases between his brows as he watched. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be so surprised, Minerva, when you must know his rule-breaking tendencies better than any of us?”
            Minerva glared at him. She knew, none better, that while Neville had indeed defeated a basilisk and stopped You-Know-Who from taking the Stone, those things had been done out of desperation. Neville had done it because he couldn’t find anyone who would believe him and take the burden off his shoulders. Minerva was still ashamed that she hadn’t been there for him when he tried to tell her about his suspicions about the Stone.
            “This isn’t the sort of thing he would do,” Minerva said coolly, and walked swiftly towards the little room where the Champions were supposed to gather. She saw a student leave the Ravenclaw table, and started to move more briskly. If the people jeering were any indication, someone might actually attack Neville before he got to his destination.
            But then she saw the student was Harry, and she slowed her steps to watch. She saw Harry reach out and put his hands on Neville’s shoulders.
            “I know you didn’t do it. I believe in you.”
            Minerva saw the words mouthed rather than heard them, but she knew what they must be, with her mind so sensitive and strained, and the way that Harry shook Neville once, firmly, before he stepped away, back to the Ravenclaw table. She shook her head and went to fetch Neville, who looked a little calmer.
            In fact, Minerva felt as if someone had poured a bucket of muscle relaxant potion over her head. This eased some of her fears about Harry last year and his determination to stay with relatives who hated him. If he could still care for someone not related to him by blood, he wasn’t in as desperate a case as she’d thought.
            And if Neville had a friend, then he might well survive this Tournament Minerva was sure he hadn’t entered.
            Her arm around his shoulders, Minerva escorted Neville in to face the angry questions.
*
            “You don’t believe Longbottom did it?” Terry asked for the fifth time as they came down the stairs from Ravenclaw Tower.
            Harry sighed. He was getting tired of answering this. “Look, Terry,” he said, as he nudged the sleepy Amicus closer to his neck on the left side, and then had to adjust his right shoulder to give Cross room, “you know what Neville is like. Not very self-confident. Do you think he deliberately crossed the age line and did something that would put him in the Tournament? Not to mention, how did he fool the Goblet of Fire into thinking Hogwarts needed a second Champion?”
            “I don’t know,” Anthony said, joining the conversation. “But he is the Boy-Who-Lived. Maybe he did it with ancient magic we don’t know about.”
            Harry moved away in silent disgust. Terry could at least argue with Anthony instead of him.
            When they crossed the entrance hall to go to breakfast, someone shouted his name. Harry turned around. It was Seamus, standing with a small group of other Gryffindors. Harry walked over to them, noting Neville wasn’t with them.
            For once, Seamus looked grim. “Look, Harry,” he said. “I know how close you are to Neville. You can tell us. What did he do to fool the age line?”
            “Nothing,” Harry said. “He didn’t want to be in the Tournament. He didn’t put his name in the Goblet.”
            “Oh, bollocks,” said Ron. “Who wouldn’t want to be?”
            Harry leaned a little to the side. Cross was sitting on the shoulder closest to Ron. He had plenty of room to slap Ron on the cheek with his paw, claws sheathed.
            Ron actually reeled back from the sheer force of the slap. He stared at Harry, too startled to be angry. Harry nodded calmly at the other Gryffindors, who all seemed stupefied.
            “Let that be a lesson to you,” he said. “Of course Neville didn’t do it. You ought to know that if you know anything about him.” He paused. “It’s a sad day when a Ravenclaw believes more in a Gryffindor’s integrity and courage than his own House does.”
            Harry turned and stalked back to the Ravenclaws, while Amicus squeaked in amusement on his shoulder. For the first time, Harry wondered if the Sorting Hat had been right not to want to put him in Gryffindor. If this was all it took to make them turn their backs on a friend…
            But there was more and worse than that, as Harry saw when they came into the Great Hall.
            A lot of people were wearing badges that flickered on their chests. Harry took a close look when he realized Cho Chang had one, too.
            Support Cedric Diggory, it said, The Real Hogwarts Champion. Then Chang turned a little to the side, and her arm brushed against the badge. In a second, the letters changed, bleeding from red to green.
            Longbottom Stinks!
            Harry stepped back and looked Chang in the eyes. She turned pale so quickly that Harry suspected he wasn’t doing a good job of hiding his real expression again. He turned back to his food, shaking his head.
            “You’ve had three and a half years in school with Longbottom,” he told the air. “And who made those badges, anyway? I’d have thought better of people here.”
            “Well, I mean, we didn’t make them,” Chang said, almost whispering. She winced when Harry glanced at her. “Malfoy did.”
            Of course. Malfoy. Harry ate his breakfast thoughtfully. He would have to do something about Malfoy, who didn’t bully Harry as much anymore but still sneered at Neville and would make seemingly random remarks about St. Mungo’s when Harry went by.
            But his revenge would have to wait. For now, he had more important things to do, like supporting Neville, who had walked in and stood by the door, staring around at everyone. He was trying to hide his trembling bottom lip, but it wasn’t working very well.
            Harry snagged several pieces of toast and a few apples and wrapped them up in a napkin, then walked over to Neville. Neville brightened a little when he saw him coming, and tried to say something. Harry touched his arm instead and took him outside.
            They could talk in more privacy out there, and Harry thought Neville would eat better without the constant staring eyes.
*
            “Why did none of them believe me? All right, I mean, Hermione did. And you. But no one else. Why?”
            Harry spent a moment finishing up the apple, which he’d offered to both Amicus and Neville but which neither of them wanted, and breaking a few crumbs of toast into his hand for Cross. Then he said, “Look, Neville, I’m going to tell you something. It’s not nice, but it’s the way things are.”
            Neville gave him a desperate smile. The lightning bolt scar on his forehead shone red through his pale hair. “I think I’ve had a lot of experience in things not being nice right now.”
            Harry watched him for a second, then nodded. “A lot of people don’t have a huge audience,” he said. “I mean, their family and friends pay attention to them. But not much of anyone else. And they think that having a huge audience would give them anything they wanted.”
            He paused. Neville was listening with such attention that Harry felt as if he was pouring water and not words into his ear.
            “You’ve lived with the audience since you were a baby. You know what it’s like. But most of them don’t. All they can think of is that they would like fame, and they would take any chance they could to increase the fame. You should have heard my roommates talk about the Tournament. They couldn’t begin to grasp that some people wouldn’t want the glory and the money.”
            “I have plenty of money,” Neville whispered. “I don’t even need it.”
            “And that’s another reason that accusing you of putting your own name in is absolutely ridiculous. Anyone who knows you would realize that you’re the last person who needs anything out of the Tournament. I’m sorry most of them don’t know you.”
            “How do you know this, Harry? I mean—I heard about you a lot, because Gran would talk about your parents, but not many people know who you are.”
            Harry nodded slowly. “It’s because I got stared at and talked about when I was with my relatives. But that was because they made everyone think I was a criminal. It was fame of a sort. But not anything I ever wanted. And being noticed—people think it’s more magical than Transfiguration. Well, they’re wrong. Nothing is more magical than Transfiguration.”
            Neville smiled weakly. “For you, I know that’s true.” He hesitated. “Harry—your relatives sound so awful. Why do you stay there?”
            “They’ve got less awful as I grew up. We have an understanding now.”
            “But you could come visit. Gran would love to have you.”
            Not on your life. From the way Neville talked about his Gran, she would notice things like Harry’s claws and extra muscles too easily. And Neville’s house wasn’t big enough to retreat from her the way Harry could retreat from Professor McGonagall in between classes.
            “I’ll think about it,” Harry said. “I just don’t want to put you to any inconvenience, you know.”
            Neville’s face turned pale. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Gran is awful about inconvenience.” He shivered.
            Harry shivered in turn. He had suddenly wondered if some of the problems Neville had with self-confidence didn’t come just from being expected to save the world.
            But Neville didn’t look as if he wanted to say anything else about his Gran for now, either. He munched on the second apple with large bites and stared at the greenhouses and sighed.
            “I love Herbology like you love Transfiguration,” he mumbled. “I wish they would just leave me alone and let me get on with growing plants.”
            Harry nodded. He didn’t want to correct Neville’s assumption that Harry just loved Transfiguration for its own sake. Sometimes, Harry thought he did. But more often, he thought of his parents.
            He became aware Neville was mumbling to himself, and he turned around to listen.
            “I wish things were different. I wish I wasn’t the Boy-Who-Lived. I wish Mum and Dad were alive. Sometimes I even wish I was dead. That way, there would be no one to care what I did.”
            “I think it’s a good thing people care what you do,” Harry said quietly, and Neville blinked and turned towards him. “But the way they do it isn’t always a good thing. I’m going to do something about Malfoy and Snape, though.”
            Neville laughed, a little uneasily. “The way you say that, Harry, I almost believe you.”
            “I’m going to do it.”
            “Just—don’t hurt them, okay?” Neville looked embarrassed a second later. “I know you wouldn’t. But sometimes you look as though you would.”
            Harry smiled and made a joke, and stayed as close to Neville as he could as they walked back to their first classes. He offered Neville Cross to take with him if he wanted protection, but in the end, Neville refused and stalked off with his head held high. Harry watched him until he knew he would be late for Charms if he lingered any longer, and then took off running.
            His mind buzzed with plans as he did. Transfiguring the badges would probably have been easy enough, since Harry could summon the passion to master the object-to-object Transfiguration when he was this angry, but it wouldn’t have been enough to punish Malfoy for what he’d done.
            And then there was Snape…
            Harry paused, as a bit of reading he’d done about birds came back to him.
            There might be a way to take revenge after all, he thought, as he settled in the back of Flitwick’s class and waved absently to Terry, who was sitting near the front. But it’ll take getting my bird ready first.
*
            The hostility of the school settled down into a background buzzing, still unpleasant but manageable, Minerva thought. The Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students were at least going ahead with their own preparations and largely ignoring Neville. Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff Champion, was doing his best to get his own House to not wear the badges young Mr. Malfoy had created.
            Minerva was able to give Mr. Malfoy detention for bragging about his badges in class and disrupting one of her lectures—a satisfaction, if a small one.
            But the hostility wore on Neville anyway. He came to their training sessions more pale and quiet than he had been in the past year. Minerva thought the lack of any sort of attempt on Neville’s life last year had heartened him a little.
            Still. One event like this, and he got thrown back into the doldrums Minerva had spent so much time trying to rescue him from.
            Minerva sighed, and ignored the temptation to turn Severus’s hair tiger-striped when he bragged about his Slytherins and ran down Harry and Neville in private conversation, and soldiered on.
*
            Harry settled back and studied the collection of objects in front of him for a minute. Yes, someday he would be able to transform any object into any animal the way Professor McGonagall did. But that was for the future.
            He stretched and gently took Amicus and Cross off his shoulders to put them on the floor of the dungeon workroom. It had taken him longer to do this than he’d thought, because he’d also been helping Neville study for the First Task and try to find a spell that would work on dragons. Neville had run into Ron’s older brother, a Dragon-Keeper, one day, it seemed, and figured out the Task from there.
            But now. Harry had golden forks laid out for the legs. He had shining quartz for the eyes. He had a curved blade for the beak. He had small shaped curls of parchment for the feathers. He thought he had done pretty well, given the other calls on his attention and time.
            Harry took out his wand, full of anticipation. And then he heard a little sound from the side. He immediately leaped and turned and came down, heart crazy, thinking that someone like Malfoy had found the door that led into his workroom again.
            But the sound was Amicus. He was jerking. Harry immediately rushed to his side and knelt down, casting some of the healing magic he’d studied.
            Nothing happened. Amicus held up his front paws and squeaked softly. Harry took them, not sure what else he should do. There was—there were white dots on Amicus’s muzzle he had never noticed before, and his tail traveled back and forth more slowly, and—why hadn’t he noticed?
            He’d spent too much time thinking about humans, not enough about his animals.
            Amicus shuddered once more, and squeaked as if he was having trouble breathing. Then he turned to the side and laid his head against Harry’s fingers, and died.
            Harry stared at him in silence. He had created a natural rat, in many ways, even though he was also supernaturally loyal and intelligent. And Amicus had aged, as rats did, and died of old age.
            Rats only lived a few years.
            Harry had known that. He simply hadn’t thought it would apply to him.
            He stood. He knew his wand was in his hand. He knew his head was a rotating mess of thoughts, scraps blowing around a center, crystalline whirlwind. He knew he turned to the collection of objects in the corner without a clear idea of what would come next.
            And he aimed his wand and spoke perfectly the incantation that had been hovering in the back of his mind all day. “Commuto abundantiam aquilam.”
            The image and magic in his head gave a great shudder, and poured out of his wand. They encircled the collection of objects. Harry knelt without meaning to, simply because the effort had been so great, and watched with silent, dazed eyes.
            The feathers sprang up and attached themselves to the developing body, and there were many more of them now than Harry had thought there would be, pale brown ones and rushing dark ones and now and then a white. As Harry watched, the stones blinked into amber eyes, less kind and more alive than Lupin’s. The great wings rose and spread, and the hooked beak appeared, just the way he had imagined, so sharp that Harry knew it could bite through his fingerbones.
The bird took a step forwards, its right talon falling hard on the floor. Harry knew, because he’d looked it up, that a single careless squeeze of that talon could crush his hand.
The golden eagle he had chosen to create—not it, but she, because female eagles were larger than males—raised her head and moved it in a curving bob to the side, studying him with eyes incapable of sorrow. Harry knew she was probably deciding whether he was food or not, whether he held any interest for her, or whether he was blocking her way out the door.
Harry had used different spells on her, because he had to. Bird brains were different from mammal brains, and the most useful books he’d found were on falconry. You could work with an eagle, but you didn’t tame it the same way you did a cat.
Or a rat, Harry thought, and the blast of grief that went through him meant he had to look harder and longer into the eagle’s eyes, because she offered him an alternative to simply sitting there and mourning Amicus.
            One of the books he had read had said, “You must always remember that you do not teach her to kill; you teach her to return, and to accept you as her servant.”
            Right now, the eagle had turned and was considering Cross, and Harry knew, for his sake, for hers, for Amicus’s, where they had to go.
            He flung open the door of the workroom and began to run. He felt the eagle’s attention snap to him at once. Then he heard the beating of her wings, following him, drawn after him by the sight of running prey.
            Harry began to spring when she got close, trusting in his Transfigured muscles to keep him out of the reach of her claws. He didn’t look back. He had the mice running on either side of them, and he could only trust that they would warn him of someone coming down the corridor in time, as well as manage to avoid her talons.
            He leaped up the stairs to the entrance hall and turned that way. He thought he heard her wingbeats hesitate for a beat behind him, as if she was afraid of the open air.
            And then she sailed straight past him and up, and up.
            Harry didn’t bother tracking her with his eyes. He ran to the Quidditch pitch instead, and the small shed of school brooms kept for the flying classes. He easily Transfigured the lock into a mouse, the one transformation he could do on any object now, and dragged out the broom nearest the front.
            The rotating grief in his head had settled down to a focused eddy, and Harry replaced even that a moment later with the real wind, stinging past him as he soared up to her level.
            It wasn’t dark yet; Harry had snatched an hour for his work before dinner, considering the study sessions he’d probably be involved in afterwards. And he was glad as he watched his eagle rise, reaching the height where she could circle and glide, her wings flung back and the sunset gilding her pale feathers.
            It was cold this high, and with the November air. Harry didn’t give a damn. He rode, and watched the eagle flying, turning her head towards the ground on a regular basis, looking for something to hunt.
            Something else Harry had read came back to him: birds of prey were all hunt. They didn’t know how to calm down. There was the moment when they were hunting, and the moment when they were eating, and otherwise they weren’t really alive.
            Teach me to be like that, Harry told her without words. Teach me to be alive again.
            The eagle gave a soft, surprisingly melodic chirrup and tilted a little to the side. Harry looked down. He had no idea what she’d spotted. They were high up enough that the pitch had become a smear of green, and an eagle’s eyes were so much sharper than his.
            That’s something that will have to change.
            He had to think of the future, not the past, or he would start remembering—
            The eagle tilted and dropped.
            Harry followed her without thinking, watching as her wings curved and parted the air, watching as she thrust her head forwards and now and then, as he could just see from the side when he drew level, her eyes blinked. She was flying now with a zig to the side, and when Harry looked down, he saw a sharp burst of motion.
            A rabbit. At least not someone’s pet cat or Cross. Harry wouldn’t have to deal with that—
            And then he lost all sense of moral concerns, of the larger world, as he watched her throw her feet out in front of her and bind to the rabbit, spilling it the ground, flipping over once as the rabbit kicked and drummed. Her feathers flew up around her like ornaments. She stabbed once with her feet, and ducked her head once, and the drumming stopped.
            She turned to look at Harry as he landed beside her, and screamed.
            Harry stood there, listening to the high sound. His breath was short, but he no longer felt as if he might come near tears, and the whirl in his head had stopped.
            He stood there and watched her dig into the rabbit, beak coming up red, her feathers rising and fluffing out. He thought he could see a slight calmness in her eyes, but they remained wild.
            Wilder than Cross’s or Amicus’s. Different from Amicus’s, which was something Harry needed right now.
            He had at least two things from this evening, he thought. The knowledge that some of his more powerful and creative magic could come out of grief.
            And a friend who could fly.
            Harry waited until she had finished feeding, and then decided to see if the other qualities he had imagined in her worked. He held out his arm and caught her eye, then flexed his fingers a little.
            It took a lot of concentration to stand there as she flew at him, talons still covered in blood and fur. She landed on the patch of skin on his shoulder he had hardened in anticipation of this, and Harry still winced. He would have to get a special glove and arm-rest, or else he would have to harden more skin.
            She stared at him, and Harry stared back, breathing slowly. She was a companion, but she wasn’t tame. Her eyes had none of the savagery of the werewolf’s, but she could still attack. It would just be for a better reason.
            “Your name is Yar,” he told her, thinking of the cry she’d given when he landed beside the rabbit.
            Yar lifted one foot to clean it of fur, ignoring him. Harry moved slowly towards the school, leaning a little to the side to balance the immense weight.
            Later. Later he would come back to the dungeon workroom, and he would take Amicus’s body, and bury it. For now, he had a winged ally to settle. He could accept the congratulations of his friends, who knew that Harry had been trying to Transfigure a bird.
            And now that he had Yar, he could get on with some of his plans to help Neville in the Tournament—and get revenge.
            Harry couldn’t find it in him to smile, but when Yar peered ahead at the school in a way that anticipated the future, he could do the same thing.
*
            Anon: Thank you! And wait until he can use Yar in battle.
            brian: Thank you!
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The Art of Self-Fashioning