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Other People's Choices	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 24374 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story

Chapter List
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Chapter Seventeen—Preparing the Ground
“I think you have a natural talent for dueling.”
Harry stands up from where he ducked behind a cauldron when Severus launched a spell at him. “Thank you, sir.” He takes the Calming Draught Severus extends to him without hesitation. Severus watches with slowly narrowing eyes as Harry’s breathing eases off while he drinks it.
“You’ve had that before?”
“Tarquinius gives it to me all the time after we duel. He says that I get soaked in adrenaline and I need to calm down.”
“And what can you tell me about this particular potion?” Severus murmurs, taking the vial back and dropping it neatly into the nearest pocket of his robe. He keeps his voice casual and his head turned as if he is inspecting a chip in the brass cauldron on the table instead of listening to Harry’s words.
“That you need to be careful how you take them. If you drink too many in a day, then it’s likely to clog up your throat. Some people make them with dandelion seeds, but that’s not a useful variation. You can brew some of the ingredients in an eggshell and get a concentrated version of it when you’re on the battlefield and you don’t have a cauldron.” Harry pauses. “Do you want to hear about how to brew it, sir?”
“No. You’re doing well.” Severus glances up then. “Why is it that you can do so much better here than you did in my Potions classroom?”
“Because I think that you care more about my success now. And there’s no Slytherins around to throw things into my potion and knock me off-balance.”
“You realize that that might be Gryffindors, now?” Severus touches his wand to the chip in the cauldron and murmurs a Reparo. It won’t do to hold a brewing lesson with less than perfect equipment. That is information he tries to impart to students with both words and actions. God knows that most of them never listen.
“Yes, sir.”
“And?”
“And I’ll deal with that when it happens.”
Severus glances at Harry. Harry is still wiping sweat from his forehead, but his gaze back is calm and stoic. Severus has to nod. He admits it makes little sense to worry about problems before they happen. One should prepare, but worry and panic are the opposite of useful emotions for preparation.
“You should think about other things that will change when the school year resumes as well,” Severus tells him. “Such as how you’ll handle playing Quidditch, and how you’ll handle negotiations with Mr. Malfoy for the Seeker position.”
Harry’s face hardens a little. “I’m thinking about it, sir.”
That is all Severus can ask for, after two years of no thought.
*
Tarquinius rolls his eyes and tosses the letter from the Ministry into the fire. He expected these legal arrangements for Harry to take a long time; no one has tried to make them in more than a century. But he did not expect to be dealing with people who doubt that Harry is a Parselmouth at all.
Of course, now that he thinks about it, his self-imposed deadline doesn’t need that much urgency. Harry will return to Hogwarts soon. While he’s there, Tarquinius doubts the Headmaster will try to move him somewhere else, and he’ll probably consent to Harry spending the holidays with the Weasleys. That is annoying in one way, but Harry can probably contrive some way to slip away and visit Theo. Tarquinius has at least that much faith in the child’s cunning.
No, the real deadline is summer of next year, when Harry will need a residence that is not a former Death Eater’s home.
Tarquinius smiles a little. He looks forward to seeing what Harry does in the next year. It might make the “former” part of the title he just thought more true than ever before.
That moment of humor makes it easier for him to apply his mind to the problem in front of him again.
*
“I wanted to talk to you about something important, Blaise.”
Blaise moves hesitantly into his mother’s dressing room. Normally Bernard would be there, but he doesn’t seem to be this morning. Then again, didn’t he mention something about going to check on his Greek businesses yesterday?
Blaise sits down in the beautiful, spindly chair with the sunburst back in front of his mother’s ebony vanity, and watches her arrange her hair in a complicated knot on top of her head. He knows that other women do this with either magic or the help of house-elves. But there’s little about Naarah Zabini that connects her to other women.
His mother looks into the mirror, and nods at something there Blaise can’t see for this angle. Then she pulls a hand back, and the dark lock she’s been touching stays in place. Blaise can catch a glimpse of a gleaming black comb for only a moment before she turns to look at him.
“I’m concerned about your friendship with the Potter boy.”
Blank face, hands calm in his lap. Blaise has played this game for years. “Oh? What specifically concerns you about it, Mother?”
His mother pauses. Blaise wonders if she thought he would deny the friendship, or try to say that it’s not that close.
But Blaise can hardly do that, not with Harry’s distinctive owl coming and going all the time. And Blaise thinks Bernard has probably cast some charms that let him read the letters over Blaise’s shoulder or as a reflection on the wall sometimes.
Mother never does things like that. She expects willing submission, which means truth when she asks Blaise questions like this.
Mother touches her jawline as though she’s swallowing a potion that will help her think better. “You know that I have raised you to be as discreet as possible, Blaise. You don’t need to show yourself better than others because you know that you are better.”
Blaise blinks. “Yes, I think that’s wise, Mother. I am trying to follow you what you taught me.” He wonders for a moment if Bernard has complained about him reading Harry’s letters, but schools his face to calmness. He won’t get good results if he tries to separate Mother from her boyfriend right now.
Mother regards him again. “And you don’t have anything you want to tell me, Blaise? About the letters, or the degree to which you follow Harry Potter?”
Oh. So that’s it. She’s concerned about the possibility that Harry might influence him unduly. Blaise shakes his head with a faint smile he can’t help. She should be worried about so much other than that.
Then again, maybe she should worry. Blaise has never had a genuine friendship before. He doesn’t know what it’s going to do to him.
“I’m glad that you find this amusing. Someone should.”
Blaise only shakes his head again. He doesn’t feel threatened, not at the moment. He knows the friendship he’s forging with Harry is as far beyond his mother’s comprehension as it once would have been beyond his own. “I was only thinking, Mother, that I can’t follow someone I have to spend most of my time guiding.”
“Oh?”
“He knows nothing about Slytherin, Mother. He spent his first few days upset and pouting that he was placed there. I know that he’s learned a little more about it because he’s been with a Slytherin this summer, but that doesn’t mean he’s got all the subtleties down. Look how long they take most people to learn. And he’s writing to me with questions, and he’s never been taught to use the power of his name.”
Mother makes a gesture that almost brushes loose the lock of hair she spent so much time tucking away. “You must be mistaken about that, Blaise. Dumbledore would have ensured that he knew—”
“Dumbledore had him raised by Muggles, though.”
Mother goes still and looks over Blaise’s head into the mirror. Blaise doesn’t turn around to see what she’s looking at. He wouldn’t understand even if he caught a glimpse of it. And another thing Mother has raised him to do is not show curiosity.
“He must have had a motive for that,” Mother murmurs finally, tapping her long, gleaming blue-black nails on the surface of the desk. Blaise doesn’t look down for the marks they must be placing there. “Perhaps Potter is playing into that. Perhaps you are playing into that, following Potter.”
“Can you follow someone who doesn’t want to lead?”
Mother blinks, a slow, perfectly-calculated movement. “Who would not want to lead?”
“Potter. He simply acts as though he’s astonished when I bring up anything about the difference he might make in Slytherin House or what kinds of people might want to follow him. That’s why it’s going to be a genuine friendship on his side. He doesn’t have any idea how to let it be anything else. He doesn’t see the power structures that are everywhere in Slytherin.”
Mother lets her head sink until her chin is resting on her knuckles. “But you still do not have to be his friend.”
“If not me, then someone else would be. And when that person rises with Potter to the top of the hierarchy, I’ll be left behind.”
Mother smiles as if she doesn’t want to. That may be the first time Blaise has ever seen that. Mother simply doesn’t do things she doesn’t want to. “You are learning my lessons well, Blaise, and I believe you have earned a reward.” She extends a hand. “Bernard will be away on his business until at least tomorrow. You and I will go to see the sirens swimming outside Venice and luring Muggles to drown.”
Blaise stands up at once. He’s never been allowed to go on this journey before. Mother always said he was too young to appreciate such refined amusements.
As he takes Mother’s hand and feels her drop the house’s defenses so they can Apparate, Blaise wonders whether she’s taken into account that Harry Potter has managed to change even this, the behavior of people who were once Slytherin but are no longer.
He doesn’t say it, of course, Mother has probably thought of it, and Blaise will need to take that into account and act with it in mind.
And if there’s a chance she hasn’t…
What a fool he would be to give up that advantage.
*
Theo watches as Father walks from the dining room to go take his pain-killing potion, the way he does in the mornings. He nods and swivels around in his chair to face Harry.
“What do you want to do today?” he asks. It’s only a week until they go back to Hogwarts, and Harry’s friends have visited several times. Theo has been allowed to join his dueling and brewing lessons with Professor Snape most times now, too.
His father still keeps them to separate lessons when it comes to him. Theo doesn’t mind that. Harry is so open he tells Theo everything he and Father study anyway, although Theo can’t always follow it easily.
Now, though, Harry toys with his food instead of coming up with the expected answer of, “Flying!” He’s frowning, and Theo settles slowly back in his chair. It looks as though Harry is working up the courage of asking any one of the number of questions he should have asked before now.
Theo’s ready.
Harry finally glances up. “Do you think it’s true that Blaise’s mum has killed a lot of people?”
Oh. Not the question he expected, after all. Theo thought he would ask about Father, or her. He blinks, then says, “I think it’s probably true. It’s only rumors, though. You can’t just go up and ask Blaise about it. He’d be obligated to defend her.”
Harry’s mouth gets long and stubborn in the way Theo’s already recognized means a huge argument. “Okay, but if it’s true, or it’s probably true, then why is no one doing anything about it?”
“Because she lives in Italy most of the time, and the British government doesn’t care enough to extradite her. And because only a few of the people she killed were even citizens of wizarding Britain, I think. They’re not going to start an investigation into rumors about people killed several countries away.”
“She lives in Italy, but Blaise goes to school at Hogwarts?”
“She’s British by birth, I think. And she has a kind of sentimental attachment to Hogwarts. Why?” Theo can’t stop himself from adding. “Do you think you might have to go rescue him from her or something?”
He’s sorry for the question when he sees the way Harry faces him, lightning brewing in his eyes. “I think I might. He can’t tell me hardly anything in his letters. I know that he has problems with his mum, and you have problems with your dad, but you can at least tell me more about it.”
Oh, Harry. You know so little. The truth is that he doesn’t need to know more than he does about Father right now, though, so Theo resists the temptation to enlighten him. “I know that Blaise wonders why she chose to produce just one child. What was different about his father from the other ones she’s slept with and murdered, or what’s different about him from the other children she could have had. He’s under a lot of pressure to be perfect.”
Harry spends some time brooding on that. Theo watches him in both wonder and contentment. He thinks he knows what’s going to happen next, but he’s not sure. It’s fun watching Harry figure out what he’ll do next.
Harry finally looks up. “We have to make sure that Blaise is safe in the future.”
“I’m not sure he would thank us for that. It’ll make him look weak in front of his mother, and if that happens—”
“Then we’ll just have to make sure that he’s beyond her reach.”
Theo sighs and decides that he has to give up part of the game. “My father can’t run a halfway home for orphans, Harry. Blaise would probably never consent to come here anyway.”
“Didn’t your father say he was making other arrangements for me?”
“Yes, but they might not be ready before next summer. And there’s no reason that whoever it is would consent to take Blaise as well.”
“I want to do something.”
“The best thing you can do for now is make the changes to Slytherin that he thinks you can make. That will prove to his mother that he’s right about you and let him continue your friendship.” Theo pauses. “You’re going to commit to living in Slytherin, right? Not cut yourself off like you did at the end of last year?”
“How could I do that? I know you and Blaise now, and neither of you would let me do that.”
“True.” Theo isn’t entirely reassured, though; there’s a distance n Harry’s eyes that makes reassurance pretty much impossible. “I suspect one of the first challenges you’ll have to face is over the Seeker position, and whether you’re going to take it away from Draco or whether you’ll try out for Chaser or Keeper.”
“I’ll face it.”
Harry’s voice is clipped. Theo raises his hands and backs off. “All right. But you still have to realize that we can’t just march in and rescue Blaise. I might like to, but we can’t.”
Harry nods briskly. His eyes are still gazing somewhere in the distance. “I just want to make sure that I don’t endanger him accidentally, either.”
What about endangering him on purpose? But Theo is wise enough not to say that. “Fine. So those are things that we can think about when we go back to Hogwarts. What do you want to do now?”
And now Harry smiles in the way that Theo’s come to think of as natural to him, and turns around to head up the stairs. “Fly.”
Theo spends a moment pondering why he feels better when Harry’s smiling than when he’s not. He shrugs and follows him up the stairs in the end without an answer, though. He doesn’t understand enough of the changes that are happening in him, in Harry, and all around them to say anything about that yet.
*
Harry sits in the compartment on the Hogwarts Express and breathes softly. Around him are Theo, Blaise, Ron, and Hermione. His Gryffindor and Slytherin friends are sort of ignoring each other; they speak to people in the same House and to him, but not really across the House divide.
It’s a start, though, and that’s all Harry wants right now.
The door to the compartment slides open, and Malfoy steps inside. He looks straight at Harry, ignoring the way Blaise and Theo tense up and Ron turns red and Hermione opens her mouth, and says, “Can I sit here?”
Harry considers him. Then he nods. Honestly, he thinks at least one of his decisions will be popular with Malfoy even though it will make Harry unpopular in Slytherin. It’s a good start if he can ease tensions now.
“Sure.”
“Harry!”
“Mate—”
“The only reason all of you are here at once is because I’m here,” Harry says mildly, although he can feel his shoulders tense up. “Now, you don’t have to stay here. You can go somewhere else. But I’m not about to leave, and neither is Malfoy.”
“You can call me Draco,” Malfoy says quietly, and sits down on what Harry supposes he has to think of as the ‘Slytherin’ side of the compartment.
Ron makes a furious gesture to him. Hermione looks as if she isn’t going to relax until they reach Hogwarts. Harry just smiles apologetically at them and starts talking about exams with Hermione—a real sacrifice, since he doesn’t want to, but he knows she’ll pick up the topic excitedly and be happy until the end of the train ride, and he owes her something for having invited the boy who insulted her last year to sit with them.
He and Draco do talk a little before they reach Hogwarts, about the strictly neutral subjects of the weather and Hedwig. Draco is still giving him cautious glances when they leave the train. Harry just smiles idly back and then looks ahead of him at the castle.
They’ll take the carriages instead of floating in on the boats, of course, but Harry still thinks this view is magnificent, with the castle glowing with light.
Show time.
*
Moodysavage: Harry's glad that Tarquinius didn't have a snake hanging around, too!
Kain: Theo is a little worried about what being Harry's friend is going to entail! Although, at this point, he would be willing to endure things for Blaise that he wouldn't for Ron and Hermione.
And Harry is going to kind of get into politics in the coming chapters, but at a very low level. And he does it mostly by being stubborn.
Tarquinius is a bit impressed by Hermione. However, he would still crush her if she got in the way.
Harry will have to play mediator soooo much. But he's at least expecting it.
As for people finding out from Hermione or Ron that Tarquiniius murdered the Dursleys, let's say that there's a reason Tarquinius is still free and thought to be a "former" Death Eater. He's more cunning than leaving that knowledge in Harry's hands might make him appear.
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